Thing to me is, the ending song was the same song they sang throughout the entire episode. It just had Fluttershy in it. I dunno, I really think that it was better WITHOUT her in it, or at least, with her "Flutterguy"-ing it up.

Haha, holy crap! I can't believe I forgot that one. Props to you.

*Snob mode activate.*

WELL, THE THING IS, SPIKE -IS- A -DRAGON-, AFTER ALL. THIS IS -CLEAR-LY- THE FIRST TIME WE'RE HEARING A -PONY- SAY IT.

"Seriously though, no offense, but you kind of sounded like a dude."

Dude is now a canon pony saying. 10/10

I'm estatic, a Fluttershy episode happened that I really liked. I had a couple of gripes with it, but overall this one was a solidly fun romp.

First of all, the music, save for the very first and very last songs, were FANTASTIC. Maybe it's because I'm a sucker for A Capella, but I absolutely adored the Ponytones, both in music and in concept. Seriously, Big Mac singing in an A Capella Band, what's NOT to love?

Second, the humor. The humor was fantastic. Pinkie Pie was an absolute riot; even moreso then then in HER OWN EPISODE a few weeks back, but for once there were a great number of jokes unrelated to her or her antics that were equally hillarious. In particular, I loved all the insane ways they snuck Fluttershy around during their elaborate singing ruse (Need to hide her in the Spa? It's cool, my friend has a DIVING HELMET we can borrow.)

Also, it warms my heart to see the team inserting so much continuity this season...*sniff*

The message was solid too, but...this is where my criticisms begin. Fluttershy, unfortunately, still remains my least favorite character due to her distinct lack of characterization beyond a singular concept: She's really shy, so she doesn't want to do things until the climax of the episode when she learns she needs/actually does want to do them. She has a FANTASTIC Voice Actor behind her, and a lot of potential for character development, plus a unique locale for a home...and they just keep going with this exact same note. Her episodes always boil down to the same formula, and we never get any actual development on her CHARACTER during them. As a result, I've always found that she seems to do best in the "group episodes," like the flashed back to Bridle Gossip.

This episode...wasn't any different. At all. It was the exact same Fluttershy Formula that's come to be expected; it's just this time around, the episode surrounding it is greatly more entertaining then usual. I loved the fact that "Flutterguy" was not only called by name, but actually re-utilized as a plot element (In before the inevitable episode where they need to keep Pinkie Pie from blurting something out, so they inflate her tongue again.) However, aside from the standard Fluttershypisode-ness, there was one, jarring thought that stuck with me from beginning to end.

"...That song she sang at the start SUCKED."

Seriously, the characters continued to go on and on and on about how she had the most amazing singing voice ever, and NEEDS to IMMEDIATELY start singing publically...and all I can think is that that fist song was really, really bad. In fact, to double the irony, the LAST song wasn't all that good either. I don't want to blame it on Fluttershy's singing voice, because I actually don't think she sounds bad, it's just that the the first song ultimately boiled down to over-hyped humming, and it felt incredibly forced; like the team was REALLY trying to push the concept of her voice being "Angelic" in some way. Then, to back it up, the last song had the exact same problem.

Fluttershy with her deep voice, or Big Mac, are interchangeable in the role, but one way or another the Ponytones sounded FANTASTIC...except for the last one when Fluttershy joined. All the sudden there was this high pitched exess sound overwhelming the other voices that were entirely in sync with one another. Honestly, I'm glad that she's still one-note in THIS scenario, because I really think that the Ponytones are BETTER OFF WITHOUT HER. This isn't some little detail if you consider the fact that Rarity's insistence they NEED her voice is the driving force behind the whole episode.

Well, either way, maybe it's just me. Maybe a lot of people will like those songs (*cough*hopefully for reasons beyond the fact it's just Fluttershy singing*cough*) and I just lean more towards the lower-key style of A Capella that the group had without her. On top of that, all said, those details don't stop the episode from being entertaining.

7/10. Do this, with some character development next time, please.

Yeah, that's true. I'm actually aware of the "proper" terms, but to be honest I'm really not into shipping...at all. In fact, in 90% of cases I really actively dislike it. I tend to call the whole thing "Crack Shipping" because I'm not seeing the romance that even "normal" ships are purporting to introduce, and to me the whole thing usually comes off as some kind of creepy forced lesbian fantasy, rather then a realistic romance.

That said, as you pointed out it is a misuse of the term. "Crack Shipping" tends to be more http://i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/...

Seriously, I got goosebumps when the Party Polka began and he was using his standard singing voice.

Man, am I the only one who feels like they wanted to make up for taking so long to get to the songs this season? This one was was like a miniature musical!

I have two words for this one:

Shipping
HolyfuckweirdalwaseverybitasgoodasIimagined

Yeah, the fantastic crack-shippers are gonna get so much out of this one. Cheese and Pinkie were so in sync that at one point I actually said "Damn it Hasbro, stop encouraging them." On top of that, Weird Al stole the show with Cheese. Initially, I wasn't quite sure what to think of the character, but as it went on, right down to his backstory, it was pretty apparent that he was pretty much the embodiment of Weird Al in Pony Form. Plus, they managed to do the one thing I didn't think they could: THEY MADE A PONY NAMED CHEESE FRIGGIN' SANDWICH AND PLAYED HIS NAME 100% STRAIGHT.

Seriously, nobody had even the slightest comment about that? I know pony names are like that, but at this point I'm expecting a visit from his long lost brother, Fruit Pancake whose specialty became designing clothes after he watched the play Rarity slapped gemstones all over the costumes on way back when.

If I could stop fanboying out for a moment though, I would like to say that truth be told, this was a little less then I had hoped for. Ultimately, I have to say that I think that Pinkie Apple Pie is still my favorite episode this season, both overall and in terms of Pinkie episodes. The story and interaction in it was just so fantastic. Here it's great, but....I dunno. I took issue with a couple of plot elements that seemed really forced, most notably the fact that Pinkie immediately takes a Highlanderian "There Can Be Only One" approach to the situation, from pretty much the moment Cheese starts showing his bubbly personality. It's especially jarring because moments earlier, they were completely on the same page; hell, nothing Cheese actually says or does (aside from gloating) actually comes off as him trying to "usurp" Pinkie's throne, so her incredibly hostile reaction just comes off as prideful... "Pinkie Pride".... OooooOOOOOoohhhh.

Yeah, kind of goofy that my main issue with the plot is pretty much the intent of the episode. I just think it would've been better if Cheese at least showed SOME sign of actively trying to "out-do" Pinkie, and maybe he was and I just didn't catch it, but it really seemed like it was all in her head.

Either way, aside from that it was pretty much solidified in my "number 2" slot for this season...aaaand then Weird Al Pinkie Polka. Goddamnit, it's like my childhood fantasy comes true; a show I like gets a Weird Al Polka. Combined with all the fantastic sight gags (Gummy has apparently ripped through the fourth wall and become a real alligator now) during the song, it came JUST short of a tie with Pinkie Apple Pie.

The Humor was fantastic, the concept of two pinkies (Cause let's be honest, Cheese really is a male Pinkie without the bouncing and an affinity for saying "epic") gagging-off was explored fantastically, even with a convenient goof-off rule book! All and all, this one gets an 8/10 for me. The story was a bit less then what I wanted, but Weird Al made up for that.

Please Weird Al, come back some time.

Discord: We can't stop here, this is Fruit Bat Country.

Today's episode was fun...and felt relatively pointless.

There's a few reasons for it, I think; most notably the focus being a little...out of whack. The best part of the episode was by and LARGE Discord, to the surprise I'm sure of absolutely nobody ever. I must say, Discord really is fitting well into the role of most-evil-not-evil-person-ever. You can tell from the moment he arrives, even before they overtly drive the point home with his "devious face" that he's faking it, and to me that kind of hurt the episode overall. I spent the majority of the time saying to myself "Okay, he's still faking it. Okay, he's still faking it. Okay, when's he going to reveal that he's so obviously faking it. Okay, why CAN'T TWILIGHT TELL HE'S FAKING IT?"

Still, Discord did what Discord always does: he was a riot. I particularly loved some of the background nuances like him sneezing on a lamp post, causing it to tip it's top and walk away, or his initial sneeze causing a house in the background to say "fuck gravity", no doubt causing it's inhabitants a slow, cruel death as they found themselves suddenly incapable of breathing, screaming forth from a great inferno as the house left the atmosphere.

Oh, there was also a song; or at least, that's the closest thing we as human beings could possibly comprehend it as. John De Lancie "sang" a deadpan musical number within a show about technicolor equines aimed at young females.

Somewhere, in the mass abyss of space, the crew of the Enterprise just shuttered a bit.

Still, those were the things in the episode that worked; and they worked really well. Discord stole the show as we expect Discord to steal the show, and it was fantastic...and then, the rest of it happened.

Now, no. I'm not gonna go on a ramble about how horrible this episode was, because it wasn't horrible. This was most definitely not my least favorite episode this season, or anywhere near my least favorite episode in the series as a whole. It just...wasn't anything special -outside of Discord.- The story was an interesting concept, but felt far too disjointed in execution, the characters involved (besides Discord) were far to under-utilized, and all and all it just felt a bit too jumbled.

TL;DR, here's a small example so you can try to visualize what I mean: When you write a story, the bare basic structure is "Beginning-Middle-End." Once you have a grasp of basic Storytelling, you can begin to segway and alternate subplots, so it would begin to look something more like "Begin/extra/ning-Subplot-Middle-Subp/extra/lot-Payoff-End." If you're good enough at it, you can do this without making it come off as convoluted or contrived, and if you keep the pacing in check, the story as a whole becomes exceptionally better then before.

This episode, at least to me, felt like "Beginning-Beginning 2: Beginning Harder-Main Plot-Middle-Divinity Incarnate, AKA Episode Song-Kind Of End-Okay Now It's Over." There just seemed like there were things that went nowhere or didn't need to be there; things involving the other characters for the most part, which goes back to my point that I felt like the characters really were not utilized well.

To put it in perspective, one of most people's largest complaints about Cadance is that since her introduction, she really hasn't gotten much of any character development in the show. The Comics have done a great job, but the show has left her as little more then a basic "pretty princess" who just happens to be the wife of the main character's brother. A ton of folk were looking forward to this one because it had the potential to finally shine some light on one of the show's characters who STILL needs real, proper development (I'm looking at you, Fluttershy) aaand...it didn't happen; not even in the slightest. Cadance is still just as bland as she ever was, and we're right where we started on her.

Then there were some minor things that just didn't go anywhere; two coming to mind being Applejack and Rarity getting "sick" (If he was faking it from the beginning, how come they couldn't tell they WERE NOT actually sick? Is Discord actually the harbinger of plague and can infect the innocent on a whim?) and Pinkie Pie chasing "mysteriously appearing" balloons. I was hoping these things would come to play later on, at least as running gags, but sadly both went nowhere.

I GUESS you could say Rarity and Applejack showing up at the very end could count as "pay off" of sorts for it, but let's be honest, the two scenes had nothing to do with one another. Though I will admit, I did like Rainbow literally leaving the episode. It was a fantastic contrast to seeing last week's episode and this one back-to-back.

All and all, this one's a 6/10 for me. Honestly, if you cut out Discord this episode really sucked, but the continued insanity and fun of John De Lancie really pulled through and made it at least enjoyable. I hope Weird Al fairs better, truly.

Applejack, you're the element of HONESTY. You had ONE JOB and YOU FUCKED IT UP.

Oh. My. Gosh. I have not laughed that hard, that many times at an episode of this show in a long, long time. It should come as no surprise that I enjoyed it, being that both Pinkie Pie is my favorite Pony and I enjoy Applejack far more then most Bronies, but...this one was practically tailored to my tastes. This is the first time, possibly ever, that I can say I loved EVERY ASPECT of an episode.

The humor was off the charts. There wasn't a single joke that didn't hit home, and it was full of them from start to finish. The "Pinkie Humor" was completely spot on season two style; no loud annoying jingle-key nonsense. From the moment it began, Pinkie began doing Pinkie things, and every time she did something it was hilarious.

But man, it wasn't just limited to her. The Apples really, REALLY shined in this episode. Granny Smith in particular, I now really want to see more of. This is the first episode in awhile that you can say that Applejack not only had a prominent role in, but fulfilled that role to the fullest potential, and it's SO past time for that to happen. No getting out-shined by lovable talking bubble-butt background ponies, or random one-shot -never-mentioned-again characters, just full on character development for a group of characters we've been seeing literally since Episode ONE, yet somehow never managed to really get the treatment they needed to become full-fledged flesh and blood people.

The character development was FANTASTIC in this episode, to me because it both showed them as individuals, with their own quirks, along with their flaws as a whole. The Apple -Family- really felt like a genuine family, rather then the usual shtick of their sheer size being a punchline and them amounting to little more then a mass of background characters behind Applejack.

Then there was the Song. I'm an absolute sucker for the kind of choreographed dance routine that they did in Apples to the Core, but even then it surpassed my expectations. The way they made the ponies move to the rhythm, the almost perfect flow of the lyrics, and the core visuals of what they were going through all blended together almost perfectly. The one, ONE flaw I can honestly find in the entire episode was Granny Smith's line in the song seemed a little bit off compared to the rest of it, but that was hardly enough to ruin the experience.

Finally, the moral. The whole storyline was fantastic, and I really hope we see some lasting effects from it; Pinkie hanging with the Apples, Applejack and Pinkie being a little bit closer, etc. The climax actually surprised me a bit, I was expecting it to be that they discover Pinkie isn't an Apple, which is followed by the "Family is more then just blood" route, but rather, they left it ambiguous which leaves potential for it to be revisited in the future. Given the sheer amount of continuity we've been getting this season, I really, REALLY hope that becomes a reality.

I could sit here for ages just going on about everything I loved in this one, so Instead I'mma wrap it up here. This one gets a 9/10 from me; it was almost perfect, and just about everything I look for in an episode. Good story, great characters, FANTASTIC humor. Am I nuts? Maybe I'm bias because of the fact it was half-Pinkie-Pie, but I really just loved every minute of it.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go watch it again.

Using it is one thing, I mean specifically replicating more of the fabric itself. It was already shown that yes, she could utilize the fabric when it was given to her, but did you get the impression she was capable of actively creating more of it?

I assumed that because she was so un-creative as to need to steal it in the first place, she likely was too un-creative to adequately reverse-engineer it to learn how to create more. Does it work differently for tailoring? I assumed that Rarity would have had specific kinds of threading and linens to make a cloth that everyone immediately identified as unique, IE you couldn't just take a look at it and immediately know what she did differently sufficient enough to mimic her.

Oh man, I admit that I really had low expectations for this one. The last "Rarity Goes To The City" episode we got was fun, but aside from it's fantastic song and Fancy Pant's peculiarly sizable Unicorn Horn, it didn't actually have a fantastic amount memorable about it.

This one, oh man. The Fandom's gonna have a fit over this one.

First off, just going to point out I absolutely loved the humor in this episode. Every single joke was spot on and worth anywhere from a chuckle to a full on laugh. I particularly loved Rainbow's gags; her lampooning the notion of sporadic bursting into song, and her blatantly terrible attempts to hide her enthusiasm at the quality of the play by seemingly attempting to look like a pony rapper. Perhaps it was simply my own demented imagination, but when she proclaimed "It wuz a'ight." whilst drooping her shoulders and crossing her legs, I couldn't help but imagine that had she had hands, she would've been making cheesy fake gang signs to complete the entire visage.

Also, Pinkie's very few lines were all funny. If this keeps up I won't be able to complain about Pinkie not being funny anymore. You're ruining me, writers!

But onto what made this episode really shine: The setting.

This is the first time we've seen a true, modern city in MLP, complete with public transportation, modern conveniences, and food stands selling...Chili-Carrot-Dogs? Everything was completely out of it's element, compared to the thriving "magic kingdom" aspect we've seen so far. The only other time we've seen Manehatten was in Applejack's flashback Waaaaay back in Season 1, and even then it looked more like an imitation of a modern city, rather then a full on, functional Pony NYC. The fact that this place exists sets a new precedence for what they can potentially use in this show, and I'm pumped.

There was only one little bit that stood out to me, the notion of Rarity getting her fabric stolen. Not to say that it couldn't happen, just that in this scenario, it didn't make too terribly much sense. Specifically, what was actually going to come out of it. Now, please correct me if I'm wrong, as I have very, VERY little knowledge about the fashion industry, but when you literally make a name for yourself by winning a contest, doesn't that fashion line become...you know, your first piece? If fabric-steal-bitch-face (That's what I'm calling her, I don't remember her name, okay? Sue me.) gets popular on a line she didn't create; or rather, cannot truly replicate because she doesn't actually have the know-how to make more of Rarity's fabric, wouldn't that pretty much make her career over before it started?

Again, I don't know much of anything about the fashion industry, and I'm not exactly a world-class tailor, so if there's something I'm missing feel free to correct my uninformed-ass. All in all, it was a minor gripe, and you could chalk it up to fabric-steal-bitch-face being so moronic and short sighted that she didn't bother figuring that out by herself.

In the end, I loved it. The good FAR outweighed whatever little bad there was, and I absolutely loved the concept of the ELEMENT OF GENEROSITY trotting about NYC as the one beaming light of not-suckage. The jokes were spot on and the setting was just grand. The Song was standard fair for the show; nothing to write home about, but the visuals within it made up for it tenfold.

Kudos to the team for this one.