Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6k (Revisited)

Just re-watched another episode, The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000.

This episode did not make my Season 2 top 10. Which is kind of sad since it is a good episode with one of the more amusing songs of the series.

What killed it for me was you have these confidence unicorns that built a machine that has but one single purpose: making cider. They drive around Equestria, offering apple farmers that are still doing things the hard way the means to seriously increase their cider production, but at the cost of most of the profit.

Obviously the Apples could not have been their first mark, as they had their spiel perfected. Well, I guess they could have been, but unlikely. So these guys know their stuff. The Apples decline the offer, claiming they need the cider money to make it through the winter. Which we have seen in Winter Wrap Up and Sonic Rainboom is a completely manufactured season, so in theory Ponyville could 'wrap up' winter earlier since their founding family gets stretched thin by it. Apple Bloom and Granny Smith end up getting them into a cider making contest.

The contest then goes off, and the bet somehow goes from 'whoever makes the most barrels gets exclusive selling rights of cider for Ponyville' to 'whoever makes the most barrels gets the Sweet Apple Acres farm.'  Flim and Flam stupidly allow Twilight and co. to interfere, even making the remark that they wouldn't care if the whole kingdom of Canterlot helped. (We have seen that ponies are sticklers for things like that, so odds are someone would take them up on that.) Twilight's meddling wasn't even enough and the Apples still lose.

The victorious Flim and Flam then pour out cider, from a barrel they made after removing quality control, and even when it is in front of them, they don't notice how nasty it looks. No pony wants this nasty cider, not even for bargain prices, so they just pack up and drive off to another town. These guys are obviously slick and intelligent since they make their living by conning apple growers, so this blatant display of numbskullery is really perplexing. Then to top it off, Applejack writes to Celestia, boasting about how she didn't learn anything at all, and it appears the Apples are just giving the cider away, despite claiming they needed the money earlier.

I can certainly see why they did it that way, can't have Applejack moving away and all, but there could have been a less facepalm-y way of doing it. For instance, instead of them sacrificing the quality, they still win it, but no one wants their cider anyway. It is then revealed to us that Princess Celestia or somebody put some magic on the apples Flim and Flam were going to use that made them taste really bad, not wanting the 'mane 6' to be broken up. Or actually, it could have gone like that, have Applejack taste it and wonder what is wrong, then it cuts to the Elements of Harmony which glow briefly with magic, implying they did it on their own to keep the 6 friends together. Or Flim and Flam's former victims show up and run them out of town. I don't know, something besides, "Oh look, we just had you play right into the palms of our hooves. Oh, we won? Here ponies, try this cider we know we just made out of entire trees. What's that? You don't like it? Well, twenty three skidoo!"

 

Despite that mind-boggling flaw, this episode is still pretty good. Like the others, it received enhanced images and a very small bit of altered commentary. Almost all of the original is intact. =]