Hello & welcome back to Flutter Month (Yay!). Well, I knew this was going to happen eventually but we've finally come across a Flutters episode, I didn't like. It made me angry and disappointed with Flutters. And I don't like that. This is A Bird In The Hoof.
The Plot
This is quite easily the big issue, I have with this episode. The episode is about Fluttershy taking care of Princess Celestia's pet phoenix, Philomena. But she didn't ask permission. Let's get over with. This episode starts out with a reference to Alice In Wonderland with the other spawn of Satan, Angel Bunny letting Flutters know that she is late for a very important date as there is a meeting with the Sun Princess being held at Sugarcube Corner.
Flutters almost isn't let in because of guards and this after Dashie tries to get them to laugh but it doesn't work. Anyways, Twilight speaks up for her friend and she is taken in. And this is when, we are introduced to Philomena.
That's one sick looking bird. Flutters sees this and her reaction is best summed as "Oh my!". The party abruptly ends, when Celestia finds out that the Mayor wishes to meet with her. And at first, it seems as though everything went swimmingly. But then, the episode cuts to an empty birdcage. Correctly implying that Flutters took Philomena.
And this is where my issue comes in. Fluttershy, I love you. You are my favorite but she doesn't belong to you. Twilight evens tell you that. Yes, wanting to take care of Celestia's pet and nurse her back to health is noble but you should've ASKED FIRST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Flutters, I'm sorry, I still love you but just asking the princess would've saved you so much trouble. GAH!!!!!!!!!!!!! Seriously, this doesn't seem like something Fluttershy would've done. Take care of an animal, yes. But I would expect more responsibility from Flutters. Seriously, I could've imagined Fluttershy would've actually asked first. And I wish, she would have because that would've gotten rid of the annoying middle with Fluttershy trying to nurse Philomena back to health. The only character that was in the right was Twilight Sparkle because she basically said everything I did and she had reason to get mad this time and fear that her and Flutters would get in trouble. There is no one in the entire world that Twily looks up to more then Princess Celestia and to see that one of her friends STOLE from her teacher could drive one up the wall. And yeah, it gets even worse when the guards show up because Twi wanted to do the right thing and return Philomena but once they found out the guards. Twilight is rather courageous in helping her friend nurse the phoenix back to health but of course, this is all mostly played for comedy and it even leads to the Benny Hill theme being played over a hilarious chase through Ponyville. Oh wait, it wasn't. Seriously, the Benny Hill theme has to be one of the most overused gags in cartoons and in general.
And the chase leads to a fountain, where Philomena does a a melodramatic death and turns in ashes.
She's dead, honestly, if the episode had ended this way I would've been okay. Especially considering that I recall reading that this episode was originally supposed to deal with the loss of a pet. You mean, you guys actually thought about tackling the concept of death and how it can affect someone, when they lose a loved one. And instead decided to do an episode that was played for laughs. Here it is from the Equestira Daily article, Random Facts From Lauren Faust.
Bird in the Hoof was originally conceived as a tug-at-your-heartstrings style episode about losing a pet
WHY?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!?!?!!?!?!??!!?!?!?!?!?!? Did you back away from the original idea? Don't even try to hide behind the excuse that you are a children's show. Because one of the greatest children's shows of all time tackled death in a respectful manner. What am I talking about? Sesame Street. Look, this is before my time but I've seen the clip of the adults explaining to Big Bird about Mr. Hooper passing away. And yes, that was hard to watch because even though I didn't grow up with Mr. Hooper, I grew up with Big Bird and seeing him upset like that was painful but I believe it is okay to show children the truth of life and normally, you guys don't shy away from that. Then why did you this time? It could've also given Tia some development as a character. Look I love Tia but we really don't know all that much about her and showing her mourn over the loss of one, she loved would be good. Sure, you could say you did that with Luna but we didn't see that and unlike Luna, Philomena's death would've had more punch because she wouldn't be able to come back. I don't know why you shied away from this. You guys don't talk down to children and treat your audience with respect, so I have faith that you could've handled this well. Maybe, you were told by Hasbro not to do this story but that would've been a much better episode then this Baked Bad. Sorry about that tangent there. It turns out that Philomena really isn't dead and just had shed her feathers as phoenixes tend to do so often as explained by Celestia and Philomena just decided to have some fun with this and here is what Philomena really looks like.
Characters
I'm not even going to break down characters any further because I just want to get this review done and over with.
Fluttershy voiced by Andera Libman
Flutters, look I already went over my issues but what this episode did to you felt out of character. Look, I love Fluttershy and realize that she is far from perfect but she is more responsible then this episode depicted. Not Applejack levels of responsible but she knows better then to take something that does not belong to her. You know better then this and you could say that this is Flutters getting in over her head. Well, fine. Then let's compare it to Stare Master, where we see Fluttershy getting in over he head done much better. The key difference is that she offered her services and did NOT kidnap the CMC like she did here. If she really wanted to help, she should've asked Princess Celestia if it was okay if she looked after Philomena while she was at the meeting. That probably would've left us with the annoying middle of this episode but that at least would've felt in character for my girly. Flutters is just lucky that Celestia is a very understanding ruler because she basically committed a national crime with how high in position Celestia is.
Philomena voiced by Tabitha St. Germain
Okay, seriously why is that the characters other then Miss Rarity or Princes Luna that are played by Tabitha St. Germain are just annoying and congrats Philomena, you are now the most annoying MLP pet. You beat out Owlowiscious for that title. I didn't think it was possible for me to hate an MLP pet more then that dumb owl but whereas he is just boring, your antics just drive me up the wall. The whole middle section was all about Flutters trying to nurse Philomena back to health and she rejected it every single time. I'm not even going to go over all of them because I want to get this review done. But really, it was just repeating the same joke over and over. Philomena, I never want to see your sorry face ever again.
Twilight Sparkle voiced by Tara Strong
Look at that, Twilight is facehoofing the episode because even she knows how stupid it is. The only character that was in the right was Twilight. She had every right to go ballistic because of what her friend did. I was siding with her throughout the entire episode and I don't go like going against Flutters. But Twi did a better job keeping her cool then I did because by the end of this episode, I looked like this.
Seriously, this episode drove me up the wall. That's it, I'm done.
My Final Thoughts
I HATED this episode. This is one of the worst MLP episodes out there. This episode most certainly was not a Yay! I think Twilight Sparkle had the best reaction to it.
Everything just felt off about this episode. Seriously, Flutters seemed so out of character. She would NOT do what she did in this episode. I really hate this episode because it made me angry at my favorite character. I do not intend to watch this episode again. Oh what's that? You don't agree, what are you....
Putting Your Hoof Down
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