MLP Episode Review: Putting Your Hoof Down · 7:02pm Oct 6th, 2015
Okay, so there's more impetus for an 'Other Media Watches My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic' super-page, I'm gonna try to get these out quicker. So, put your hands up quickly, or else you'll be sorry when it comes time to be...
Putting Your Hoof Down
We open on Fluttershy getting lunch for all her animals. It's cute and adorable, and then Angel was an asshole/zombie. He kicks aside her greens, then kicks aside a rather nice salad and plays dead, then gets a cookbook with a rather elaborate salad there. Fluttershy's not sure she can make it, but he's a whiny little rabbit. And then he slaps her and jams the book into her face. Angel, fuck you. After the credits, Fluttershy's at Ponyville's market. She gets in line for asparagus, and some jackass cuts right in front of her, then says she didn't notice Fluttershy there. Yeah, bullshit? Then some older stallion gets in line, and to be fair to him she was out of the line. Then two 80's chicks get cut in front of her and this is getting insanely ridiculous in the stupid sense. She backs away, passing Rarity and Pinkie. Rarity tells Fluttershy she mustn't let them treat her this way.
"You are a pony with a problem!" God, when season-two Pinkie makes sense... Anyway, while they're trying a pep-talk, some... stereotypical-looking nerd gets the last bundle of asparagus. So Rarity butters him up and gets the bundle from him. With no compensation. Yeah, not gonna lie. I kinda sorta hate that. Fluttershy gets tomatoes, but the price has doubled since last week. That's some bad inflation, there. Pinkie pulls a duck season/rabbit season on the vendor and I am not actually mad at her for doing so. So the final ingredient, a cherry. She spills that she needs the cherry to the vendor... and he charges ten bits. Ten. Bits. I hope his stall burns down with him in it! Fluttershy tries to butter him up, but no go. Pinkie's strategy massively backfires as Pinkie pulls an ostrich. The vendor then raises the price to twenty bits.
Then some mare walks by and buys it for two bits. And I am actually pretty damned angry. And no, this is not 'Fluttershy's perspective', since Rarity and Pinkie are there and reacting to the insane price gouging. These are vendors and customers being assholes for... the hell of it, pretty much. Back at her cottage, she puts the salad in front of Angel. But because of no cherry, he... tosses her out of her own cottage. God, I want the little shit shot and turned into rabbit stew at this point. Fluttershy realizes she's got a problem, but in her mail is an advert for Iron Will's assertiveness training. And Fluttershy channels her inner Scarlett O'Hara.
Back from commercial, and in an insanely clever bit, the seminar is in the middle of a hedge maze. :D Goats with headsets are staff personnel. Fluttershy tries to make her way to the front, and is literally tossed to the back. *Groan of anger* Speakers begin pumping. Smoke machines activate. A spotlight turns on as a medley eerily reminiscent of 'Eye of the Tiger begins. And...
Rainbow Dash flies down and shouts, "Magic, schmagic, boo!" :D No, it's Iron Will! And...
IF YOU SMELL-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA... WHAT THE WILL. IS. COOKING!
He's Iron Will. He's a minotaur and he's fucking awesome. He's an informercial host. He also says that if you're not 100% satisfied, they pay nothing. But he pities the fool who doubts him! he then drives a black van with red stripes and participates in the main event of Wrestlemania I. His lessons include, "Look them in the eye." He needs a volunteer, and a goat points out Fluttershy. She gets up on stage, but a goats tries to block her path. What's she gonna do? Know her role and shut her mouth? No. "When some pony tries to block, show them that you rock!" "Never apologize, when you can criticize!" And check yourself into the Smackdown Hotel. And Fluttershy... actually asserts herself.
Back home, she 'attacks the day'. Outside, Mister Greenhooves drowns her petunias and is rather dismissive of her. So she steps on the hose and lets him get a squirt in the eye. She's giddy! On a bridge, Bonbon and one of the Flower Trio are blocking the route entirely with a standup routine. Fluttershy asks them to move... when she can fly over. They're very rude to her, though, while creating a safety hazard. So she... kicks their wagons over and dumps several hundred pounds of garbage on them. Eh... overreaction, Fluttershy. Ten yard penalty, first down!
At Sugarcube Corner, someone cuts in front of her. What is with Ponyville residents and cutting in line today... writers? She spins her around and asks who in the blue hell she is to cut. 100% in agreement with Fluttershy. But the rest of the line scoots back, too. Outside of the damned shop! That is... not really her doing. So Fluttershy goes to the counter... and Pinkie calls Iron Will a 'monster'. Not cool, Pinkie! Pinkie says Old Pinkie is proud of New Fluttershy. She's better than New Coke, even! She gets into a bit of a laughing fit... which Fluttershy misinterprets as laughing at her. She knocks the punch over! She then flies out to get a taxi, that some other pony hops into. She beats the crap out of the interloper and bodily tosses him out. "Nopony pushes new Fluttershy around!" Or else she will kick their roody-poo, candy-ass! And both Rarity and Pinkie are unsure about New Fluttershy. I'd make a 'New 52' joke, but I haven't read any of those comics.
Back at her cottage, Fluttershy is now using Canterlock-light on her animals. She beats the crap out of the mailman after he delivers the wrong mail. A tourist asks directions to the 'Ponyville Tower', but Fluttershy drops her mail into a Convenient Puddle. She blames him and she's gone around the bend. She whips him into a hay bale, his camera bouncing off a bell in the possible Ponyville Tower. Pinkie and Rarity ask her what's going on, and Rarity says she thinks Fluttershy's taken her training a little too far. They want Nice Fluttershy back. And Fluttershy... goes too far. Here are some excerpts:
"Things getting too complicated for your simple little brain, Pinkie Pie?" "Why not? I thought petty was what you're all about, Rarity. With your petty concerns about fashion!" "I can't believe that the two most frivolous ponies in Ponyville are trying to tell New Fluttershy how to live her life when they are throwing their lives away on pointless pursuits that nopony else gives a flying feather about!" Wow. In the previous episode, I wanted to kill Pinkie Pie. Here, I'm actually feeling kinda sorry for her. They gallop away, sobbing. Fluttershy looks down... and the Abyss stares back.
That evening, or during a bad storm, Fluttershy's boarded up her cottage with her inside. Rarity and Pinkie go to check up on her. "We all said things we regret." "We did?" *Slaps Pinkie upside the head with a trout* Inside we see Fluttershy tied up, with Angel doing the tying. Natch. They tell her she received some bad advice... except it wasn't really. It was Fluttershy swinging from one extreme to the other. And inside we have a Meaningful Shot of Fluttershy looking at herself in the mirror, with a pair of horns on her reflection. She's not sure she can't be assertive without overdoing it. And we have a monster segue into Iron Will showing up. He's... there to get his due compensation. "Fluttershy's in no shape to deal with that creep!" He's not a creep, Pinkie! Maybe if he was trying to 'apologize', though...
Anyway, Rarity tries to butter him up, but no go. And I'm cheering Iron Will on. Pinkie fools him into thinking she's not home, so he... goes grocery shopping while they look for her. Only a half-day, but Pinkie pulls another duck season. However, Fluttershy sneezes and the monster... goes to get due compensation for services provided! He tosses Pinkie into a mud puddle and has earned my undying devotion. He tears off the boards nailed into the door, rears back and... politely knocks. Yes, such a monster. [/sarcasm_on_full] He wants her to pay him and for the love of Primus,just pay the guy!
She says... "Um, no." And Pinkie faints. Iron Will loses it a bit and stretches her wooden fence a'la ring ropes. She says she wasn't 100% satisfied, so she wants her money-back guarantee. Iron Will confabs with his goats and tries to negotiate, but no means no. And apparently... no one's told him no before. Pinkie and Rarity hug her, Pinkie calling Iron Will a monster and no correction on that. Rarity says she's the same old Fluttershy, too. She apologizes for going too far and they make up. We get a voice-over of Fluttershy writing a letter to Celestia, saying that standing up for yourself doesn't mean changing who you are. While the voice-over happens, she tries feeding Angel again. He's a little asshole, so I think she gives him the Stare. And he eats. Finally.
Thoughts
I... I don't know what to say, here. I found this one, barring Iron Will, to be pretty damned unpleasant and incited a lot of cringing. The market scene just makes no damned sense to me. And again, it was not 'Fluttershy's perspective'. Those ponies, overall, were rude assholes. And it was just, "Ah, oh!" for me. And while I didn't mind Pinkie's duck season gambit, Rarity buttering up that guy to get his asparagus from him angered me a lot.
Fluttershy... needs help. A therapist, someone to talk to and through some of the problems she has. She swings from one extreme to the other through this episode like a metronome. Angel... god how I loathed him here.
So, is there a saving grace to this episode? Yes, there is. His name?
IRON WILL!
I love the guy. His advice is sound... when not taken to the extreme. He's funny. He's nice and polite and damned reasonable. And quite frankly, he gets demonized a lot. Lemme put it to you this way. You know my views on Trixie, right? Got screwed over in Boast Busters, not that bad a pony and all that? I think Iron Will gets screwed over even more than she does!
1. There was an old flash game on the old Hub website that had him as a boss character.
2. After season two they put out four free posters. One of them seemed to be a 'bad guy' poster. Trixie was on it, which was bullshit. but Iron Will was on it, which was even worse.
3. And finally, apparently the IDW comics did something with him, casting him as a bad guy. And my interest in reading those comics are no in the negative percentage.
So, I'm sorry, but this episode hit a lot of wrong notes for me.
And so, I must go, walk down to the mailbox at the bottom of the hill and get the mail. But after that, it's about time to review 'It's About Time'. Or, "Twilight, stop it NOW!"
I do agree that Iron Will REALLY gets too much negative light. Fluttershy took her lessons too far.
Oh yeah, Iron Will is a remarkably good guy, all things considered. Fluttershy just happens to be the wrong pony for his brand of confidence-building, because hoo boy does the Yellowquiet have a lot of pent-up anger inside her.
I heard that a lot of fans shipped Fluttershy and Iron Will together, and were disappointed when he showed up again in the comics and he turned out to be married with a son.
It might be less inflation and more a volatile tomato market.
As someone who hates tomatoes, I find that notion puzzling.
For some, getting chatted up by a lovely lady and/or mare like Rarity is compensation in and of itself.
