YMMV / My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic S5 E16 "Rarity Investigates!"

• Broken Base:
  • The Wonderbolts' behavior toward Rainbow Dash. Some people feel the team all automatically suspecting Rainbow for Spitfire's disappearance is yet another case of them being irredeemable jerks, while others have been more defensive about their behavior, feeling that while they were suspicious, they never flat-out said Rainbow was the guilty party, and they didn't have time to play nice when somepony had caused their leader to go missing. A few also believe that the blame may lie elsewhere, due to the "bylaws" mentioned by Soarin.
  • Rarity's "interrogation" techniques on the royal guards. Funniest part about the show or way too sexy for a show aimed at little girls?
• Fanfic Fuel:
  • Shadow Spade detective novels. Will they be just as big as Daring Do's adventure books?
  • To say nothing of the pony versions of Holmes, Watson and Moriarty.
  • Thanks to a certain Twitter post, many fans write fics where Wind Rider and Lightning Dust make an alliance called The "Anti-Wonderbolts".
  • A minor one, but the guards getting punished for the cake thing, since they didn't suffer punishment onscreen.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Rarity has to solve a crime? She created a story while inside a book with herself as a Hard Boiled Detective in the Bookworm Arc of the comics.
  • For the fanworks, the overall premise of Rainbow Dash falsely accused of a crime is similar to Turnabout Storm. And like Turnabout Storm, one of the ponies involved is a famous flyer who is willing to cheat to preserve his fame. Even more hilariously, this episode was originally pitched as a Courtroom Episode.
  • Dash and Rarity have also been written as detectives before, in a Sherlock Holmes Fusion Fic called A Study in Rainbows, featuring Rarity as Holmes and Dash as Watson.
  • The piano and muted trumpet motif of Rarity's private eye monologues may remind fans of "In History, Maybe" by SoGreatandPowerful, which is about Rainbow Dash's flying prowess.
  • In the fanfic On a Cross and Arrow, which was started back in 2011, Twilight compliments Rarity on her keen eye for details and says she would make a great detective. She becomes just that in this episode.
• Les Yay: Some mild Rainbow Dash×Rarity subtext within some of the comments said by the two makes it seem like they're going out on a date or something. Rarity booping Rainbow Dash's nose with sunblock just adds to it.
• Memetic Mutation: The scene near the beginning where the boutique shakes and all the mannequins fall over has become something of a meme on derpibooru, with various things such as the Kool-Aid Man and Fat Bastard being inserted in place of Rainbow Dash.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: It would have been perfect Laser-Guided Karma if they'd revealed that Rainbow Dash broke Wind Rider's long distance record when searching for Spitfire.
• Unexpected Character: Very few fans expected to see Sassy Saddles in the episode.
• The Woobie: Rainbow Dash. She is framed by Wind Rider for making Spitfire "disappear", and it almost costs her lifelong dream. Not to mention all the Wonderbolts and even the guards think she did it, and she's so crushed she's eventually willing to believe that she did make Spitfire disappear. The look of utter hopelessness on her face when she seemingly gives up is heart-wrenching. Thankfully, Rarity is there to help her. Even worse, the pony who framed her was one of her idols and, given his status as a veteran member of the team, more than likely may have even been one of Rainbow's inspirations in the first place, only for him to throw her under a bus like it was nothing.

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