Doctor Perseus Reviews: "Saddle Row & Rec" *SPOILERS* · 7:27pm May 21st, 2016
In this week's episode of MLP, Rarity opens her flagship store in Manehattan. But a tell-tale articles threatens to expose how the rest of the Mane 6 nearly ruined the grand opening...
This was another one of those episodes that I really had no expectations for but ended up really liking. 
While this is a Rarity episode at its core, all of the Mane 6 got used well here. Twilight organizing the shop, Pinkie Pie dealing with DJ-Pon3, Applejack looking after the odd daughter of Rarity's landlord, Rainbow Dash hiring Rarity's new employees, Fluttershy figuring out what to do with a raccoon family that has taken residence in the back of Rarity's store. All of the Mane 6 really got to shine and had a lot of funny moments. The interview bits were especially entertaining. There were plenty of fun facial animations to be found throughout this episode.
There were even some fun supporting and background characters. A lot of the background characters were hysterically New York-ish from the uncaring delivery pony to the overbearing landlord. Buried Lede, for what little we saw of him, was a funny stereotype of your average New York journalist. Plaid Stripes was also an entertaining quirk character whose odd ideas actually help spawn some surprising resolutions during the final act. Coco Pommel got a much-welcomed and entertaining cameo and DJ-Pon3 was a welcome addition as always.
There were tons of funny little moments throughout the episode from Pinkie Pie referring back to Too Many Pinkie Pies (and another Pinkie Pie appearing in the background, hinting that some may have escaped Twilight's death spell...) to Fluttershy covered in dust and the raccoons acting as waiters during the grand opening. There's not a whole lot else for me to say. This was just a really fun episode.
Overall, Saddle Row & Rec was a simple yet incredibly entertaining Rarity episode.
Next week's episode is Applejack's Day Off!
While Rarity struggles to get Applejack to relax at the spa, Twilight and Spike find covering her “simple” farm chores to be a more difficult job than they anticipated.
What did the rest of you think of Saddle Row & Rec?
You know, I think someone said and I actually agree with them on this it reminds them of the Office.
This episode was a simple story comprised of an extended chain of entertaining moments, most of which deserve to be rewatched many times over. To say more would simply be to repeat the jokes.
Anyway, I knew they had a reason to shoehorn in Rarity picking the location for this back in Gift of the Maud Pie, because they needed it in place for a later episode. Looks like this was it. And here I thought that Canterlot Boutique had used up the "Rarity opens a store" storyline.
I also thought this was a fun episode. I go into excruciating detail in my own review of "The Saddle Row Review" on my blog.