We can all wave “Bye-Bye” to the streak of excellent episodes! BYE BYE! Because this week we were treated with an underwhelming dose of Apples. Lots. Of. Apples.
So Applejack, a character that hasn’t been utilized in a while, finally gets an episode (and song) all to herself. Is this a good thing? In this case, no, not really. There wasn’t as much technically wrong with this episode… there just wasn’t that much going on to keep me interested or even laughing.
Every few… years? The Apple family gathers together on a apple farm and have an entire day of festivities and fun. SO this year Applejack decides she wants to host this event, and in the typical cartoon cliché “Hosting events is hard!” So she ends up having a lot of trouble making everyone (including the viewers) have fun.
Although we get some great guest appearances by Apple-family characters we haven’t seen in a while, we still are left with a sour taste in our mouths… in fact, I had a sour taste in my mouth throughout the entire episode. Because I noticed that I simply wasn’t laughing as much as I was used to with this show. Instead of comedy, it seems like this episode tried to delve deeper into the family and Applejack, however, it did not succeed in that. It came off as overly simplistic, not unique, and something I will forget after a few days.
Even the CMC, who get to see Babs again, barely get anything enjoyable past running around a tree for a few minutes, which seems like a perfect metaphor for this episode. It seems like it circles around itself over and over again stating that “LOOK, people are feeling AWKWARD with Applejack being all controlling!” Until a slightly anticlimactic event occurs and people start addressing this annoyance.
My general grievance with this episode is that it sets out to do a lot, and ends up doing too little in a very uncreative and uninspired fashion that ended up boring me midway through. Now is this a bad episode? No, not really, it just is so unremarkable that you hardly want to rewatch it. After the few slam-dunk episodes before this, I felt really underwhelmed after this one.
Overall, this episode succeeded in doing what it came in to do. To fill up this already shortened season with filling filler that isn’t particularly entertaining, but does the job as we get to see an almost heart-attack inducing scene with baby Applejack eating apple fritters.
Pros:
-Tells a cohesive, and decently paced story
-We get to see Applejack again
-The Applefamily returns
-The song was surprisingly catchy
Cons:
-Fails to entertain most of the way through
-CMC were immensely under-utilized.
-Applejack was slightly (and frustatingly) annoying in an inexcusable way
-Not enough Granny Smith Applefamily lore!
Grade: C+
awkwardreviews 
Main problem of the episode : boring. And that’s because of Applejack’s character : she’s so nice and perfect that it’s really hard to make a really interesting episode.
I really liked see the Apple Family again, like Braeburn, even if it was just in the background.
It was great to see Babs Seed in a better role than the bully she was 4 episodes ago.
The song was great, nothing outstanding.
But we still have some heartwarming moments with AppleJack and her family, especially with her parent’s metaphor by the two stars. That was kinda touching…
Anyway, I’d say that Apple Family Reunion is okay, but you’re not going to remember it until T-1 day
Loving the JeremyJahns references.
I thought I was the only one who didn’t like this episode (thank God I’m not) To tell the truth I think that season 4 will be way better because of the animatic though I’m still not sure.