Episode Reviews: Swarm of the Century

The Swarm of the Century! Once every hundred years does it come!

The first M. A. Larson episode of the series, as well as one of the most manic stories the show has conceived. We shall see how this one holds up.

TECHNICAL SPECS:

Season: 1

Episode: 10

Written By: M. A. Larson

First Aired: December 17, 2010

SUMMARY:

Princess Celestia is coming to Ponyville for a casual visit, and everypony is helping to clean up the town and make everything perfect. While gathering flowers, Fluttershy comes across a tiny, fuzzy, ball-like creature that’s so adorable that she takes it back to town…after it devours a basket full of apples. Meanwhile, Twilight has been running herself ragged making sure everything in Ponyville is absolutely perfect, and between signs welcoming “Princess Celest” and Pinkie devouring the food meant for the Princess, things aren’t looking too good. Fortunately, Fluttershy comes by with three critters, albeit at a loss for how the other two got there. Twilight is enraptured by their cuteness immediately, but Pinkie immediately calls them Parasprites and runs off to find a trombone.

The pattern continues at Carousel Boutique, where Rarity has taken Rainbow Dash hostage to model her new outfits for the visit. Once again, the one Parapsrite Twilight took has become three, and each of the ponies takes one, ignoring Pinkie’s demands for more instrument. As night falls, the town is seemingly perfect, and everypony is at rest…until they wake up to a swarm of Parasprites, all of which begin to wreck their hard work.

Twilight, Rarity, and Rainbow Dash head over to Fluttershy’s cottage to ask for her help, but not only is she also being drowned out by the horde, but they’re refusing to listen to her. Realizing what a disaster this would be if Celestia got mobbed by the beasts, Twilight recruits Applejack (who was coming by to deliver apples) to help herd the cuddly hellspawn into the Everfree Forest. Meanwhile, Pinkie is still running around collecting instruments, while her friends are disinterested in her silly requests for help.

The herding plan works…until the group gets back to Fluttershy’s place to find a new swarm. (Turns out she wanted to keep just one.) Dash decides to simply suck them up into a tornado to get rid of them, and it almost works. But then Pinkie comes by with a pair of cymbals, which get sucked into the tornado and break up Dash’s momentum, causing her to crash into a tree and the Parasprites to spread all over Ponyville. Twilight angrily tells Pinkie off for not taking things seriously, and the others ignore her pleas to just listen to her.

With the Parasprites now running rampant, and Applejack returning to help secure her farm, Twilight decides to use a spell to make the Parasprites stop eating food. It works; now they’re eating everything else. With the situation completely hopeless, Twilight snaps and starts referencing a Mel Brooks movie, but snaps back to reality when she hears Pinkie marching up the street as a one-pony band. She’s ready to give her another stern talking-to, but then notices the Parasprites suddenly stop devouring the town and following the pony out of town and into the Everfree Forest. At the same time, Princess Celestia’s carriage arrives on the outskirts, and the others quickly go out to keep her from noticing the town. However, her visit has to be cut short; as it turns out, there’s been another Parasprite infestation in Fillydelphia, and she has to go and oversee the efforts there. Still, she stays around long enough for Twilight to deliver her lesson in person: you should always listen to your friends, even if what they’re saying and doing doesn’t make sense.

Celestia leaves just as Pinkie is finishing with the last of the Parasprites. The others apologize for not listening to her non-existent explanation, but at least the town…is completely destroyed. Mwah-mwah-mwaaaaaaaah...

REVIEW:

The opening scene really doesn’t leave a lot to comment on, other than Fluttershy talking to squirrels and the Parasprite eating the apples (with the camera zooming in on the bucket of doom), so instead I’ll point out the obvious. Plots similar to this episode (a new creature comes in and starts devouring everything while reproducing like mad) are not uncommon, but the one that immediately comes to mind for most people is the classic Star Trek episode “The Trouble with Tribbles.” I can definitely see the parallels, and since that was one of my favorite TOS episodes, it’s one of the things that made me like this one a bit more when I first watched it. (Of course, Larson just confirmed that he's never seen the episode and based it on Gremlins. Oh well.)

We also see the first instance of Twilight freaking out over Celestia. Despite Spike telling her that the visit’s no big deal, she’s insistent that everything be absolutely perfect, lest she get hurled into the sun or something. Of course, she could just put all the books back without any fuss and that would be the end of it, but nope, it’s better that Spike (the baby dragon) be forced to lug book piles bigger than him up a staircase while a crazed Unicorn watches.

Once Twilight leaves the library, we get a good glimpse of all the improvements going on around Ponyville. Mostly, it’s fairly standard ribbons and bows, but I like small details like that. I also loved this out-of-context innuendo:

And then we get the Sugar Cube Corner scene. Pinkie devouring the cakes was not exactly her high point, but I still loved her little pomp-and-circumstance declaration that the feast is fit for Princess Celestia, and that the Cakes didn’t slip in that arsenic after all. But then she recognizes the Parasprites and runs off to get her trombone. Really, the whole “instrument gathering” subplot both helps and hinders this episode as a whole. On the one hand, the range of instruments she gathers are hilarious, and the payoff is great. On the other hand, all Pinkie has to do is explain the situation to her friends. All she does is just say they need to keep gathering the instruments, despite everypony else telling her to knock it off and start being serious.

The scene at Carousel Boutique is more of the same. I like the interaction between Rarity and Dash, seeing as how they barely have anything to do with each other in the rest of the series. Other than that, it’s just Dash in a ridiculous outfit and giant wig; it’s a nice visual gag, at least. The only other reason it’s here is to get the rest of the Parasprites distributed and continue Pinkie’s quest for music.

It isn’t until they wake up the next morning that we see the full extent of the problem. The Parasprites rampaging through the library was a basic, but still amusing scene. Them attacking Rainbow Dash was better, with a quick joke of the beasts covering…certain parts of her body in…familiar shapes. Rarity’s scene, however, was the best; she actually finds a way to make them useful for a brief while, only to get a Parasprite in the eye. Oh, and Pinkie has a harmonica. That’s cool, because harmonicas are cool.

Fluttershy’s cottage is, again, just there to set up how bad things are, as well as to get Applejack into the story. Fluttershy not being able to control them was cute, if only because her plans included things like begging and pleading. Where things really start to pick up, though, is when AJ and the others herd them into a ball and push them into the forest, while Pinkie runs alongside looking for more help. Pinkie running backwards (and keeping up) was a fun joke, but the real purpose here was to establish how frustrated the others are getting with her behavior.

Of course, the plan fails because Fluttershy was wowed by the Parasprites’ cuteness and kept one, which has somehow spanned an entire army in the time they’ve been gone. This leads to Dash’s tornado, which, again, looks pretty nice. I love the wind effects here, as well as the ponies clinging for dear life. What this is really meant to do, however, is show the tipping point for Pinkie’s story arc. After the cymbals cause this attempt to fail, Pinkie actually seems to try to explain things, but her friends aren’t listening anymore.

There’s a few more funny little scenes, like the Parasprite eating Lyra’s cake, but then things get truly chaotic when we have our first major magical mishap on the show, ending with the Parasprites now munching on everything. And I mean everything. The rest of the episode (up to Pinkie’s pied piper routine) is some very inspired madness. Particular highlights include the Parasprites devouring everything on Sweet Apple Acres but the apples, the same buggers sucking the words out of books, and of course, Pinkie making a dramatic entrance into the Boutique so she can get a flute. And it’s all topped by this scene, giving us Twilight’s very first mental breakdown:

And then we get the punch line to Pinkie’s subplot, as she marches through the streets and leads the Parasprites out of town. At the same time, Celestia’s chariot arrives, and thus brings us the first chink in Celestia’s godlike armor. You do have to wonder how somepony over a thousand years old has never even heard of a Parasprite, especially when another city is apparently undergoing a similar invasion. Still, the lesson is…kind of weak, in all honesty. The problem isn’t that they didn’t listen; it’s that there was never anything to listen to. Pinkie never offered a clear explanation; instead, she seemed to assume that everypony else already knew about Parasprites and how to deal with them. In fact, the one time she tried to explain, she so busy throwing in random nonsense on top that the others just brushed her off.

Oh, and Ponyville is destroyed at the end. And by destroyed, I mean totaled. Here’s hoping the town’s got good insurance.

CONCLUSION:

Overall, this is a good episode, but at the same time there’s not a whole lot to talk about. The story itself is very basic, with only the good humor and not-so-good moral being worth discussing. Still, it’s a solid enough one, and definitely worth watching.