My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic - Page 80

It's strange that Spike didn't ask about Pinkie's strange behavior, or her sorrowful deflation, or the drastic exclamation of "My friends don't care about me anymore." Assuming Spike didn't know about the surprise party: Spike probably thinks that Pinkie's utterly insane, so he might as well enjoy the gems and let the pony girls take care of Pinkie. Plus, Spike is young, so maybe he doesn't have the alarms ringing in his head that he should have. Assuming he did know about the surprise party: I'm not giving him enough credit, he understood the situation, and he was just going to wait for the situation to blow over.

We've already seen Pinkie do the "I can be anywhere you can be" trick, where she manages to chase somebody whom she couldn't have possibly chased, so I didn't care to see her do it again.

On the other hand... I actually laughed at Spike's confession of verbalized vanity. Good stuff that. Good stuff.

As for the main component of the episode, Pinkie's craziness... all would have been forgiven had her moment of revelation been more believable. I was expecting a quivering and watering of the eyes as she realizes that what she had been hoping for all along, that her friends had not abandoned her, was true. I was expecting her to laugh a startled cry and then embrace her friends. Instead... she jumps up in joy and does her usual Pinkie prance, and then embraces her friends, and then shows the remorse for having doubted her friends. Maybe it fits her character better, but it just doesn't feel like the correct progression. Which makes me feel more like there's something off with her (that the other ponies try to studiously ignore). Which makes me feel like if this wasn't a show for kids, she could go Tyler Durden on this shit and watch the world burn.

(Although, I'd say Celestia is still the scarier of the two. Celestia pulling an O'Brien would be a sight to see... but that's a post for another day.)

Unfortunately, before seeing the episode I already saw the scene where Pinkie was having tea with imaginary friends. It was one of those Portal videos linked earlier, and while awesome, it may have affected how I would have otherwise reacted to the show. I was prepared for it, so I wasn't really creeped out by it or anything. I spent most of that sequence just staring at her smooth hair, lol.

Pilot episode or not, Laura Faust's first two episodes set up the six pony friends as able to wield a powerful magic, so powerful that it could defeat a major class villain. From that point forward - actually, no, probably from before that point, planning ahead of time - Celestia decided to keep an eye on these ponies. She sent Twilight to "study friendship" with them for two reasons: to give her apprentice some more worldly experience, and to keep an eye on all of the ponies.
Now, in this final episode, we see Celestia still grooming Twilight without Twilight even realizing it: Every single pony that was important enough to warrant a greeting from Celestia also shook hands with or laid eyes upon her darling new apprentice, Twilight.
Not to mention Twilight's friends helping make Celestia's night more fun, Celestia dealing a backhand slap to those aristocrats she perforce spends so much time around.

The best laid plans of mares and men aside... what the Hell was up with Fluttershy? They really could not have figured out a conflict for her? They portrayed her desire to meet new animals as driving her to a brazen insanity that goes far outside the borders of her character, the way I see her. Uncool.

The moral of the story was a good one. There's the "bad times can be fun if you're together with friends," but more important is the "life can throw unexpected curveballs at you."

Best line of the episode:

CELESTIA - "Run."

Best moment of the episode:

Rarity crushing her Cinderella shoe.

Episode 10, the Tribbles episode!

* The tribbles are adorable
* The tribbles are sure to get any Star Trek fans
* The episode has lots of Fluttershy, just like Episode 7, but I think it also has more of the other characters, and it's more exciting
* The Pied Piper storyline is not the most relatable of storylines, but it's also pretty neutral, so I don't think it would turn anybody off. This episode doesn't touch on the potential horrors of high school (like any of the episodes with bullies), and it doesn't center on a character that people might automatically take a disliking to (Rarity's prim and properness, for example).

...has yet to be decided, for sure. Though I do have a strong suspicion of which one it is. Feel free to guess =P I'll say once I've given it thought