Episode Reviews: Winter Wrap-Up

One of the more interesting aspects of Friendship is Magic is that the ponies have total control over the weather itself, and this includes the seasons. But just how does this control work? Well, this episode answers that question by showing us one such Ponyville tradition: "Winter Wrap-Up."

TECHNICAL SPECS:

Season: 1

Episode: 11

Written By: Cindy Morrow

First Aired: December 24, 2010

SUMMARY:

It’s Winter Wrap Up, the annual Ponyville celebration where everypony helps clean up the remains of winter to make way for Spring. After getting up too early out of excitement (and also making a perfect checklist, down to Spike refusing to get up), Twilight is ready and eager to help. It isn’t until the end of the town’s annual song-and-dance number, however, that she realizes a pretty big problem. Not only is she new to Ponyville, but since the town was founded by Earth ponies, the use of magic is forbidden during Winter Wrap Up. Since this is Twilight’s main skill, this leaves her completely out in the cold on what to do.

She tries to hook up with Rainbow Dash’s team, but since they’re in charge of cleaning up the sky, there’s nothing she can do. She next contacts Rarity, who’s putting together bird nests. The process seems simple enough, but Twilight manages to mangle it up so badly that Rarity has to drop everything and rework it from scratch.

Next, she tries to help Pinkie’s team skate over the frozen ice, breaking off the top layer and allowing the water to flow freely again. Unfortunately, Twilight has never gone skating before this, and she ends up losing control and crashing into Pinkie. Once again, she has not found her place within the event.

Her next attempt is to assist Fluttershy’s team in waking up the hibernating animals. Unfortunately, Twilight ends up with a cave full of snakes, which she seems to be terrified of. In her haste to escape, she ends up running into a cave of bats, which in turn send her crashing into a tree. The impact dislodged a beehive onto her head, and in her pained state she runs into a den of skunks. One tomato bath later, she’s ready to join the last available team: Applejack’s. By this point, Spike recommends that she just use a little magic to push herself along, but she refuses because of TRADITION!!!

Unfortunately for her, AJ’s team is in charge of plowing out the snow so the new seeds can be planted. Naturally, Twilight starts having trouble with the plow almost immediately, being a weakling bookworm and all, so she takes Spike’s advice and uses a little magic to get things going. This being Twilight, a “little” magic constitutes bringing the plow to life, causing it to go out of control until it builds up a massive snowball and crashes into Applejack and Spike before causing an avalanche that covers up everypony’s work. Applejack immediately tears into Twilight for violating their most sacred of traditions, but the lecture and all the other failures combined finally cause Twilight to break and run away in tears.

Later on, Twilight’s hiding in a bush, ashamed at being useless on this special day. As it turns out, however, she’s not alone; the entire town utterly sucks at their jobs. Spring has been late every year because nopony knows what they’re supposed to be doing and end up wasting more time arguing than working. How fortunate that Twilight happens to be good at organizing. Before long, she has the entire town running like clockwork, and they make it just in time for Spring’s scheduled beginning. As thanks for finally getting the job done on time, Twilight is given a multi-colored vest, symbolizing her role as the town’s organizer. Unfortunately, Spike fell asleep on the last chunk of ice in town, causing him to come down with a cold later on.

And so the episode ends with Twilight narrating this week’s lesson: Everybody has something they’re talented in, and if everybody works together, anything is possible.

REVIEW:

“Winter Wrap Up” is another one of those episodes where my qualms are less with the actual content and more with its implications, so keep that in mind when I tear into it. That being said, this episode has a very important part in the show’s history, as we’ll soon see.

The prologue is mostly a massive ball of exposition, followed by more exposition, and then topped off with a little exposition cherry. We learn all about the holiday, how important it is, what makes it different from Canterlot’s version, and most importantly, that magic is explicitly forbidden. We’re also introduced to Twilight’s leet organizational skills (although if you want to be technical, they’ve been in the show since “Look Before You Sleep”), as she is even able to predict Spike refusing to get up and go back to sleep. We also get some lovely foreshadowing when she fails to get her saddle on without magic. How sad that this scene ends with a major continuity error. When Twilight opens the door, there is no snow on the ground, clouds in the sky, or anything to mark it as being winter, but when she heads into town later, all of Ponyville is covered in the stuff.

Oh, and there’s this line:

Yes, you heard it here. Twilight is not Spike’s mommy. This also sets up Spike’s role as the general flankhole for the episode, constantly putting Twilight down whenever she messes up, stabbing her in the back after she took the advice he gave her, and just being a snappy, unhelpful little ingrate.

The next scene further sets up the intricacies of the clean-up. The ponies are divided into three teams: weather, plants, and animals. Each team has its own vest (made by Rarity, naturally) and leaders. And in a really smart and justified move, Fluttershy is not the leader of the animal team; given her personality, she’s probably happier just working from the ground floor and interacting with the animals than trying to manage several ponies at once. The Mayor gives her standard speech, which really isn’t worth going into save for Twilight hopping about as excited as can be. Even Lyra gets in on the exuberance by the end.

And then it happens:

This is what makes the episode so important in the grand scheme of things. The other episodes had songs, but they were all sung by Pinkie, and were more often than not used to parody the idea of songs in My Little Pony. But this is the first genuine, fully-orchestrated, played-straight song in the entire series, and it’s actually really good. The actual tune is just decent, but the visuals help to prop it back up. Things like the sunshine reflecting on Twilight, the visual representations of each task, and of course, those heads that keep popping into the frame from out of nowhere just make things look really good. And the ending, where Twilight suddenly realizes how isolated she is, perfectly represents how most of the rest of the episode is going to go.

We also get our first whiff of trouble here. Rather than have somepony hook up Twilight with a team, everypony wanders off and leaves her to fend for herself. From a narrative standpoint, this is simply to facilitate her moving between the various teams and failing, but when combined with the reveal of the town’s incompetence at the end, it’s obvious that nopony even noticed Twilight was cut loose.

The scene with Rainbow Dash is just there to set up a punchline. That’s it. Twilight doesn’t even fail here, since she lacks the proper body parts needed to even get started.

Her trying to help Rarity is also a short scene, but I really like how it’s set up and paced. Rarity explains the reason why they make nests, thereby proving their Celestia-appointed domination over the Earth and all its creatures, and quickly offers Twilight the chance to join in. And when Twilight gets her pieces, she even divides them all within moments, again showing how organized she is. Unfortunately, she throws herself into the work too quickly, not giving Rarity the chance to give her instructions, and as a result ends up with something that looks like an actual nest rather than a wicker bowl. Rarity being Rarity, she steps in to try and fix the nest by tearing it apart, thus giving Twilight her first failure of the day. And it won’t be the last…

The scene with Pinkie is, again, fairly short, but also has the some good moments. The idea of skating the ice into smaller, easily-meltable pieces is fairly clever in and of itself, and while Twilight’s failure is pretty easy to predict (it’s a basic gag for anything involving ice skating), I loved Pinkie’s attempts to cheer her up…only to immediately clarify that she’s just lying to cheer her up. What I didn’t like was Spike’s attitude, but we haven’t gotten to the worst of it yet…

Fluttershy and the animal team leaves me with mixed feelings. On the one hand, I think it’s nice that they didn’t give all of the leadership positions to the Mane 6, seeing as Fluttershy is far more of a follower than a leader. I also loved the adorable animals all coming out of hibernation, including the porcupines pricking each other when they try to hug. And of course, Twilight’s failure here is an epic for the ages. What doesn’t work for me, however, is Spike here. Our little dragon asking about hibernation just feels like a forced educational moment, which is something the show is usually above. And when he gives Twilight the tomato juice bath after the skunks, he suggests that she just give up and use a little magic, which Twilight refuses to do on principle. That one isn’t quite as bad, but as we’ll see later, it’s a direct link to the worst thing he does in the whole episode.

And finally we have Applejack and her team. This whole sequence leaves me with some conflicted feelings about the episode as a whole, but first, the good stuff. I loved AJ’s stunned reaction to Twilight offering to help; at the very least, she knows her friend isn’t cut out for the intense physical labor. I also adored Twilight’s epic attempt to get moving, only to end in another failure. Of course, she decides to take Spike’s advice and…bring the plow to life. This is a very common plot point, and as we’ve seen every time it’s used, it only ends in pain and tears. Of course AJ figures out what’s going on pretty quickly once the pony equivalent of a 90-pound weakling starts pulling her contraption along faster than anypony else, and the whole thing ends with those cartoon snowballs that let your head stick out of the sides and talk normally while you’re rolling without any injury. All of that is perfectly fine and funny.

Where I start having issues, though, is with what happens immediately afterward. Spike finally sinks as low as he can go this episode and berates Twilight for taking the advice he gave her to begin with. If it was something like “Why’d you use such a stupid spell?” or something like that, it would have been more tolerable, but he basically sides with Applejack in the shame session. Speaking of which, Applejack was well within her rights to lecture Twilight on the destruction she caused and putting her team even further behind schedule. But rather than point out how her carelessness lead to a disaster, or how she should’ve quit when she couldn’t move the plow herself rather than try and bring it to life, she tears into her for daringto use her infernal magic during Winter Wrap Up. After all, this is all about how awesome Earth ponies are, and they certainly don’t need any dumb Unicorn powers to actually get this job done.

And then Twilight finally breaks.

Alas, I can hold it in no longer. Remember when I said that this episode bugged me because of the implications? Well, it’s epic rant time.

Winter Wrap Up is a racist holiday built around a stupid tradition.

Look at the specifics of the day itself. As established, Canterlot (and by extension, other towns most likely) simply uses magic to change the seasons, but Ponyville wants to make the changing of the seasons into a community effort. I have no problem with that; in fact, it actually sounds like a lot of fun. But rather than allow all of its inhabitants to use their talents to the fullest, it specifically curtails anywhere from a quarter to a third of its inhabitants from using the abilities they were born with based on an arbitrary tradition. It’s kind of like the story of the family who always cut the ends off their hams for generations, only to discover that the one who started it did it because she couldn’t fit the ham into the oven otherwise and they had just parroted it without asking.

Ponyville was founded by Earth ponies. I do not dispute that, especially since Granny Smith’s story in “Family Appreciation Day” shows us how it happened. However, this is not…however many years ago it was. (Seriously, it keeps changing.) The town is no longer just one family, but a home to all three of the races, all of whom are eager and willing to help keep the town clean, safe and happy. And yet, one day of the year, you have this spiteful tradition where Unicorns, who have access to power and skills that could help the process greatly, are pushed down and treated second-class because that’s how it’s always been. Even worse is that Pegasus ponies are allowed to do their thing without any incident, despite this being about the Earth pony way.

Before anyone says that this is because my favorite pony was crying and sad and all that, if this episode was about Rarity, I would be saying the same thing. She can use her magic to instantly turn tree branches into works of art and create dresses out of curtains. She was also left alone to deal with the nests, which she has turned into loving little homes for the soon-to-return birds. Imagine how many more she could get done if she didn’t have to do it all with only her hooves. But no, she can’t do that. Why? Because tradition. And what about the rest of the Unicorns? If this episode was about Lyra, or Vinyl, or any other Unicorn in Ponyville, it would not change my opinion of Winter Wrap Up. Even if you want to excuse it as magic just making the work too easy, it’s still bunk. We’ve seen that magic requires a great deal of control and strength on the part of the pony using it, and many Unicorns are only capable of using spells that correlate with their special talents. It would still be hard work, but it would be easier for them as a whole. Holding back ponies just to keep everypony equal only does a disservice to the entire group.

And now, let’s look at what happened to Twilight. Her special talent is magic, and she has spent her entire life studying. Despite the fact that the holiday explicitly forbids her using the thing she’s best at, she still sticks to the tradition as best she can. Despite the many times she failed, she wants to be helpful to the town and her friends, and she keeps getting back up and trying again. But she’s not skilled in anything that doesn’t directly relate to magic. She can’t skate, make bird nests, wake up animals, or plow fields. In other words, the entire holiday is tailored to make ponies like her feel worthless and horrible about themselves; they cannot contribute to the community because they’re not allowed to use their natural talents.

The next scene just makes things worse. We learn that not only do they not allow magic, but that despite the Earth pony way being so awesome and traditional, they all fail every year. The town is always late because they’re a disorganized mess, with the teams spending more time feuding with each other than actually working. We’ve seen this through the whole episode. Nopony assigned Twilight a team she would be suited for. Rarity was left alone to do all the nests. Pinkie skated in random circles rather than the straight lines needed to cut the ice into the appropriate sizes. The animal team goes to one burrow at a time, when there are hundreds of them that need attending to. And Applejack’s team is just plowing in every direction and not planting the seeds immediately after the snow has cleared, thus creating an unnecessary extra step.

In closing, either drop the tradition and allow Unicorns to use their magic to help you do your job, or actually do things the “Earth pony way” by dismissing the Pegasi, grabbing some big ladders, and fanning the clouds away yourselves.

Besides my rage boiling over, this scene has a few highlights. We meet Caramel, who would go on to be the Rainbow Dash of M/M shippers. Rarity still trying to fix Twilight’s broken nest was hilarious. And we also first hear about Ditzy Doo, who would go on to be the alternate name for Derpy Hooves. Granted, both aren’t exactly nice names, but for different reasons.

Fortunately, this is where Twilight’s organization skills come into play, as she rallies the town by nearly murdering a small bird to get their attention. (Okay, it’s just a cute gag, but still…) Having been promoted into management, she quickly organizes the entire town, refining each team until they can perform their jobs perfectly. Mostly it’s just a hard work montage, but there’s a lot here to enjoy. Twilight and AJ sharing a hoofbump is heartwarming considering what happened six minutes prior, the Pegasi using a Psycho Crusher to clear the skies was cool to look at, and Twi clinging to a tree branch to avoid any more snakes was just adorable.

And so Spring arrives on schedule, and Twilight learns that she can find the thing she’s talented in after being locked out of the things she already knows she’s talented in. Spike, meanwhile, is left on a chunk of ice to drown. Okay, he just gets a cold, but still, after all the crap he did all episode, he kind of deserves it. As for the other moral, it’s not a bad one, but it still doesn’t sit well with me considering the episode’s implications.

CONCLUSION:

If taken purely at face value, this is a funny, clever episode. It expands on the amount of control ponies have over nature, has a good song, builds on Twilight’s character, and utilizes the cast very well. If you’re like me and can’t avoid breaking the episodes apart, however, this one is writhe with Unfortunate Implications on just about every level, with the entire reason for the holiday taking its time to beat Twilight for something she has zero control over to the point where even Tevye would be telling them they’re taking tradition too far. All in all, it’s still a good episode, but not one of my favorites.

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And now, for your viewing pleasure, this thing: