Equestria is an unusual place. I mean excluding the whole ‘sentient ponies’ and ‘living mythological creatures’ thing. What I mean is, it’s unusual because of the jobs certain ponies have. Specifically, the jobs inherently connected to their race.

Now, earth ponies are in charge of managing the animal and plant life in Equestria. Which makes sense to a certain extent, I mean, here on Planet Earth, we have farmers, and pet owners. But generally they don’t bother taking care of wild animal and plant life, because those can take care of themselves.

Unicorns are in charge of raising the sun and moon every day. I wonder when the others pony races are going to clue in that the planets orbit naturally, and if they didn’t, the moon would’ve crashed into the planet long ago. But it’s a good scam they got going on, no wonder they don’t tell anypony the truth. Now, it is possible the planet is tidally locked, so they need to force it to rotate, but it would have to be a lot closer…they must have one hell of an ozone layer.

Finally, the pegasi, who are in charge of the weather. Which actually makes a lot of sense, I mean if we could do it, we so would. We could prevent hurricanes, tornadoes, major ice storms that can take out three provinces at once, and snowstorms during exam time. But this week it’s revealed that they don’t just control it, they need to create it. If they didn’t, the entire planet would likely become a wasteland. How the hell did life evolve on this rock!?

The episode opens with Rainbow Dash organizing a meeting for every pegasus in town. Including Fluttershy, who tries to dodge it. She even goes as far as to disguise herself as a tree. An obvious reference to the line “I’d like to be a tree,” from season one’s Over a Barrel. Also, the mule from Applebuck Season makes an appearance for the exact same gag as last time. That’s two callback gags in the first minute.  That’s a bad sign.

We are introduced to this week’s A-Plot by a filmstrip in the style of those educational films from the 50’s that warned us about nukes and/or communism…and by ‘us’ I mean people who were kids in the 50’s. I must say, I approve of the style. I wonder if everyone got that. I’m pretty sure little kids didn’t, but I’m pretty sure they don’t count anyways. Like the Looney Tunes of old, this show isn’t really ‘for kids,’ they just happen to watch it.

So, I’ll give you the Cole’s Notes. All the pegasi in Ponyville need to generate a tornado to transfer the contents of a nearby reservoir to Cloudsdale so they can generate all the clouds they need for the next…um…year? You know it’s never actually specified. As far as we know, this is something they need to do every week. That’s unsettling.

Of course Rainbow Dash, being the ambitious pony that she is, decides to try to set a new record. Yeah…good luck. You’re a small hamlet just outside Canterlot, you’re not exactly well populated. Anyway, because of this, she needs everypony in tip-top shape…including Fluttershy.

Anyway, as they are training, we get a few names for a few ponies, including a former toy-only pony: Blossomforth. This makes me happy because one thing that bugs me about much of the toy line is the lack of connection to the show. Until recently, over half the line never made an appearance on the show. Now the barriers are falling, we got more toys on the show, and we got more ponies from the show being released as toys, which is something that should have happened from the beginning.

One of the more notable ponies we meet goes nameless, so I’m going to take the liberty of giving him a name: Anabolic Steroid. Yeah, the guy’s obviously juicing, he has big, huge, deformed muscles, and tiny little wings that are smaller than Scootaloo’s. Seriously, what the fuck!? They create a character that abuses drugs? As I said earlier: this show isn’t really ‘for kids,’ they just happen to watch it.

So everypony is training except for two crucial characters: Scootaloo and Fluttershy, but only one is mentioned at all in this episode. You know, considering every pegasus in town is supposed to be involved, I find it odd that Scootaloo is nowhere to be seen. Not even in a non-speaking background role! I mean, she is a pegasus, and it’s established near the end, it’s not just adult pegasi that are involved. Of course it has been established that Scootaloo is not a very strong flyer, so any recognition of her involvement might overshadow Fluttershy’s development. Probably for the best, but it still bugs me. Though they could have included her to contrast Fluttershy’s development. Fluttershy could be distressed that the little pipsqueak is doing so much better than her. Last week, she couldn’t even get off the ground, now she’s flying laps around the yellow one.

So, speaking of Fluttershy, Rainbow is insistent that she be involved. She goes and visits her timid friend and finds her faking an illness…badly. Rainbow, of course, calls her out, and so Fluttershy fakes another illness, which Rainbow calls out again! Then Fluttershy reveals the real reason of her lack of involvement. Trauma from the mean kids at school, who laughed at her lack of flying skills. She doesn’t want history to repeat itself.

I think this sends the wrong message. That she’s still traumatized by what the pricks in elementary school said. I think that should have been another message: No matter how bad things are in elementary/high school, it ends, and isn’t really an issue in the real world. But that really doesn’t come up…or at least it’s not talked about. It probably makes sense that some people are traumatized by that stuff, but shouldn’t Rainbow mention how ridiculous it is that she thinks a bunch of adults will poke fun and tease her? The absurdity of this doesn’t come up!

So after some coaxing by Rainbow, Fluttershy eventually decides to join in. So, at training, they measure everypony’s wing power using an anemometer, which it turns out is a real thing, it measures wind speed, which is apt. Fluttershy starts off pretty decently, but some laughing from Flitter and Cloudchaser, triggers all those traumatic memories I mentioned earlier, causing her to slow down. Maybe it’s just me, but when people talk shit about me, I like to try to prove them wrong.

Anyway, because of the resultant stage fright, Fluttershy barely even charts, and the realization of her failure causes her to run away in tears. She ends up talking to all the animals of the forest and they somehow convince her to keep trying. To train and get better. Which I find hilarious for some reason. Most ponies listen to the advice of other ponies, but not Fluttershy!

Cue training montage that uses a generic rock track. If you ask me, this would have been a great opportunity to parody Eye of the Tiger, but I guess they were worried about a lawsuit or something, but they did parody Yakety Sax once or twice.

Fluttershy’s litmus for success during this montage is being able to blow off a dandelion with her wings, and win a tug-o-war with a bunch of butterflies. She should have set the bar higher.

So she arrives at training and makes a great improvement, increasing her score five-fold. Unfortunately, this only gets her a 2.3. But if she keeps it up, at this rate, she could give Rainbow a run for her money. But no pony says that because they’re stupid.

It’s the big day and everypony is ready…except for eight who are sick, and apparently that loss is enough to go from “creating a new record” to “not having enough to get the job done.” I don’t get it. To beat the record, the number was 1000; but to just get the job done, the number was 800. For those of you who failed math, that’s a difference of 200. So that means, each of those eight would have supplied at least an average of 25 wing power, and yet it was established earlier that Rainbow’s 16 was considered impressive. Something is definitely wrong here. If you’re going to include specific numbers, make sure you get the math right.

Spitfire makes an appearance…wearing her full Wonderbolts uniform, even though she isn’t doing any flying. Am I the only one perplexed by that?

Anyway, the team tries to form the tornado, and fails, just not enough power. But Rainbow refuses to give up, and gives it another shot. Unfortunately they are just shy of the required 800 wing power needed, and Fluttershy can put them over the edge. After a bit of coaxing she flies up and they get the water to Cloudsdale. The lesson being, no matter how small you think you are, you can still make a difference. A lesson for the ages. Reminds me of voting. Seriously, this lesson applies perfectly to elections. Don’t forget to vote at the next one. No, I don’t know when it is.

Next week, an episode that I’m sure will be very close to my heart as the Cutie Mark Crusaders become newspapermares; starting a gossip column in the local paper. Unfortunately, not everypony is pleased with their reporting. Hey! As long as it’s fair and accurate, what’s the problem? …it’s not going to be fair and accurate is it? …sigh…