Grade & Discuss: MLP:FiM "Putting Your Hoof Down.

[cardinal biggles]

I just think that sometimes, the writers overdo it in their effort to show one aspect of the world and it ends up feeling like a parody to me. It isn't the first time it happened in the show. But mainly, this episode didn't really connect with me. Too bad because I really like Fluttershy but we'll be getting another episode centered around her which I might enjoy more later this season.
I think this is the first C for me since "Feeling Pinkie Keen" so I'm fine.

This is pretty much how I felt. The sum of the parts were definitely greater than the whole. I loved Pinkie's Looney Tunes reverse psychology, I loved the return of Flutterbitch and how she spoke the truth to Pinkie and Rarity (frankly, I'm surprised Pinkie didn't revert to Pinkamena).

And yet the story was really on-the-nose with its message. I was surprised to find out that this wasn't an episode written by Meghan McCarthy, who previously penned "Party of One" and "Lesson Zero." Fluttershy's over-the-top personality shifts reminded me in particular of psycho Twilight in "Lesson Zero."

This was a fun episode, but I think with a little more subtlety and a bit more time to unfold the story, it could have been better.

B-

 

[Amaris]

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Ponies need an hour!

 

[Gepard]

Check it out. Bon-Bon was wearing Lyra's saddlebags:

Hmm!

 

[Amaris]

Check it out. Bon-Bon was wearing Lyra's saddlebags:

Hmm!

Ah-HA!

 

[Count Zero]

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Ponies need an hour!

Well, I'd say 45 minutes - an hour is really long and would probably warrant a decisive change to the structure of the storytelling. (But maybe you meant that anyway because with ad breaks it would amount to an hour, I guess.)

 

[Kemaiku]

Wow, whats with all of Ponyville developing an attitude? and the dumb obnoxious teenage drama queen and nerd ponies?

Bon Bon wears Lyra's saddlebag and gets a more regular voice, only to still be a bitch, and turns out she's not a confectionist but a garbage Pony? didn't see that coming.

Derpy and Pip both made cameo's which was nice, Pip was running around in the background in the same scene with Bon Bon and the bag.

Iron Will was awesome, didn't actually mind Rarity for once, Pinkie was great, lots of great little moments but overall it just felt thrown together at the last minute and over pretty quickly. With Ep 22 being essentially the same story but with RD and Applejack next time maybe this is a sort of two parter, but still.

B/C

 

[Count Zero]

I actually liked the fact that we got to see garbage ponies and that life is not all guns and roses in Ponyville (this sentence would be a lot funnier with the German equivalent of this idiom which is "Das Leben ist kein Ponyhof" - Life isn't a pony farm) but can be pretty smelly, too. However, it might be a part-time job.

 

[Gepard]

She could also, as a small-business owner, be hauling away her own garbage. Who says Ponyville has a centralized sanitation department?

 

[Kemaiku]

Considering how much they...produce, I'd like to think they'd make it a priority.

 

[Peach Wookiee]

I'd have loved to see a Rabbit Season/ Duck Season-style exchange between Pinkie and someone else involving a confetti cannon. "It's Cherry Season! FIRE!"

 

[Kemaiku]