Hay, everypony—
We have been watching MLP:FiM together every Saturday for just under a month now, and next Saturday we'll finally be starting season 2. Two weeks after that, i.e. three weeks from now, we will reach the batch of episodes that includes S2E14, "The Last Roundup".
The only problem is, there are two different versions of that episode: the version of the episode as it originally aired, and a later edited version for reruns, official downloads, and streaming. The changes made to the episode concern the scene immediately after the intro — a scene which was criticized for its depiction of an intellectually disabled character.
I hold that the original version of the scene; the context behind the original version of the scene; the backlash to the scene, and the resulting changes to it; and the brony fandom's backlash to the changes to the scene in turn; are all important to acknowledge as a part of the history of ableism and ID representation in children's media, and an important but uncomfortable part of MLP:FiM and the brony fandom's history — in the same vein as we didn't skip "Bridle Gossip" and "Over a Barrel" just because those episodes are fucking racist. So all in all I would like for us to experience the show "warts and all", and to be critical of our own nostalgia for it.
However, this still leaves the question of whether we actually watch the original or edited version of the episode, and how (and for how long) we cover "Derpygate" after the episode. I'll leave that one up to you all.
there's an episode called 'Over a Barrel'???
Yes, we watched that episode just last night, and basically everypony unanimously agreed that it was the single worst episode of the ones we've watched so far, if not the worst episode of the entire show in general.
The episode depicts a conflict between "settler ponies" who have built a Wild West-style settlement called Appleloosa, and a local herd of feather-war-bonnet-wearing buffalo, who live in tipis and have names like "Chief Thunderhooves" and "Little Strongheart". The conflict concerns the settler ponies planting an apple orchard in the middle of the buffalo's "traditional stampeding grounds", and includes among other things Twilight Sparkle both-sidesing the issue; a literally pie-in-the-face slapstick battle; and concludes with the buffalo agreeing to a compromise that just unambiguously screws them over, but hey, the buffalo sure seem happy about getting ripped off, and it's presented as a good ending and a good moral lesson for the kids at home, so there.
Episodes like "Over a Barrel" are why I think MLP:FiM is best looked at as having an unreliable narrator. My own headcanon is that the show is based on a translation of Twilight Sparkle's letters to Princess Celestia, as well as the Journal of Friendship and other texts.
I'm awestruck that that episode got all the way through writing, animating, and acting without someone pulling the plug.
March 2011 was a different time...
At least the title is applicable then, if still pretty nswf
Isn't "in the barrel" the phrase that references gloryholes, and "over a barrel" the phrase based on whipping people?
spoiler
I haven't heard 'in the barrel' used before(other than 'shooting fish in a barrel' as a metaphor for something easy,) but having someone 'over a barrel' means to have someone in a vulnerable position/'at your mercy' where they're unable to resit, google shows yes origin is based on whipping people over a barrel in the navyI see. In the barrel is a phrase that I've personally only really heard in the 1998 video game Half-Life (and its remake Black Mesa), in one of the security guard's lines, however while the phrase is apparently not as fashionable nowadays, it's still notable enough to have its own Wiktionary entry. In the barrel basically means "in an unpleasant or dangerous situation", so it can have some overlap with over a barrel in terms of meaning. That's why I thought you might've confused these two phrases.
The origin of 'in the barrel', courtesy of Urban Dictionary (NSFW)
A sailor on a Navy ship had been out to sea for weeks, and was beginning to go through sex withdrawals. Fed up with the lack of sex, he asked one of his shipmates what he did when the pressure was too much to take. "Well, there's a barrel with a hole in it near the mop storage. When it gets to be too much for us, we use that." So the sailor went over to the barrel and decided to give it a go. Finding it was better than he'd expected, he began using it regularly, and his problems seemed to vanish. After a couple of weeks, his commanding officer began to take notice, and said, "You seem to be a lot more relaxed. What's your secret?" The sailor, embarrassed to give a straight answer, simply said he'd been getting better rest. "Well good, sailor. You're going to need it," replied the officer. "Today's your turn in the barrel."