Doctor Perseus Reviews: "Canterlot Boutique" *SPOILERS* · 4:06am Sep 13th, 2015
In this week's MLP return, Rarity finally achieves her dream of starting a boutique in Canterlot. But when her new manager Sassy Saddles starts to steal her spotlight and Rarity finds herself forced to fulfill hundreds of orders of the same dress; she slowly starts to think that success in Canterlot may not be something she wants after all...
MLP is finally back from its mid-season hiatus. Another wonderful thing about MLP is that when it returns it feels almost as if it had never left. Of course this helps when you have a great episode to kick off the second half of a season. I really liked this episode.
It's great to finally get another Rarity episode. It's been quite a while since we last had one. And it looks like Season 5 is making up for it with two more Rarity-centered episodes after this one. I guess we'll start calling this the Rarity Trilogy in future years. Rarity was great in the episode, as expected. She always tends to shine in her episodes. It was nice to see Rarity fulfill her dream of getting a boutique in Canterlot. One thing that really shows how far Rarity has developed is that we never saw her fall into a chaotic state like she used to while under pressure. When pushed to her breaking point, she stood her ground; making sure that it was known that it was either Rarity's way or the highway. I was really glad to see her ultimately keep the boutique in Canterlot, in spite of a few bumps to get over, and it's nice to see Rarity achieving her dream one step at a time.
Sassy Saddles was quite an interesting addition to the episode. I spent a lot of the episode disliking her, given how she was constantly stealing the spotlight from Rarity, but I was genuinely surprised and glad to see her learn her lesson by the end and change her ways. She seemed very much like a pony who was caught at an intersection; one path taking her down the road of Rarity and another taking her down the road of Suri Polomare. Obviously, she took the Rarity path and it's nice to see another fashion mare inspired positively by Rarity.
While the rest of the Mane 6 and Spike appeared in the episode, they didn't feel useless or shoved in. Though I don't recall if Spike even got a line of dialogue or not. Either way, they all had a fitting amount of screentime and didn't overstay their welcome. The various ponies we saw in the episode were a lot of fun. The overly-enthusiastic Fashion Plate (who easily had the best face animations in the episode), the goth mare (who I'm not sure reminded me more of Maud Pie or Eska from The Legend of Korra), and the...erm..."big boned" mare were some notable favorites of mine. And Fleur Dis Lee made a background reappearance so that was nice. The episode's song "Rules of Rarity" was an enjoyable one and it's probably a song that I'll enjoy the more I re-listen to it. But, as of now, I don't see it being one of my favorites of Season 5.
Overall, I really liked Canterlot Boutique. It was a great start to the Season 5 Rarity Trilogy (yes, I'm sticking with that). What did the rest of you think of Canterlot Boutique?
Next week's episode is Rarity Investigates!
When Rainbow Dash is accused of a crime she didn't commit, it falls on Rarity to prove her friend is innocent.
If you need help with that, Rarity, you can always summon Phoenix Wright to help you. 
I also thoroughly enjoyed MLP's return in this episode. I go all into it in my review.
Spike was in this episode?!
I came very, very close to calling these next three Rarity episodes the "Rarity Trilogy" in my review. Beat me to the punch, you did.
I also thought of Maud. But how could I forget about Eska?
I thought this episode was a strong one...and that's about all. It was certainly enjoyable, but not rooted in any real "standout" moments; translation, in total it was good-to-great, but its individual parts weren't much to write home about. From an outside, standalone perspective, at least. From an inside perspective, however, just the premise of the episode is amazing, showing real progress made by Rarity on her career path following on numerous previous episodes. I also liked how Sassy's only "fault" was a mis-attribution of priority, focusing on the success of the business over the purity of the craft, a easy mistake to make, and wasn't above realizing she was wrong.