MLP episode review: Friendship is Magic part two · 11:24pm May 13th, 2014
Friendship is Magic Part 2
After the 'previously on'... I completely forgot about the closed captions. *Turns on* Ah, much better. :) Oh, and the intro's a separate chapter on the DVD. The things you learn! Nightmare Moon cackles while Mayor Mare sends in the [strike]redshirts[/strike] Royal Guard. "Stand back, you foals!" HAH! She blasts them off, then turns to mist and flies off. Dash follows but Nightmare Moon's too fast, which kinda pleases me. ;) She spots Twilight making for the library, then cut to Twilight putting an exhausted Spike to bed and showing the little guy some compassion. Aww. She then goes for the books, but Dash butts in and accuses her of being a spy. Applejack is the voice of reason, asking how she knew what was going on. Twilight spills about the prediction and the Elements, but she's got no info about that.
And... cue Pinkie Pie looking under 'E' and finding it. Okay, score one for Pinkie Pie. "It was under E-e-E!" She reads about the Elements, listing off the known five as we pan across each pony that represents said Element. A bit too heavy-handed for me. The last known location? The Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters in...
Wipe to the Everfree Forest and the five Ponyville natives stuttering it out. Okay, not too bad. And rather good pan across to it. Pinkie Pie's all set to go in, but Twilight says no. She wants to do it on her own. Which is... pretty dumb, since she knows nothing of the Forest. Applejack once more sees reason and they all go inside. Pinkie Pie... wants caramel apples in there. Twilight's... not pleased. Inside we learn no one's been in there. According to Applejack, it's not 'natural' and things don't work the same. As she speaks, we see some familiar black smoke slipping into cracks in the cliff face they're creeping across. And Dash... is a jerk, frightening Rarity, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie with talk about how no one who's gone in has ever come out.
*Slaps Dash across the back of the head*
Then the rock face breaks and the pegasi save Pinkie Pie and Rarity. Okay, points to them. Applejack snags a root with her mouth but Twilight is about to suffer the fate of about 80% of all cars in a chase scene in a movie. Applejack lets go of the root and slides down, grabbing her by the... hooves.
Okay, remember when I said I'm about 80% a Doylist? This is one of those instances. It's artistic license and a shortcut. That's what I'm going with, here. :p
Anyway, she says to let go and to trust her. Twilight is... not enthused. Applejack reassure her and she lets go. She screams and... Dash and Fluttershy grab her! YAY! Then they almost drop her. Not yay? Turns out at this time, Fluttershy's a pretty weak pony. Don't worry. She'll get stronger. :) Applejack hops down while the smoke goes and... possesses some beast. Dash does some bragging while Twilight does not look impressed. God, I'm half-tempted to start a pre-'Boast Busted' counter for her bragging. Twilight tries being diplomatic, but suddenly, a wild manticore appears!
I think I did that right.
So... MORTAL KOMBAT! Rarity shows why she's awesome by kicking him in the face, but her manestyle is ruined! Fluttershy tries to stop them with a voice Data from Star Trek would have trouble hearing. Applejack tries riding him, but gets bucked off. And god that sounds dirty. :p Dash is... completely ineffective. She spins around him, but one carefully-placed tail sends her flying into the ground. Miss Sparkle leads a charge of the Twilight Brigade, but Fluttershy finally gets them to stop. By the by, love them pawing the ground and snorting. And we get a retelling of Androcles' Lion, thorn in paw and all. She pulls it out and he... licks her face. It's cute. :D
Okay, mild tangent and something that kinda irks me. Admittedly I haven't seen it in a bit, but... a lot of times I see manticores portrayed as evil, ravenous beasts. Except the only version we have, named Manny Roar by his mini-figure, is rather not evil or ravenous. Also, my headcanon has it that zebra use manticores as domesticated beasts, for labor and war. You are now imagining Zecora riding an armored Manny, while her enchantments enable him to breathe fire and shoot laser beams from his tail.
Oh, she didn't know about the thorn. We cut to the thorn turning into the smoke, and the darkness enveloping them while the smoke goes ahead. We get a poop joke from Applejack-seriously, we do-and then Fluttershy screams. OH, NO! All the trees have scary faces! and they're growling, too! I... forgot about that bit. Five of them are scared, but one laughs in the face of danger! She also laughs in the face of comedians. I think she laughs at tofu, too. But yeah, Pinkie Pie laughs at them and we get out first song, 'Giggle at the Ghosties'. It's a good song, with helpful 'Tell me she's not," by Twilight which made me bust a legit gut when I first heard that. She sings, gets the others to laugh and the faces disappear. For the record, it's a good song. Makes me smile.
My headcanon, Surprise, her direct ancestor, taught her that. ;)
They reach a roaring river. Pinkie wonders how they're gonna cross it. Okay, some people think that's dumb of her... but it's not. You have two fliers, one of which can't even reliably lift Twilight even with help. One slip and that's it into roaring water. Pinkie Pie, good on you. And it's...
STEVEN MAGNET THE MAGNIFICENT!!!! Gaze upon his wonder, and try not to go blind from his fabulousity! No, seriously. I love this guy. :D He's thrashing about because... some cloud of smoke came up and tore off half his mustache! *Gasp* That fiend! Forget about Eternal night! THIS is the true crime of Nightmare Moon! But, neither Dash nor Applejack are impressed? Those monsters! Rarity, though, sees his pain. She comforts him, removes a scale and...
*SLICE*
Rarity, you fiend?! How dare you... oh, she cut off her own tail to use as a makeshift mustache. Thank goodness, Equestria could not go without Steven's awesomeness. Twilight's sad because Rarity sacrificed her tail, but short tails are in! And it'll grow back. Dash butts in. "So would the mustache." Pah, you have no sense of true priorities, philistine! In gratitude, Steven lets them hop across his body to get across.
They reach the Castle, but Twilight nearly goes off a canyon edge. Again. Dash is... a bit jerky, but still funny. This time Dash flies across to repair a bridge and... sorry, but for me this is the worst trap Nightmare Moon sets up. It's the Shadowbolts. Yes, Dash. In the middle of the Everfree Forest some ponies in villain costumes want to recruit you. Sorry, sorry. this is a special 'breaks my SOD' case. Fortunately, Dash rejects them. They do an attempt at buttering her up, and Dash almost goes for it. And this is me trying to keep 'target audience' in mind. She goes for the rope, and they pull an 'it's THEM or US' routine. She says no, thank god!
Onto the Castle! Inside they rather quickly find the Elements. They get them and put them in front of Twilight. She wants to try something, and the others step back. Big mistake! The smoke pours in and swipes the Elements, but Twilight jumps into the tornado! Rarity spots weird lights from another part of the castle. We cut to the cloud, Twilight and the Elements. Nightmare Moon laughs and I think Twilight gets pissed. She snorts and paws the ground. "You're kidding, right?" Twilight charges and Nightmare Moon does the same, almost looking bored. And Twilight... tries teleport! It was super effective!
Okay, there are some video game things even I know about. ;)
She gets to the Elements, Dazed and Confused. She tries the Elements, but Nightmare Moon flies back, TKs Twilight away and the Elements... have faulty spark plugs? Nightmare Moon smashes them and Twilight dies a little inside. Suddenly, she hears the voices of her friends and inside her eyes... a spark. She figures out what the Elements really are. The shards glow and fly up as Twilight exposits about the previous scenes. Nightmare Moon says they have no sixth Element, but they do! It's the Element of... Friendship! Or magic. And they all get their necklaces and crown thingie. And we get a double Rainbow of Light! What does it mean?!
It means Nightmare Moon gets engulfed by it and then Twilight's eyes go white. They all pass out from the G1ness of it, and we see Rarity's tail has grown back! And they see their necklaces are their cutie marks. And cue the sun and Celestia! They all bow, but Twilight runs up for a neck-hug-thingie. Celestia is impressed and... we get her plan. She told Twilight to make some friends. She saw the signs of Nightmare Moon's return, and she knew Twilight could only use the Elements if she had true friendship. So off to Ponyville.
Okay, remember when I said I loathe chessmasters and Xanatos gambits nowadays? Here... I don't mind it. I'm not entirely sure why. Maybe it's because you can't be forced to make friends. It was risky, but here I don't see much alternative. So... not too bad.
Don't worry, though. I'll be just a bit harsher later on. *Evil grin*
Anyway, she trots up to... Woona. It's Woona here. Her armor's smoking and she's scared as Celestia looms over her. And she asks if she'll accept her friendship. We also learn they're sisters... which is something we already knew and the others should've figured out. Woona accepts and we get a tearful reunion. it's heartwarming. :D And Pinkie Pie...
throws a party! It's super effective!
Ponyville's decked out, the Royal Sisters fly in on a chariot, Spike is reunited with Twilight and Woona gets white and red rose bouquets from chibi-pegasi. We see her begin to tear up, then slide over to Twilight.
Yeah... I'll be coming back to this scene for a certain season-two episode. *Evil grin again* Celestia goes to Twilight, who looks sad. Celestia... has a foreleg in the air and it looks really weird. She asks why so sad? And it turns out Twilight doesn't wanna go, now that she actually has friends!
Besides Shining Armor and Cadance, of course. :p So Celestia gives her a new assignment. Stay in Ponyville and learn all about friendship. And report her findings. No mention of any time limits, by the by. And we iris out... until Pinkie Pie says she's really excited, almost beats it and then... end credits!
Thoughts
What more can I say? This, again holds up really well. Great interaction, good action, suspense and all that. Yeah, Dash's Element Trial was weak for me, but other than that... this was awesome.
Before MLP, I had quite the distaste for animated musicals. Wasting your youth watching the same old Disney movies over and over again will do that to you. But that acknowledgement in the very first episode of the ridiculousness of bursting into song really did a lot for making me accept the musical aspect of MLP. And I've never regretted since.
I know from personal experience that your sibling and their significant other is nothing compared to the friends you make yourself. Especially since the significant other can go away.
Why don't you like Xanatos Gambits? I used to love Gargoyles when I was a kid. You'd never catch them bursting into song for no reason.
2109977
Ah. It's not exactly the opposite for me, but I talk about my family to my friends a lot. So it not coming up ever strikes me as strange.
I loved that show and Xanatos. What I refer to are extremely-convoluted plans that seem to require subtle reality warping from the one planning it. Xanatos was good, but kept a bit more... grounded than some I've seen.
2115200 That's not a Xanatos Gambit. That's Gambit Roulette.