Episode written by M. A. Larson
Entirely unofficial reflections by sixcardroulette
This is The Shorter Ponywatching. For a really long, in-depth essay
on this episode, check out the full length reflection!
The fifth episode we ever watched (thanks to crazy British DVD running order issues, though we didn’t realise it at the time), Swarm of the Century wrongfooted us a few times; it’s the first episode we’ve had here on Ponywatching where seeing it in the wrong order made a difference for the worse.
After Griffon the Brush Off and Look Before You Sleep, we’d assumed the show would be looking at a particular friendship each week, and that this would be Fluttershy’s turn. (She deserves one!) But the cold open, where we see her having a picnic for her animal friends, calm and collected and even assertive, was a red herring, however much of a joy it is to see her happy.
Good for you, Fluttershy.
This episode defies classification; is it a Fluttershy episode? Is it a Pinkie episode? A Twilight story? Really, it’s more of an ensemble piece, the first episode since Elements of Harmony (or possibly the first episode ever) where there isn’t a central character or pairing, but rather where it’s expressly written for everyone to have a little role getting the laughs in. Twilight’s predicament drives the plot and (spoiler!) Pinkie’s knowledge saves the day, but this one has a little bit of everypony.
The story’s very simple: Fluttershy brings home a strange animal, it multiplies at an exponential rate, soon the town is besieged by the critters. There are multiple ways to deal with a story like that; Swarm of the Century settles on having the chaos and destruction played largely for laughs, as the episode descends into classic farce.
First and foremost, this is funny. In fact, it’s probably the first episode we’ve seen where the plot’s driven by out-and-out comedy. The slightly sketchy moral of the story, the implicit relationship-building, and even the (otherwise extremely serious) threat posed by the titular Swarm, take a back seat to just making the funniest episode possible.
The broad strokes of the plot are obvious almost from the start. While Twilight gets in a knot trying to supervise preparations for an “informal, friendly visit” by Princess Celestia, Fluttershy inexplicably brings a strange creature with a voracious appetite home because she thinks it’s cute (well, we’re told they’re cute and adorable, but that’s really an informed attribute – they seem to me like something I’d swat away rather than cuddle, and they look oddly out of place in the show’s bold, clean 2D Flash world). When it spawns two clones, her reaction is to offer them to her friends as pets, and they then offer them to their friends, and so on. Only Pinkie Pie objects, and she does it in such an oblique way –
Ugh! A parasprite? Are you KIDDING?
…A para-what?
Now I’ve got to go find a trombone!
…that the others write her off for being her usual random, non-sequitur spouting self.
Soon enough, Ponyville is under siege, and the ponies’ attempts to get rid of the animals – Applejack tries an amazing action roundup sequence, Rainbow Dash a cyclone – are foiled. With time running out, Twilight tries a spell to stop them eating all the food in Ponyville… and so instead they decide to just eat Ponyville. All the while, Pinkie keeps interrupting matters, demanding the others help her on a bizarre quest to accumulate musical instruments. When even Zecora can’t help, and with minutes left before Celestia is due to arrive at the now completely wrecked ruins of Ponyville, Twilight Sparkle finally snaps…
Okay! Here’s the plan. Rainbow Dash, you distract them.
“AAAAaaaaarghhhh!”
…only for Pinkie Pie to march past playing several instruments at once, her face a picture of concentration, and the parasprites all fall in line, dancing to her jaunty polka as she leads them out of town, while the others can only look on in astonishment:
…Where’s the trombone, though?
Before Twilight can react, Princess Celestia’s chariot arrives, and with literally no idea what she’s going to do about it, other than just to wing it and see what comes out of her mouth, Twilight and the others get there just in time to see her chariot landing. Just as Twilight, implausibly, might be starting to believe she’s somehow going to get away with it, Pinkie marches past the screen with her one man pony band and hundreds of bouncing parasprites in tow, and Celestia’s jaw drops in silence as she watches in complete bewilderment. Nobody else has any idea where to look.
There is… “a moment”.
But she gets away with it – Celestia, who turns out to find the parasprites cute too, can’t stay (though she’s touched by the “parade” Ponyville has apparently thrown in her honour!), and Twilight reflects that:
As the gang apologise to Pinkie for not taking her seriously sooner, and thank her for saving Ponyville, we smash cut to the smouldering ruins of the town – whereupon Pinkie pops up in the iris out and plays a sad trombone:
Oh, right, there it is.
We weren’t sure what to make of this on first viewing; leaving aside the confusion caused by unwittingly watching these episodes out of order, which made the Zecora scenes in particular hard to follow, it didn’t really become clear that the threat is meant to be treated as a joke until quite late on, meaning it was tough to enjoy the comedy for its own sake because we were getting annoyed that nobody was listening to Pinkie, or vice versa.
But it’s not just a comedy episode, even if that’s the most obvious thing about it. It’s lovely to see Fluttershy at the start in her element, strong and confident – I know she gets criticism for not learning her lessons, but bear in mind she’s depicted in these early episodes as suffering extreme social anxiety, bordering on panic attacks; she’s gradually getting better at just being around other ponies, as opposed to being alone with her animals (like Twilight and her books, times ten). Even when you’re told directly to your face “hey, your anxiety has no basis in fact, you just need to stop being such a doormat”, or in her case “…and also you’ve saved the world, like, 10 times”, well, that sort of thing takes years to master, not days. She’s getting better, but she’s not there yet.
And I like that we’re seeing the start of Twilight’s OCD combining with her neurotic desire to meet her teacher’s expectations (despite the fact Princess Celestia couldn’t be prouder of her) forcing her into making silly mistakes, which is going to become a recurring theme of the show:
Most of all, though, I think this works more than it doesn’t because when it boils down to it, it’s just funny. The ending in particular is hilarious, but even when you’ve watched this a few times, it’s still amusingly executed and still raises a smile.
This one felt a little less successful than the others on first viewing, even if it’s more rewarding on future plays (especially once you know who everyone is!), and the comic tone is slightly more wacky and abstract than we’ll come to know from the show in future. Plus, unlike all the ones we’ve seen so far, watching Swarm of the Century out of order definitely made it less effective, as well as giving us further red-herring ideas about what the show would be like.
But it was still very good, fast-paced and packed with daft jokes. If it gave us the wrong impression in terms of just how careful this show was going to be in the way it integrated comedy without becoming outright daffy, it also provided more reassurance to me and my wife that this is definitely not the My Little Pony of our childhoods.
It’s so tempting to go with the ending – not just for Celestia’s face, or for the climax of an exquisite burst of farce which sees all six characters on screen not knowing where to look or what’s about to happen, but this time I think I’ll go for Pinkie Pie’s “rescue” of Rarity: having headed back to her boutique to try and protect her dresses from the horde, who are now empowered to eat anything that isn’t food, Rarity is quickly overpowered and ends up cornered. Perched on a stool, surrounded by parasprites, sobbing… then, in bursts Pinkie Pie, with a triumphant flourish:
As Rarity beams in relief, Pinkie simply trots in, grabs a recorder off the counter, blows a few wonky notes, and trots out again, leaving Rarity looking on incredulously.
Pinkie Pie to the rescue!
The way Tara Strong enunciates that last part, as though she’s anticipating questions from the crowd before they all get started (in fact, there is no crowd, nopony is listening to her at all, they’re too busy running away and screaming), is just perfectly crazy.
Unlike any of the episodes we’ve seen so far, this one is very much comedy first and education second. That, and the wonky running order we were accidentally following, made this harder to get a handle on at the time, but it’s still lots of fun, and it definitely rewards repeat viewings.
Silly and inconsequential, but really none the worse for it, and packed with laughs.
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