MLP Reviews #1: Putting Your Hoof Down

MLP Review #1: Putting Your Hoof Down
Comment: It was kind of funny to see that this was the first episode which popped up when I was selecting episodes at random. I have seen the review on it by TheMysteriousMrEnter who hates this episode so much that he treats it far too unfairly. When watching this episode again to make my review, I guess I would say this episode was below average by MLP standards. It had a ton of flaws, some which were cringeworthy and wtf. “Putting Your Hoof Down” probably has the most “wtf” moments of any episode so far. But with that said, I didn’t dislike this episode. However, I didn’t exactly like it either. There are just quite a few episodes which come to mind that I would consider worse.
So let’s begin!

Intro
Well, this episode goes from pleasant to unpleasant in only a few seconds.
It’s lunch time for the woodland critters. Most of them seem happy with the lunch Fluttershy has provided them except Angel Bunny. You can hear his annoying and impatient tapping. Angel wants something special for lunch. Fluttershy is prepared with “Mr. Picky Pants” and gives him a salad with lettuce and cucumbers. Angel won’t eat it though. Fluttershy wants to help Angel badly. Angel shows Fluttershy what he wants for lunch: a fancy salad with a cherry on top from the book. Fluttershy isn’t sure she can even make that. Angel slaps Fluttershy and shoves the book in her face. Wow, I never knew Angel was this much of a dick. Fluttershy, instead of beating the shit out of Angel for being a spoiled brat, decides to go to the marketplace to pick up the ingredients necessary for the meal.
This is a common complaint with the episode. I think this is also out-of-character for Angel Bunny – not the fact that he won’t eat what Fluttershy gives him but the slap. The intro would have been much better done without the slap, when Angel kicks the bowl onto Fluttershy’s head, it was made clear enough. However, you get the sense that the writers really want us to know that Fluttershy is being abused – congrats- you have shown what you intended quite well. This episode has an unpleasant feel to it from the start, however, at the same time, it piqued my interest. I knew this would be “Fluttershy becoming more assertive”. Well, how is she going to do that? For now, she is just looking to make Angel happy.

Act I
Bon Bon sighting right away in the beginning! Oh man, this episode is going to be fantastic in that regard.
This is the “Fluttershy meets assholes” segment of the episode.
Fluttershy needs three more ingredients: asparagus, tomatoes, and a cherry.

This act deserves to be split up based on the desired ingredient.
Asparagus
There are five asparagi, that’s great! Fluttershy will be able to.. oh wait, there are asshole unicorn, old guy who is so deaf that he’ll probably die in a week anyway, asshole mares with accents which pay homage to “Clueless”, and then enter Pinkie Pie and Rarity.
They see this abuse and feel the same way the rest of the audience feels right away.. poor Fluttershy. Rarity and Pinkie Pie want Fluttershy to stop being a “pushover” and a “doormat”. Two words you are going to hear over and over throughout the episode!
While Pinkie Pie and Rarity give Fluttershy a pep talk, in comes some nerd pony who buys the last asparagus. Unlike the other four, this nerd didn’t do an asshole move. Fluttershy got off the line.
Rarity will not stand for this and flirts with the nerd pony in a condescending manner. The nerd gives Rarity the asapargus and Rarity gives him his money back. Well, at least she has some sense of ethics!
Success, thanks to Rarity!

Tomatoes
Here we meet a tomato vendor with three tomatoes for a cutie mark. I am calling her Tomatojack. So, Fluttershy purchases the tomatoes to one bit. Tomatojack tells her that they are now two bits. We see a sign which shows that three tomatoes are equal to two bits. Fluttershy is willing to pay the two bits but Pinkie Pie steps in. She insists that one bit is outrageous and that it should be two bits. She argues with Tomatojack about it but then Pinkie takes the side of two bits. Tomatojack falls for this trick and insists on one bit. So, Fluttershy gets the tomatoes for one bit.
Success, thanks to Pinkie Pie! I wouldn’t call Tomatojack an asshole though, just a little gruff. She did raise her price to two bits and, from the evidence provided before us, it didn’t seem Tomatojack was looking to screw over Fluttershy. She was probably charging all ponies two bits now for tomatoes.

Cherry
Rarity and Pinkie Pie encourage Fluttershy to give their tactics a try. Fluttershy goes in and doesn’t come across as assertive but desperate for the cherry. From this blatant desperation, the cherry vendor tells Fluttershy that the cherry is ten bits. Fluttershy’s flirting fails and the cherry vendor doesn’t fall from it. Fluttershy fails at Pinkie Pie’s tactic and the cherry is now twelve bits. She knows she needs it for Angel and shows extra desperation. The cherry is now twenty bits. She can’t afford it. The cherry vendor then sells the cherry to some other pony for two bits – this guy was more of an asshole than Tomatojack, but still Fluttershy was acting odd and overly desperate. He was thinking like a businessman – being able to make a good sale from Fluttershy. Unfair, yes. But, hey. The crazy thing is that if Fluttershy just kept her mouth shut and went in quietly, she would have probably been able to get the cherry for two bits, at most.
Failure.

Fluttershy returns home without the cherry. She makes Angel his lunch but there is no cherry. Angel, with his poor eyesight, has to compare the salad with what is in the book twice and kicks Fluttershy out of her own cottage. Congratulations, Angel. You win “Asshole of My Little Pony”. I hope you like your trophy, bitch. Fluttershy lands on her mailbox and there is an Iron Will flier – turning ponies from doormats to dynamos. Perfect! Fluttershy resolves to never be a pushover.

Before this episode, did Fluttershy really go through this kind of abuse? Ask yourselves that question. This is like the world decided to take a couple shits on Fluttershy just to move the plot. A really frustrating though is that the only other ponies who were taken advantage of thus far were not assholes: some nerd pony and a gruff tomato vendor who was just looking to sell her tomatoes for the correct price. The biggest asshole so far is Angel Bunny.

Act II
Ah yes, Iron Will’s seminar: the pacing in this act seems a tad quick. However, they already spent seven minutes in the marketplace.
Bon Bon fans will be proud and mad at the same time here!

Iron Will has brought in a big crowd here. We see Bon Bon right away and Fluttershy makes her way to the front. She is standing between Bon Bon and some hot pink pony. One of them kicks Fluttershy all the way to the back. We then meet Iron Will: he is confident, charismatic, and aggressive. Also, he’s a minotaur which makes him a giant among the ponies. Iron Will promises the ponies that he can make any pony more assertive through his techniques. He has a 100% satisfaction guarantee. If a pony isn’t satisfied with his techniques, the pony pays nothing. This kind of seems silly to me. Couldn’t I just say that I wasn’t satisfied with the techniques and get my money back? However, enough of the ponies seem intimidated enough by Iron Will that they probably wouldn’t want to try that tactic.
Iron Will wants a volunteer. Every pony raises a hoof except for Fluttershy. Iron Will’s goat minions notice this and bring Fluttershy to the front of the stage. Iron Will practices his techniques on Fluttershy through one of his goat minions. We get a cutesy response from Fluttershy, “Umm, go home and try again tomorrow.” Iron Will pushes Fluttershy into the goat and then encourages Fluttershy to criticize the goat for being in her way. She starts off hesitant but comes across as mildly assertive at the end. Iron Will sees a great opportunity in this and tells the audience that if his techniques work on Fluttershy, they can work on any pony.

I like Iron Will as a character. He saves this episode from getting a worse rating than it would have gotten otherwise. I wish we got to see a little more of the seminar, but like I said before, the marketplace took up seven minutes.

Fluttershy is back at her cottage and ready to recite Iron Will’s rhymes. At first, she sees the gardener overwatering her petunias again. Fluttershy: “Treat me like a pushover, and I will give you an onceover.” She overwaters the gardener, who then agrees that the petunias had enough water. I can’t decide whether the gardener was being an asshole or a dumbass by overwatering Fluttershy’s flowers- probably a mixture of both. Fluttershy is amazed that this worked and that seems to be the inspiration for the transformation to Flutterbitch.

Fluttershy sees two ponies with big carts of garbage just standing on a bridge and talking – hey, we see Bon Bon and that pink pony again. Fluttershy asks them to move but the pink pony wants to finish telling her joke to Bon Bon. Fluttershy loses her patience and kicks the carts – dumping the garbage in the carts all over Bon Bon and the pink pony who move.
I know a lot of people are going to say, “But why didn’t Fluttershy just fly over them?” That’s part of Iron Will’s techniques though – if you want to go a certain way using a certain method, make sure it happens. Fluttershy didn’t want to fly over the smelly garbage. She wanted to walk on the bridge. This really isn’t a big deal to me at all, but I’ve heard people whine about that.

We then enter Sugarcube Corner. Oh good, looks like Pinkie Pie will still be in this episode. There is a long line and some asshole pony cuts Fluttershy in the line. The asshole pony gives a saracastic “Uh, maybe”, when Fluttershy calls out the pony on cutting her in line. “Maybe is for babies!” Fluttershy growls at the pony to go to the back of the line and not only gets the asshole to move back but every other pony in the store. Fluttershy is now in the front which serves as a contrast to what happened to her at Iron Will’s seminar.
She sees Pinkie Pie and Rarity. At first, they are proud of Fluttershy. However, when Fluttershy overreacts to Pinkie Pie laughing about “pink punch”, “Old Pinkie Pie”, and “new Fluttershy”, Pinkie and Rarity soon realize that things aren’t quite as good as they seemed.

The taxi scene disturbs a lot of viewers but I actually found it kind of funny. Fluttershy jumps into the taxi, fights with the pony who steals it from her, and then gives the “finger”. I have a dark sense of humor though. Something tells me that Merriwether Williams also has that kind of humor from the episodes she has written. Pinkie Pie and Rarity realize that “new Fluttershy” isn’t so good after all. She has gone from passive to uncontrollably aggressive.

The rushed pacing is a little annoying here though and it makes you wonder if the crew spent so much time on the first act that they had to condense everything else they wanted to do in the last two acts. It felt a lot better in the first act.

Act III
Fluttershy goes out and attacks two more non-assholes: an old mailpony who accidentally puts the wrong mail in Fluttershy’s mailbox and a tourist pony who wants to know where Ponyville Tower is. Fluttershy has gone out of control and we still see her reciting Iron Will’s mantras: “You make me lose, I blow my fuse”, “You apologize, I penalize.” She has really taken Iron Will’s techniques quite seriously.

We then see Pinkie Pie and Rarity who try to tell Fluttershy that she has taken things too far.
Here is where we see Fluttershy at her absolute cruelest.

“Things are getting too complicated for your simple little brain, Pinkie Pie?”
“Why not? I thought petty was what you were all about, Rarity. With your petty concerns about fashion.”
“Oh and what are you passionate about? Birthday cake? Party hats? I can’t believe that the two most frivolous ponies in Ponyville are trying to tell new Fluttershy how to live her life when they are throwing their lives away on pointless pursuits that no pony else gives a flying fuck about.”
[Oops, I mean feather…]
To add even more pain to this scene, you see how hurt Pinkie Pie and Rarity are by Fluttershy’s insults. They run off crying, but of course Rarity adds that it is Iron Will’s fault right away.

From seeing her friends being driven away to tears, Fluttershy realizes that she has become a monster. We also see here why Pinkie Pie and Rarity were the correct ponies to include in this episode. The other three in the Mane Six would have probably not started to cry over Fluttershy’s insults.

Twilight Sparkle would play psychiatrist on Fluttershy, which would make Fluttershy feel like Twilight is being extra condescending.
Rainbow Dash would get aggressive herself and could very well have led to a fight.
Applejack would have denied and hid any emotion she might have felt from the insult and tried to talk more sense into Fluttershy.
It needed to be Pinkie Pie and Rarity for the sake of this plot: two adorable cry-babies.
Some time later, we see that Fluttershy has locked herself up in her cottage and Angel is tying her up – at Fluttershy’s request. Pinkie Pie and Rarity return brining up that they don’t blame Fluttershy but Iron Will. It’s hard to tell though from the viewer’s perspective whether Iron Will can be blamed or not. However, the fact that Fluttershy keeps on reciting Iron Will’s mantras before she gets aggressive with any pony seems to lean us towards to “It’s Iron Will’s fault”. I’ll take it.

Iron Will comes in with his goat minions. He demands that Fluttershy pay. It is also interesting to see a reversal from "The Return of Harmony". In "Putting Your Hoof Down", Fluttershy is timid and easily influenced by Iron Will while Pinkie Pie and Rarity never show any fear of Iron Will despite labeling him a monster. In "The Return of Harmony", Fluttershy is a lot tougher for Discord to influence than Pinkie Pie or Rarity. He taunts all three of them but Fluttershy takes it very well while the other two fall flat. Iron Will and Discord are two very different characters though: Iron Will relies entirely on brawn and aggression to motivate others while Discord relies on his wits and magical prowess to do so. Pinkie Pie and Rarity try to stop Iron Will from confronting Fluttershy using the same tactics they used in the first act. However, neither works. Well, Pinkie’s would have worked if she didn’t get so cocky with her “See you tomorrow” comment. This makes me facehoof. Why? Why? You almost had Iron Will gone for a whole day!! Pinkie and Rarity find themselves thrown to the ground by Iron Will. We see Iron Will acting like enough of a dick here to know that Iron Will was very much involved in fueling the fire in Fluttershy. He treats them the same way Fluttershy was treating ponies who stood in her way. I still like Iron Will though as a character. He is an interesting addition to the show since it is rare you see hyper-masculine characters such as him.

Iron Will hears Fluttershy sneeze and he knows that she is there. He demands payment. Fluttershy opens the door and tells Iron Will that she refuses to pay because she isn’t 100% satisfied with the techniques. Iron Will tries to strike a deal with Fluttershy, however, Fluttershy refuses. We are all amazed by how assertive Fluttershy has become. Pinkie Pie and Rarity cheer for her and remind Fluttershy that she did that as “old Fluttershy”.
We then see that Fluttershy learned her lesson and can now be assertive with her stare, now Angel will eat his food. This is an interesting episode in the sense that the difference between assertive and aggressive. Iron Will is aggressive, not assertive. Fluttershy was becoming aggressive. By refusing to pay Iron Will, she realized what it means to be assertive and it involves Fluttershy being herself- just learning to say no once in a while.

Rating: 5 out of 10 stars [This episode had a hefty amount of flaws and a load of wtf moments. Angel Bunny was really out-of-character. Everything just seemed so dandy and convenient for Fluttershy to turn into Flutterbitch. I would also have liked to seen Fluttershy go after some of the assholes in the first act, but they all seemed to disappear. However, one thing which brings this episode up in my eyes was the presence of Iron Will. He is a very good parody of self-help gurus. He is kind of an asshole but that is what makes him an interesting character. I would love to see Iron Will return even if he’s just a background character. I also found Fluttershy’s transformation from passive to aggressive to assertive interesting. I felt happy for Fluttershy in the end and you can’t really blame her too much for going on the “Flutterbitch” ramapage, she was just so focused on not being pushed around anymore that she forgot to take into account how other ponies felt about it. I also liked Pinkie Pie and Rarity here- even though this Pinkie was less zany than what we normally see. This will probably be one of my longest reviews, since I feel every moment of the episode is worth talking about regarding my critique. On the whole, there was some good but there was enough bad to give this episode five out of ten stars.]

Revised Rating: 7 out of 10, the change in this rating is that even though this episode probably has more flaws than any other episode in MLP history. However, it is just incredibly entertaining. Unlike some other episodes I'm going to review more negatively, "Putting Your Hoof Down" was just a lot of fun to watch. There are some things I can't forgive but I think I reviewed this episode too harshly..

Ranking
Putting Your Hoof Down: 5/10 7/10