Thoughts- Fillli Vanilli

Hello everyone! Welcome back to "Thoughts," and I'm sorry this one is so late! I really meant to do it sooner, but things got out of hand with a friend's birthday and other pesky real life issues. You know how it is. Anyways, let's take a look at Filli Vanilli! That's how you spell it, right?

Ok, let's see- well first up is the entire premise of the episode. Fluttershy dealing with a stage fright and singing in front of others. Now while this is entirely plausible (I'd be more confused if she WASN'T shown to have this fear), I was too caught up in the line of thinking of "hasn't Fluttershy sang in front of ponies before?" Find A Pet is a decent example of this, as is the Crystal Empire episodes, Heart's Warming Eve, and you get the picture. However I'm willing to write it off to plot convenience though. Gotta break a few eggs to make an omelet after all.

So it was established pretty early on that this was a musical episode. There seem to be a few of those lately- Magical Mystery Cure, Pinkie's Pride, and now this. Maybe it's just me. Either way, while the first song was really lacking in meaning to me, the rest of the music I LOVED! Which was really only one song over and over again... Ah well, it's a really good song! And the grand majority of the music was performed by this group called the Pony Tones! Featuring Rarity (oh, cool) two unnamed ponies (I thought one of them was Cherry Jubilee for a minute. That would have been bizarre. Either way, I wish they had given these two names.) and Big Mac!

Wait, what? BIG MAC? Big Mac sings? ...OK then. I can roll with this.

So yeah. Big Mac sings, which is awesome. However it turns out he loses his voice the day before the performance due to a Turkey Call Contest. Right, I'm honestly going to skip over that. So they go to Zecora (yay, Zecora screentime!) to find a remedy, and she gives them one they weren't expecting- Flutterguy.

It was at this point I "lost my sh**" as they say.

Man, this came so far out of left field for me I don't have the words to describe it. They were bringing FLUTTERGUY back? This made my day it was so awesome.

All right, I've gotten a little off track. Lots of stuff in this episode. Now what's next... Oh yeah. Pinkie Pie. I can practically hear the pitchforks come out when I typed that. Now I need to get this off my chest- I've heard that there were DEATH THREATS sent to Amy Keating Rodgers over how Pinkie behaved. I really hope I don't have to tell you guys that that is completely unacceptable. I know I may come off as a little harsh, but death threats? Over how a character acted in a cartoon? Yeah, no. Just no.

Now that's out of the way, I was a little disturbed by Pinkie's behavior. I gave it some thought, and I reached the conclusion that it wasn't completely out of character for Pinkie. She wasn't purposely being cruel, she was just a little... removed from the situation. She even says at one point "Am I doing it again?" So I forgive her for it. Really once you get past the insanely blunt words and the Fluttershy... crying....

Nope, can't do it. I just can't. Not making Fluttershy cry.

*clears throat* Moving on- smaller things now. The "hipster pony" as I've heard him called, was nice, and his daughter was friggin adorable. Though I get the sense she's the time of adorable that becomes annoying after long enough. I really enjoyed the wink to "Heart's and Hooves Day" with Cheerilee fainting and blushing at Big Mac. I genuinely think those two are canon at this point. Well I guess we're going to get another wedding episode! *cue onslaught of toys and obvious cash-ins*

Last but not least for me is Fluttershy's line "baby steps." Oh my gosh I loved that line. It felt so much more real than a lot of conclusions you see out there, especially when it comes to Flutters. We've done lessons like this before at least twice and it hasn't stuck with her yet, so this line was a HUGE plus to me on this episode.

All in all, I'm giving Filli Vanilli a 3.5 out of 5. Good music, good points all around, and a, while small, really great twist on the conclusion makes this a pretty good episode for me. Season 4 has been really good for me as a whole, and I have a lingering sense of dread for the inevitable conclusion. Oh well, all good things must come to an end. Thanks for reading you guys, and I'll see you all next time!