awkwardreviews

Okay guys if you’re reading this then you probably already know what happened to my commentary, that is if you’ve even heard of me. If not, then hello! My name is KyleThePale and if one of my videos ever gets unwatchable I will probably end up posting a review here. Anyways, that’s what happened to last week’s episode, “Bats!”. Which is why I’m here, so let’s not fill up this review with nonsense about me and get on to the episode!

The episode starts off with Applejack eager to start off Applebucking Season, but when she goes to buck a tree and apples start raining down, they’ve all turned to mush! This could only mean that something terrible has happened, so she calls in the rest of the main six, and Spike. That’s when Applejack explains that a colony of vampire fruit bats has invaded the entire orchard and that they should be stopped before they eat her blue ribbon apple, which is even bigger than Twilight. That’s another thing I should bring up, if you look closely you can see that Twilight is now taller than the rest of the main six. I guess with alicornism you also gain a growth spurt. Fluttershy, being the element of kindness and all, decides she should go talk to the bats and see if they’ll leave the blue ribbon apple alone. This of course fails and complications arise at how they should deal with these so called “vermin”.

This is when Applejack creates the second song of season 4 about how bad the vampire bats are. Fluttershy joins along, instead singing about how they are just trying to use nature’s most basic instinct, survival. Rarity and, not too surprisingly, Rainbow Dash are the first ones to agree with AJ. And then so does everpony else. They just… spontaneously agree with AJ, simply because she sang a song. Anyways, they plan on rounding up the fruit bats while Pinkie is busy breaking the forth wall. AJ then tells them a story of the previous infestation that happened long before the main six were born. When Rainbow learns that there was no cider, she is even more determined to stop them than ever. Twilight, trying to be the voice of reason, has an idea to use magic, which will probably backfire in some way.

Her plan involves having Fluttershy do the stare on the bats so they will focus their full attention on her. Twilight will then cast a spell that makes them stop sucking out all the applejuice from the apples. They go through with their plan and it works, kinda. The vampire bats have stopped eating the apples, but now something else is attacking the orchard instead. The main six decide to wait around at night to find out who, or what, is destroying the orchard. However, even more complications occur when Fluttershy turns out to be a vampire. The main six don’t know this yet and they all freak out when they see a shadowy figure flying around them. These reactions range from cowering in fear to attacking a scarecrow. When they find out figure it out, Rarity makes a horrible pun that leads to way too much fanart within a short period of time.

They try to capture “Flutterbat” by sacrificing AJ’s blue ribbon apple and having Flutterbat look at her own reflection. Which, there shouldn’t be one if she’s a vampire, but what do I know? This causes her to be shocked and stare at the mirror, giving Twilight the chance to reverse the spell. Pinke decides to confuse everyone by answering questions with yes or no only. So in other words, she became a magic 8 ball. The episode ends with Spike having to write their diaries, which they are perfectly capable of doing on their own, and Pinkie pouncing at an apple while wearing false teeth. And they try to hint that Fluttershy is still a vampire, but I’m pretty sure it was just a small little cliffhanger at the end. Nothing major.

All in all, this was an okay episode. It had a good story, a catchy song, and gave birth to a new character. Not sure whether or not to call that last one a pro or a con though. The fanart is pretty disturbing, but the idea is pretty cool. My main problems with this episode are ones I’m finding a lot throughout season 4. Spike is so minor that he’s pretty much a background character at this point, they try too hard to make Pinkie funny, Twilight can’t seem to do anything right, and the songs aren’t that good. Yes, they are indeed catchy, but they aren’t that good in terms of what they are about. I liked this one until all of a sudden everyone agreed with AJ. They didn’t even give a second thought. I don’t really use the same grading scale as Awkward, so I’ll give this episode a 6.5/10. Good in terms of narrative, but rather lackluster in all other places. And one last thing before I go, why are the writers so obsessed with changing Fluttershy? Do they want to have disturbing fanart of her? I mean, Flutterhulk was a shock to me enough I didn’t even need to look at fanart of that thing, but Flutterbat? There is too much of it! Well I hope you guys enjoyed my hostile takeover of this website and I hope you all have a great day!