S4E14: "Filli Vanilli"
So I trench through the bullshit fuckazoid of "Rainbow Falls" and the unusually crap Discord episode of "Three's A Crowd" to be rewarded with "Pinkie Pride" and the ability to skip "Simple Ways"................for this piece of shit.
Luckily, to my recollection, "Filli Vanilli" was the episode that marked a turnaround in season four. Whereas with the first half of the season, every other episode was a steaming pile of horseshit, the second half stayed pretty consistent in quality. Except, that is, for this episode. A bit of trivia, "Simple Ways" was not only my first review on the blog, but also the first instance of me regularly reviewing episodes on this forum. You see, I joined this forum in January of 2013, but didn't start this blog until August of 2014, when I realized I wanted to go into more extensive detail on a scene-to-scene basis of each episode. Before that, I referred to the "Show Discussion" forums. When "Simple Ways" first aired, I posted along with thousands of other regulars in the episode's topic, and from this episode until "Twilight's Kingdom", you can find my original thoughts on each episode of season four as it aired, and maybe compare how my opinion has changed with age moving forward. What's the point of this? Well.........even back when I first saw it, I thought "Filli Vanilli" was a piece of crooked dick.
QuoteThis episode was mediocre at best. (...) I thought it was cliché and predictable.
Well, let's see if that opinion holds up, shall we? This is "Filli Vanilli"
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This episode opens up with Fluttershy singing, what a shock, about what a great day it is, when all of a sudden she clenches up when she learns that the other five heard her singing.
....
Sorry....WHAT? H...have you all been deaf the past four seasons? With all the hundreds of shit pop songs you fuckers have forced upon us, many of which have included Fluttershy, you bitchcunts are now just realizing, in SEASON FOUR episode FOURTEEN, that Fluttershy has a great voice?!
...
Welp, this episode is already bullshit, GG. Not even a new record for the series. Now, before people ragequit in the comments, let me defend my point, because someone has already tried to cover the writers' asses to me before about this. The defense is that previous musical numbers were not part of the canon of the world, but more of a performance to the audience. Which I can buy. What I can't buy about this premise is that it's the focal point of this episode, and it's Fluttershy, because this opens up a can of worms. Which musical numbers were canon and which ones weren't? Because Pinkie Pie references the "Smile Song" quite a few times despite that musical number in particular being way too over the top to be an actual event that happened, and I'm sure there are other examples of this if I bothered listing all of this show's songs. You could've avoided this all by writing this as a Sweetie Belle episode. It was just that fucking easy. Just replace it all with a talent show or something, then this episode would be a less contrived cliché and just a plain boring cliché. Oh, speaking of how Pinkie Pie loves to make her friends smile, she runs her mouth about all the possible things that could go wrong with Fluttershy singing in front of a crowd which brings her to tears.
"'Cause all I really need's that smile, smile, smile, from these happy friends of mine."
Piece of Bullshit #2: Pinkie Pie's incessant twisting of the knife in this episode. I think she only has two scenes of it, but goddamn is it fucking annoying, and clearly way out of character for her. Especially considering in the last episode I reviewed her whole turning point is realizing she's hurt her friends, in this episode she's a completely oblivious.......idiot. Let me guess, Amy Keating Rogers wrote this? Of course she fucking did. Oh, right, sorry, I almost forgot, after the Skip Intro button makes me suck the dick of a statue of Jesus, we see Pinkie Pie twisting the aforementioned dildo, as well as Rarity trying to get Fluttershy to join her........quartet...........that includes herself and Big Macintosh?
....Sorry, WHAT?!
RARITY of all ponies was in a fucking QUARTET? Nevermind that, BIG MACINTOSH IS A SINGER?! WHEN THE FUCKING HELL DID THIS SHIT HAPPEN? THEY ACT LIKE RARITY AND BIG MAC'S QUARTET ARE SOME WELL KNOWN FUCKING GROUP BUT YET THIS COMPLETELY OUT-OF-LEFT FIELD ADDITION TO THE PLOT IS THE FIRST TIME WE'RE EVER FUCKING HEARING ABOUT IT, AND IT'S A RUSHED INTRODUCTION INTERRUPTED BY FULL-BLOWN RETARD PINKIE PIE.
What a terrible, god awful first three minutes. Fluttershy, however, states that she does not want to perform with Rarity's quartet, the Ponytones, in their show for the Pet Fundraiser. Likely because of some skimpy stories she's heard...huehue Rarity's a slut lel. In actuality, it's because Fl-it's stage fright, isn't it? ...Yep, saw that shit coming a mile away. So not only is this setup complete bullshit, but it's true, the plot of this episode is a complete cliché. Later, during construction of the pet fundraiser, we see the Ponytones rehearsing, with Big Mac singing lead. Fuck, this contrived setup just keeps getting juicier.
Bitches aint shit but hoes and tricks / B-b-b-bitches aint shit but hoes and tricks
Tragedy soon strikes, however, when Big Mac arrives the next morning with a sore throat, unable to let his pipes be unleashed upon the world. But we can't have a musical number without Big Mac. Does that sentence seem weird as fuck? Good, proves this episode's bullshit. You see, he lost his voice trying to do a turkey call, in which Pinkie Pie beat him at. It's like Pinkie's trying to sabotage this whole thing for no good reason, but she's not. However, Fluttershy comes up with a great idea: take him to Zecora for voodoo medicine. When Zecora relays that the cure won't have him fixed by that night, she suggests that they have Fluttershy infect herself with poison joke like she did in "Bridle Gossip" to go all transvestite again. That way, she can lipsync for Big Mac backstage! This reminds me of that Milli Vanilli scandal back in....................
........Oh.....................................................................................................................GG...................
.................*ahem*...With some reluctance, Fluttershy agrees to this and lipsyncs Big Mac's part for the fundraiser, and it goes off without a hitch. After the show, a filly asks the Ponytones to perform at her Cutecenieraruaroieasriosnigga the next day, which Fluttershy tells Rarity to agree to. It would seem that Fluttershy enjoys singing for the Ponytones after all, albeit backstage conning the public like she is. This leads to a montage of stupid motherfuckers asking the Ponytones to perform for their events last-minute, and them agreeing to them all because Fluttershy's ego is inflating beyond control. It eventually escalates to the point that when Big Mac's voice has healed, and Fluttershy becomes disappointed, that Rarity allows her to sing one last time. Except, this time, Fluttershy's doing all this improvised scatting that Big Mac can't follow along with. It starts to become very obvious that Big Mac is lipsyncing, and even moreso when Fluttershy's stupid dancing knocks down the curtain, revealing the true Scatman Crothers.
When you get caught masturbating.......................which apparently involves eating your own tail.
Curiously, instead of the crowd throwing a fit of outrage that the Ponytones...you know...ripped them off...they cheer for Fluttershy. Because that's what happened when people found out Milli Vanilli were a fraud! Their careers didn't crash and burn and lead to one of the members committing suicide! Nooooooooooooooooo. THEY WERE FUCKING REVERED. BULL MOTHERFUCKING COCKSUCKING ASSLICKING DONKEYSODOMIZING SHIT. Alas, Fluttershy's friends come to see if she's alright, in which Pinkie Pie does more of her annoying "make Fluttershy want to kill herself" bullshit that sends Fluttershy on the run. The others follow her and try to explain that they enjoyed her.......fake, poison joke voice.....eh, this episode's so full of crap I'm tired of trying. They try to show her that, while she lived her worst nightmare when she was revealed, it wasn't really that bad. Yeah, it wasn't that bad because the audience's reaction made no fucking sense. Who the fuck applauds being duped out of their money? A world full of bullshit "love and tolerance". This is why SJWs, new-wave feminists, and politically correct culture should go fuck an African reindeer in the bleeding rain of the Holocaust. Ultimately, Fluttershy finds the courage to join the Ponytones in a quintet performance, albeit only for her friends and animals. In the end, Fluttershy writes in her journal that you should overcome your fears. It's almost like this was one of those boring, overdone stage fright plots. OH WAIT.
"I will cook you alive."
And so concludes "Filli Vanilli"
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Well, that wasn't mediocre.
That was a TERRIBLE episode COMPLETELY ON PAR with "Rainbow Falls", "Daring Don't", "Power Ponies", and "Simple Ways".
First of all, the fact that this is the "first time" anyone's heard Fluttershy sing opens up a whole slew of debate on which songs in the series are and aren't "canon", which all could've been avoided if this episode was given to Sweetie Belle instead. The fact that this a central plotpoint is awkward for the viewer considering we've heard her sing before, so we aren't discovering anything new. It makes the whole thing feel weird in and of itself. Secondly, Pinkie Pie is UNBEARABLE in this episode. She could've been completely written out, but Amy Keating Rogers thought it was a good idea to make Pinkie Pie a bonafide retard. As a result, every scene she's in, she spouts out dumb shit clearly written to make Fluttershy feel bad about herself, and then try to cop it all out by defending that Pinkie Pie doesn't realize what she says. That's how Rogers actually tried to defend her shitty writing on Twitter, showing that for all the times she's dealt with Pinkie Pie as a character, she has no idea who Pinkie Pie is as a character. Pinkie Pie....IS NOT A DUMBASS. Refer to ANY Pinkie Pie-centric episode and you will SEE that. Hell, GO BACK TWO EPISODES to "Pinkie Pride" where she REGRETS making Rainbow Dash feel like shit, and you instantly realize how out of character she is. Thirdly, why are Rarity and Big Mac in a singing group? When did they become a singing group? How did Big Mac and Rarity discover that they'd be good as a singing group? What happened to their singing group after this episode? Wanna know the answers to those? TOO BAD. This episode doesn't explain WHERE the fuck this group came from, and guess what, THEY NEVER APPEAR AS SUCH AGAIN. So what was the point of introducing the Ponytones to the series? Cock shit, because they discard them immediately as if it never happened. Fourthly, the reaction of the fans of the Ponytones once Fluttershy was revealed as having lipsynced for the group was unrealistic given the fact that they all cheered for her. See the actual story of Milli Vanilli for how that shit's supposed to go down. Fifthly (is that even a word?), this stage-fright plot is in every Disney Channel thing ever, see Camp Rock or Austin & Ally among others, so this story is so overdone that even if it was written right, and with Sweetie Belle, it'd still score rather low for being downright bland. Finally, in the end, Fluttershy's character development is marginal at best because, like I said, the Ponytones never show up again, so she never sings with them again, and therefore the fact that she found the courage to just sing for her friends is completely moot considering it has no lasting impact on the character or the series.
Was there any point to this fucking episode? No. It's a useless steaming pile of Amy Keating Roger's bullshit just like "Bridle Gossip", "The Last Roundup", "MMMystery on the Friendship Express", and "Crusaders of the Lost Mark". I'm surprised she was able to remotely write anything as amazingly competent as "A Friend in Deed", for a character she so clearly has no idea how to portray. I can't really find anything remotely redeemable about this episode, so guess what season four gets to add to its collection? Another 1/10.
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I don't believe in gravity.
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