Hey guys, its your girl, KrisSimsters and this was supposed to be up yesterday, but I wasn’t feeling that great, so I’m saving it for today. Anyway, I saw this episode last night and then again this morning, so I’ve seen it twice and overall, it was OK.

And I know, I’m still stalling with my Star vs. the Forces of Evil recaps, but I think I’m going to do the same thing I’m doing with my Summer of Steven episodes and just do a Top Ten. And honestly, yes it’s because of the timing. I’m usually extremely busy on Mondays and because of that, I usually don’t do recaps on Monday so yeah, I’ll do an update soon. It’s close to mid-August anyway, I should start planning that. I don’t want to linger on any further, so lets talk about The Cart Before the Ponies, shall we?

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic: The Cart Before the Ponies Recap:

The episode starts out with Cheerilee announcing that the school ponies will be competing in the annual Applewood Derby. The Applewood Derby is when the school ponies build their own go-karts–with the help of grown up ponies–and then the school ponies will race them for the opportunity to win three awards: Creativity, Originality, and Fastest. The CMC decide that they should ask Rarity, Applejack, and Rainbow Dash for their help respectively, but Scootaloo wants to win Creativity, Apple Bloom wants to win Fastest, and Sweetie Belle wants to win Originality.

They bring their ideas to their sisters, but Applejack wants to win Originialty because it’s the Apple Family’s way, Rarity wants to win Creativity because she lost to Derpy back when she was a filly, and Rainbow Dash wants to win Fastest because she’s the fastest pony. Apple Bloom says that it’s best to leave it up to the older ponies, because they’ve been in the race before and they know what they were doing. (A/N: At this point, I’ve begun shouting the word, “Communication,” but I’ll get more into that in my Final Thoughts). It isn’t long before Rarity, Applejack, and Rainbow Dash begin taking over. The closer we get to race time, we finally get to see with the CMC carts look like:

Applejack’s go-kart looks like a car from 1908 and it made me feel bad for Apple Bloom…and I feel really bad for her.

Rarity’s go-kart looks like it belongs in the movie The Swan Princess and I’m curious on how Sweetie Bell is even going to fit inside.

And Rainbow’s look the most normal, but seeing what happens later on in the race, it makes me wonder why she paid so much attention to design instead of functionality.

The race soon starts and we get the song of the episode, Derby Racers. The song is actual cute and fun, especially the chorus. Seeing as though we didn’t get that many songs during the season, I’m definitely enjoying them. The race is about to end with Rainbow winning, when her wheel suddenly comes off and causes a huge collusion involving all the racers and not just Rainbow, Rarity, and Applejack.

Look at this track though!!

How is this race possible? If the starting line is the same place as the finishing line, then how is this possible?! This has made me convinced that nobody on the staff knew how to race go-karts when they were a kid.

The CMC is dealing with no more of their BS and calls them out, saying that they weren’t building the karts the CMC wanted, but karts they wanted. And because of their designs, they’ve caused a huge crash. When asked why didn’t say anything before, the CMC replied that they didn’t know what they were doing and it’s hard to stand up to a grownup.

And so we get the lesson of the episode, always stand up for yourself, especially when you’re in a team and make sure everybody in the team is on the same team. And compromising is always key as well.

Cheerilee agrees to a do-over race, as long as the older ponies are out of the way when it comes to the actual race. After rebuilding their carts, the race begins again and while the fillies race, the older ponies relax.

And no, we don’t get to see who won in the end.

Final Thoughts:

I don’t hate this episode, but I don’t particuarlly love it. Mainly because it feels like a somewhat rehash on Suited for Success only instead of the Mane 6 not listening to Rarity and accepting her first design, which were perfectly fine–yes, I’m still irritated about that–it’s Rarity, Applejack, and Rainbow not listening to the CMC. And no, I’m not saying the lesson is wrong, communication between partners is key, but the lesson could have been better delivered, especially with Applejack because Applejack outright knew what Apple Bloom wanted, but refused to acknowledge it.

Rainbow Dash just automatically assumed that Scootaloo wanted speed, even when Scootaloo said she wanted creativity, and Rarity just ignored the yellow fringe. The yellow fringe looked cute on both karts. I know this is supposed to be a kid’s show, but this was just a bad way to get the lesson across. This episode could have been better than what it was. So again, it’s not bad, but it’s not good either. That’s all for me this week, my name is KrisSimsters and Stay Golden.

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New episodes of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic comes on Discovery Family/Hub Family every Saturday @ 11:30 A.M.!!