| "Read It and Weep" | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic episode | |||
 Rainbow Dash holds a copy of "Daring Do and the Quest for the Sapphire Stone". | |||
| Episodeno. | Season 2 Episode 16 | ||
| Written by | Cindy Morrow | ||
| Original air date | February 4, 2012 (2012-02-04) | ||
| Running time | 22 minutes | ||
| Episode chronology | |||
| |||
| My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magicseason 2 | |||
| List of episodes | |||
"Read It and Weep" is the sixteenth episode of thesecond season of theanimated television seriesMy Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. The episode was written by Cindy Morrow. It originally aired onThe Hub on February 4, 2012. In this episode,Rainbow Dash ends up in the hospital with a broken wing and discovers her love of reading through the Daring Do adventure novels, but struggles to admit her newfound hobby to her friends.
| External videos | |
|---|---|
 | |
 Read It and Weep (full episode) — Official upload of the episode ontoYouTube |
While performing dazzling aerial maneuvers for her impressed friends,Rainbow Dash loses control during a particularly ambitious stunt and crashes hard enough to break her wing, landing her in Ponyville Hospital for several days of mandatory rest. Rainbow dismissesTwilight's gift of an adventure novel called "Daring Do and the Quest for the Sapphire Stone" by insisting that reading is only for "eggheads" like Twilight.
Boredom eventually drives Rainbow to reluctantly open the book, where she discovers an immediate connection with the titulararchaeologist hero who has also suffered a wing injury in a crash. As she becomes increasingly absorbed in Daring Do's perilous jungle expedition and temple exploration filled with deadly traps, Rainbow finds herself genuinely excited about following the story but deeply conflicted about this development since she has always prided herself on being action-oriented rather than bookish.
When her friends visit during her hospital stay, Rainbow desperately conceals her reading activity through various deceptions. Her anxiety peaks when Dr. Horse discharges her before she can finish the thrilling climax where Daring Do faces a death trap involving closing walls and rising sand. As a result, Rainbow attempts increasingly desperate schemes to regain access to the book.
After failed attempts at faking continued injury and a nighttime break-in that results in a chaotic chase through Ponyville, Rainbow is finally cornered by hospital security and her worried friends outside the Golden Oak Library. Forced to confess her newfound passion for literature, she braces for mockery but instead receives enthusiastic support from her friends, who remind her that athleticism and intelligence aren't mutually exclusive traits. Twilight gladly shares her entire collection of Daring Do adventures with Rainbow, who apologizes for making such a fuss and acknowledges the importance of trying new experiences rather than rejecting them based on preconceived notions.
Sherilyn Connelly, the author ofPonyville Confidential, gave the episode a "B-" rating.[1] In her review of the episode inSF Weekly, Connelly praised the animation quality of the Daring Do sequences and traced the character's literary influences back toH. Rider Haggard'sAllan Quatermain from the 1885 novelKing Solomon's Mines. She wrote: "inEquestria, there's no reason why women can't be adventurers. That's only a problem inthis world."[2]
In a critical analysis of the episode, author Jen A. Blue described "Read It and Weep" as "an inversion of the fairly typical 'reading is fun' episode of a children's show." Blue argued that Rainbow Dash serves as "a surrogate for theadult (and especially adult male) members of the fandom, many of whom were likewise troubled by the contrast between the self-projected image required of a man in a society defined by anxiousmasculinity andpatriarchal competition, and the pleasure of watching a 'show for little girls.'" Blue examined the episode's structure as apastiche-of-a-pastiche, noting musical references toThe Neverending Story and describing the Daring Do plot as "a bare-bonespastiche of theIndiana Jones films, themselves pastiches of the adventure serials of the 1930s and 40s." Blue analyzed the symbolic significance of the kitten and "barking mad" pony, arguing that the kitten represents "the safe path" while the barking pony "represents Rainbow Dash's continuedderangement" and marks the momentshe loses her ability to distinguish between reality and fiction. Blue suggested the episode felt like "an attempt to test the waters for aspinoff" and reflected on how the Ponyville segments depicted "a brightly colored place strong on friendship and low on violence" that could offer viewers anescape into a world focused on characters and relationships rather than action-adventure spectacle.[3]
Raymond Gallant ofFreakin' Awesome Network gave the episode a rating of 7.5 out of 10 and called it "another solid episode for the series." He praised the Daring Do action sequences andIndiana Jones parody but noted that the exciting book segments made the hospital scenes feel uneven by comparison.[4] Hillary Busis ofEntertainment Weekly wrote that thestory-within-a-story featured in the episode is "a lot like the firstIndiana Jones movie, minusHarrison Ford."[5]
The episode was part of the Season 2DVD set, released byShout Factory on May 14, 2013.[6]
