Mariusioannesp Reviews: "Forever Filly"

WARNING!!! The following contains SPOILERS for the latest MLP episode “Forever Filly”.

Now, without further a-little-filly-growing-up-do, here is my review of “Forever Filly”.

Rarity realizes that it’s been quite a while since she spent time with Sweetie Belle. She decides to visit Ponyville to spend the day with Sweetie, taking her away from the Cutie Mark Crusaders solving Zipporwhill’s cutie mark problem. However, Rarity only wants to do things with Sweetie that Sweetie hasn’t liked since she was a little filly. Meanwhile, Apple Bloom and Scootaloo have difficulties trying to resolve Zipporwhill’s puppy-related cutie mark issue. Will Sweetie make Rarity realize how much she’s grown up?

So what’s the verdict?

This was a silly episode, and I was quite surprised I enjoyed it as much as I did.

So yeah, I liked it.

We begin with the Canterlot Carousel boutique.

Oh looks it’s Twilight Sparkle’s Canterlot friends Minuette and Lemon Hearts, that pony Moonlight Raven from “Canterlot Boutique” in Season 5, and Fancy Pants and Fleur Dis Lee. All of the callbacks, no matter how subtle.

There, Sassy Saddles is working hard and Rarity is seemingly hardly working.

How long has it been since we’ve seen Sassy Saddles? I think the first and last times were in Season 5.

Anyway, Sassy is frantically prepping the boutique for the transition from the winter to the spring. Rarity calls it “Spring-sition”. I imagine that means this episode takes place in early spring. That reminds me, I haven’t really been updating my chronology. I kind of want to do some significant tweaks on it that I haven’t gotten around to. But never mind any of that! I have an episode to review. So, Sassy is freaking out over everything that still needs to be done, but it turns Rarity has already taken care of everything. That explains why she’s so calm. With Rarity’s fabulous designs and Sassy’s managerial skills, they’ve got everything covered. Rarity then finds a picture of Sweetie Belle and realizes she can’t remember the last time they spent time having fun together. Rarity’s just been so busy running her three boutiques across all of Equestria. Rarity becomes very despondent over all this. She misses Sweetie Belle.


Rarity just happens to have a binder of all the times in the past she’s spent with Sweetie that she shares with Sassy. Sassy suggests that Rarity should just go visit Sweetie, since she’s already finished almost everything, and Sassy can handle the rest. With that, Rarity is off to Ponyville to spend some quality time with her baby sister.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, Sweetie Belle, Apple Bloom, and Scootaloo are riding a block of stone down a mountain. They present the block to a young cutie mark-less colt named Chipcutter.

See Chipcutter has a bad habit of making sculptures out of his lunch so the Cutie Mark Crusaders figure his special talent is sculpting. After a little bit of prompting, Chipcutter produces a sculpture of the CMC from the block.

And with that, he gets his cutie mark! Another job well done for the CMC. They get back to their clubhouse and add Chipcutter to their wall of satisfied clients. Their clubhouse wall is covered with photos of all those they’ve helped.

There you can see Gabby, Tender Taps, Pipsqueak, Bulk Biceps, and even Babs Seed. There’s also a photo of Big McIntosh and Cheerilee, presumably from “Heart and Hooves Day”. I wonder why that’s there though. Nonetheless, the CMC move on to the next thing on their agenda. That is Zipporwhill, who needs help reconnecting with her cutie mark.

Wow Zipporwhill. We haven't seen her and heard her adorable accent since Season 4’s “Filli Vanilli”. You see, Zipporwhill got her cutie mark when she found her puppy Ripley and brought him home. Now, Ripley wants nothing to do with her it seems. Sweetie vows that they’ll give Zipporwhill all the attention required to solve her problem. But that's when Rarity shows up. Sweetie is rather surprised to see her.

Rarity’s here to spend the whole day with her sister. She’s so excited she could practically faint, but the CMC clubhouse doesn’t have a fainting couch. Oh Rarity and her fainting couches. Sweetie tries to let Rarity down easy given that she and her fellow CMCs are busy helping Zipporwhill, but Apple Bloom and Scootaloo insist that she go with Rarity. Sweetie doesn't seem sure they can handle their client on their own, but they assure her that they’ve got it handled. Rarity seems rather dismissive when they refer to the ponies they help as “clients”. I thought that was kind of uncalled for. However, when she sees their wall of satisfied customers, she acknowledges how far the CMC has come.

They even got Diamond Tiara up there too.

So Sweetie and Rarity are off to the first of their sisterly bonding activities, a puppet show. Notice that Sweetie is the only filly in the audience with a cutie mark.


Wait a minute. I remember those creepy puppets. And that rump. That’s the Claude the puppet pony from “Inspiration Manifestation” also from Season 4.

However, Sweetie doesn’t seem to be enjoying this as much as Rarity remembers. These days, Sweetie is more into experimental black box theater. I think my sister took me to see one of those years ago. I still want that hour of my life back.

Next, Rarity takes Sweetie to her favorite ice cream shop… from when she was a filly.

She barely remembers it. Rarity even convinced the former owner to come out of retirement to make Sweetie her favorite ice cream.

It’s a lot smaller than Sweetie remembers since she was much smaller back then. She eats it in one gulp, and unsurprisingly she’s still hungry.

Rarity suggests they get another, but Sweetie would prefer a salad. Since when is Sweetie sensible, Rarity wonders, but instead Sweetie just gets another ice cream.

Then, Rarity and Sweetie are waiting in a line for a balloon bouquet from some balloon pony named Twisty Pop.


Notice again that Sweetie is the only filly with a cutie mark. Clearly, her cutie mark is an indication of her maturity in comparison to these others.

Rarity realizes Sweetie must be bored because of how long the line is. No, Rarity. That’s not the reason Sweetie is bored. Sweetie notices her fellow CMCs nearby with Zipporwhill and her puppy. She decides to check in with them for a bit. All this time, Apple Bloom and Scootaloo have been having the darndest time trying to get Zipporwhill and her puppy Ripley to reconnect. They ask Sweetie how her day with Rarity is going, and she has to admit that it seems that Rarity doesn’t know who she is anymore. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo admit that things haven’t going well on their end either. Sweetie happens to notice that Ripley seems kind of big for a puppy, but Rarity calls her back before she can elaborate further. Now that Sweetie has her balloon bouquet, Rarity decides they should take silly photos.

I like how Sweetie has the same irritated expression in all these photos.

Rarity notices that Sweetie doesn't seem very enthused about taking silly photos.

However, Sweetie refuses to do it again. Rarity doesn't understand; Sweetie used to love doing these things with her. But that's the point isn't it. Sweetie used to like doing these things. That's not who she is anymore. In fact if Rarity thinks Sweetie still likes to do these things, then Rarity clearly doesn't know her at all! Sweetie walks off in a huff.

This is understandable as Sweetie is now a moody teenager.

Rarity is left rather indignant over all this. She feels Sweetie doesn't appreciate how she set up a whole day of doing her favorite things. She assures Twisty Pop the balloon pony that she's going to give Sweetie a piece of her mind.

Sweetie then runs into Zipporwhill.

You see, Zipporwhill ran off in frustration at the other CMCs’ failure to rekindle her relationship with her puppy. It's then that Sweetie figures out what the problem is. Sweetie and Zipporwhill then find Apple Bloom and Scootaloo with Ripley.

Rarity also finds them too but stays hidden in the bushes until Sweetie finishes her conversation. Anger is no excuse for poor manners, after all. Sweetie explains that Zipporwhill has been treating Ripley like he's still a puppy instead of the decent-sized dog that he is. Zipporwhill admits that it's hard for her not to see Ripley as the puppy she first found. Sweetie adds that treating him like a puppy won't turn him back into one. What she needs to do is find new grown dog activities they can do together. Then, Rarity comes out of the bushes and affirms that this is also true for Sweetie and herself. Rarity knows Sweetie has grown up, but she loved doing all those things with her and didn't want to let it go. Sweetie admits she loves doing things with Rarity too. That will never change, but they could try doing something different. I think there’s a lesson there about accepting when your younger relations grow up, and I stand behind it. A decent-sized stick falls out of Rarity’s mane when she takes off her silly flower costume, and that gets Ripley’s attention. Zipporwhill tries playing fetch with Ripley, and they finally reconnect. Another job well done for the CMC.

Rarity still has some time before she has to go back to Canterlot that she’s willing to spend with Sweetie doing something she actually likes. They end up returning to the ice cream shop to have more appropriately sized sundaes.

They get a picture taken with their faces covered with ice cream that then sits on the counter of the Canterlot Carousel.

This episode was written by Michael P. and Wil Fox aka The Fox Brothers. They got their debut last season with the episodes “The Gift of the Maud Pie”, “Applejack’s “Day” Off”, and “P.P.O.V. (Pony Point Of View)”. Due to how least good “Applejack’s “Day” Off” and “P.P.O.V. (Pony Point Of View)” ended up being, they earned the dubious distinction in my eyes of being the least good new writers of last season. For that reason, I admit my hopes for this episode were not too high. Then again, they did a good job with “The Gift of the Maud Pie”. Perhaps, they could succeed as they did then in this episode. And that is what occurred. This episode was definitely as decent as “The Gift of the Maud Pie”. Maybe it’s because they’re both heavily focused on Rarity. Then again, the other two episodes also featured Rarity but weren't particularly good. I just hope that this episode is a sign that the Fox Brothers have gotten their act together and will be producing higher quality episodes from here on out.

Six episodes in and this is the season’s first CMC episode. That might be a record. The fourth episode of the last two seasons were CMC episodes. I was kind of missing them until they showed up here.

Once again like a couple of previous episodes, this episode has a plot and subplot structure. Though in this case the secondary plot of the CMC helping Zipporwhill with her dog is of a lesser focus than the primary plot of Sweetie and Rarity. I’m glad they’re getting a lot of use from this format. It’s proven quite useful so far.

This episode is kind of a role-reversal Season 2’s “Sisterhooves Social”. In that episode, Sweetie wanted to spend time with a Rarity who didn’t really want to do the things Sweetie wanted. In this episode, it’s Rarity who wants to spend time with Sweetie, but she’s not enthused about it because they keep doing things she’s no longer wants to do. This is quite the shift in Rarity and Sweetie’s sororal relationship. But that’s expected to happen when one’s younger sibling grows up and becomes their own person.

Just like in last week’s episode and episodes before it, this episode continues the callbacks to previous episodes in seasons past. We have the return of none of than Sassy Saddles from Season 5’s “Canterlot Boutique”. We also got to see a lot more of Zipporwhill since she was first introduced way back in Season 4’s “Filli Vanilli”. We also saw her puppy way back then too.

This is how much a dog grows over three seasons.

Though, we didn’t see much beyond the rump of Claude the puppet pony from Season 4’s “Inspiration Manifestation”.

As for what I didn’t like… you know I can’t say there’s anything here I didn’t like, but there’s just something a little bit off about it. Perhaps, it’s just residual issues with the Fox Brothers.

Overall, “Forever Filly” was a sweet little episode. It wasn’t much in the grand scheme of MLP, but it doesn’t have to be. It was simple but sweet.

What did you all think of “Forever Filly”?

God bless you. God bless America. And God bless Equestria.