CJF's MLP Reviews: Princess Spike

I'm not impressed. Episodes centered around Spike are very lacking, almost like the writers have no idea what to do with the little dragon. Then Season 4 came along and gave us "Inspiration Manifestation" and "Equestria Games," all of which challenged the character and helped him grow. It's a shame to see an episode that is neither of those two and takes a step back. I don't hate "Princess Spike," but I don't love it either.

It starts at a summit in Canterlot, where ponies from all over Equestria join together and learn about one another. We are introduced to a statue that Princess Cadence carved up with gemstones, each representing the cities. That will come into play later.

After an exhausted Twilight speaks to the crowd, Spike proceeds to say a few things. However, the crowd doesn't even notice him and give praise to all four princesses. Way to start things off, episode, as if that wasn't contrived enough.

After that scene, Princess Cadence tasks Spike to watch over Twilight, who proceeds to take a nap before the reception. Spike then takes the job. Things go smoothly until he looks out the window and finds a bird singing. He goes to tell the bird to quiet down, rather than just, I don't know, close the window. What makes up for that, though, is that after Spike tells the bird to stop, it takes a bow and leaves. I will admit, it got a chuckle out of me. However, that bird is nothing compared to other stuff that have potential in disturbing Twilight's sleep.

There is a polo game going on, a pony is about cut a Dragon Sneeze tree (which Spike is obviously allergic to) with a chainsaw, and another using a jackhammer to fix the water main. Ooh, a jackhammer, let me have this one:

Spike then tells the polo players to move their game somewhere, and the latter two ponies to delay their jobs by telling them that Princess Twilight ordered them to. I can see where this is going now.

While Spike is guarding Twilight's room, delegates from Manehattan and Whinnyapolis arrive to talk to Twilight about a problem. And yes, the Whinnyapolis delegate looks like Marge from Fargo. I suppose older viewers will get a kick out of that reference.

Feeling pressured, Spike goes to sleepy Twilight for help, and we get a funny line from her. Honestly, I think we could have used more sleepy Twilight in this episode. Her "I'm pancake" delivery in "Castle Sweet Castle" was so funny, that it was great to see another one here, but only once.

Feeling even more pressured, Spike steps outside and lies to them, pretending that Princess Twilight gave the orders. When that leads to disaster other ponies come in for Twilight's advice. Spike wanted to give his own, but one of them didn't want to listen to him. Geez, are these ponies too dependent on the princesses to not listen to advice from a dragon? That's cold.

Instead, Spike gives out the advice claiming to come out from Twilight, and it works. He does that with all the other ponies. Seeing as Twilight will only have to worry about the reception, he goes to finish the rest of her schedule on his own, continuing to claim that Twilight sent him.

He confronts Princess Cadence, who warns him not to let power go over his head. Spike claims that he is carrying out these meetings for the good of the summit. Predictably so, Spike starts to abuse his power a little more by getting himself pampered and having Pony da Vinci paint a portrait of him.

When he meets Cadence again, he pointed out all the things he things that did not result in chaos. He does start to realize that he got a little carried away with the decisions, then he tempts fate by saying "it's not like anything bad happens." Remember that water main I mentioned several paragraphs ago? It breaks, resulting in a flood. Cadence fixes it, and Spike notices the gemstone statue being intact. He tempts fate again realizing this and the Dragon Sneeze tree comes crashing down, resulting in him sneezing and breaking the statue.

The delegates become angry at Twilight and proceed to her room. Twilight wakes up just in time and finds the mess that Spike caused. He apologizes to the delegates and is... easily forgiven. Okay, then.

They then proceed to fix the statue together, which is actually kind of heartwarming, I'll give it credit for that. Of course, it ends on a joke, when Spike is given flowers that were actually from the Dragon Sneeze tree. He proceeds to sneeze, risking to wreck the statue yet again and --- cut to credits. Okay, that was a little funny.

My main problem with "Princess Spike" is that I saw a lot of things coming and it really didn't have anything new to offer. As well as that, this was a step backwards in terms of Spike episodes. Actually, I can see Spike's good intentions, but the whole power abusing thing lacked transition, just coming out of nowhere after he talks to Cadence in the middle of the episode. The second half of episode has him going back to his childish ways, which I thought we were done with after the first three seasons.

The only memorable thing about this episode are the cameos. I definitely enjoyed Pony Marge, and it was nice to see Fancy Pants again, but that's about it. I don't hate the episode, but I certainly don't love it, making it by far my least favorite episode of Season 5. I give this episode a middling...

3/5