My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic/Recap/S2 E15 The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000/YMMV


 * Alternative Character Interpretation: Did the town chase off the Flim Flam Brothers just because their cider was rotten, or because the brothers had given the town a front row seat to how rotten the two of them really were and out of guilt for their inability to wait for cider costing the Apples their livelihood?
 * Why not Take a Third Option and say they did it for both reasons?
 * Some fans view a protectionist subtext in the plot of the chapter.
 * The town didn't really chase them off at all. They hadn't even gotten to the point of forming an angry mob. The brothers just presumed they would and took to their hooves before it could happen.
 * Which raises the question: would they have run them out of town?
 * It is never to be known what might have been.
 * And the Fandom Rejoiced: Some people have really wanted a Villain Song in this series, they finally got it!
 * Ear Worm: The Flim-Flam brothers' Villain Song.
 * Evil Is Sexy: In-universe example and subverted; Rarity seems to find the Flim Flam Brothers quite attractive.
 * Fridge Brilliance: You can get an awful lot of Econ 101 out of this episode regarding advertising, supply vs. demand, quality control, public relations, pony resources, artificial scarcity, effect of competition on market conditions, disadvantages and obtuseness of a monopoly, and the concept of inferior and normal goods.
 * Why would the Flim Flam bros. sell the obviously inferior cider instead of the more carefully made batches after the contest? Because the barrels that held the good batch were made first and, therefore, stuck under all of the more hastily made cider so they couldn't easily dig them out.
 * Alternatively, they sold the bad cider because they'd been enjoying good cider for most of the episode.
 * Hilarious in Hindsight: Figures that Fluttershy would be the one helping with the trees.
 * Moral Event Horizon: The Flim-Flam Brothers Rainbow Dash (and some say the townsponies) seems to consider it this In-Universe.
 * Nausea Fuel: The Flim-Flam Brothers' nasty cider at the end, with whole dirty apple chunks floating in it.
 * Older Than They Think: A pair of "new" background ponies have caught the interest of some fans and appear to be on their way to becoming Ensemble Darkhorses. They actually appeared as early as "Applebuck Season", but this might be the first time they've been shown with visible cutie marks.
 * Straw Man Has a Point: When the Apples are protesting that Flim and Flam's quickly-made cider can't compare to the deliciousness of their lovingly-made cider, Rainbow Dash and the others who missed out (at this point acting as antagonists) counter that extra-delicious cider is no good to them if they never get to drink any. Which is... absolutely correct, cider that's just "okay" that you get to drink is better than cider that's amazing that you never get any of. Especially since Rainbow Dash was so desperate for cider that at one point she eats dirt.
 * This problem was solved by the episode's conflict, so it might be a moot point.
 * What an Idiot!: Uh, Flim-Flam Bros., did you really think it was a good idea to sell your badly made cider to the customers at the end of the show?
 * Even worse, since they had some early barrels made from the best apples which probably would have been decent enough to serve.
 * Though depending on how you saw the townsponies' actions in the end, it might not matter if they used the decent batch or the crappy batch.
 * For that matter, why did you agree to let the "honorary" family members help the Apples? You were out-producing the Apples 3 barrels to 1. Then they asked to be able to more than double their manpower. While you couldn't expect that to increase production as much as it did, surely you could have realized your advantage would be reduced to an uncomfortably small margin.
 * Pride Before a Fall, and they could still could have probably salvaged a deal if they could eke out a win with 9 ponies producing cider against 1 machine.
 * They didn't put a limit on how much help was provided to the Apples, claiming that it didn't matter. If the mane cast had been willing to call for more backup, even turning off the quality control wouldn't have helped the Flim Flam Bros.
 * Remember that they thought that having a whole kingdom worth of ponies wouldn't be enough to beat the machine. But again, Twilight shows herself to be super-organizational, and uses the mane cast's talents to maximum efficiency. The brothers didn't see that coming.
 * The Flim Flam brothers getting competitive in the first place. The machine fills a niche that really needs filling. Had the brothers tried to work out a fairer deal with the Apple family, they could have landed themselves a pretty neat profit.
 * Granny Smith betting the cider-selling rights to Ponyville and putting her livelihood in jeopardy, if you take an uncharitable view of her Honour Before Reason approach. She hadn't even consulted Applejack and Big Mac on it, and the two of them looked like they had reservations over the agreement.

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