Title: Fugitive Flowers

Summary: Posey finds some sentient flowers wandering around her garden and offers them shelter and water, but she has no idea what they have in store for her to repay her kindness. After the Flouries have taken Masquerade hostage, they are on their way to sucking the life out of Dream Valley unless the ponies can stop them.

Initial Thoughts

We are only five stories (nine episodes) from the end of this season! And next season only has thirteen episodes. Well, each season has two more, but thankfully, bat and I already recapped Catrina and Midnight Castle, because bat knew the order they should go in, not the order the DVD showed them. We’re making progress. [bat: Slow, excruciatingly slow, progress.]

I mean, admittedly, there are two other series we have to slog through, but I feel like we’re getting somewhere. Having 50 episodes in season 1 was just killer. It’s made me feel like we were going to be trapped on season 1 forever.

I don’t remember this episode at all, but I’m hoping that it’s good. Would it kill the writers to do something that doesn’t suck? The last time I enjoyed an episode was Catrina. You know, the second thing we recapped. Back in June 2018. Nearly a year ago.

Recap:

Part 1

We open with Whizzer and Masquerade walking through the forest and seeing a tree fall over. They rush to it to find out what’s going on. They find an area of tree stumps that reminds me of my camp area in The Forest. (I’ve gotta build a gazebo, dudes. Fuck trees.)

They find a crab in a blue helmet felling (apparently hollow?) trees. Crab people, craaaaab people, tastes like crab, talk like people. Craaaab people.

The ponies sit on a tree branch and decide the crab people are strange. [bat: ALWAYS JUDGING AREN’T YOU, PONIES.] Masquerade says she’s going to do something before they ruin Dream Valley. Also, you know how Whizzer’s one thing is that she talks really fast? Yeah, she’s not doing that today. *shrugs* Fuck characterisation.

Masquerade moves to the ground in front of a crab and does a passive-aggressive “ahem” thing, that calls forth all of the memes about Karen with her “I want to speak to the manager” haircut. She could have said “Excuse me”, but she goes with a repeated “ahem” at increasing volume. One crab tells her, in a very quick and professional military-esque tone that there’s no time to talk, they have to find the Flouries.

Another crab agrees that there’s no time, and the Flouries could be hiding anywhere. He rips up a tree and inspects it. This provokes Whizzer to fly over and tell him to stop – also, her fast talking is back. Maybe she hadn’t had her coffee before she did the first few lines? He says no time, and walks off. Clearly we are dealing with the Jack Bauer of crabs here. [bat: Yes. Crab Bauer.] [Dove: I smirked, I’ll not lie.]

Whizzer says that’s no way to find anything – and she’s not wrong. Randomly felling trees to see if Flouries are inside is a bloody stupid way to search for anything. Whizzer decides they need to get help. (We are not doing ‘get help’.) Please don’t let help be Megan.

“Yeah!” Masquerade agrees. “We gotta find Megan!”

Sigh.

Then we cut to a bunch of walking flowers that remind me of Broom from the original She-Ra cartoon. I can only assume these are the Flouries. They say they’ve been running for days and need fertile soil and water. One of them sounds like the doorknob from Alice in Wonderland (the animated classic, not the Tim Burton car wreck).

They crest a hill and see that in the valley below there is nothing but delightful greenery, and they are saved. They spot Posey tending to her garden, and Purple (they may have names, but I have no interest in learning them, so I’ll call them by their colours) comments that she seems to love flowers, and if she cared for them the same way, they’d be safe forever. Pink comments that they don’t want to scare her, so she’ll take the lead.

Posey is basically Fluttershy here – she gives her flowers a pep talk, saying she’s so proud of how well they’re growing, and it’s quite nice, honestly. It’s actual characterisation, rather than reaction to a situation.

And any goodwill I had immediately evaporates when she breaks into song.

After she’s done singing a very pointless song that fails to move the plot along, the Flouries approach on hands and knees [bat: leaves and stems/roots?], saying they need water and fertile soil. Posey says they’re half-starved and asks how she can help. Are you kidding me? You just did a song about how to tend to a garden, you muppet. You should know this.

Posey leads them to a perfect spot that she was saving for her prize roses. It appears to be a plinth. Now I’m terrible at anything garden-related, but even I know that a plinth is not made of fertile soil.

Megan and Cherries Jubilee rock up, saying they heard voices and Megan wants to know who she’s talking to. Um, fuck off, Megan. The earlier scene shows that Posey appears to give her garden a cheery “well done” every time she’s there, so why wouldn’t you hear voices? Also, even if she is talking to someone, why do you need to know? Just fuck off.

Also, the plinth is actually a planter, so the Flouries are going to be fine.

Megan realises that Posey is – fucking shocker – gardening in her garden. That explains everything. Oh, fuck off. Cherries Jubilee comments Posey’s new flowers look pretty sickly, and Doorknob replies that she’s ugly AF too. He’s right. She’s one of my least liked ponies. It’s that pose, it’s so blocky and ugly, it makes every pony look like they’re spoiling for a fight.

Megan is aghast that flowers move and talk. [bat: Megan has apparently never read or watched any version of Alice in Wonderland.] She immediately picks them up to talk to them. STOP GRABBING AT SENTIENT BEINGS, MEGAN. DON’T JUMP ON PONIES’ BACKS LIKE THEY’RE BEASTS OF BURDEN. DON’T GRAB SMALL ANIMALS THAT ARE HAVING A CONVERSATION. JUST FUCKING LEAVE SHIT ALONE.

As they respond they’re the Flouries, she sets them down and they start digging into the soil and getting their roots below ground. So I bet they really appreciated being picked up.

The Flouries say they’re fleeing the Crab Nasties, and Megan has to pick up a Flourie again to ask why they’re being chased. Just leave them alone, dick. They’re sick. They’re trying to get well, and you just keep grabbing at them.

The Flouries explain that the Crab Nasties are after them being the plot demands. They’re mean. They want to enslave them. For what purpose? Fuck you for asking.

At this point, Masquerade and Whizzer arrived. They realise that the Flouries are what the Crab People are after, and Posey says they will protect the Flouries. [bat: YET AGAIN a single Pony decides what the rest of the Ponies will do, because fuck committees and democracy, we’re a goddamn cult!]

There’s a crash as a bunch of trees are felled, but presumably don’t hit any of the good guys, and the Crabs arrive on a bluff, saying “There they are.” Shit’s about to get real, yo.

Masquerade flies around a crab and it gets so confused it ends up on its back. Pink belatedly informs everyone that this is the way to defeat them. Megan then manages to flip a crab by leaping down from a tree branch on to a crabs back, and then the writers made sure the crab flipped itself over. Posey cheers for her heroics. Oh, to be Megan.

Then she hops on Whizzer’s back and flies around until two more crabs flip themselves over.

Cherries Jubilee pushes a handily placed perfectly spherical boulder down a hill, where it breaks up as it hits other (smaller) rocks, until it’s just a bunch of small pebbles, which act like comedy marbles. The final crab, who is approaching the Flouries, trips on the pebbles, and goes skittering off where it lands (improbably) in a water fountain. Scale can get fucked as well.

Megan smugly asks what they should do with them now. Pink replies that they should lock them in a cage of stone until the Flouries are stronger, then they will deal with them. She finishes this statement with an evil villain laugh. But nobody notices.

Cut to the ponies dragging the crabs on trollies along some terrifying rocky place – maybe it’s where Midnight Castle was? – while the crabs explain that they’re police, and the Flouries are escaped convicts. Also, they constantly refer to the ponies and Megan as “ma’am”, which I find charming. They say the Flouries will ruin the soil, and there will be nothing left but brown dirt. So… soil? (I do kind of get what he’s saying, but it just sounds silly.)

As they lock the crabs in a stone cave (why do they have a stone cave for prisoners?) Posey’s like, “Fuck you, you ruined my garden,” whereas Whizzer may have heard that evil laugh from Pink, because she has a bad feeling about it. Masquerade says she’s going to keep an eye on the Flouries.

Cut to that night, Masquerade dressed in a green sheet with some flowers on her head, presumably pretending to be a plant. [bat: For a Pony named Masquerade she is shit at disguises.] She over hears the Flouries do the standard villain speech:

• stupid ponies for believing them;
• we shall take everything;
• bwahahahaha.

The Flouries grow to ridiculous size as they drain the life from all the plants surrounding them. Masquerade thinks it’s time to leave. Naturally she steps on something that makes a cracking noise, and she is spotted. They lasso her with their… roots? fronds? whatevers and the episode ends with a crying Masquerade being dragged towards the Flouries, who now have sharp teeth.

I hate to give credit, to this show, but that’s one of the better cliffhangers. The last one I recapped tried to convince me that Pegasus ponies were in danger of falling off a bridge.

Part 2

We open with Masquerade so tied up in vines she looks like a Glo-Worm. [bat: CROSS-PROMO!] The Flouries say they should take her with them, so she can’t tell her friends what she’s heard. Or, since she’s already tied up, you could gag her and hide her, but sure, pick the option that will kick you in the nads.

Cut to Whizzer, who is drinking from a stream. She sees the Flouries walk past and says to herself that the crabs were right after all. I mean yeah, but going purely by Whizzer’s information, they are bigger than they were. That could have been their health kicking in after a nice rest and some water.

The Flouries sit down and say they’re tired after binging. Pink puts the Masquerade burrito on the branch of a tree, and the Flouries fall asleep. Masquerade tries to wiggle free, but before she can achieve anything (to be fair, it’s unlikely she’d manage to get free), Whizzer appears. She says she’ll have Masquerade free in a flash. She then yanks on the end of the vine. My first thought was: won’t that just make the knots tighter? My next was: oh, they didn’t bother with knots. They literally just wound her in vines and did not secure it.

Naturally, Whizzer’s yanking leads Masquerade to twirl and fall out of the tree, coming free from the vine as she swings. But she’s a Pegasus, so crashing to the ground won’t be a problem. Inexplicably, she flies right into Red Flourie’s face and floats next to its mouth glaring, until Red snorts and the breeze knocks Masquerade away.

She flies up to Whizzer’s side and says she wants to layeth the smack down on their frondy asses. Whizzer points out that they’re too big, and only the Crab Masters can help. Oh, so they’re Masters now, not Nasties? Where did you learn that vocab?

Whizzer and Masquerade have a simultaneous OMG moment, when the realise they locked the good guys up. Jeez, ponies, keep up. Your target audience figured that out even before you did it.

Cut to the next day and Masquerade and Whizzer are at the cave prison, which is now empty. Masquerade is all, “I knew it! I knew this would happen! I knew it!” and I’m all, “Dude, wtf? You literally never mentioned that they might escape.” As always, they decide they need help. I bet it’s fucking Megan.

Well, cut to Posey who is weeping over the state of her very dead garden. Megan says nothing at all, and just hugs her. In this scene, Megan is on her knees and is still taller than Posey, who is an adult pony, the size Megan usually rides. Scale can fuck right off. [bat: *screams in seething rage*]

Cherries Jubilee wonders if the Crab Nasties got free and took them. Posey says that’s exactly what must have happened.

Masquerade arrives and in a sentence convinces everyone of the truth. Guess what happens next? Megan suggests search parties.

Posey wants to know how this can be. Flowers = pretty = good. Crabs = ugly = bad. I don’t know either, Posey. That’s literally how it works. Your goodness is indicated by your rating on HotOrNot.com.

Megan says it’s like when you see a seed, it’s hard to believe there’s a flower inside.

…

Welp, thanks for that. That explains a lot. You fucking waste of screen space.

Megan continues to miss the point, by singing about caterpillars becoming butterflies.

Eventually she gets to the point that looks aren’t everything, but fucking hell, take the scenic route, love. Posey says she just can’t believe flowers could do such things. Somebody show Posey The Day of the Triffids pronto!

Whizzer appears to say they’ve found “them”, not sure if it’s the good or the bad guys, but Megan hops on her back and off she flies. God, I’m bored.

Ah, it’s the crabs. Masquerade is with them, but the crabs are pissed off. They say they tried to warn the ponies, but they wouldn’t listen, so the Flouries are their problem now. [bat: I’M TEAM CRAB BAUER ON THIS ONE.] [Dove: Me too. I want a spin-off where they, Catrina and the Bushwoolies strike out on their own. Probably with Gusty, because she’s cool.]

“Please…” whines Masquerade, with all the whine and grudge of a child throwing a tantrum. “I said we’re sorry.”

Oh, well, when you ask so nicely and not like you’re doing me a favour… fuck off.

Megan flies in and admits they were wrong, and quickly breezes on to “So let’s just get this jolly rotten situation sorted. We’re all in this together! Forget we imprisoned you. You’re being an asshat if you don’t help.”

And because it’s Megan, it works. Well, that and the fact that the Flouries are on a cliff above them lobbing rocks. A crab says they can’t leave the ponies to deal with the Flouries alone, so everyone climbs up the cliff and the grand finale happens.

It’s really tiresome. One Flourie stomps and the ground shakes. The crabs are quickly overwhelmed. Does nobody have any salt? Or weed killer? One crab is nearly thrown off the cliff, but Posey somehow manages to pull him back by flailing around on one of his pincers. Megan cries “Posey!” and runs to her side for no reason. Megan is then captured by vines. I hope she dies. Posey is caught quickly after. Rocks are still being thrown and apparently this is enough for the crabs to feel defeated. Then Whizzer is caught in the vines too.

Cut to a crab looking pissed off. Apparently things have gone Too. Fucking. Far. He says, “That’s enough,” and brings his big old pincer down on the ground, which splits the earth and knocks Pink over the cliff edge. Pink is left dangling by her leaves and Head Crab tells them to release the ponies and the girl and surrender or “snip snip”.

Cut to the Flouries all tied up in vines. Would you really tie up plant people in vines? Whatever. [bat: For once in Dream Valley history everyone was fresh out of nets.] [Dove: *blinks* Surely not.] The crabs have to leave, they have reports to file, and everyone’s names will feature in there.

Posey says she’s sorry, and Megan chips in that Posey has paid a high price as her garden is ruined.

Um. What about the rest of you that imprisoned the crabs? You collectively didn’t listen to the crabs because they were ugly, it wasn’t only Posey. And Megan, since you have final say in everything, you’re more culpable than anyone. So go fuck yourself.

But no, cut to the crabs rebuilding the garden.

FOR FUCK’S SAKE. THE CRABS ARE HONOURABLE LAW ENFORCERS WITH A STRONG SENSE OF RIGHT AND WRONG. THEY ARE TOO GOOD FOR AND DO NOT DESERVE THIS SHIT.

After they prep her garden to perfection, Posey says she thinks they’re beautiful. Hey, Posey, maybe crabs aren’t your jam, but I bet these crabs are the John Cenas of the crab world: buff, polite and decent, so fuck you for thinking your opinion fucking matters.

But of course, the writers know better. These crabs, despite having a goodness that is sorely lacking in Dream fucking Valley, go all woozy at her compliment, and the kiss that follows it. They get all blushy and feeble, because GODDAMNIT, I HAVE BEEN VALIDATED BY A FUCKING IDIOT. MY LIFE IS FUCKING COMPLETE.

Final Thoughts:

Grade: C (largely because the crabs were awesome)

This was your standard “don’t judge a book by its cover” episode. The crabs were awesome. But for some reason, I really like the trope of straight-laced law enforcement has to deal with whimsical bullshit. Everything else sucked. [bat: The Keystone (Crab-stone?) Cops of Dream Valley. Though, I half understand why crabs but, like…. nope, not going to expend valuable brain time pondering the ideas and justifications of this shitty writing.]

Megan and the ponies never once took responsibility for: 1) not listening to the crabs’ warnings; or 2) imprisoning them. Masquerade’s apology was petulant at best. Megan was utterly pointless. There were two instances where Masquerade said they needed her, and what did she do? Nothing. She just went along with what was there.

Urgh. This was just irritating.

[bat: Agreed. I’m giving it at D+, because this is scraping the bottom of the barrel here. We’re down to a few episodes left and it’s painfully obvious that no writer was prepared for a 50 episode season. I think all of their energy and ideas went to Flutter Valley, since they basically had to re-hash the plot of the failed MLP film and stretch it across 10 episodes. Again, another episode where an important life lesson is drastically mishandled and no one (pony or viewer) becomes the wiser for it. Sigh.]