As should be VERY evident in this thread, the fandom artist community pretty much exploded after this episode 

Good evening everypony, and welcome back to another edition of "Batbrony Reviews"!  First of all, apologies for getting this review out so late.  Just been having trouble making time for it over the last few days on account of a whole lot of exciting real life stuff that's been happening.  But that will be saved for another day, for now, onto the episode itself!  Without further ado, this is "It Isn't the Mane Thing About You."

So first things first, I just have to say that this was an odd duck of an episode.  Like, not a bad one, far from it.  In fact in execution this is a perfectly good episode, and in tone very much in the same vein as predecessors from Season 1 or Season 2 of the show.  But that said, what did stand out to me as apparent was the fact that this was a Season 7 subject in an episode executed like a Season 1 or Season 2 episode, and that threw me for a bit of a loop.  Unlike last week's episode, this is not so much a bad or disappointing thing as simply an odd thing to ponder.  I cannot help but find myself asking "What if this episode had been executed differently?" and in fact will do just that at the end of the review.  But for now, let's delve into what we got here.

To start, Rarity kicks ass here, and I don't just say that because of the end.  This was undoubtedly a Season 7 Rarity performance; while the character has never been completely self-obsessed or shallow I cannot help but think that if this episode had debuted in Season 1, she would have displayed far less grace or restraint in how she handled things than she did here.  Instead, we got a Rarity who, while more than understandably upset at her predicament, did not come across as particularly shallow at any point; if anything, we actually readily understood how being unable to fix such a situation could truly devastate her without it feeling forced.  Rarity doesn't just put a premium on maintaining good looks to make herself feel better, she does it to make an impression on ponies both in her own dealings as well as when she's lending a helping hoof to them, as evidenced by the opening scene of this episode where she's going around town lending assistance to various businesses and establishments.  This does have a practical effect in that, well, without sounding too shallow, if there's one thing folks love more than practical-minded people, it's practical-minded people who look radiant.  Politicians like John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama, etc. all had good looks and distinct images, and this applies to business as well.  A great example that comes to mind is who will folks always associate as the face of Apple, Jobs or Wozniak?  Jobs of course, and not just because he was the better PR guy and knew how to connect to what customers wanted, but because eventually he developed a distinct image that, while not Hollywood-handsome, was its own kind of handsome within the Silicon Valley world.  Point is, Rarity looking good isn't just something that she shallowly does to make herself feel better; at this point, it's simply a part of who she is and how she carries herself about, and there's nothing really wrong with that.  She doesn't think she's better than other ponies because of it, she doesn't really even flaunt it, she just enjoys looking fabulous and using that part of herself to help others try to realize their own potential to be fabulous in their own ways.

When you're just having one of "those" days 

This makes her reaction to losing most of her mane more than believable, even if some of her bits during her most panicky moments are hilarious.  She doesn't just focus on getting it back (even if that is her top priority), she really does try to go about her business as well but just finds at first that she can't.  She also doesn't blame Zecora or Pinkie Pie, and tries to have as much of a stiff upper lip as she can.  Let's also consider that this isn't just something Rarity would freak out about; she may freak out more than most would, but evidently losing one's mane or tail is something that most ponies dread and understand magic can't fix easily, if at all.  Even her sadness is, eventually, oddly subdued; normally we'd expect to see Rarity having a grand and fabulously over-the-top display of drama when she's especially feeling low, but here her lowest point is Rarity just... well, not being Rarity.  She truly feels at that moment like she's not her true self, and can't even muster the ability to lament her current state as grandly as she normally would.  That was a nice, subtle touch and Tabitha St. Germain's handling of the subdued, restrained Rarity in that moment was very effective.  The ending of course was fantastic, and Rarity rocking the punk look all over town was as unexpected as it was delightful to watch, especially when she kept acting like herself again, it contrasted the punk image so wonderfully!  And her learning to always believe that she was always fabulous no matter what she looked like, so long as she still behaved fabulously and channeled that into everything she did, was a great lesson for both herself as well as those who may be most affected by this episode, and a nice continuation of part of the lesson from Rarity's own legend of Mistmane which she recounted just a few episodes ago.  So all in all, I really have no complaints about Rarity's performance here or how she was written; I still enjoyed her turn in "Campfire Tales" more personally, and for me that's still her highlight of the season, but this was a splendid turn for her all the same.

Zecora coming back (in the first of back-to-back appearances, how about that!) was a welcome return, and unlike Daring Do's performance last week, Zecora's appearance here was not, thankfully, botched.  I was honestly a little disappointed we didn't get to see her just shoot the shit some more with Pinkie Pie and Rarity when she started talking about manes and how tricky they are to handle with magic, but that was mostly because an unfortunate truth about Zecora is that she's usually there for the purpose of plot devices more than anything else.  Most of what she says is either exposition about something that will be critical to the plot, or words of wisdom tied into the lesson learned.  Make no mistake, I still enjoy her as a character and think she was used well here, but it is something I've noticed about her over time, and really it's a big reason we should see more of her, so that she's not just being used in such formulaic and predictable ways.  Also, I can't help but think she should have taken a little bit more of the blame here for what happened to Rarity; she may not have gotten the bottles mixed up, but she is partially responsible in that she had no labels for two VERY different potions that look exactly the same.  Overall, however, it was just nice seeing Ponyville's resident zebra once more, and I'm sure it'll be even better seeing her in this week's upcoming episode!

Pinkie Pie, on the other hand, kind of annoyed me here.  Her performance was nowhere near "MMMMystery on the Friendship Express" levels of bad or anything, but the best way I can put it is that they wrote her unnecessarily stupid here for the purposes of the plot.  This is not the first time this has ever happened to Pinkie Pie as her over-the-top nature is often exploited by the show to create some kind of foil or plot device that gets everything else rolling, and many times it too has come off as lazy writing for this character.  Pinkie may hardly be the brightest member of the Mane 6, but some of the shit she was doing in this episode seemed to be stuff that a five year old could figure out.  Her spraying of that ridiculously sticky silly string EVERYWHERE in sight felt like something she'd impulsively do in a bad MLP fanfiction, not an actual episode; her repeated suggestion to simply use any cupcakes she salvaged from the silly string rather than bake new ones came off as both lazy and inconsiderate to the Cakes or their customers (even if it was a funny gag at certain points); and she seems to have spent at least an entire afternoon, if not one or multiple days even, simply trying to clean Sugarcube Corner up with the wrong potion, and you're telling me that in all of that time she never realized that this might be shampoo and not a magical cleaner???  All in all, hardly Pinkie's worst showing, but not exactly a flattering one either.

She did, however, admittedly look rather adorable at the end of the episode after the shampoo debacle

The rest of the Mane 6, on the other hand, were phenomenal, especially at the end.  Twilight and Starlight (honorary fill-in for Spike here as far as I'm concerned) did admittedly get off to a bit of a rough start, mostly in that they, once again, couldn't resist messing with the laws of nature by trying to do something with their magic which, not a second before, they had said they shouldn't when they tried to assist Rarity with her mane through their magic.  Now look, I get that they were just trying to be good friends, but (1) they've both made this mistake enough times with often near disastrous consequences that they should know better by this point, and (2) Twilight's first attempt in particular was a really shitty thing of her to do.  They're trying to help their friend get her mane back, or some semblance of it, and what does she do?  Why steal another pony's mane of course, much to that poor bucking crystal pony stallion's horror!  I don't even get how the writers thought they could play this for laughs when they literally just gave this guy the same exact problem that Rarity was contending with the entire time, except I doubt he has a group of friends that includes a bucking Equestrian princess to help him try to get over such a dilemma.  That'd be like doing a high school drama episode where, in order to help a friend who was anorexic, her friends tried somehow "passing" her anorexia onto someone else.  Not a solid solution guys, not at all!  At least the rest of their magical attempts weren't harmful to anyone else, and it was fantastic hearing them at least say no to attempting using time travel to fix things, but still, it was kind of ridiculous that those two made as many attempts as they did when they were so sure to start out that it wouldn't work.

Besides that, however, Rarity's friends were great.  Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, and Applejack in particular tried their best to come through, first in trying to come up with whatever kind of wigs they could (in all honesty Applejack's was probably the most likely to work, even if Rainbow's looked the prettiest, but dear Lord Flutters I don't know why you thought Harry the Bear's green plant wig would work at all... even if it was hilarious and adorable seeing Harry working on it), and second in trying to bolster Rarity's spirits and help her regain her confidence to channel her inner fabulosity no matter what she looked like.  Applejack in particular had some very personal lines of encouragement and support, a nice dose of Rarijack and reminder of how close those two in particular are in a season where we haven't seen a whole lot of it outside of this and one other episode.  Probably her best line was when she hearkened back all the way to their very first adventure, reminding Rarity of when she did her first major act of generosity among her friends in giving up her tail to Steven Magnet; this was not only a critical element of Rarity's own nature to remind her of, but also highlighted how close these two are in showing how much of an impression this memory in particular must have left on Applejack.  In the end, their support and friendship was exactly what Rarity needed in order to regain her confidence.

Ponyville itself was very much alive in this episode, again in a way reminiscent of Seasons 1 and 2.  The Flower Sisters, Roseluck, Daisy, and Lily, in particular had great showings and even showed shades of character growth; while they came close to panicking like they were so wont to do in early seasons, they ultimately kept their cool (with some assistance from Rarity) and did some smashing business with their flower sales while they were at it.  They also treated Rarity the least different of any other business associates around Ponyville after her mane fiasco, simply unable to help her when they couldn't see her mane, which felt like a far more natural reaction than the other two.  Speaking of which, fan pony salesman and Davenport, the owner of Quills and Sofas, were not nearly as charming.  Fan pony store owner was relatively harmless, but he came off as a really inept business owner seeing as he was hurting his own business... simply because he had all of the fans in his store going at once, which made it hard for any pony to even enter his store.  Pretty stupid move on his part, plus his later comments about "non-fabulous" ponies seemed a bit... superficial, at least how he delivered them.  Davenport, however, was far worse in that he wasn't just stupid for not having wider variety in his sofas to start out, but was also a complete jackass!  Dude made a business arrangement with Rarity, a very simple one at that; she gave him VERY sound business advice that helped him improve his sales, and in return all she wanted was a custom-made chaise lounge.  Hell, as far as we know she was even going to pay for it in bits as well, so the fact that he was willing to break that agreement just for a few more bits is dickish beyond all belief.  If I was Rarity, I wouldn't do business with a guy like that ever again!  How can you really trust a guy like that in any type of business arrangement if he's willing to straight up break his word when it comes to his own business?!  Aside from that, we had some fun appearances from Filthy Rich, Caramel (who may or may not now be a father of a filly via Sassaflash, who he was dating back in Season 2), Granny Smith and Grand Pear (who could be spotted in multiple scenes selling apple and pear products at a shared stand in the Ponyville Market), Apple Bloom conversing with Burnt Oak (again, another great bit of continuity from "The Perfect Pear," even if it would have been cooler seeing Big Mac talk to him), Big Mac and Sugar Belle taking a romantic walk at Sweet Apple Acres (something which I missed in my first viewing, though to be fair they showed it sooooooo briefly that it really is easy for anyone to miss), and Derpy at both the beginning and end, including rocking the ONLY one of the Rarity-inspired punk manes that looked as fabulous as hers did!  Seeing so many different faces from Ponyville showing up in notable roles here was great, and something that is far too rare at this point in the show.

Mannnnnnnn, the Flower Sisters are SO CUTE!!! 

As you can see, all of the elements we had in this episode easily add up to a good, perfectly likable episode.  So you're probably wondering in what way I think it possibly could have been better?  Well, odd as it may sound, I really do think this episode, by virtue of its subject alone, could have been far more daring if it wanted to.  Allow me to explain.

The elephant in the room with the subject of an episode like this is twofold.  Rarity lost something which she believed is fundamental to achieving her own identity.  Not in a superficial way (mostly), but this is a character who loves being fabulous and sharing that side of herself with others in any way she can, so it's easy to understand why this situation would be so personally distressful for her.  Obviously, this episode can easily be relatable for two groups of people: (1) more generally speaking, anyone who has lost due to unfortunate circumstances something about themselves they consider to be a defining trait, or (2) more specifically, people who have lost their hair, especially due to a medical condition of some kind.  That's a pretty heavy real world parallel for any MLP ep, and there's no way the writers weren't aware of it.  So how could they have pushed the envelope just a bit more with this one?  In just a few little ways, really.  For starters, even though Rarity's mane eventually grew back, we didn't need to see that at the end of the episode; it needlessly minimized what she'd gone through, as well as the triumph of how she'd just rectified her situation as best as she could.  Going even further, she didn't even necessarily need to fix her mane at all; as awesome as the punk mane was, I couldn't help but wonder (1) why it didn't occur to her to do that in the first place, and (2) how she had enough hair to do that?  For her it was a wonderful fix, but in real world parallels, lots of people can't always do such a fun solution as Rarity did.  Some may have no hair to spare at all (though of course wigs are always an option), and for others the lack of hair may even be the least of their problems.

So what could have happened instead?  Well, I say, what if the Mane 6 hadn't been able to really help Rarity?  What if no one at first could, and she herself couldn't simply fix it by going with a different mane style?  What if eventually, she came across somepony who in many ways had it even rougher than she did?  This could either have been somepony with some kind of medical condition, or if the writers wanted to be less serious, a character like Derpy who has been the town klutz for years and has had to always live with that.  In either case, she could have simply talked with this pony, asking in awe how they've managed to stay positive or their chipper selves despite their struggles and challenges in life.  Their answer?  They never let whatever bad conditions or circumstances they had in their lives define who they were.  They always stay true to themselves and never, ever let any limitations they face keep them from remaining who they are, for their own sake as well as for the sake of those they love.  Doing it doesn't mean it's easy, just worthwhile.  Such an example would have been inspiring to somepony like Rarity, and led her to concluding the same thing she did in the episode as it is, simply in more dramatic fashion as the result of a far more serious experience.

Now again, I must reiterate that this episode did not disappoint me.  Executed as it was, it was a very good episode.  But I still strongly believe that it could have been more if it wanted to be, and can't help but regret that we'll never get to see what it could have been if treated just a tad more seriously, even if what we got all around was good itself.  That's all I've got for you everypony, until next time this is Batbrony signing off.  I'm off!!! *cue dramatic exit*

Let's close this thread with, what else, a shitload of Punk Rarity pics!!! 

I won't lie, if this had happened, it would have easily been the most metal thing ever!!!