My Little Pony - Friendship Is Magic: Episode 222 - Hurricane Fluttershy

Rating:

Man, I hate meetings.  Such a waste of time to go over things you already know, and any announcements are never good.  They always say you have to be there, but it’s never true.  Meetings are really only a way for companies to feel good about themselves, or at least to cover their asses in ad­vance of the inevitable complaints or lawsuits.  They show how smart and better the people in charge are over the lowly peons at the bottom, while wasting the money to pay them for not doing any work.

The meeting in Hurricane Fluttershy details how creating a tornado is beneficial for the country.  This really must be a fantasy show if making a life-threatening, property destroying natural phenomenon is a good thing.  Maybe this was like that one Star Trek: TNG episode where the Q had to kill that family because they tried to live as humans.  Maybe there were a few undesirables in Equestria that needed to be wiped out, and the rest of the residents would be better off after it.

Completely spoiling Fluttershy’s amazing tree costume, Rainbow Dash ushers her into the meeting and announces the “real” reason for the creation of the tornado is to send water to Cloudsdale to make more clouds, because seriously it’s the only way.  Everyone else buys this ridiculous lie, but not Fluttershy, who wants absolutely nothing to do with this pro­ceeding.  Unfortunately, that’s not how things work at a company, and Flut­tershy is sternly told that it’s her duty to kill I mean help get the wa­ter to Cloudsdale.  Given the alternative in today’s job market, she has lit­tle choice but to comply.

I pretty much feel the exact same way as Fluttershy at meetings, which is why I stopped going to them.  Back in the days when I was a college freshman, I went to everything because I felt like I had to.  It didn’t take me long to realize that I didn’t, and that the world wasn’t going to end if I didn’t go to convocation every week.  So I stopped, and nothing happened.  I found more productive ways to waste my time, and absolutely no­body cared if they got to tell me about all the duties I’m supposed to have.  Of course, the downside is that I probably lost a few episodes that would have turned out like this one, but likely not so happily.

With two Fluttershy episodes squished together after most of a season with no­th­ing, the similarities are much more apparent than they otherwise would have been.  Naturally, Fluttershy’s introvertedness is the subject of an epi­sode about her, and once again she has to learn to overcome her silly fears.  Instead of drilling with a roid-raging psycho, she trains with her animal friends so she can fly alongside… a roid-raging psycho.  Unfortunately for this pegasus “pony”, his sexy man bits aren’t the only thing that shrunk due to his drug use.  With his wings now much too tiny to fly with, it’s fortu­nate that his attitude made up for the fact that he couldn’t match Flut­tershy’s measly 0.5 wingpower, and nobody dared to make him feel bad about his inability to help out.

One thing I have liked over the course of the show is how it’s subtly shown that Fluttershy is surprisingly almost an equal to her fellow pegasus Rainbow Dash in terms of athletic ability.  She had no problem running with Dash in The Last Roundup while pulling a cart full of other ponies who are too lazy or fabulous to help out, and she found a way to catch up to Dash near the end of The Return Of Harmony.  The only reason why she isn’t winning races and enjoying her own fan clubs is because she thinks she isn’t any good.

This massive internal conflict fuels just about every show involving Fluttershy, because there’s usually no time where it doesn’t get in the way. And this is the hardest thing to understand in the great Introvert/Extravert de­bate.  Fluttershy is almost certainly the most talented and well-rounded pony of the six, but she doesn’t know that.  Many greats in any artistic field share this prob­lem, which means it’s impossible to know if what you’ve done is crap or if you just think it is.  Since Flut­tershy has only had Rainbow Dash to compare herself to, it’s under­standable that she doesn’t have a high opinion of her abilities.  Her character is slightly frustrating as a result, since she would easily be the best pony with a tad bit more confidence.  Truthfully, all of the reserved “I’m sorry”s and her absolute refusal to cause any conflict what­soever would be missed.  Fluttershy’s portrayal as the mane six’s one true in­trovert is still stunningly accurate, and they really are better off with her the way she is.

So Fluttershy montages her way to some confidence and speed, and looks all sorts of sexy heading to the starting line to take another crack at the 40.  Her speed easily appears comparable to the other ponies who were pushing 10, but thanks to a bogus reading on the meter, she only rates out a 2.3.  Clearly this is another case of the man (or wo-man as the case may be) keeping her down, but not realizing the results were rigged, Flut­tershy loses all confidence in herself.  Of course, she now has an excuse not to take part in this silly and murderous affair after all.

The big day arrives, and along with it comes the ever-changing Spitfire to supervise.  Remaining faith­ful to this job, she refuses to help the other ponies out with the tor­nado even though they are many men short due to a recent outbreak.  With the world record chance now gone thanks to so many missing, Dash is pres­sured to go ahead with the tornado anyways, and nearly kills every­one involved when they can’t quite make the required 800 wingpower.  Even though they are really close to this number, Spitfire (in true supervisor fashion) refuses to lift a single wing to avoid a pony massacre, meaning Dash is left with no choice but to try again.  Try to kill all the other po­nies in the tornado that is.

Since her cheerleading skills are famous throughout the internet, Fluttershy figures her quiet “yay”s would be enough to push the other ponies over the top even if she isn’t flying.  Unfortunately for her, she ne­glects to remember one of the most important lessons this episode teaches: if it’s your day off, never show up to work, because you will get dragged into working.  With the other ponies stuck on 795 and seconds away from cer­tain death, Twilight Sparkle pleads with Fluttershy to join the herd, since that fat lazy manager over there certainly isn’t going to do anything (this is another great workplace lesson demonstrated by the show).  Not want­ing their blood on her hooves, Fluttershy dons some sadly not-so-attractive goggle-glasses and gets sucked into the vicious tornado a few feet away.  “Sur­prisingly”, Fluttershy’s effort ends up being much higher than the 2.3 she was allegedly clocked at earlier, and the water easily makes it to Clouds­dale, splashing down and killing some unsuspecting ponies allowing more clouds to be made and avoiding a devastating drought.

Despite her “measly” wing power, everyone is forced to admit that Fluttershy saved the day, including Rainbow Dash, who confesses that Fluttershy actually is their best flier.  Still not realizing all of the levels behind the scenes, Fluttershy writes a letter to the princess de­scribing how every little bit counts.  The workplace lessons she learned are much more meaningful though, and serve as a cautionary tale to the twenty-year-olds youngsters watching this show who will one day enter the workforce.  I’ve had to learn the hard way about meetings and super­visors, so hopefully this show will prevent these things from happening in the future (or at least reduce their occurrence).

It’s honestly nice to see a more understanding Rainbow Dash in Hurricane Fluttershy.  Fresh off the surprisingly good Read It And Weep, Cindy Morrow was the only writer at this time to show any growth or depth of character in the inexplicably beloved pony.  While this doesn’t match up to  her previous effort, Morrow again found a way to make a generally enjoyable episode despite it technically being poorly written.  There are way too many predictable moments, and not just the successful resolution.  I called Fluttershy’s first reading of 0.5, and mumbled a “take it easy” myself shortly before Rainbow Dash delivered it to the still circling star of the show.  The physics are a mess (everyone knows that isn’t how you measure air speed, and why are the ponies shown flying in a straight line in the tornado if they’re actually going in cir­cles?), and the tornado plot doesn’t make any amount of sense.  That said, the characterization is much better, and the actual invaluable lessons (not that junk Fluttershy spewed at the end) are extremely well demonstrated.  I must again abhor the treatment of trees in this episode though, which sees Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, and a number of butterflies all crashing into one destructively.  This is an ap­palling abuse of the environment for comic effect, and it’s unforgivable that a children’s show would portray this kind of behavior as acceptable.