With the series getting off to a great start overall, how does the segment paired with it fare? Well, while it‘s not as good as that one, it’s still pretty enjoyable and the story is decent enough to warrant a watch.
The story here involves Star and Marco encountering Star’s best friend from Mewni, Princess Ponyhead, who is just a floating unicorn head with a sassy voice. That alone is pretty funny. Upon learning about Marco’s friendship with Star, Ponyhead gets jealous and basically does whatever she can to get Marco out of the picture, even if it involves him being left in another dimension.
If there is an issue that keeps this segment from reaching the height of the first one, it’s Ponyhead herself. To the story’s credit, she does get the chance to redeem herself towards the end by helping to rescue Marco and draw the guards away from him. Plus, the intrigue behind the reason she’s trying to hide from them is pretty well executed and leads to a surprising reveal involving St. Olga’s. But as for the character herself…eh?
I wouldn’t go so far as to say she’s bad per se, but her arc in the story is handled rather clumsily. This is a case where the energetic pacing does detract from the story, as a rewrite or two could have resulted in her redemption feeling more earned. As is, we basically go from her ditching Marco in another dimension to wanting to rescue him after a conversation with Star that lasts…maybe fifteen seconds. It’s very rushed, and Ponyhead isn’t funny enough beforehand to really get us accustomed to her to help things.
That being said though…yeah, I liked pretty much everything else here. Star’s optimism and going out of her way to protect Marco is great, even as she calls him the best turd she’s ever known. It’s a nice mix of funny and heartwarming despite how rushed that scene is. The different dimensions they all go through are visually creative and contain some good comedy as well. I always lose it at the scene with Marco and Ponyhead in the photo booth; their serious conversation repeatedly undercut by the cutesy pictures they take together makes me laugh every time.
Speaking of the different dimensions, this is where the segment also establishes an important moment for the series: Star and Marco now have their own pair of dimensional scissors, which they can use to travel to whatever dimension they want. The segment itself has a very sweet ending involving these, as Marco’s choice for where they should go is just to to back home and eat his nachos. It shows how simple and humble he is even when given that kind of power. For the show as a whole, this opens the door for even more creative dimensions to be explored in the future, a ton of potential that we’ll see if they take advantage of.
’Party with a Pony’ is far from great, and as an introduction to Ponyhead, this could have been a lot better. But there’s still enough creativity and enjoyable moments here for me to say it wasn’t a waste of time. Oh, and Ponyhead going to St. Olga’s…yeah, that’ll come up in the future, and in quite the fascinating way.
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