Everything Wrong with Bats! and Rarity Takes Manehattan

Happy New Year everybody! I hope you've made your resolutions for 2014! My resolution is that from now until the end of the year, I will not miss reviewing an episode of MLP, because in doing so, I'd have to do a 2 in 1 review the next week and it'd be really rushed. Unfortunately, I've already broken that resolution seeing as how I missed last week's episode, "Bats!" and therefore have to review it along with this week's episode, "Rarity Takes Manehattan." Damn.

So let's start off with "Bats!" First of all, let me tell you the interesting history behind this episode. It originally came out as an April Fool's Day joke on writer Meghan McCarthy's Twitter account, where she said it would be just like the musical "Cats" except it would be about bats. However, Hasbro was so out of ideas for episodes that they decided, "Why not?" And thus they used her idea. Let's step right in.

It starts off with Applejack getting up for Applebuck Season. As Applejack begins, however, she discovers that when the apples fall to the ground, they go "ker-splat" as soon as they hit it. She blames the problem on fruit bats. Only these ones are vampire bats... except they don't suck the blood of animals and instead only eat fruit. Sort of defeats the purpose of calling them "vampire bats," doesn't it?

So AJ rings a bell to summon her friends... apparently the loudest bell in the history of time, for the rest of the main 6 plus Spike could hear it all the way in Ponyville.
AJ reveals that it's not just the normal crop she's afraid they'll eat, but a gigantic apple that's even bigger than Celestia. I guess Sweet Apple Acres is actually in New York! Get it? Because it's the Big Apple, and AJ is raising a big apple... okay, it was either that or an Apple Inc. joke. Which do you prefer?

Fluttershy, of course, tries to talk to the bats to make sure they won't eat AJ's prize apple, but it doesn't end well. Then Applejack sings a song about how the bats are monsters, while Fluttershy sings to defend them. The rest of the main 6 agree with AJ, however. I gotta say, while I don't really get drawn in by this song (of course, the same goes for most MLP songs), it's a pretty impressive one. Nowhere near "This Day Aria" levels but pretty good, and of course, a thousand times better than Applejack's first song, "Raise This Barn." God damnit, I STILL have that stupid song stuck in my head.

Twilight discovers an incredibly convenient spell to distract the bats, but it will require Fluttershy to use the Stare on the bats. Yeah, this won't backfire at all.
By the way, this episode takes a deeper look at Rainbow Dash's psyche, as it shows in-depth her strange addiction to cider. While that concept is pretty cool, I'm just afraid that the fans will milk that gag until it isn't funny anymore, like they did with the Twilicane gag earlier this season.

Fluttershy does the Stare on them and Twilight does the spell, so the bats no longer want to eat the apples. However, Fluttershy soon discovers that she has quite the craving for apples... But that doesn't matter. The problem's solved. That's the end of the episode, right? Wrong! It seems the apples are still being eaten, but by who? They decide to find that out that night, where they search the entire orchard for the culprit of this, and Fluttershy obviously expresses her newfound love for apples, but the rest of the ponies are completely oblivious to it.
Hey, y'know what would be funny? If Fluttershy is the one eating all the apples! I know, it sounds crazy! I mean, she's only been talking out loud about apples ever since yesterday! But nah, that'd be stupid.
Also, during this scene Fluttershy decides to do her Han Solo impression by saying "I have a bad feeling about this!" I know, it has nothing to do with the review, but I just felt it deserved to be mentioned. Also, this:

But they discover that Fluttershy is actually the culprit! I swear, if she'd have been a nuclear bomb they wouldn't have discovered until it'd already detonated and killed everypony.
It turns out Fluttershy has turned into a vampire-bat-pony or something and is now nicknamed "Flutterbat." Uh-oh! Does this mean batponies are now canon? Quick! Run for your lives! A new wave of batpony OCs is coming! I can feel it! Just like the wave of alicorn OCs after Magical Mystery Cure! Run!
Oh well, as long as it has nothing to do with seaponies, I'm okay with it. We don't want G1, Hasbro! Keep FIM as far away from that as possible!

Somehow the main 6 realize that they're responsible for Flutterbat from the spell conflicting with her Stare, so they have to reverse it. How do they do this? By using the prize apple that Applejack showed them earlier. Yeah, it's not like you spent THE ENTIRE FIRST THREE-QUARTERS OF THE EPISODE trying to protect that. Why not sacrifice it just to save your friend?
Anyway, Fluttershy takes the bait but they put her up against a bunch of mirrors and force her to stare at herself. Wouldn't that just backfire? I mean, if we're going with common vampire lore, she wouldn't have a reflection. Unless we're using the Twilight approach...

So they reverse the spell on Fluttershy using a convenient new spell Twilight has, and Fluttershy goes back to normal. So the problem is solved, the bats have their sanctuary, the main 6 do their regular journal entry about it, and they all live happily ever after.

It turns out that Fluttershy still has a vampire tooth. On the other hand, I doubt it will ever be mentioned again in the show. Yay!

This is a good transition into our next episode, "Rarity Takes Manehattan," the episode that I feared from the start would shatter the headcanons about Manehattan I'd established in "I Hate It Here," thus making me have to rewrite the whole thing. How badly does it do this? Let's find out.

So this one starts off with the main 6 boarding a train to New York, or should I say "Manehattan." Apparently Rarity has a fashion competition there where she's going to show off some of her designs. I'm not going to look too deeply into that because we all know she's going to win.
While she's there, the rest of the main 6 are so happy to go sightseeing and see a musical on Bridleway. Okay, the OBVIOUS pun was "Trotway," but I'll let it slide for now.

As the train passes over the NOT Brooklyn Bridge, we get our first establishing shots of the city of Manehattan. By the way, take a good long look at the first shot of the city.

I know they probably didn't notice it at first, but I highly doubt it passed the editing room without someone on the staff thinking "WTC."
Anyway, once they arrive there, Rarity says that the best part about Manehattan is how all the ponies there are so nice to each other all the time. Um, no they're not! Have you ever been to New York City? Ponies there always keep to themselves and never talk to one another unless absolutely necessary!
So Rainbow Dash can't wait to see the musical, despite her not even liking musicals because she doesn't understand why the characters always break out into song at random. "Who does that?" she asks. That's actually a good question. I mean, it's not like you're going to suddenly have one of those dumb musical numbers right after asking tha--oh, you morons.
This song reinforces my belief that most MLP songs are written by Barry Manilow. It's unoriginal, bland, repetitive, and totally forgettable. The only redeeming factor is the Mad Men references during the song, which I gotta admit is pretty awesome.

So as she finishes her song, she realizes that she is late to the place she was going. Maybe if you hadn't sung that stupid song in the first place, you wouldn't be late!
Also, you gotta love the incredibly good timing of the stormclouds once she says that. What, were they just waiting for that to happen?
Luckily, she gets there on time; however, everypony else got there thirty minutes early, so the host chews Rarity out about that. Well, that was pointless. Next scene!
So Rarity meets up with Suri Polomare, one of Rarity's old acquaintances, and Rarity lets Suri borrow her special fabric that she used for her designs. Gee, that can't backfire on you at all, now can it?

Of course it does backfire, as Suri takes Rarity's fabric and bases all her outfits on it, with her justification being that "it's everypony for herself in the big city." THANK YOU! That's the first correct thing anypony in this episode has said about New York City!
So Rarity now has to create all new clothing from scratch, which she creates from the curtains, rugs, and bedsheets of the hotel room. You do realize you're going to have to pay them for new ones, right?
Well, she doesn't care about that, OR about her friends' free time, as they spend all their time helping Rarity with the outfits, missing out on the musical they were going to see. The next day, Rarity presents her outfits, which the host seems to love, but it just isn't the same without her friends in the audience. She assumes that they left Manehattan without her, as the conveniently timed stormclouds come back, and she... does a reprise of the song. Really? This episode is hard enough to review. I don't need any help, Hasbro.
The only redeeming factor about this song is... nothing. Well, except the fact that the cloppers have new material, as Rarity sports a wet mane during the entire thing.

After that unnecessary song reprise, Rarity returns to the plaza, where Suri tells her that she lost. Gee, she can't be lying to you like she did THE FIRST TIME, when she said she'd only use your fabric for SOME PARTS of her clothing line, can she?
And of course the friends arrive there to apologize for not being there, with their reasoning being that they slept in. See, that's one thing I can relate to in this episode. Sleeping in late and missing half of the day.
Rarity makes it up to them by seeing the musical they were talking about earlier in the episode at a private show just for them. How did she get this? She pulled a few strings here and there with her friend that lived in this city. How much you want to bet that was just code for "she made them an offer they couldn't refuse"? That's it, Mafia ponies are now canon.
But Suri's assistant comes in and reveals that Rarity did win, of course, and everything ends happily, with Rarity giving the moral of the story and getting a pointless gift of a spool of rainbow-colored thread. Hmm, now I wonder how they got that... Did Dash donate some of her mane?

Oh well, I guess we'll never find out. Hooray!
So what do I think of these episodes? Well, Bats! seemed all over the place. The characters acted OOC and the whole second act had nothing to do with the moral of the episode. However, I do like the whole idea of Flutterbat, and the song was pretty great. Plus, it seemed that the whole concept of the episode would work better for a fan-project than it would for an official episode, but they pulled it off pretty well. I give it a 4/5.
Rarity Takes Manehattan, however, seemed much less spectacular to me. On the one hand, they ruined less headcanons about Manehattan than I feared they would, so I won't have to rewrite I Hate It Here. Plus, it was a Rarity episode, which I feel we need more of, and she actually did something generous for once. On the other hand, the songs were easily forgettable and completely pointless, and plus the scene where Dash questions why they always break out into song being followed by a song was a bit insulting to my intelligence. I give it a 3.5/5.

Hopefully next week we'll get back into the normal schedule.

-Kirb