Season 4 Episode 7 Discussion (Bats!)

[ungulata]

Broadcast at 10:30 am EST (3:30 pm UTC, 7:30 am PST). This episode written by Merriwether Williams. New episode every week so far!

The curtain rises on Applejack in the pre-dawn darkness. She is looking expectantly out over the apple orchards of Sweet Apple Acres as the new dawn sweeps over the orchard. With a shout and two-legged flail she greets the start of apple-bucking season.

The first buck yields disapointing results: every apple that falls is a rotten sack. Applejack spots fruit bats in the branches and dashes off in a panic to ring the barn bell. Somehow this only summons the mane six and Spike. Applejack reveals that the problem is not the fruit bats that have taken up residence in the west orchard but vampire fruit bats. Fluttershy tries to convince Applejack that these bats are beneficial to the apple tree community in that they disperse apple seeds and somehow (probably bat guano) make the trees grow stronger faster. Applejack points out bat-damaged trees and reveals a gigantic apple she plans on showing in the Appleoosa produce festival.

Song.

Click to view

Also here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtPbU9tY16w and in the description, download links for mp3, AAC, ALAC and FLAC files of the song as well as a link to download all the background music and an instrumental version (here).

Download the mp3: http://www.mediafire.com/listen/2jamwu6na7p95ha/Bats.mp3

Applejack sings for bat round-up and relocation. Everypony choruses in, except Fluttershy who counter-argues for a bat sanctuary. Spike doesn't sing. Rainbow Dash is fixated on the lack of apple cider. The majority rules and Twilight comes up with a plan to ruin the vampire fruit bats' appetite for apples. This requires using Fluttershy's Stare to get all the bats looking in the same direction. Fluttershy is not keen on this plan. Not only has she vowed to not use the Stare unless in dire circumstances, she doesn't want to remove from the bats the very thing that makes them fruit bats. But she reluctantly agrees to use the Stare anyway.

The bats get rounded up, Stared and forcibly converted. Twilight seems to be cured of her bat phobia (in Winter Wrap Up).

Dawn of Day Two, may the apple bucking begin. You just know something has to have gone wrong. So it has: rotten apples fall from the trees, just like on Day One. The gang, minus Spike, come back to investigate. The vampire bats are loafing about, reading the paper, and not at all interested in apples. So Twilight suggests that they stake out the orchard that night. Soon enough it's night, and each pony, armed with a Bat Pony Signal, goes their separate ways into the orchard and the night.

Fluttershy is finding the apples a bit more appetizing than usual. In fact, she finds them simply irresistible. She has been turned into a giant yellow fruit bat, complete with vampire fangs.

Her friends chase after her but she ignores them, feasting on apples. Twilight realizes what went wrong and conjures up a over-sized schematic to explain that Fluttershy had the desire for apples transferred from the bats to her via the Stare.

Catching Flutterbat isn't easy. So Applejack sacrifices her prize giant apple to lure Fluttershy close enough to distract and confuse her with mirrors. Flutterbat stays still long enough for Twilight to cast a reversal spell on her, and Fluttershy is back.

Applejack builds a vampire bat sanctuary, Spike writes the whole story out in the Community Journal at Fluttershy's place, complete with lessons learned. Everypony laughs. The camera pans to Fluttershy and zooms in on her mouth. A short fang still persists...

Tell me, what did you think of the episode?

Watch Bats! on YouTube right here, right now.

Download Bats! in 1080p, over here.

iTunes sells the episodes, but apparently only to the US. If you belong to the other 95% of the world population, you are SOOL, as are those who don't have iTunes compatible software for whatever reason or who don't/can't perform casual electronic monetary transactions. On top of that, if I'm getting this right, the episodes have faded colour.

I'll buy the season three DVD from Shout! when it gets released. Meanwhile, you can buy the region 1 DVD of season one here (with bonus audio commentaries, Charlie!), buy the region 1 DVD of season two here, both off Amazon, and for Europe, go here to find the region 0 DVDs and here for the blu-ray disk of season one (the other seasons may be lurking in the links). Australia also has a box set.

I think you can also catch all of season one and two on Netflix in the US, and some episodes in Canada. Google Play has it here if you live in the US.
iTunes has many of the season one songs in a soundtrack package, and so does Google Play.