Review of Flutter Brutter

An episode about an entitled slacker who lives with his parents being forced to move out and get an actual job? Finally, an episode aimed primarily at Bronies!

I kid, I kid. This was a solid episode overall. It's been long overdue, but we finally have met Fluttershy's family. Not just her brothers, but also her parents. I like how this results in different character dynamics for Fluttershy. We have seen her get mad several times during the show's run, but this is the first time we've seen her so continuously peeved *gasp* at somepony. It also allows us to see how much Fluttershy has grown over the show, which is usually not a strength associated with Fluttershy-centric episodes. Here we get to see how Fluttershy, who has learned how to put her hoof down, helps her parent's stand up to Zephyr Breeze.

Speaking of Zephyr, he was a fairly fun character. Got a few laughs out of me. I do feel like his struggle of never wanting to try things could've been stronger if he had a backstory where he did try something and failed, which is partially why he's afraid to try to do something again. I do like how he thinks Fluttershy and Rainbow wouldn't understand his struggle, since from his point of view, they're heroes who have never failed. It would've been nice though, if Flutter and Rainbow shared about the times they have screwed up; especially Dash, who had just had several screw-ups in the last Dave Zapp penned episode, Newbie Dash. (Speaking of that episode, I've softened up on it a tad. After hearing others talk about it and rewatching it, I realized the episoded wasn't as bad as I thought. It still makes some mis-steps that make it feel too mean-spirited, but objectively it's not the worst episode this season)

Although I liked Zephyr's character fine, I didn't like his character design at all. First off, that color scheme looks hideous. I know what they were going for, Fluttershy has green eyes, a pink mane, and yellow fur; Zephyr has green fur, a yellow mane, and pink eyes; but it just doesn't look good. I think he would've looked better with a green mane, pink eyes, and yellow fur. And while we're talking about that mane, who thought it was a good idea to give him some weird Bee-Hive Man-Bun?! If it wasn't for the stubble (which looks really strange on him) I would've thought he was a mare.

And while we're talking about criticisms, while I liked the song OK, it literally came out of nowhere. Usually songs in MLP have some build up to make sure a song doesn't start off abruptly. Here I was like, "Wait Fluttershy, you're singing? Are we getting a song this late in the episode?"

Overall Dave Zapp has stepped up his game with this episode. Between the solid humor, solid moral, solid characters, and solid song, this episode comes off as......solid. While not the best episode of season six, I still enjoyed watching it. I'll give it a 7.8/10.