My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic “Scare Master” Review

Much of Season 1 and Season 2 of My Little Pony are slice of adventures. There was of course continuity between stories, but there was never really any overarching arc. This started to change in Season 3 going forward. Now, it seems like there’s always going to be a main arc in the background. This is good and bad. It’s good because well, what beats having an ongoing story plot? It can be bad though because some episodes can be classified as filler now, and if they aren’t great the thought of “I want to get back to the main plot” kicks in. “Scare Master” borders on this, but manages to be a cute adventure. It’s no Fluttershy all-star, but a nice watch nonetheless.

Here’s the official description from Discovery Family:

Fluttershy decides to face her fears and participate in Nightmare Night with her friends.

“Scare Master” feels like an episode which belongs in the first season. The premise is kind of annoying throughout the beginning. Fluttershy being weary of Nightmare Night is okay, but the story takes it to the extreme. For example, she’s literally scared of taking a candy bag from Pinkie Pie. After all these seasons of battling dragons and demonic monsters, this was rather unbelievable to witness. That’s basically my main complaint. There’s also the fact she pretends to be Flutterbat. Why am I mentioning this? Well, back in Season 4 the ending of “BATS!” made it apparent that she still had those powers. When will this be expanded on? The world may never know.

It’s nice to see a purely slice of life story, since MLP does it best. If this were another cartoon, it would probably be pretty boring. But as usual, the character interactions here are nice. One of my personal favorite scenes is the short dialogue sequence with Fluttershy and Spike. The two have rarely had such heartfelt dialogue together, so that was nice to see. Natasha Levinger’s writing is solid throughout. She has a great handle on the characters, though Pinkie Pie sounded rather out of character-mean right after leaving Fluttershy’s cottage. Asides from that, I have no major qualms with the writing. The climax was a lot of fun to watch, even though it doesn’t make sense with how fast Fluttershy managed to accomplish everything. The ending is nice, and even different. It’s cool how the show touched on that friends don’t always have to do everything together, because maybe one just doesn’t enjoy something, and that’s okay.

Overall, a solid slice of life story in the MLP saga. If this had been placed in Season 1, I may have given it a higher rating. Still, it’s a fun ride from beginning to end. It’s not Fluttershy’s best episode, but it was still great to see what kind of things she’s able to envision in the climax.