Filli Vanilli [spoilers]

Episode review, because all the cool kids are doing it. Or rather, not so much a review as a scattering of thoughts.

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This was one of the better episodes in a while. Is it just a Fluttershy-episode thing? It's certainly not an Amy Keating Rogers thing, though she does seem to be getting better over time.

This wasn't the same lesson as Dragonshy. In Dragonshy, Fluttershy learned to stand up for her friends; in Filli Vanilli, she learned to be brave for herself, with no real danger on the line. This is progress!

Actually, was there a friendship lesson in this episode? Fluttershy's report/diary/blog wasn't really about friendship. The others maybe learned something about being sensitive to her needs, or maybe Twilight just learned that Pinkie needs to be restrained by force.

Speaking of which, they really needed to be more sensitive to her needs. It is the general sort of failing that they've had in other episodes, but generally that's so that they can learn to do better by the end; here, it was Fluttershy that (officially) learned to change. There really ought to be more (explicit) give-and-take. Maybe that's too complex to fit into a twenty-minute kids' show.

The ponies continue to have inexplicable difficulty understanding Zecora. It was perfectly obvious what she was saying, yet they're all "durr, stop speaking in gypsy riddles".

The Flutterguy continuity was fun, and made me feel more like the question of how they were going to fix the voice problem was a puzzle that the viewer was meant to be able to solve.

In the Transformers commercial, I was struck by how inexpressive the humans' faces were. It's a reminder of just how much better FiM is than the baseline.

Edit: oh yeah, and the music was fantastic. Looking forward to all the fan remixes.