Alrighty, welcome, welcome, welcome back everypony to another edition of Batbrony Reviews! After a 2 month hiatus Season 5 is back in business! And my, my, is it back in business indeed. It's never a bad thing to start things off with a Rarity episode; I don't believe she's ever had a truly weak episode unlike other main characters like Pinkie Pie or the CMC. Not that most of the characters ever have weak episodes, but Rarity's are especially of a consistent high quality, and in my opinion "Canterlot Boutique" is no exception. Without further ado, let's dive right in and take a look at the 14th episode of Season 5, shall we?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

First of all, I don't actually have a lot to say about this episode, but that's not because there wasn't a lot I liked, oh no, there was. It's actually mostly because it was very well-paced to the point that scenes were so fully developed that not a lot ended up happening. It was a very self-contained episode with a grand total of two settings, Ponyville Boutique at the very start of the episode, and for the rest of it Canterlot Boutique. In many ways, it actually felt like a Season 1 episode in that regard, and even has some parallels in its overall feel with Rarity's first episode, "Suited for Success." I get how that might not be for everyone (myself included given that I have complained about "MMMystery on the Friendship Express"'s lack of interesting settings before, but that episode sucks in general and the lack of settings is the least of its problem), but here I thought it really worked given that it was a new setting and not a whole lot was happening.

 

 

As far as Rarity goes, I really liked her characterization here, mostly because the episode was not entirely clear (at least I didn't think so) for a while as to just what exactly the problem was. We knew that this lifelong dream of Rarity's was not turning out the way she'd hoped it would, but it wasn't exactly clear why. It wasn't that she was getting worked to the bone; sure she got some fatigue, but Rarity's a hard worker and we know that she loves putting in a hard day's work. Eventually it became clear that there was simply no more joy and passion going into her work; her lifelong dream was turning into a chore, not the passion she'd always treated her work as, and that made it simply unbearable! I think even outside of creative communities many, many, many people can relate to this feeling; work simply being a means to a paycheck, not something you actually love and truly care about, and how crushing that feeling can be. What made it worse for Rarity was that she was technically in charge of this venture (and I will say in that regard it's a little surprising that she didn't put her hoof down sooner, after all, Sassy Saddles was her employee), so for it to get out of her control like that must've just hurt her all the more. I'm guessing she went with it for so long because she was convinced that she wanted to do whatever it took to make it Canterlot, even if it meant not doing her work her way, but eventually she realized that not only was that unnecessary, but also simply not worth it even if it had meant closing her business (which thankfully she didn't have to do). Her forgiving Sassy Saddles only made her lesson learned all the better, because after all, her manager never really meant any harm.

 

Aside then from her fantastic characterization, there were other things that were great about Rarity here as well. Her song "Rules of Rarity" was great (as virtually any Rarity solo song is), and pretty much had a constant presence in the episode for the second half of it, to the point that it was very much doing some of the storytelling here similar to how "Art of the Dress" did in "Suited for Success" (which I believe was intentional, and the two songs even sounded similar). It was great seeing both her creative side on display (I always love when the show embraces the fact that Rarity is a fashionista and designer and yet doesn't make her cliche as buck as any other show would) as well as how business savvy she remains, I mean, heck, she now has two branches for her business, that's a permanent change and shows how far her own career has advanced since the show started! Overall, Rarity was super solid here; she kept a cool head for the most part and didn't fall into hysterics, but still learned a valuable lesson rather than knowing it right from the start. Super solid Rarity episode, and I enjoyed her here as I pretty much always do when she's the star of an episode.

 

 

As for other elements, I really had no major complaints about anything. Her friends were great, Twilight especially being super kind helping Rarity out like she did. Sassy Saddles was a nice new supporting character; I liked that she wasn't just straight up antagonistic, but rather just a pony trying to do the right thing but in the wrong way. It seemed like she'd failed at managing a number of boutiques in the past, probably because she seems to value very much separation of responsibilities between managers and designers. So it's not that she's so much a control freak of everything, but rather a control freak of her own areas of responsibility, and I know that in many different careers there's a lot of people who hate sharing their particular responsibilities with others. It's a very understandable character flaw, and she really was well meaning through and through, but thankfully she learned a valuable lesson as well about working and collaborating on an equal basis with a business partner and aiming for long term success in the fashion business through diversity of stock, not just selling the buck out of one dress, which would only remain in fashion for so long.

 

I loved being back in Canterlot and always love that setting, and the fact that they were consistent in showing mostly unicorns there was a nice little aesthetic touch. That Cosmare writer was HILARIOUS, and I can't believe I'm saying this, but they somehow made a character more over-the-top... than Steven Magnet. I still don't know how, but they did it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The one thing that was completely unnecessary was that random as buck obese pony at the end; I know that same pony technically showed up on that picture in that locker earlier in the season in "Tanks for the Memories," but it was just a weak joke in general. It was a fat joke that came at the last second in the episode and was literally the last thing we saw, just kind of fell flat as a regard of that. However, I LOVED the last scene when we got to see Rarity actually working her boutique, something we usually only get to see her do with one customer at a time or a close friend. Here though it was packed with new characters, and once again, I cannot reiterate enough how much I love Canterlot ponies! The variety in personalities was great, the dresses they were picking out were beautiful (I adored her entire princess line up and also loved the fact that it illustrates the princesses' effect and influence on Equestrian popular culture), and the whole scene was just a lovely look into Rarity when she's in her element. Overall, this was a slower episode, once again reminding me very much of a Season 1 episode, but I really, really liked it very much for what it was. Season 5's back, and we got from the looks of things another Rarity episode to look forward to next week, yay!