Episode Re-Review: Fake It 'Til You Make It · 4:06pm April 27th
Oh joy, it's back to Season 8. Season 9 has its fair share of detractors, but hardly anyone I know ever sings Season 8's praises, and for good reason. We now know that the School of Friendship was added at Hasbro's request because they wanted the show to wrap up with nine seasons, forcing the writers to change their plans for the pillars. About the only good thing to come out of Season 8 seems to have been the young/student six, though even then some get more praise and attention than others (particularly Gallus, Silverstream, and to an extent Yona and Smolder). However, Season 8 seemed to get off to a good start. "School Daze" suggested the show runners were aware of the criticisms people might have with the concept. Then we had "The Maud Couple", a sequel of sorts to "Rock Solid Friendship" that was decent but had a problem in that its new character (Mud Briar) was not shown in a very favorable light. Now, however, we have this episode written by Josh Hamilton, whose three strikes in Season 7 were "Parental Glideance", "Triple Threat", and my all time least favorite episode of FiM that was "Secrets and Pies". And he never wrote another episode after this, so it would seem he didn't turn in a very good performance here. No one really seems to talk about this episode, largely because of the more infamous missteps Season 8 committed. Is it possible that this episode is at least decent despite all that's working against it? Well, let's find out.
The episode begins at Fluttershy's sanctuary, as she's enjoying a picnic with her critter friends. Then, suddenly, Rarity comes rushing up and begs Fluttershy for help. Through exposition she mentions an important Canterlot fashion show that she apparently needs Sassy Saddles and the three sales associates from Rarity For You to help her with, but that means she has no one left to run the Manehattan boutique. I know that legal issues had forced Coco Pommel aside at this point, but surely they could've found a way to explain why she couldn't be in this episode, because this seems like exactly the sort of situation where Coco would have to take charge.
We then get a montage of Rarity having asked several other ponies, only for them to all say they're busy. We even have Twilight saying she can't cover for Rarity because she's busy planning the circulum for the School of Friendship. This is the first real misstep for the school, showing it not as a plot enabler but as a plot restricter, preventing characters from doing other things because they need to teach. And at no point do we see Twilight try to find substitutes, she's winging it with just her and her friends, even though Neighsay specifically critiqued them for being unqualified. Just because they wanted to make Neighsay a strawman doesn't mean they can just brush off every complaint he has, because it only proves that he's not actually a strawman despite attempting to dress him up as such.
So Rarity more or less forces Fluttershy to step up and take charge, but there's a problem: Fluttershy is intimidated into helplessness when she has to deal with needy clients. So this episode is one that once again resets Fluttershy's character growth for the sake of the story. Gone is her assertiveness that was on display in "A Health of Information". So what does Rarity suggest Fluttershy do to gain confidence? She first suggests "Power Posing", showing off a trio of bipedal stances.
But Fluttershy trips over her own tail (perhaps a callback to the rumor about her having tail extensions), so Rarity solves the issue herself. Then she suggests Fluttershy try on some clothes, suggesting that a new outfit might help. That's just what Fluttershy does when she's confronted with another needy client, putting on a green shirt, styling her mane, and opting to go for what I assume is a British accent. It works. When Fluttershy then confronts a millenial stereotype, she changes into a hipster and mentions the word "woke", which was actually the first time I'd ever heard such a phrase despite it apparently being very popular and very controversial in today's world.
Then, later, Fluttershy turns into a goth pony when dealing with a goth stereotype.
It all seems good so far, but then Fluttershy inexplicably changes back to her first outfit and tells the racoons that she's going to try and "play up" the snootiness, to the point where she literally sells a unicorn a jewlry rack. Then, when one of the racoons accidentally spills tea, Fluttershy snaps at them and tells them to "go back to the forest!", causing the racoons to run away. And now, completely out of the blue, Fluttershy switches between her three characters and gets so into character that she chases away all the customers.
The racoons are somehow able to travel all the way from Manehattan to Ponyville, and Spike is apparently able to understand them because he's a charades champion. He more or less sums up the premise of the episode, and Twilight now decides to just drop everything and wrangle up all her friends to try to talk sense into Fluttershy. They are unable to, so they decide to go get Rarity and tell her what Fluttershy is doing. Oddly, because of this we see Rarity backstage with Sassy Saddles, but Sassy doesn't speak a single line of dialogue. And this is despite the fact that she got bumped up to appear in the theme song just the episode prior. So not only does Coco not exist, but now Sassy Saddles might as well not exist.
When Rarity returns to the Manehattan boutique, she is shocked at how much Fluttershy has changed. And so ultimately she decides to fire Fluttershy, only for Fluttershy's other "characters" to pop up and neccesitate Rarity firing them too.
It's only once that's done that the "real" Fluttershy shows up and apologizes to everyone, including the racoons, claiming she got "too into character". Yet she never really apologizes for calling the racoons "animals", which they clearly took offense to and which Spike told her specifically to stop calling them as such. Yet apparently, this simple apology is all that's needed. And Rarity sees fit to make Fluttershy a model for her newest dress, portraying Fluttershy as a "confident warrior". When a random pony seeing this asks a rather blunt question, Fluttershy proceeds to basically shut the pony down, and gets praised for doing this.
And that's the story, so what do I think of the episode? Well, you know "Filli Vanilli" was said to be the poor man's "Hurricane Fluttershy"? Well, this is the poor man's "Putting Your Hoof Down". But considering that was one of the most controversial episodes of the show, why would you want to go back to it? Further more, why revisit it if you're just going to reset Fluttershy's character from that episode? You could argue this episode isn't as infamous as "Putting Your Hoof Down" because it doesn't have Fluttershy being abused by Angel or have her tell two of her friends that their lives are pointless, but that also means we don't really get the display of Fluttershy learning how to assertive without being mean. And putting all that aside, there is zero reason for her needing to relearn this lesson this late into the show's running. This is the sort of thing FiM was praised for avoiding, resetting character growth whenever it thought it was necessary. Did this even need to be a Fluttershy episode? Why couldn't you have used any of the student six instead? The only thing I can think of is that this episode was a bottle episode, hence why it takes place mostly in one location, and why Fluttershy "transforms" into three different shop pony characters. But if that was the case, why not use Ocellus and have her literally turn into different ponies? It could've been like "She's All Yak" with Rarity and Yona, and probably done better.
I will say that at least this episode presents a very interesting headcanon to me, suggesting that Fluttershy might have multiple personality disorder. This was also kind of on display during "Putting Your Hoof Down" with Fluttershy calling herself "New Fluttershy", but considering her three different shop pony characters are treated like different entities, it feels like a stronger case could be made for that here.
Ultimately, though, this is a waste of an episode slot, and one that didn't need to exist. Plus, there is no transition of any sort for Fluttershy from wanting to "play up" the snootiness to being cruel and nasty to the racoons. So this episode gets a D-, a very disappointing final inclusion for any of Rarity's other boutiques.
Well, next up is an episode with perhaps the most surprising title of all. I kid you not it's "Grannies Gone Wild", and yet that title might just be the best thing about said episode.
Personally, I consider this episode to be a slightly better version of Honest Apple. For one thing, Rarity actually asks Fluttershy for help instead of just making the decision without her consent. Second, she didn't stick around long enough to see Fluttershy eventually mess up the job she was given, as opposed to witnessing it, reacting to it, but choosing not to do anything until it was too late.
Also, I'm sure I wasn't the only person who thought this when Rarity was asking Applejack for help: "Rarity, did you forget what happened the last time you got Applejack involved in your profession?" From my perspective, Applejack didn't and her blunt response of "Nope" was her little way of saying "I ain't goin' through that again."
Guessing this was supposed to be similar to the SpongeBob episode Mimic Madness where SpongeBob also got lost in character when impersonating other people, similar to Fluttershy getting lost in character with impersonating other personalities.
Would you say SpongeBob did the "getting lost in character" plot better with Mimic Madness?
Shame this episode wasn't too good (aside from Andrea Libman showing some comedic chops with the voices she gives for Fluttershy's personalities).
Admittedly on not using one of the Student Six, there would need to be some reason on why Rarity asks them to watch her shop despite not knowing them as well at this point (she only interacted with them in School Daze at this point).
I'm probably too much of a Fluttershy fan/apologist to really "hate" any episode where she gets focused; that said, yeah, she didn't need her character reset like that.
I find this episode to be a lot of fun
Heck, Shy saying "lit" and "woke" is so ridiculous it makes the entire episode worth it
Personally, I thought this was one of the better episodes from Season 8. Mainly because of its humor, overall storytelling, and the moral it had. Plus, Fluttershy's "Warrior of Inner Strength" dress is truly a stunning site to behold.
On a completely different subject, though...
Whenever you watched episodes from Seasons 8 & 9, did any of them ever give you the feeling that they were based on shelved scripts that were revisited and edited for the two seasons?