Note: Sorry it took me a few days to get this blog up ya'll. Just hadn't made time for it is all, my bad.

OK, well, this review should be pretty short. Not that the episode was bad or anything, it accomplished what it wanted and needed to just fine. But for a key episode, or an episode in general, "It Ain't Easy Being Breezies" was just pretty boring and forgettable, despite doing some things quite well. So, without further ado, let's get started.

First I guess we'll cover Fluttershy and the Breezies, seeing as there's not much to say about either of them and they were pretty interconnected in this episode. Both groups learned good lessons (will cover those more extensively in the next section) and learned something from one another. It's strange that, for her key episode of all things, Fluttershy didn't really do anything that was incredibly adorable or noteworthy (besides the bee costume I suppose, that was pretty cute). I did sort of like how grounded she was and that she was also in full-on animal caretaker mode and displayed no timidity whatsoever; it just gets old sometimes when Fluttershy's biggest recurring problem is her insecurity and fear of doing something (take your pick, there's a lot of things she's afraid of ), so I did appreciate that here she faced a dilemma in showering creatures with too much kindness instead. The Breezies themselves actually weren't that cute, at least I didn't think so; the cutest thing about them was actually their Scandinavian accents of all things! Now don't get me wrong, they didn't do anything unforgivable either, again, like Fluttershy here they just didn't leave that much of an impression on me, that's all. That's not as bad as being, well, just plain bad, but still, any film or television critic who knows their stuff knows that a cardinal sin of any form of media is to not really leave an impression of any kind, be it good or bad feelings, on the viewer. I know some people seem to think this episode was great, so if you saw something that you found particularly endearing, good for you, but for me, this episode just didn't leave that much of an impression, most notably in its two main characters, Fluttershy and the Breezies. Don't really have anything bad to say about them, but I don't really have anything good to say about them either. They were just all very forgettable here, and I have mixed feelings about that.

The lessons learned here, on the other hand, actually save this episode from being a bad one in my eyes. Not only were they executed very handily, with plenty of time devoted to both of them, but they were just plain good lessons in general. On one side you had Sea Breeze (who is awesome by the way, just gotta get that out there, that guy is hands down best Breezy! ) teaching Fluttershy about "tough love" and why sometimes it's actually more harmful than helpful to coddle someone with unconditional, endless love and adoration, and on the other side you had Fluttershy teaching Sea Breeze how, even though there is a time and place for tough love, one can't let it get out of control, otherwise it'll devolve into just plain nastiness and mean-spirited put-downs without any kind of meaningful, helpful support. Good lessons all-around, and even better, there are a lot of real-world parallels where these lessons could be applied, both in big or small scenarios (including U.S. politics, believe it or not, if you think about it a bit). Definitely one of the most smartly-written and executed lessons in awhile on this show, and easily my favorite aspect of this episode.

I have no idea what to feel about this. This wasn't really "funny" when it happened, nor cute, just kind of... awkward and meh.

As for the rest of the cast here, I guess we'll just lump all the supporting characters and background characters in here in one section. Like Fluttershy and the Breezies, the Mane 6 didn't do anything terribly offensive here, they just didn't leave much of an impression. No matter how tense or worried RD tried to be during the Breezy sequences, I just couldn't really get into those scenes myself; not trying to sound mean or anything, but I just wasn't convinced or sold on how high the stakes were. That has nothing to do with the small size of the Breezies really (though that aesthetic aspect doesn't help), but more really with the fact that we didn't know that much about them, and so it was a little difficult caring about something we the viewers didn't know that much about, at least I thought so. And can I just say that there was WAYYYYY too much time devoted to Rainbow working on getting those breezes just right? It may have been crucial to the plot, but it got so boring at times that it seriously felt like filler, it really did. Pinkie and Rarity both had some fun moments, but overall, like I said, none of the Mane 6 left that much of an impression either. Spike's goof up was hilarious just because it was so predictable (seriously saw that coming from a mile away ), but he just kind of disappeared from the episode after that. The other background ponies didn't do too much of note either, aside from Doctor Whooves and Roseluck showing up together later in the episode in a pretty clever Doctor Who nod (though I still have mixed feelings about those two showing up so much together, after all, the Doctor is DERPY'S WAIFU!!! ). Overall, like Fluttershy and the Breezies, no other character really left much of an impression, and I just found that boring in general.

Oh goody, I can smell the new toylines coming from a mile away. Well at least somebody *cough* HASBRO *cough* is happy.

Nothing too noteworthy to talk about concerning animation, comedy, or music, everything was pretty standard fare here. The one thing that was really notable were those Breezy-transformations at the end, and those were just plain terrifying. They worked in the plot I guess, they didn't feel too phoned-in or anything, but I still didn't really care for them and it was also a poorly-veiled move to launch a new toy line, which I'm guessing Hasbro has every intention of doing. Ah well, at least these transformations, even if I didn't find them aesthetically appealing, had far more of a purpose than those terrifying and pointless human-horse hybrid transformations in "Equestria Girls" *shudders recalling that bad memory *. Overall, this episode's biggest sin is that it's boring, forgettable, and didn't leave much of an impression, at least not on me. It handled the lesson and Fluttershy's receiving her key just fine, but nothing else here really moved me. All in all, I'm sad to say it, but this might be my least favorite episode of the season so far. Sure it was okay, and other episode's might've been worse, but at least those episodes made me feel something. This episode just didn't make me feel anything, so overall, all I have to say about it really is "meh". Sorry Flutters.