MLP episode review: A Bird in the Hoof · 4:04pm Jun 17th, 2014
A Bird in the Hoof
is worth two in the bush. Unless it's an ex-bird, then go for the two in the bush. However, if you're playing the market, hold onto that ex-bird. There's a market for it somewhere.
Anyway! We open at Fluttershy's cottage. She helps a mouse in a wheelchair to his family at a cartoon mousehole. It is so freakin' cute I have no words other than HNNGGGGG!!! and *Cluthces chest and falls over from the cute*. Angel runs over, clutching a stopwatch. Hmm, Fluttershy must fly the four-minute mile? There's a bit of charades. Angel wants to be a watch? Well, Fluttershy and trees... The clock tower chimes in the distance and Fluttershy realizes she's late for a very important date! Quick, someone drop her some acid so she can get to Wonderland! No? Oh, it's a brunch for Celestia at Sugarsube Corner. Fluttershy does some semi-clunky wondering about if ehs should even go, then trumpets blow. Oh, it's not Celestia. It's King Friday XIII! God, now that would be a crossover! She runs off, then runs back to thank Angel, then lather, rinse and repeat until Angel locks the door. Okay, that's good. :D
At Sugarcube Corner, Dash bugs the Royal Guardsponies there and acts like they're the guards at Buckingham Palace. Well, the stereotypical versions of them at least. She even asks how she could join the Guard, too! She gets bored and goes back inside. Guards, one. Dash, zero! Fluttershy arrives, but their wings of steel stop her and almost give one hell of a mane cut! Twilight trots by and vouches for her, and she's let in. Inside we see the party. Spike is baking muffins with his dragon breath while Carrot Cake serves them. We see Celestia there, saying everything's fine. Fluttershy and Twilight talk and Twilight has a mild breakdown. For god's sake even Fluttershy points it out! Twilight says this is the first time she's ever really met them, and Fluttershy says there should be nothing to worry about. And on cue Rarity has a freakout about getting her dress dirty. Her Gala dress. Why is she in that?! We've seen her in other dresses. We know she has other dresses. I'm calling animation/writer error on this one.
We see Applejack not entirely sure where to start on the food. Ah, Aunt and Uncle Orange, if they could see you now. ;) Okay, to be fair it's probably been a long time since those days in Manehattan. Fluttershy tries to reassure Twilight and then Pinkie Pie... acts like a complete effin' idiot. No, seriously. She bounces around like a moron, slaps a pie in her face, drinks from the chocolate fountain and then goes up and is rather rude in Celestia's face. It's... yeah. The cakes' understandably freak and Cup Cake drags her off while Carrot apologizes. Celestia drinks her tea and we get the tea gag. "Gotcha." Okay, legit props for that to both the writers and Celestia. :) Also, I now wonder how badly she has to go to the bathroom. :p
She spots Fluttershy and strikes up a conversation about her and her tending to the woodland creatures. Celestia cares about all creatures, great and small. And then we hear a car's engine turning over. No, wait. It's her pet Philomena! She don't look so good. She looks sicker than me after reading Star By Star. A guard comes up and it turns out Mayor Mare has an audience with her. Probably to request an appeal about the impeachment due her gross negligence. Also, Twilight nearly does a spit-take. Why? There's no reason. She thanks them and walks out. Fluttershy has a meaningful look with Philomena. Applejack tries to eat, but the tablecloth and food is pulled away. The hell? Clear the dishes off, first! Pinkie Pie cartwheels out like an idiot and clocks some poor pony in the face, hopefully getting sued in the process. Rarity holds her dress hostage to leave, and we have a nice payoff with Applejack leaving with a bunch of food balanced on her nose. Twilight tells Spike no big disasters happened, and we swing over to see an empty birdcage. Oh, noes!
We cut to Fluttershy taking Philomena into her cottage, and some scenes of Fluttershy trying to help her. I won't recap them, but overall they're pretty funny. And in hindsight, yeah. Philomena's being a huge troll. And finally, Twilight comes in and says thanks for making such a good impression on the Princess. And she spots Philomena and begins freaking out. Fluttershy says she couldn't leave her there, and Twilight, rightfully, points out she doesn't belong to her. Meanwhile, Philomena is chewing the scenery worse than John Lovitz in his "ACTING!" SNL sketches. Fluttershy relents and says they'll return her. Twilight says if they hurry, they can get her back before anyone notices she's gone. She opens the door, and right on cue are two Royal Guardsponies. The pet's been noticed to have flown the coop. And Twilight is about ten seconds away from a Lesson Point-Five at this point. They BS the guards and this is, again, pretty damned funny. She shoves them out, shuts the door and begins hyperventilating.
She sees Fluttershy going to return the pet and says she has no idea what Celestia will do. Fluttershy asks Twilight is she has any idea. "Well, no." She might be banished, thrown into a dungeon, or banished and then thrown into a dungeon. Fluttershy calls her out on her bullshit with a great little look and Twilight, you need therapy. And no, I am NOT joking on that. All Fluttershy wants to do is get Philomena help. Twilight... is not helping. Twilight asks-kinda out of nowhere-if Fluttershy gave her any medicine. She tried, but no go. So Twilight says she can't be such a pushover-Ohhai, Putting your Hoof Down!-and show her whp's the boss. Tony Danza or Judith Light? And we see the iconic image of Twilight with a pill. Twilight pulls a Doctor Pulaski with Philomena and it's really disturbing. She opens Philomena's cage to force her to eat soup and she makes a break for it. Fly for it, Philomena! Get away from the crazy unicorn while I tranque Twilight!
We get a chase scene with Yakity Sax playing. Great callback and quite funny. We get Scooby-Doo doors, and RIP Casey. :( The Royal Guard's useless, natch. Dash suddenly flies over, figures they're having a race and joins in. Because! We cut over to Rarity, Pinkie and Applejack hanging out near a fountain. They look around for the bird, but the Royal Guard spot Philomena on top of the fountain. The bird does some overdramatic ACTING and then topples down. Fluttershy races to save her... but the bird bursts into flame and turns into a pile of ash, landing in Fluttershy's outstretched hooves. Oh, harsh!
Fluttershy breaks down and I wanna hug her. Celestia arrives and asks what's going on. Twilight and Fluttershy try to take the blame for each other and then Pinkie Pie says it's her fault. Not this time, Pinkie. Later... Fluttershy spills the beans about what she did. Celestia bends down to the pile of ash, and then chides the ash. Pony what? The ash shudders, flows up into the sky and transforms into a large bird, with dramatic solar backlighting! Very convenient, Celly. :p Fluttershy's confused, and we learn she's a phoenix! We get some info on what a phoenix is. Quite nice. Celestia leans down and tells Fluttershy it's rather melodramatic. Hah! She tells Philomena to say she's rory for taking advantage of Fluttershy. Aww. :D Fluttershy asks if she'll be banished/the whole nine yards. Celestia says no, and asks where she got such an idea. From Twilight 'bugfuck nuts insane' Sparkle, of course! Fluttershy covers for her insane little friend. Twilight says Fluttershy did everything she could.
Celestia appreciates it, but points out all she had to do was ask. Next time, find out before jumping to conclusions. Twilight asks if she should write Celestia a letter about this, but no. She'll remember. The guards bring in Philomena's cage and she gives Fluttershy a feather. Dash whispers to Philomena, and she tickles the guard's noses. We end on an actually organic 'everybody laughs' ending, and credits.
Thoughts
Good episode, but dang! We see early 'Lesson Zero' behavior from Twilight, which is actually genuinely disturbing and shows a remarkable amount of her not getting Celestia. I have my own problems with Celestia, but not the ones Twilight has here. She needs help. Like, seriously. It's kinda funny on its own, but taking into account future behavior and it loses that very quickly. The whole banishment thing... Twilight, what the hell? What the everloving hell is wrong with you?!
There were some good comedy bits, most of them with Philomena. Some think this was some elaborate prank with Celestia. I don't. She seemed genuinely surprised near the end of the episode, and her telling Philomena to say she was sorry was not in any real way gentle. Philomena played the prank, not Celestia.
I did like the party... mostly. I loved the tea prank. Applejack and Dash didn't really do anything wrong. Dash's little teasing of the guards was pretty harmless and outside. Applejack was simply having a hard time remembering her Manehattan lessons. Rarity... why didn't you wear another dress again? Pinkie Pie, ho boy. That wasn't cool in any way, shape or form.
This was a good lesson, too. Find out what the heck's going on first before going into an unfamiliar situation, or committing Grand-Theft Birdnapping. :D Overall I did like this episode. Yes, there was some odd behavior and Twilight needs therapy, again, NOT JOKING about that, but good lesson, good scenes, good comedy and good show, show!
Headcanon
Megan knew Philomena from when she visited Dream Valley before and was helping to raise Celestia and Luna. She has one of her feathers.
The Royal Guard is a part of the Equestrian Armed Forces, but not the entirety of it. There's the Royal Tank Corps, the Teleportation Corps, the Royal Air Force, so on and so forth. General Spanish Steel, a pegasus, is the Chairpony of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He personally assigned Captain Shining Armor to the Royal Guard to clean it up after centuries of incompetence. He's still working on it as of season two.
Yeah, Twilight's anxiety issues came to a head in "Lesson Zero," but they were definitely there in Season 1. Here, "Swarm of the Century," really any time Celestia is involved. At least in the premiere, Twilight had the fate of the world to focus on.
Twilight's interesting in that she handles real, genuinely important crises pretty damn well. She only freaks out over the minor stuff, when there's not enough pressure to keep her focused or enough to do to keep her brain busy.
The thing I like most about this episode is that its basically an episode long reference to an incident in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.
Who?
Oh!
Mr. Rogers Neighborhood! It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood.