S07:E03 - A Flurry of Emotions

[Allen 1,371]

My react in this episode is: Flurry Heart who likes to play as she's a cute and adorable niece of Princess Twilight Sparkle and a foal of Princess Cadence and Shining Armor, she likes to play with toys like a toy bear. At the hospital, she goes crazy and I want her to calm down like when they grow older.

[Ashen Pathfinder 16,151]

Is it possible that Flurry Heart has a lot more character than her parents at this point? Granted I'm not saying they're bad characters, but Flurry Heart left a VERY positive impression and I can see her growing into quite the intelligent alicorn someday.

Though, to be fair to Shinning and Cadence, their bits in the episode were enjoyable as well.

[ManaMinori 4,143]

I'm starting to wonder- what if Discord had been saddled with babysitting? Like, Twilight passed Flurry to him, not looking at who she was giving Flurry to, maybe thinking it was Spike, and Discord just rolled with it....

[Silver Letter 1,830]

I thought this was a delightful episode, interestingly enough. Flurry has improved in my opinion as a character that might allow for the writers to give us nice scenes with Twilight as aunt, which is appreciated. Flurry was growing out of control but not too far out of control that Twilight couldn't handle it when she was paying attention. Spike was also giving us generous amounts of good scenes as the secondary character. With Flurry, perhaps he has to be around to rein in Twilight. Other secondary characters were appreciated and I liked the storybook scene. Another nice episode. I hope this streak continues.

[Justin_Case001 4,855]

*SIGH*  So, I haven't watched it yet.  I came here to procrastinate. I feel like Indiana Jones when he saw that it had to be snakes.  Ugh.  I suppose I'm just in for 23 minutes of baby-goes-berserk-and-destroys-everything-in-sight-while-Twilight-frantically-tries-to-stop-her.  Don't know why they don't just put that thing out of its misery.  So, as soon as the baby arrives, Twilight should just teleport it to Tirek's cage in Tartarus.  Or how about this, here's a viable solution: "Hey Starlight, you're good with evil magic.  Got any paralysis spells?"  I really do hate that thing.

*SIGH*  Alright, I guess I'd better take some dramamine, put a clothes pin on my nose, and get this over with....

 

Okay, I'm back.  I just finished watching it.

 

Uuuggghhh.....

Okay, I'll be serious, now.  It wasn't really that bad, I just hate that baby more than life itself.  (And I really hate life itself.  Ask anyone.)  Actually, the only thing that really annoyed me was that Flurry shouldn't be that powerful with telekinesis, nor that precise with teleportation, but far worse than that was that Twilight "couldn't keep up".  Are you f*cking kidding me?!  Twilight couldn't keep up.  Twilight, who's a highly trained, highly practiced alicorn.  Twilight, whose specialty has always been telekinesis since day 1.  (See Applebuck Season, Boast Busters)  Twilight, who regularly trains with Starlight in magic, and has duels and teleportation races with her.  Twilight, who gave a speech at Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns.  ...  Baby Flurry should not be the most powerful being on the planet.  End of story.

Other than that, it was a decently executed episode.  The art exhibit was awesome.  Spike's characterization was great.  I love when he gets to be the voice of reason.  I also loved Spike's quip that all of Armor's friends have the same basic name.  Spike's reading to the sick ponies was great, too.  I also loved Twilight's real horse noise when she was startled.  It's so adorable when they make a real horse noise.  I love it whenever they do some equine.  Basically, everything about the episode was good except for the baby.  Now, can we please throw that wretched thing into the Pit of Tartarus and never speak of it again?

Edited April 23, 2017 by Justin_Case001

[Tiny Hoofs 200]

I didn't think it was too bad. I'll give it props for not being a repeat of Baby Cakes in regards to plot and the moral.

It's probably not going to be one of the most interesting episodes this season, but it had its enjoyable moments. Of course I've always been pretty fine with Flurry Hearts though.

[Lambdadelta 1,462]

This ep is just OK, Flurry Heart is adorable and Twilight is adorkable and ... nothing else, not bad but not great.

I think Baby Cakes is a better babysitting episode with interesting lore (how genetics work), better humors, better climax and better ending (those babies called Pinkie's name is touching). Seeing a normal Earth Pony like Pinkie hold against those OP babies is more interesting than Twilight.

This ep switch between group of characters like All Bottled Up, but less interesting, Cadence and Shining scene is kinda dull.

All in all, this ep is a weakest ep of S7, i give it a 6/10.

 

[Truffles 2,033]

4 hours ago, Justin_Case001 said:

I came here to procrastinate. I feel like Indiana Jones when he saw that it had to be snakes.

Heh, ever since I found out Flurry was going to be the focus of the third episode, I was curious how you'd react to an episode where she's in "baby run amok" mode again. I was dreading this episode too, but like you said, it wasn't that bad. Since I didn't outright hate Flurry, however, it was a much easier viewing experience for me. Though if you look back through the comments I did state at one point Spike should try his teleporting fire on her to see if he can send living things to Celestia or not. That was back in the early parts of the episode where it seemed like it was going to go exactly how I feared it might.

I guess the thing with Flurry is she was annoying in the S6 premiere and then more or less became irrelevant which is why I was mostly-neutral-yet-slightly-negative towards her. Her only reason for existing last season beyond the premiere was to cause "Crystal Hoof" to reveal his true identity and finally give Spike a solo musical number. 

 

4 hours ago, Justin_Case001 said:

Actually, the only thing that really annoyed me was that Flurry shouldn't be that powerful with telekinesis, nor that precise with teleportation, but far worse than that was that Twilight "couldn't keep up".  Are you f*cking kidding me?!  Twilight couldn't keep up.

So you've hit on the one thing that actually did stretch believability with the episode, and that was the final scene just before Twilight scolded her. And you've hit on all the reasons why it's hard to believe Twilight couldn't undo Flurry's magic: She's an alicorn, and alicorn who's special talent is magic. I know Flurry is a baby and babies in this world have all these spooky extra powers, but casting a mass de-levitate spell shouldn't have been out of the question for her. Flurry as she is now is either ridiculously OP or Twilight has lost much of her raw power since becoming a princess.

As it is, the plot required Twilight to scold her in order to make her realize she'd screwed up right from the start of the day, so I gave it a pass.

 

4 hours ago, Justin_Case001 said:

I also loved Spike's quip that all of Armor's friends have the same basic name.

I thought his quip was going to be "Uh, all your guards look alike to me" since they all use the same basic Flash puppet, but it's true about their names as well. I guess the parents of these guards are a pretty uncreative bunch. No wonder Spearhead decided to rebel and become an artist! 

[Sh Pie 65]

This was a humorous episode. The best parts were Pinkie's sorry stamp and Spike reading his book to the fillies. His eccentricity never ceases to amuse me and he probably saw the protagonist of the book as his Manly Spike avatar.

Looks like "art" in Equestria is just as incoherent as it is in real life. Anypony could walk in with a blank paper and walk out with paper with Celestia's face attached to it. Lots of it. Shining Armor's and Cadence's reactions were priceless.

Flurry's magic is insanely powerful. I wonder if she were older, she could take on Starlight. Speaking of those two, perhaps there's going to be some kind of ongoing arc revolving around them. I'm not sure what this season will bring since the premiere was essentially filler.

[Dulcet Ice Cocoa 3]

The episode was definitely adorable and cute,

Spoiler

...but I don't get why Twilight apologized to Flurry because she could even kill someone!

 

[JH24 385]

This was such a cute episode. Not only with Flurry, who they developed nicely, but also because Twilight was just adorable. Loved that little bit about art.

I also liked how there was some clever dialogue in this episode. Like Cheerilee pointing out that Twilight has a library full of books. Or Twilight asking Pinkie about her favorite treat and then ordering three sampling platters as she now has to apologize to her as well. (I missed the meaning behind it on my first watch)

Spike was great as well. Less sarcastic this time but still a voice of reason. Loved the ending with him reading to the sick foals and the "apology cake."

 

It's funny how Twilight is a Princess, but everyone treats her like a normal pony. I know Twilight wouldn't want it any other way but I doubt they would have reacted the same way if it had been Princess Celestia. Same goes for Princess Cadence, she was at the art exhibition but no one seems to notice. 

 

Edited April 23, 2017 by JH24

[Zachary 5,517]

Just watched it and It's an Cute Episode

So Cute that I'll give this a 8.5/10

[Thaliel 116]

Somepony please tell Twily what BAE really means ^.^

It's a good thing Flurry's so cute, normally I cannot stand children

[Will Guide 21,325]

In the opening, that photo of those sick foals...how awful! I'm especially sorry for First Base(the sneezing orange-fur, blue-maned one)!

The way Twilight hops over to Flurry Heart is a cute little touch!

"If she gets fussy, just give her the whammy and she'll calm right down!" Taken out of context, that sounds harsh!

Edited April 23, 2017 by WiiGuy2014

[GrimGrimoire 4,970]

7 hours ago, Justin_Case001 said:

Twilight couldn't keep up.  Twilight, who's a highly trained, highly practiced alicorn.  Twilight, whose specialty has always been telekinesis since day 1.  (See Applebuck Season, Boast Busters)  Twilight, who regularly trains with Starlight in magic, and has duels and teleportation races with her.

Have you ever had to chase small children? This actually makes a lot of sense all things considered. As for the most powerful being on the planet.. I don't see anywhere where that is stated... she was born an Alicorn something that "Has never happened before'. Alicorns are powerful creatures, and as such she was born with those powers "turned on" and not given the chance to explore and learn about them as apparently everyone else is. Several shows and books have explored this concept and shown these individuals to be very powerful true, but also struggling in many other ways due to what is just as much a curse in many cases as much as a gift. Flurry is an aberration, and as such things are not the same for her that they are for everyone else...  and that is where the writing comes in. They get to explore this concept with her and the challenges it will impose.

Finally...

7 hours ago, Justin_Case001 said:

I really do hate that thing.

 

7 hours ago, Justin_Case001 said:

I just hate that baby more than life itself.  (And I really hate life itself.  Ask anyone.)

 

7 hours ago, Justin_Case001 said:

Basically, everything about the episode was good except for the baby.  Now, can we please throw that wretched thing into the Pit of Tartarus and never speak of it again?

If she is so bad for you, and so upsetting and traumatizing that you cannot, nor will not ever like her NO-MATTER-WHAT... than why not skip those episodes? I ask this same question of any fan of MLP who does the exact same thing for Trixie, Starlight, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie or whoever... if the character is so awful to you that they literally can do nothing good and you will blindly hate it no matter what it is about and no matter what they do, then why bother going through the motions? I don't understand this form of "self-torture" everyone seems to enjoy putting themselves through. It is not like you are tricked into the episode, you get tons of advance notice on what it is about and what to be on the look out for. You are not tied to a chair or having it beamed into your brain... you get to make a choice. And you chose to sit and watch something you hate. I see this same thing in video games, movies, other cartoons, comics and really all over the place. It is fine if you are going into it with a neutral frame of mind and just end up hating it, but someone loathes something even before it begins, and than they make themselves sit through it hating it intensely the entire time, and then tell everyone how bad it was based upon the fact they just blindly hate it. It just screams masochism to me. 

[Will Guide 21,325]

I love how during Flurry's playdate with the Cake Twins, she genuinely tries to get the twins to stop fighting. Although, her solution of breaking the toy into 2 pieces and giving a piece to each of the twins is not the same as breaking a cookie in half to share it! Flurry evens gets Spike's attention like how a school child would get a responsible adult to stop the pointless bickering of two other schoolchildren.

Despite what others might say, I think Flurry Heart actually CAN be the responsible one when the time is right!

[Baykush 328]

This episode is one of the reasons I don't like to know the titles or the synopsis of the episodes before watching them. I accidentally read part of the title in a youtube thumbnail and just seeing it had "Flurry" in it immediately made me lower my expectations for this episode, and it's really unfair because it was actually really good, more than it had any right to be.

What I liked.

• I still think the baby looks hideous but she was actually kind of adorable and enjoyable in this episode because of her personality. I loved how she played with the bears, how she attempted to wink but failed and how she was reasonable enough to deduce the twins needed to share, but not enough to know that breaking the toy in half wasn't gonna do it. It might be a little unrealistic but hey, it's a candy-colored horses cartoon and they actually try to make it as realistic as that can get.
• Twilight is BAE, need I say more? She also was ok in this episode, not great but I liked her.
• Spike was very well-written, like Lesson Zero well-written. Sarcastic, funny, and the voice of reason.
• The subplot with Cadance and Shining Armor was better than I thought it would be. It didn't do much to develop them but it gave them pretty funny moments, specially because of how they didn't seem to know what was going on half of the time. 
• Shining Armor's friend was great and I hope we get to see more of him, I like how he wasn't the annoyingly oblivious to good taste stereotype, but how he knew that art was subjective and was proud to see the effects it had on Shining Armor and Cadence.
• It was nice to see Cheerilee and the nurse again.
• "Honestly all your friends have very similar names", "Is this art or a mistake?", "I'll just write it...with my mouth". This season has some very memorable quotes and dialog already and we're only three episodes in.
• I liked the way Twilight yelled at Flurry Heart and then realized she had messed up, it was a very realistic reaction even for the princess of friendship herself. I also liked how she had to pay for the consequences of her actions, for the most part.
•  Pinkie Pie's crazy organizational skills are back! Sorry Twi, but Rainbow was right, she is more organized than you are. The apology cakes were a very nice touch.
• The moral was fine enough to stand on its own, despite having had similar lessons in the show before.
• This episode was hilarious all the time.

What I didn't like.

• Why the hell couldn't Twilight keep up with Flurry Heart? It makes no sense.
• While I liked the subplot, I didn't like the reason Shining Armor and Cadence decided to suddenly ask Twilight to take care of Flurry Heart.

I think writing about this episode made me like it more, it's definitely one of the best slice-of-life the show has ever done. I think I'm changing my vote from "I like it" to "I love it".

[ErisPegasus 56]

This episode was a lot better than I expected it to be.

1. Flurry Heart, the Royal couple, and a member of the guard were given some devt in the span of 22 mins. (Wonder if Josh Scorcher will tone down his complaints ; come to think, half the fandom for that matter)

Not sure how the 'bro' label applies to Spearhead other than his physique and voice. I mean, isn't an appreciation of the arts the diametric opposite of the 'bro'?Unless of course we're talking about Infinite Jest fanboys...

2. The ending scene put Spike in a place of authority, as well as tying up the hospital plot. It's such a short moment, but it says so much and would have depreciated the episode had it not been there.

3. Pony Latin exists??? Reminds me of the first Timber teaser for LoE last year - everyone else was freaking out about Twilight having a love interest, while I was wondering..."Wait? The EQG universe has Latin? A real world language?" Interesting how it crosses over to Equestria prime. Maybe they mentioned it here to avoid LoE's version being a plot-hole? Me spatium equus delectat.

4. the modern art digs were lazy at first, but I liked how they flipped it around half-way through. Spearhead's art worked: Shining and Cadence were reduced to emotional wrecks by projecting their anxieties over Flurry Heart onto the art sets. Subjectivity rules.

I'm used to seeing nerd culture (of which bronies are a part) jeeringly dismiss non-photorealistic art because it doesn't serve a purely mechanical purpose. It's the same attitude that equates hour put into a work with true quality. Yes, I'm sure your hyper-detailed canvas of Rick and Morty had a lot of time put into it. But does that make it 'good'? Is it evocative?

This is probably the jaded anti-Reddit Reddit user in me talking though.

5. the fact that it was a Ponyville episode not about Starlight meant we saw the Ponyvillians fleshed out. Not sure if this is just me, but despite the preponderance of Starlight eps taking place in Ponyville, I don't see her interacting with the regulars much. She and Trixie remind me of the skulking teenagers archetype; they live in the same sunny town, but don't hang around the same niches. Metaphorically, their adventures in Twi's castle last ep equate to smoking around the back of the supermarket we see Twilight whizzing through with Spike and Flurry Heart this time.

Having a slice-of-life focused around Twilight and Spike means we see some of the established Ponyvillians again, some of which we haven't seen in a while. And that's nice.

Overall: Expected a 5-6, got an 8. Thanks DHX!

[Castle Bleck 19,163]

Who else thinks Spearhead's like a male version of Tree Hugger?

[Music Chart Fan 818]

57 minutes ago, GrimGrimoire said:

If she is so bad for you, and so upsetting and traumatizing that you cannot, nor will not ever like her NO-MATTER-WHAT... than why not skip those episodes? I ask this same question of any fan of MLP who does the exact same thing for Trixie, Starlight, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie or whoever... if the character is so awful to you that they literally can do nothing good and you will blindly hate it no matter what it is about and no matter what they do, then why bother going through the motions? I don't understand this form of "self-torture" everyone seems to enjoy putting themselves through. It is not like you are tricked into the episode, you get tons of advance notice on what it is about and what to be on the look out for. You are not tied to a chair or having it beamed into your brain... you get to make a choice. And you chose to sit and watch something you hate. I see this same thing in video games, movies, other cartoons, comics and really all over the place. It is fine if you are going into it with a neutral frame of mind and just end up hating it, but someone loathes something even before it begins, and than they make themselves sit through it hating it intensely the entire time, and then tell everyone how bad it was based upon the fact they just blindly hate it. It just screams masochism to me. 

So, on the one hand, if people read an episode synopsis or watch an episode promo and say that the episode doesn't look like it'll be good, they get chastised by some commenters who say things like "How can you say the episode will be bad if you haven't even seen it?", "Why won't you even give the episode a chance?", etc. But, on the other hand, if those people watch the episode and say afterward that, as they suspected, they didn't like it, then they get chastised by other commenters who say things like "Well, why did you even watch the episode and torture yourself if you were expecting not to like it?", "Why are even here if you hate the show so much?", etc. So are we supposed to watch episodes we expect not to like, or not? It seems like we're damned if we do, damned if we don't.

I can't speak to everyone's rationales, but I can think of at least a few good reasons why people would "torture themselves" and watch episodes they expect not to like. While this show may not be serialized such that each episode directly follows the previous one, we never know when future episodes will reference or build upon previous episodes that we might have skipped. Or even if that doesn't happen, other forum members may reference episodes we might have skipped when posting about the show in the future. And seeing every episode at least once would probably be necessary to make judgments (and understand others' judgments) about the direction the show is going, how good the season is overall, the best and worst episodes of the season, etc. It seems to me like it's better to spend 22 minutes to watch an episode once and still not like it rather than skip it and always have that hole in one's knowledge about the show going forward.

[Redhatbrony 59]

I think it is a nice episode.

Really Flurry can be a little bit frazzled, but she is adorable at the same time.

I like the dynamics between her and auntie Twilight a lot.
More about that in my review.

 

[Thrond 3,257]

They made Twilight interesting again?! Whoa! I mean, I'd hoped that would happen, but I didn't think it'd actually work. Oh, and Flurry Heart is still the cutest thing, and I adore how this show doesn't glorify parenthood. I've been made aware that it's hard, hard work, and for a children's show to not shy away from that is something I admire. Wish more could be done with Shining and Cadance, but that does little to take away from this episode being the cutest possible thing. 

Reviewed at my blog.

Additional thoughts:

For a show targeted at kids, My Little Pony takes an adult's perspective surprisingly often. The mane six are quite clearly meant as "grown ups" in some capacity, and almost every story about babies in Friendship is Magic has balanced the obvious infant cuteness with just how much of a headache taking care of a baby can be. I'm always pleased with how well the show can work these relatively adult perspectives into stories and morals which are good for kids. 

[GrimGrimoire 4,970]

19 minutes ago, Music Chart Fan said:

So, on the one hand, if people read an episode synopsis or watch an episode promo and say that the episode doesn't look like it'll be good, they get chastised by some commenters who say things like "How can you say the episode will be bad if you haven't even seen it?", "Why won't you even give the episode a chance?", etc. But, on the other hand, if those people watch the episode and say afterward that, as they suspected, they didn't like it, then they get chastised by other commenters who say things like "Well, why did you even watch the episode and torture yourself if you were expecting not to like it?", "Why are even here if you hate the show so much?", etc. So are we supposed to watch episodes we expect not to like, or not? It seems like we're damned if we do, damned if we don't.

I can't speak to everyone's rationales, but I can think of at least a few good reasons why people would "torture themselves" and watch episodes they expect not to like. While this show may not be serialized such that each episode directly follows the previous one, we never know when future episodes will reference or build upon previous episodes that we might have skipped. Or even if that doesn't happen, other forum members may reference episodes we might have skipped when posting about the show in the future. And seeing every episode at least once would probably be necessary to make judgments (and understand others' judgments) about the direction the show is going, how good the season is overall, the best and worst episodes of the season, etc. It seems to me like it's better to spend 22 minutes to watch an episode once and still not like it rather than skip it and always have that hole in one's knowledge about the show going forward.

Did you read what I wrote and quoted or just read into it and decide to go off on some wild tangent all on your own? How exactly are you damned if you do and damned if you don't? I don't recall ever asking why anyone was here or questioning why someone is a fan of the overall series. Who cares what anyone else thinks or says? You are free to like and dislike whatever you want. You are free to give something a chance however you see fit, if people take issue with that, sounds like it is their problem to me. That is not what my comment was about.

If you literally hate something, in other words state, you do not like something and will never like something, no matter what... as said above, you have no desire at all to give it a chance or go into it with an open frame of mind, then why go into it with that mind set and then act so surprised, and then say things like "Surprise... I hated it!" "Episode is pure crap!" "Writers keep screwing up!" (No one is doing that here in this thread mind you (yet), but there are episodes and threads where it has happened).

My point is, a lot of people these days seem to just blindly hate something (again, perfectly fine), and then force themselves to sit through it as if they were held at gunpoint and then go and tear into it upon forums, youtube or whatever. They then criticize said episode, game or movie for containing the object that they hate and write it off as somehow the episode, game or whatever is at fault for containing what they hate, when they forced themselves to sit through or play it, as if somehow IT wasted their time and put them through that hell.

An Example: let's say you hate Trixie. But not just hate her, hate her with unbridled fury... you can't stand the character and would pay real money to be rid of her and never see her again. So then you discover S7E8 is an all Trixie episode... so what do you do? If you sit through it and watch it, you have already formed the opinion it is all bad no matter what... you won't let yourself be surprised or find anything good about it at all.. you are just blindly loathing everything about it because you loathe her. So then afterward you go onto a forum, and proceed to just rail road the episode for being about something you hate... but chose to watch anyway.  Your rationale about the episode holding some deeper clue or meaning among other members towards something in the future matters not at all... you still chose to watch something you know you are going to hate, and then are punishing it (as well as yourself) for being something you hate instead of on its own merits and failings. It is no different than people saying they hate MLP because it contains ponies, watching it anyway, and complaining on forums "Show sucks because of all the ponies... I would like it if it did not have ponies!. Well guess I'll watch the next episode.... I'll probably hate it because it will probably contain ponies"

If it is a bad episode, so be it... talk about how bad it was and feel free to list the reasons why you hated it. A lot of people do a fantastic job of that with Newbie Dash, 28 Pranks Later, Flutter Brudder and several others on this site explaining why the episodes frustrate them so much and why they loathe them. But it would be a totally different story if someone who detests Rainbow Dash popped in and said "Newbie Dash sucks because it contains Rainbow Dash!!!" "28PL is the worst thing ever because of Rainbow Dash!!" It is not debate, discussion or reviewing... it is just blind hatred and negativity created by someone before hand, that they force themselves to endure and then take it out on everything and anything in sight as if somehow it is at fault instead of themselves and their own self imposed negativity. And it is everywhere these days. Again, no one is doing that here in this thread (yet), but it looked like a good opportunity to get some insight based upon a response.

[Fluttershyfan94 5,737]

I enjoyed this episode, a lot of cute in it.

[Dark Qiviut 22,160]

2 hours ago, ErisPegasus said:

Not sure how the 'bro' label applies to Spearhead other than his physique and voice. I mean, isn't an appreciation of the arts the diametric opposite of the 'bro'?

Not true. You can be a bro and still appreciate the arts. (Anyone regardless of gender can be a bro, for that matter.) Spearhead has that archetypical dudebro accent and voice, but clearly not a cookie cutter nor stereotype. He appreciates how his abstract art invokes individual emotions and is VERY good in his craft.