Four's A Crowd (Sofia The First Episode Review)

Hello & welcome back to A Look at Disney.  And today, we head back to Enchancia as I take a look at what is basically the season 1 finale of Sofia The First. As we take a look at Four's A Crowd.  With that out of the way, let's begin.


Episode Title

Four's A Crowd

I like this title as it perfectly refers to Sofia's jealously over her friends, Jade and Ruby developing a new friendship with her big sister, Amber.


The Plot

The episode begins with Clover about to get lunch, when a flying coach flies by much to the surprise of the bunny.

 Sofia comes by and explains that it's a coach for the Summer Flylight Pageant.   She explains to her bunny pal, how her and friends, Jade and Ruby used to watch it, while eating gooseberry pie and drinking cherry cider.

And now that's she a princess, she won't be  able to watch the pageant with her friends. That's when Clover suggests that Sofia invite Jade and Ruby to ride in the pageant with her and Amber.  Sofia thinks that that's this is a great idea.   Sofia decides to take a flying coach to the village to invite her friends to the palace to help decorate the coach and ride in the the pageant. They are excited about this idea but Amber isn't sure, and over cookies and milk, they come up with ideas,  at first with Sofia suggesting a cloud but another one of the princesses is doing this already.

  But then Jade and Ruby suggest that they decorate it as a tree and Sofia suggests they dress up as birds and wear feathered tiaras. And then when they start decorating, we get the song of the episode, Royal Fun, which was released early on the soundtrack,  Songs From Enchancia, which there it was two minutes but in the episode proper, they only sang the last 43 seconds of the song. WTH!!!!!!!!  That's really the only issue and I guess, I can get why they cut it down as they only had the standard 22 minute run-time for this episode because unlike Floating Palace, this was a regular episode.   Ah, well.   And this is where the main conflict of the episode comes in, Jade and Ruby start to have fun with Amber and Amber starts to enjoy the company of Sofia's  friends and Sofia starts to feel left out and I felt bad for Sofia.  And afterwards, Sofia goes to tell Clover of his friends, Stew and Cheeks.  And how after he introduced Stew and Cheeks to one another, they became best friends and left Clover out.   Sofia decides to try everything to hang out with her friends but is all to no avail, they are so wrapped up in Amber.  After getting their costumes made, Sofia comes across her mom, who is cleaning up a mess, the girls left, and Sofia asks, if she can invite Jade and Ruby over super early for breakfast  because she knows that her big sis will still be asleep.  Sofia's mom, tries to teach her young daughter, the saying, "the more, the merrier".  This doesn't sink in and just washes over Sofia.  The next morning, Jade and Ruby show up and surprise, surprise, who should be awake but Amber.  Jade and Ruby teach Amber, a special hand clap, that Sofia, Jade, and Ruby shared.   This understandably upset Sofia and she complains about this to Clover and he tells her that Jade and Ruby were her friends first and to not lose them.  Sofia decides to make gooseberry pie and cherry cider to remind her friends of the good times, they had.  After she makes the edibles, she loads them up on a cart and loses control of the cart and it crashes into the coach causing the it to ruin the coach's design.  Sofia explains why she had been acting, the way  because she was jealous of the time that Jade and Ruby were spending with Amber.  Amber explains that she understands because when Sofia first moved in, Amber was jealous of all the attention that Sofia was getting.  And Sofia sums it up perfectly with this line.

I know

This episode with that line in many respects, makes this episode a great parallel to Once Upon A Princess, where the jealously was coming from Amber over Sofia and now here, this episode is  Sofia feeling jealously over her friends spending so much time with Amber.   And after Sofia confesses, they redecorate the coach to look like a bush.  And the episode ends with the girls flying in the pageant.

And also, Clover decides to find Stew and Cheeks to see, if they can make up and be friends again.   All in all, this was a fun episode.  The jealously conflict was done well and hey, Amulet and The Anthem,  this is how you do a Sofia conflict episode.  This episode is miles better then that dreck and this felt more  real. And I think the best thing about this episode is that unlike Amulet and The Anthem, it didn't punish Sofia for feeling jealous because that is a normal feeling that children experience.



Characters


Main Character


Sofia voiced by Ariel Winter

This was a great episode for Sofia as we got to experience, a real conflict with her of feeling jealously.  And unlike  Amulet and The Anthem, this episode didn't punish Sofia for feeling like this.  It almost sympathized with her because this is a hard thing for children to deal with.


Supporting Characters 

Clover voiced by Wayne Brady

Clover was a good support for Sofia. Though, he probably didn't give her the best advice but I think that came  from Clover getting wrapped up in the drama of his 7 year old friend.  So, that is understandable because he's a good listener.



Jade & Ruby voiced by Isabella Acres &  Diamond White

I was at first going to complain about Jade and Ruby not picking up on the cues from Sofia, that she is feeling left out by her friends. But the more I thought about it,  that is actually rather realistic because children aren't always able to pick up on the social cues of their friends.

Amber voiced by Darcy Rose Byrnes

It's weird because with how much attention, Jade & Ruby placed on Amber. Amber was perhaps the least important character in the episode.  Still,  I like how she was understanding of what her little sis was going through. Because, she experienced the same feelings.  However to be fair,  Sofia never went as far as Amber did, and wasn't as malicious as her big sis.


Music

Royal Fun

As stated up top, this song was released before the episode aired on the second Sofia soundtrack and well,I pre-ordered the soundtrack and my thoughts,  I like the full song and have grown to really enjoy it.  So, I was a little disappointed that it was cut from the episode but looking at it, some more.  It really doesn't have much of a connection to the episode unlike the song, Brothers and Sisters from the season 2 opener,  Two Princesses and A Baby, which will air in March.  It's an enjoyable song but not one that had much bearing on the episode.


My Final Thoughts


This is an enjoyable episode.  Not one of the best but a better episode dealing with Sofia and conflict then that other episode.   Peace!