Keep in mind, he used to watch a show where Lady Jaye was attacked not only by a giant purple python, but was about to be sacrificed to a one-eyed pink tentacle creature.
Neither of those are metaphors.
After the jump, he'll break down another episode and discuss what makes it good, what makes it bad, and what makes it just outright crazy. This week's theme? Stealing is bad, unless you're doing it for good reasons! ...wait.
The episode begins with something that really makes me ponder the manufacturing process of items in this world. See, Fluttershy is tending to a mouse with a broken leg (one that happens to live in her wall with its mouse family, of course), and part of the treatment involves giving it a mouse-sized wheelchair.
Where do you even buy a mouse-sized wheelchair?
But it appears something is up, as Angel the bunny (who you might remember once punted a carrot offered by said pony) tries to indicate something to her with a watch. I think it's charming that Fluttershy's initial reaction to Angel pantomiming something while holding it is to guess the urgency is "you found a watch?" I mean, you'd think she'd know if Angel already owned one, right?
It turns out Fluttershy is running late for a big party for Princess Celestia, and panics as she tries to figure out if she needs to do anything before she goes (including, in something I used to do during my social anxiety, ponder if she should even bother showing up). She does leave, but not before she runs back to thank Angel for reminding her. And then runs back to comment about how much she thanks Angel.
The rabbit actually needs to bolt the door behind Fluttershy, and the pony still pushes at it to see if it'll open before getting the hint and heading out.
...not the best joke before the title, but it'll do.
The episode itself begins with Rainbow Dash proving that Princess Celestia's guards are more hardcore than the royal guards in London. I'm pretty sure that if a regular guard saw this...
Well, the girlish scream might be a clue something was up.
Fluttershy arrives, and is stopped at the entrance by the guards. She turns away before there's any chance of a confrontation, but Twilight Sparkle spots her and gets her into the party. You'd think they might have told someone "if a really shy pony arrives and then tries to leave, let her in."
Twilight, true to form, is currently on the brink of a self-created meltdown hoping that the Princess likes all of her friends (to which Fluttershy points that they they already all met back in episode 2, plus Twilight regularly writes about them), but Twilight isn't convinced. Between Rarity freaking out about anybody getting near her dress with food, Applejack not knowing what order you eat dinner courses in, and Pinkie Pie actually stealing a cupcake from the Princess, she might have good reason.
...Applejack struggling to figure out what to eat first is pretty adorbs, though.
Okay, that'll be my last animated gif for now. I promise.
The Princess seems to have a rather keen sense of humor, though, laughing off most of the hijinks and even pulling a prank on the Cakes hosting the party, which is the point she and Fluttershy start talking. Princess Celestia seems to admire Fluttershy's dedication to taking care of woodland animals, and even wants to introduce her pet bird to everybody. Meet Philomena.
Now I know what you're thinking. You're thinking "why would anybody want to take a rubber chicken and infect it with cholera?"
Fluttershy, of course, wants to comment that Philomena looks like someone already ran it over with that horse-drawn train, but instead simply makes nice comments while doing her best to not offend anybody.
Princess Celestia gets called away for a meeting with the Mayor, and the party wraps up with everybody heading on their way. Twilight isn't sure it went "great," but, as she says, at least there were no big disasters. This is, of course, when the camera pans over to show the bird cage is currently empty.
Fluttershy, with Philomena in tow (oh, sorry, was I supposed to build up the tension on that?) gets back home, and immediately starts to reason with herself why it's okay to birdnap a pet owned by royalty. The "I'm sure she's just too busy to properly take care of you" is both great because it indicates that not only is a celestial goddess a terrible pet owner, but that anyone could reach that conclusion.
Fluttershy starts to do her best to take care of Philomena, but every attempt meets in failure. Trying to balance out the bird's temperature with an ice pack and blanket leads to an exploding bulb (and probably mercury poisoning for the bird), an attempt to hide a pill in birdseed will lead to a burst stomach, and a bowl of soup goes directly into a potential drowning situation.
The best part, though, is next when Fluttershy is attempting to heal Philomena through the power of song, what's completely ignored is that the bird has been spending this time eating from what could be rat food, could be rat poison, I'm not sure.
More treatments from Fluttershy have about as much success (but fewer results) than simply putting a pillow over the bird's face and holding it there.
Twilight Sparkle arrives to thank Fluttershy for making such a good impression, just in time to see Philomena with a good number of its feathers taped back on and looking like it ran through a weed whacker demonstration. Twilight and Fluttershy get into an argument about intention versus action, and Fluttershy agrees to return the bird. They toss it in a basket and get ready to go, just in time for the plot to thicken with the arrival of Celestia's guards.
They inform Twilight and Fluttershy that the royal pet has gone "missing," and Twilight and Fluttershy barely manage to bluff their way out of being suspicious (by being more suspicious, actually) and get the guards on their way.
So now, with the threat of banishment or imprisonment (or both, according to Twilight's imagination) looming overhead, the two have to figure out how to get Philomena back without anybody figuring out what happened. Fluttershy still just wants to get Philomena better, and Twilight gives up forcing the issue, and starts administering some "tough love" medicine onto the bird.
This...doesn't go well, and at the first opportunity, Philomena makes a break for it.
And what happens next is straight out of left field, as a modified version of Yakkity Sax from The Benny Hill Show starts playing during an elaborate chase scene complete with false mustaches, Looney Tunes-inspired chase gags, and other wackiness. No child will get those references. Most adults wouldn't get that reference.
It all comes to an end when Philomena is cornered on top of a statue surrounded by the main cast and the two guards. The bird's last feather comes off, Philomena clutches its chest, falls down...and promptly bursts into flame and dies.
Yeah, you know where this is going, we all saw Harry Potter.
However, Fluttershy doesn't know where the script is going, so we get a pretty profound emotional response from her regarding the whole thing.
Princess Celestia returns, and Fluttershy and Twilight both throw themselves on the proverbial sword for what happened to her pet. Fluttershy takes full blame for what happened, which, of course, leads to Celestia chastising Philomena for scaring everybody, and the pile of ashes explodes into a newly reborn phoenix.
Celestia explains to the ponies how the life cycle of a phoenix works, and gently lets Fluttershy know that all she had to do was ask and she could've been saved all this trouble. Fluttershy agrees to not jump to conclusions ("man, Celestia does a terrible job taking care of her pet") and we get one brief gag where Rainbow Dash gets Philomena to tickle the noses of the royal guard to make them laugh.
...not the strongest ending, but hey, it's an ending I can walk away from.
The Good:
I keep saying it's nice to see this show take influences from other programming, and I'm impressed at the fact they were willing to take an episode starring Fluttershy, the most demure and timid of all of the main cast, and throw in a bit based around a scene where a whole bunch of horny men chase a woman in her underwear. Kudos for that.
Some of the moments of animation involving Fluttershy's reactions were really well done, I thought. We had a lot of variety in how she reacted, from moments that she thought her help was working, to moments of despair when Philomena got sicker (and "died", of course).
Plus, it's great to see another mythological creature show up in the series. I was worried we were running out of moments to show just how wondrous this world the creators of this show made is.
Oh, and since I've already seen to the end of the season (I got bored), I know that there's a few things hinted at in this episode that will come in to play in the last episode of the season (hopefully anybody who actually reads these things remembers what the major ongoing plot thread is).
The Bad:
There's really not that much to say that's negative about this episode. We got a great spotlight on an underutilized character, we had some brilliant individual moments from the rest of the cast, and we even got to see some character and personality from the Princess. I guess if I had a complaint, it's that a few opportunities for better jokes (the ending right before the titles and the end of the show) were missed.
There really isn't much else to say. I suppose we probably aren't going to see Philomena again any time soon, since characters like this tend to just appear and then vanish again.
Overall:
Probably within my top five episodes for character development, it seems this season is trying to make up for the CMC episodes by really focusing on some more interesting characters. I know that upcoming episodes are going to focus on the main cast when they were young, one on Spike, one on Pinkie Pie, and then the huge finale, but it really is nice to have that smaller focus on individual stories again.
There...really isn't much more to say that I didn't say in the good section. A few things made my focus on details twitch (a mouse wheelchair? really?), but I was able to smile through most of it.
Of course, that might also be due to the fact that I'm ALMOST DONE. WHOO.
Okay, so, what's next? Oh, right, the flashback episode. And we'll finally get to see Manehattan. ...it'll be just as mind-blowing as you can imagine.
Oh, and in case anybody was wondering, I really wasn't kidding about that pink one-eyed tentacle monster that Lady Jaye (in 80s-sexy sleepwear, nonetheless) was going to be sacrificed to.
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| Hey, it's Shuma-Gorath's Player Two skin! |
Yeah, I'll be coming back to look at this cartoon some more later.
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