Episode Re-Review: Scare Master · 5:46pm May 1st, 2021
Not exactly an original title considering Season 1 had "Stare Master" and this was a Fluttershy episode. It was one taking place on Nightmare Night, which got bumped around so that it could actually air on Halloween. Given that our last direct visit to Nightmare Night was in "Luna Eclipsed" that wasn't exactly boding well. But the synopsis made it sound like Fluttershy was ready to come out of her shell and face her fears. Natasha Levinger, who'd prevously penned "It Ain't Easy Being Breezies" for Fluttershy was writing this episode. So it should've been a success, right? Well, let's find out.
I sure hope you didn't put too much stock and faith into that synopsis, because it's a lie! Fluttershy begins the episode by locking her doors and windows with the intent to hide away under her bed for all of Nightmare Night. Yes, that's right, Fluttershy is back to being a scaredy cat for no reason at all. Right out of the gate she's regressing! And this isn't funny or adorable, it's pathetic! Fluttershy is acting like a little kid, and Nightmare Night is something that she can't run away from or ignore! This is especially glaring considering she had no qualms telling Rainbow the hard truth about her winter being petless or berating Discord for trying to send Tree Hugger to another dimension. Both of those situations required bravery, the kind of bravery that is nowhere to be seen in this Fluttershy! And the only reason we have a plot is because Fluttershy forgot to get carrots for Angel, meaning she'll have to go out during Nightmare Night to get them. This isn't even "reluctant hero" status, this is flat out reducing Fluttershy to a joke!
So Fluttershy goes out and eventually makes her way to Twilight's castle, completely afraid of everything and anything for no reason. No one is controlling her or messing with her mind, this is what she actually believes despite having no evidence to think so. She is apparently just as scared now as she was in "Filli Vanilli" and the episode isn't going to address this.
She meets Spike, who is wearing a costume in which he has an extra head so he looks like a two headed dragon. And he thinks that since Fluttershy is here, she must be ready to join in the fun of Nightmare Night. Fluttershy doesn't bother to correct him and lets him lead her to all of her friends as they're telling ghost stories in the castle library. They too assume Fluttershy is ready to join in the fun of Nightmare Night with them and Fluttershy decides that she'll do it. We then see the rest of the mane six dressing up in costumes. Applejack is a lion, which is interesting since she was a scarecrow in the previous Nightmare Night. Too bad we didn't get a third one, or we could've had her dress up as a tin man (or I guess tin mare?).
Pinkie Pie is some kind of mix between a roller skater and a clown, Rarity's a mermaid, Rainbow Dash is an astronaut and Twilight Sparkle is a royal guard. It's probably meant to be a nod to Flash Sentry, but they never acknowledge it so it could just as easily be her being inspired by her brother or just the guards in general. Then Rarity tries to help Fluttershy pick out a costume as we get a dig at Flutterbat via a bat costume, and you might think this is just a throwaway joke. But it'll actually be somewhat of a Chekhov's Gun. However, the real development is that Fluttershy displays all kinds of obsessive fears that seems to imply she doesn't trust her friends to protect her. Yes, maybe the concern about tripping is valid but everything else just feels too exaggerated, which again suggests that Fluttershy's fears are becoming a problem she needs to seek help for.
So Fluttershy opts for a simple cloak and then joins her friends for games at a party at Sugarcube Corner. But whether it's pin the tail on Nightmare Moon, bobbing for apples or even just candy bags Fluttershy acts like a wet blanket. She worries so much about things that again she should trust her friends to be able to help her, to the point where nothing fun can be done. She then realizes that she's taking the fun out of Nightmare Night, but convinces her friends to come to her cottage for a spooky tea party. When they gather there, they are treated to drawings of various anime characters (all female) if they were ponies: Including Sailor Moon and Bulma Briefs from the Dragon Ball franchise.
Of course, Fluttershy's attempts at being scary fall flat and her friends leave. Then Fluttershy turns to Angel for help on how to be scary.
So the rest of the mane six go to Sweet Apple Acres where Applejack's family is hosting a corn maze, including Granny Smith with an actual horse head and Big Macintosh as a gauze bandage mummy (we've earlier seen the CMC in costumes toilet papering a tree). It isn't long, however, before strange things start happening as they get chased by ghosts. And eventually, they end up falling through a trap door where Applejack thinks she sees Granny Smith in a rocking chair. But actually it's a skeleton made to look like Granny Smith, which isn't exactly a funny joke considering the implications behind her parents. I mean, that's like trying to play a joke on Batman by making him think Alfred is dead.
The group manages to escape the cave they're in, after getting stuck in a spider web and chased by a monster. But upon exiting the cave they encounter Flutterbat again, who strangely laughs like the Mane-Iac because I guess that was the best they could do for a stock evil laugh? Flutterbat then swoops down, ultimately popping the extra head on Spike's costume.
It's then that it's revealed that this was just Fluttershy acting and she realizes that she might have gone too far. However, her friends actually like that they were scared. But Fluttershy still doesn't want any part of Nightmare Night at all because it's just not her cup of tea. I know what they were trying to go for, you can't force someone to like something. But no one was forcing Fluttershy into anything, they were trying to accomodate her on something that comes every year regardless of whether Fluttershy likes it or not. And the way the episode plays out and ends, it makes it look as if Fluttershy has not developed at all. She's content to just stay at home under her bed, ignoring Nightmare Night and not willing to confront her own irrational fears. She could easily find something to do during Nightmare Night that would be on her level.
And that's the story, so what do I think of the episode? It's a disgrace and an insult to Fluttershy's character, resetting her entire growth back to Season 1 for the sake of making her a wet blanket and a scaredy cat. And it's not fun or cute, it's pathetic and insulting. It would be bad enough if any other writer wrote this, but for Natasha Levinger who wrote "It Ain't Easy Being Breezies" this makes it look just as bad as Amy Keating Rogers writing Pinkie Pie making Fluttershy cry in "Filli Vanilli", it makes it look like you're ignoring your own continuity and your own rules. Even if you don't like what you wrote before or realize that you made a mistake, you can't just erase what you already put out there or retcon it. The way to get around bad writing is not to pretend it doesn't exist. Likewise, if character growth makes a story you want to tell impossible, the solution is not to erase that growth but to reconsider your story for another character. Maybe if this were a flashback episode to say Season 1 or Season 2 this could work, but then you couldn't have the return of Flutterbat which is clearly what this episode wanted just like "Filli Vanilli" wanted to bring back Flutterguy. You wanna see this kind of story done right? Check out Boo To You, Winnie The Pooh in which Piglet actually confronts his fears with his friends and shows true bravery when it counts. This episode gets an E, spared only slightly by the fact that we have some cool costumes for the rest of the mane six and Spike.
Well, things should pick up with the next episode "Rarity Investigates!" since it was a Rarity and Rainbow Dash episode, and the most the two had interacted before had been during "Sonic Rainboom".
Last year, Kyle Norty did a marathon called Norty's Spooktacular Halloween where he reviewed a halloween-themed episode of a family show every day throughout the month of October and he covered this episode on the 27th day. While he liked the episode overall, he does admit that its biggest problem is Fluttershy regressing. Here's one thing he said about her in the review:
Also, have you noticed that with the exception of Pinkie Apple Pie, every episode Natasha Levinger has written for the series has Fluttershy in a starring role?
This is an episode that, while it isn't great, I still have fun watching.
This is a pretty underrated episode IMO. Of course Fluttershy would be reluctant, and I like that she gave it a try and decided she still didn't like it. It's a pretty unique moral, and an important one. Plus it's really funny and the scares that Fluttershy gave at the end were cool.
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Yeah, plus the classic anime references, including to Evangelion, Ranma 1/2, etc, were nice
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I am disappointed in myself that I did not see any of the references.