Episode Re-Review: Fluttershy Leans In · 3:50pm Jun 11th, 2021
Season 7 finally had a hit on its hands with "Rock Solid Friendship", but there was still no clear direction for it after four episodes. What (if anything) was the overall theme? Where was this season going to take our characters? Well, this episode wasn't going to offer up much in the way of answers. What it would feature was another "achieving the dream" episode, in this case it would be Fluttershy achieving her never before mentioned dream of opening an animal sanctuary. And who was writing it? None other than Gillian M. Berrow, who at the time had just brought her chapter book series to a close with a real dud focused on Trixie. This is arguably the first Season 7 episode to be forgettable, not really bad but not really good either. Is there a reason for that, or is there something this episode offered that people just didn't see originally? Well, let's find out.
The episode begins with Angel Bunny practicing for a "Pawkour" contest, when he misses a jump and breaks his leg. Unfortunately, Fluttershy is out of bunny footbraces and so she needs to take him to see Dr. Fauna who is Ponyville's local vet. This means Fluttershy can't be a vet either, which kind of raises the question of what exactly her profession is. I mean, up to this episode I think everyone assumed she was a licensed vet given what we'd seen. But maybe she's a professional breeder or something?
Anyway, Dr. Fauna is very busy because all sorts of animals (which apparently include stuff like giraffes) are stopping by her clinic. Interestingly, Dr. Fauna was seen briefly before during "Secret of My Excess" where she was meant to be more of a Jane Goodall expy (weird that they would turn the vet away from that when Jane is a famous gorilla expert, but would then turn around and make a new expy in the form of Mane Allgood who seemed to be more of a general wildlife expert and tamer). Heck, after the theme song the first line she says here is "I'm flummoxed" which is the same line she said during her last appearance. The only difference is that she's now voiced by Nicole Oliver instead of Cathy Wesluck, dropping the Australian accent.
The problem is, the animals that are coming to see Dr. Fauna aren't leaving, and so she has no room to treat any of the animals actually sick or injured. And Fluttershy reveals that she mentioned how great Dr. Fauna was, causing this problem inadvertently. Then she decides that in order to help fix the mess she's caused, she'll open up a sanctuary like she's always dreamed of doing. A dream that she never expressed a desire in at any point prior. Rarity and Rainbow Dash's dreams were well stated almost from day one of the show. I'm not saying it's out of character for Fluttershy to want to open a sanctuary, but trying to claim this as a dream she's always had feels so out of left field. Still, it can't do much worse than what we saw when Rainbow Dash got to achieve her dream.
Fluttershy shows off her plan to her friends, and they start to refer some "experts" to help get the sanctuary up and running. Applejack proposes an animal herder named Wrangler that she knows from when Winona used to be a herder, though I'm not sure an animal sanctuary really needs one. Then again, it's probably better to have and not need then to need and not have if an animal were to escape.
Pinkie Pie proposes a construction pony called Hard Hat that she knows about supposedly from her brief stint as a construction pony during "Pinkie Pride". Then Rarity proposes something that I absolutely fail to understand why a sanctuary would require it: An interior designer. And she's not talking about herself either even though you'd think she would be and probably would have at least some idea of what Fluttershy might expect. She instead proposes a pony called Dandy Grandieur who apparently helped her and Sassy Saddles with designing Canterlot Carousel. Because a boutique in a big city and an animal sanctuary near a forest are totally the same thing.
So Fluttershy meets with each of the "experts" and shows off her vague concept of a sanctuary that she had previously used to explain her dream to her friends. Then, as soon as Fluttershy leaves all three of the "experts" decide that Fluttershy doesn't know what she's doing and so they should just go ahead and do things their way without consulting her. Heck, Hard Hat even decides to just recycle the blueprint he used for another building even though I'm sure no actual "expert" builder or architect would ever do that. Dandy Grandieur is probably to be expected given that he of course doesn't know anything about Fluttershy or animals, but even Wrangler you'd think would at least be above the idea of thinking you can just stuff pillows into cages and call it a day. Naturally, the sanctuary they design is a mess and yet they turn around and blame it on Fluttershy for having a bad vision. To an extent they might be right, if they had actually bothered to try to follow it. But they immediately dismissed out of hoof and tried to do it their way. Yes, Fluttershy's vision was vague and shouldn't have been used as anything other than an initial sales pitch to attract talent, but when someone hires you for a job and asks you to build something you don't automatically take over and build it according to what you would want. So Fluttershy puts her hoof down and dismisses all three of the "experts".
Not wanting to give up on her dream though, Fluttershy goes back to her friends only to object when they start proposing ridiculous suggestions like a library cave. Then she says that she's going to do things her way because she believes she's an expert on animals. But just because one is an expert on caring for animals doesn't mean one knows how to build a sanctuary to make animals feel at home and keep them safe. However, she does turn to "one expert" in the form of Big Daddy McColt who she apparently got in touch with through unexplained methods. But his existence here raises the question of why Fluttershy didn't just try to reach out to him in the first place if he knows about building and caring for animals?
Then, during a montage we see Spike and Starlight appear in non-speaking cameos to help build the sanctuary even though they were not present at any other point during the episode (like Berrow just forgot they existed and someone else hastily put them in here). At least one reviewer suggested that this should've been what the episode was about from the start, and I kind of have to agree. I'm sure there could've still been a conflict of Fluttershy learning to accept help from others to get her sanctuary completed. Anyway, the sanctuary is built and unveiled officially as Sweet Feather Sanctuary. And that's pretty much it, the animals move in and that's that.
And that's the story, so what do I think of the episode? Honestly, it's just there, really. It mostly seems to serve as a showcase of Fluttershy's character growth, but only for the scene where she stands her ground and dismisses the so called "experts" after they've already gone behind her back. I mean, when Walt Disney himself proposed building Disney Land he didn't just go off a concept or a dream, he surrounded himself with talented people who could help him realize that dream and turn the concept into a working reality. And even as he was increasingly becoming self reliant in his later years, he still understood the importance of using concepts as a sales pitch to attract investors and creative talent, as can be seen by his hopes for the Florida Project that became Disney World (though he had only intended that to be a small side thing to get people interested, his real goal was to build E.P.C.O.T but he changed plans often and died before any of them could get off the ground). Experts exist for a reason, and I think most people would rightfully say they'd rather trust an expert than try to do something entirely on their own for the first time. I mean, would you want to do your own plumbing or would you rather spend money to hire a plumber that knows what they're doing? Really though, the bigger problem is that it's hard to get invested in Fluttershy's dream when it just comes out of nowhere in this episode and feels like it's something she's doing because of something else she's been doing. I mean, this episode mostly just seemed to exist to sink the idea of Fluttershy being a licensed vet, and not much else. And the moral of "Don't listen to the experts" has not aged well in the wake of the Cvoid-19 pandemic when the experts who tried to sound the alarm about how bad it was going to get, and tried to get people to take it seriously before extreme lockdown protocols had to be taken were ignored and ostricized.
So this episode gets a C-. I can't really be mad at it even despite its apparent "elitism" in its moral, which seems to be a warning sign of what was going on as Hasbro asserted more and more control over the show. But although this is nowhere near as infamously bad a dream achieving episode as "Newbie Dash", I feel way more of a sense of accomplishment from "Canterlot Boutique" despite a lot of questionable moments there and way more of a sense of accomplishment for most of the characters come Season 8 and Season 9.
Now, the next two episodes I have nothing new to say on, not even "Parental Glideance" despite what we now know about Scootaloo's family life (I still stand by my statement that she was projecting, she idolizes Rainbow Dash so much that of course she would parents to be just like Rainbow Dash's parents and can't quite see the downsides of that). So instead, we're going to skip ahead to the first of what would ultimately become a trilogy with the establishment of SugarMac in "Hard to Say Anything".
This is an episode that's just kinda dull.
"Just kinda there" definitely describes it.
What kind of "experts" do you think Twilight and Rainbow Dash would've proposed if they offered suggestions to help Fluttershy build her animal sanctuary?
5533819 I don't know.
This is one of my favs of the season. Seeing Fluttershy being so bold so much is just awesome. And the lesson isn't that you shouldn't listen to experts. Fluttershy in this case was the expert, and there's a difference between getting guidance from others and just having your idea completely twisted and warped into something else entirely, which is what they were doing. Fluttershy was in the right in this episode.
5534649 I don't know, something about that moral got lost in translation with this episode's message.
5534720
Maybe it's just the times that are making the lesson seem like something else than it is?
5534914 Even at the time this episode aired I felt like the episode's moral was confused in regards to "Don't listen to the experts".
5534915
"Other ponies may be experts in their fields, but animals are MY field of expertise!" I don't know, kinda seems pretty clear that the episode's not saying experts in general are bad.
5535004 Except Twilight then says "I thought you said no more 'experts'." And it was still a problem since Fluttershy had no real concept, just a dream.
5535090
Yeah Twilight said that, but Fluttershy then said no to that, it's not that experts were the problem, it's the way they were going about it that was the problem. The fact that Fluttershy DID enlist the help of an expert that knew how to respect her ideas and make them into something more organized afterwards shows this.