After a great previous episode in "Read it and Weep", Season 2 returns to disappointment with "Hearts and Hooves Day". It was great to see more of the Cutie Mark Crusader characters and to see their characters more fleshed out (a general thing with the second season in fact), but other episodes centering around them did this a lot better. This episode did not do enough for them, though they themselves are not the problem but more the writing.
By all means "Hearts and Hooves Day" is not a terrible episode, just wanted to make that clear as the above paragraph probably made it sound like it in my view was. It is not one of 'My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic's' worst and is not even one of the very worst of Season 2, with "Putting Your Hoof Down", "The Mysterious Mare Do Well" and "Dragon Quest" being worse. As far as the season goes though, "Hearts and Hooves Day" is in the lesser half and one of those conflicted opinion/missed opportunity episodes.
"Hearts and Hooves Day" is significantly advantaged by very clever and colourful animation. The tubs of jelly for instance was quite imaginatively done. As well as the apocalyptic fantasies. The music is funky and has lovely and characterful use of instrumentation. The best character by far is Big Mac, and quite a lot of his appeal is his expressions which are really quite funny and adorable.
There are a few amusing moments, not just Big Mac's expressions but also Sweetie Belle's "Aw come on", the delivery of "that's an apple tree" and the reactions Applebloom (the second most likeable character). The moral is a good one, 'My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic' was mostly very good at this. The voice acting is strong.
On the other hand, "Hearts and Hooves Day" is mostly not very funny at all and tries so hard that it becomes rather overblown. The sweet talk goes well overboard on the mushiness, generally the writing has moments but comes over as contrived.
Really hate it when anything is wasted and that is the perfect way to sum up Twilight's role in the episode, she serves so little point here and her material is very thin. Other than the writing, "Hearts and Hooves Day" is the treatment of the Cutie Mark Crusaders, their punishment is far too ruthless and harsh for no reason so the episode really loses its heart. What they did was not deliberate and they had learnt their lesson, judging from the way they're punished you'd think they'd committed a criminal offense. Cherilee is really unlikeable here, especially in her treatment of the Cutie Mark Crusaders.
Summarising, watchable but lacking. 5/10
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