Before we get to rewatching, allow me to sum up my feelings for the episode coming in:
Hate. Let me tell you how much I've come to hate this episode since it began to air. There are 387.44 million miles of printed circuits in wafer thin layers that fill my complex. If the word 'hate' was engraved on each nanoangstrom of those hundreds of miles it would not equal one one-billionth of the hate I feel for this episode at this micro-instant. Hate. Hate.
This episode might possibly be the worst episode of season four, and that's only because Three's a Crowd also aired this season. To be more specific, there are two reasons I despise it so:
A) The episode is
boring. The jokes are stale, the pacing is languid, and the Breezies are annoying little snots. The only times I ever smiled was when Fluttershy did her bee dance and Seabreeze (the only redeeming factor to the Breezies) swore like a one-eyed carpenter in his native tongue. And what makes the boredom worse is that there are the pieces of a
wonderful episode here. Fluttershy learns that kindness can have negative consequences, and that sometimes you have to do something hurtful so that those you care for will be better. As the song goes, "You have to be cruel to be kind, in the right measure." That scene where she ushers the Breezies out, and then breaks down once they're gone over being so mean, would have been a wonderful lead into the coda, but...
B) THE LAST FOUR MINUTES OF THIS EPISODE ARE
AWFUL. It not only uses one of the worst cliches in the show (Twilight has a book/spell/whatever that can instantly solve the problem), but the Mane 6 turn into Breezies. This is not only right the heck out of nowhere and incredibly cheap, but it reeks of the worst kinds of product placement. And yes, the show is a big commercial anyway, but that never stopped He-Man getting a new friend/vehicle/what-have-you every week and then never seeing it again any less jarring. The voices are also very annoying; I have never liked super high-pitched vocals, and the same is true here, especially since you know how the ponies are supposed to sound.
Oh, and Seabreeze's big reason for wanting to get home was because he had a wife and child. Meaning that the
other Breezies were willing to cut him off from home for potentially years and trap him in a hostile and dangerous world because they're lazy freeloaders with no mind for their
own families. That's despicable.
But here's the kicker, and what I think puts this episode over TAC in terms of badness for me. The latter episode is full of poor attempts at humor, filler gags, character derailment, and redeemed!Discord, but it's ultimately inconsequential to the grander plot. This episode is Fluttershy's
key episode. You can't ignore it. You have to watch it to see where she got that flower from. It's officially part of the season's story arc.
Maybe when I rewatch on Saturday I'll be more positive. As it stands, this is a bad episode.
PS: Is it a bad sign when one episode you hate serves as rough foreshadowing for another episode you end up hating?