Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh, welcome back everypony to another edition of "Batbrony Reviews"! We had ourselves a nice one today, very nice indeed; Fluttershy's first starring role since the start of the season, and my oh my was it a nice one indeed. "Flutter Brutter" has the distinction of being a very commendable episode despite having an EXTRAORDINARILY annoying character in it. Without further ado, let's begin and take a look, shall we?

 

 

 

 

 

So for me, by far the best element of this episode was Fluttershy. This is a fantastic example of how you do continuity in character development correctly. As a firstborn son and older brother myself, I had no trouble at all, whatsoever, believing that she had a history with her brother (obviously that's not to say I have a bad relationship with my little sister, she's amazing, just saying that I totally believed that she was Zephyr Breeze's big sister from personal experience, her interactions with him felt very natural and sibling-like). On top of that, we both learned where Fluttershy got her timid-to-a-fault nature from (and dear me, her parents did not do themselves or her any favors with those personalities of theirs) and also got to see her current, far more assertive personality juxtaposed beside her parents, who were representative of what she used to be like. It was GREAT, and really highlighted the extent that her character has developed since Season 1 (seems like just yesterday she was afraid of her own shadow). At no point did she take Zephyr's crap, at no point did she back down, and at no point did Fluttershy compromise who she was. She just tried to be a good big sister and dole out some much-needed tough love to her little brother, through and through. In earlier seasons, that might've been a Mary Sue performance, but not here, not after six seasons. This was Fluttershy taking six seasons of lessons learned about how to be a stronger mare than she ever thought she could be and applying it to someone who she loved but also knew desperately needed to change their life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now as for Zephyr, I'm actually mixed, but not because he was annoying. Oh no, don't get me wrong, he was, but that worked perfectly fine for what they were doing here. My sole problem is that while this episode worked perfectly fine as a story about his character, I don't think that it's particularly applicable to a real-world scenario. Now obviously there are people out there who struggle with simply trying something, people afraid of failure to the point that they never try at all, people who have trouble seeing things through. But that said, Zephyr took it to a whole other level. He was so insufferable, so annoying, so obnoxious, so narcissistic, so completely incompetent for 90% of the episode that he felt more like a parody of someone who could have these problems than a portrayal of them. Again, that worked here. I delighted in hating him, it was quite fun. And I didn't think his turnaround was too sudden either; he seemed to be taking good baby steps at the end, and he still obviously has to find a job and a place of his own before he can say he's really independent and in control of his life. But like I said, I don't think anyone is going to watch this episode and go, "Wow, that guy's just like me," because I don't think anyone could possibly come close in the slightest to being as annoying as he was. So overall, he worked in the show, but that's it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Besides that, this episode was very nicely paced and covered quite a few places for a slice of life episode. We went to Cloudsdale, Ponyville, Twilight's Castle, Fluttershy's house, Carousel Boutique, and got to see a ton of faces. Fluttershy's parents did not disappoint and it was easy to see how both of their children grew up with the personal problems that they did as a result of both parents not being very assertive themselves. I actually really liked that the show did not beat around the bush and pretend it wasn't their fault; oftentimes parent characters are Mary Sues or Gary Stus who are just there to cheer their children on in animated TV shows, but it was quite clear that the root of both Fluttershy and Zephyr Breeze's problems was their parents not being assertive at all. Rainbow Dash was also quite delightful as well; this is one of the first times I've ever seen where she actually felt like a wingmare to Fluttershy and she was totally supportive of her from start to finish, but not in a patronizing way. Her running gag with Zephyr hitting on her incessantly in the most obnoxious way he possibly could (by constantly insisting that she was the one infatuated with him) was hilarious and had a gratifying conclusion when we saw that Rainbow had gotten to zap Zephyr more than a few times with lightning, and it was cool too getting to see more confirmation that she grew up as friends with Fluttershy in Cloudsdale, and also that she was as aware as anypony else was that Zephyr was an annoying twat.

 

 

 

 

 

Oh, and there was also a song... that kind of came out of nowhere. It was a perfectly fine song, not amazing, but good. It just really had no set up. One second Rainbow Dash is talking, the next second Fluttershy's singing. So... yeah, that happened.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Overall, this was an episode that could have been awful. They really could have done this lesson and new character wrong, but I'm glad to say that that simply was not the case. Fluttershy was portrayed fantastically, Zephyr was what he needed to be, it was great finally getting to see Fluttershy's family and also learn that, even though her parents were perfectly lovely, that did NOT mean that their family life was all hunky-dory and in tip top shape. I will admit that I just want to chop that stupid looking man-bun (or is it stallion-bun?) off of Zephyr's head... and possibly his head too... but that's beside the point. The point is, this was great, and Fluttershy had a smashing good first episode of the season.