My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic - Season 8 Episode 7: "Horse Play" (SPOILERS) · 4:06pm Apr 28th, 2018
In which Celestia can't act her way out of a wet paper bag.
Twilight has written a play to commemorate Princess Celestia's "ones-versary", the 1,111th anniversary of the first time she raised the sun. Celestia is super-excited by this, because she's loved the theater ever since she was a filly--even though she never got to play a part in any of the plays her friends put on because she was always too busy. Hearing this, Twilight decides to give Celestia the lead role in the play.
We get a subdued moment of Pinkie Pie's amazing and freakish recordkeeping and organization skills here, as she was the only pony who actually knew the "ones-versary" was approaching--even Celestia herself didn't realize it. Though, to be fair, it's not a thing one would keep track of.
Celestia prancing like Twilight, though. 
Spike's reaction was glorious.
Applejack is building the sets and Fluttershy has overcome stage fright, mirroring their mirror counterparts from the EG shorts.
Twilight's announcement that Celestia is going to be in the play causes ripples through the Mane Six--they freak out and start ramping up the EVERYTHING to make it Celestia-worthy.
Starlight gives Twilight kind of a burn by saying she's not a "princess princess", whatever that means.
The story of how unicorns used to raise the sun from the tie-in book Journal of the Two Sisters is now canon. Mostly. It got revised a bit.
The first rehearsal reveals some...hiccups. Celestia's line delivery is either too quiet or too loud, and incredibly wooden. She's also off her mark, has no natural acting talent, and causes disasters with the props and stage.
Twilight, naturally, freaks out. The girls decide to cancel the play so they don't embarrass Celestia--and then Rainbow shows up excitedly to announce that she's spread the word and PONIES FROM ALL OVER EQUESTRIA are coming to the play!
Twilight is insistent on keeping her promise to Celestia, so she decides to ease Celestia into remedial acting lessons without being honest about how awful she is. To help, she's brought in two of the Method Mares company from Manehattan.
Celestia isn't the only disaster. The prop sun was destroyed, and all efforts to repair or replace it are failing spectacularly. Meanwhile, Celestia seems incapable of basic improv and mime.
As showtime approaches, Twilight and Pinkie both pull out their last resort cards: Twilight rewrote the script to give Celestia an artistic role with no lines, and Pinkie replaced the fake sun with...a massive ball of fireworks. Which explode violently and destroy the entire set. This is finally the breaking point for Twilight, who explodes even more violently than Pinkie's firework sun, screaming a tirade about how this was supposed to be a simple play, and ending her rant with the declaration that she had the WORST! LEAD! ACTRESS! IN EQUESTRIA!
Naturally, Celestia was right behind her and heard everything.
Celestia gets mad at Twilight for not being honest with her and flies off in a huff. The rest of the gang tries to stall for time while Twilight goes to find Celestia and apologize.
Once Twilight makes up with Celestia, they return to the school, where Celestia quickly takes charge in mitigating the disaster, issuing orders left and right to fix everything and casting Fluttershy as the new lead on the spot. And since the fake sun didn't pan out, Celestia raises the REAL sun on Fluttershy's cue. The play is a success and receives a wild ovation.
Before the credits roll, Celestia gets back at Twilight for the whole thing by trolling her, which is frankly the only kind of performance art Celestia has any talent for.
What can I say? This is the first 10/10 episode of season 8. It's a Celestia episode, it gives her more character depth, it's funny as hell, and we got yet ANOTHER new Fluttershy persona out of it--well, okay, technically a revisited persona, because this is the SECOND time we've seen Fluttershy play the role of Celestia, but anyway.
Rarity: "Silk!"
Me: "So it begins."
.....FlutterLestia is Luna's true rival for Best Princess.
We also learned that Trixie sells unstable fireworks in a back alley at night.
Don't quit your day job, Trixie.
It seems having a good poker face in politics doesn't translate back into acting.
At first I thought she was trolling since she so love to, the end is proof, but no she is really bad.
The moment I saw Twilight denied AJ's path of honesty, it was obvious how things would end.
Anyway, I think they miss a golden opportunity the moment Twilight rage burst to turn her into mega-evolved Rapidash.
Also d*ck move girls for sending Spike to the slaughter.
I think she meant that Twilight is less Regal when compared to Celestia.
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Eeyup.
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Yeah.
I honestly didn't think that it took those unicorns and Starswirl to originally raise the sun, but hey, whatever works; I always thought there was some alicorn before Celestia who raised the sun, then passed their power down. I love Celestia loosening up like she did when she was prancing; her Royal Canterlot Voice has some kick. Nicole Oliver must've really had fun playing Celestia here. I thought Pinkie was funny throughout the whole episode with what she did on stage, especially keeping track of how many times AJ told her not to make a mess on stage, the Big Bertha party cannon, the giant, flaming marshmallow, and the ball of back alley Trxie fireworks. Flutterlestia was cute, both the ship and her being Celestia. Another Trollestia strike is always welcome.
I always enjoy Celestia getting development. Before this episode I thought Celestia would have some acting skills, since being the sole ruler of a country for a thousand years would mean she would need to hide certain emotions and express certain feelings at certain times, but I guess play acting is different from just putting on a mask. Also, this just adds fuel to the fire that Celestia is a troll, apparently the only form of acting she IS good at.
New Friendship School: a butt-load of bits
Props for school play: a few hundred bits
Child actors from said school: free
Celestia's Royal Canterlot Voice: priceless
episode that develops character for best princess?
Sign me the fuck up!
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For everything else, there's MasterCard. *shot*
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Well, if something's come up you've always wanted to do, then that stoic facade drops.
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you forgot the
“theres some things money cant buy “ part
Honestly, I'd give it a 9.5/10, putting it in third place for the season
Twily's gonna need some soothing aloe vera for that burn.
I literally laughed out loud upon hearing Raspberry Beret's name. I guess if it was warm, she wouldn't wear much more.
It was a dick move to send Spike out to the wolves. He turned it around, however, by getting a free snack out of it.
You didn't say anything about Trixie's Back-Alley Bargains. Of course her big finale would explode into an image of her head.
Twilight's handling of the situation, once she found out Celestia was the worst actress ever was very believable. She painted herself into a corner, and no matter what she did, Celestia's ego would have been bruised, at best.
The moral of the story: Auditions are important, y'all.
This sounds like a genuinely excellent episode, and also like exactly the kind of awkwardness I find unbearable to watch.
I don't know about the 'bad acting' part.....she'd've fit right in as a cast member of DIC's dub of Sailor Moon......
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Well to be fair the fireworks work just fine it's just not a smart idea to set them off on stage where there's a lot of flammable material present. I mean the last one exploded in the shape of her face that's got to be talent.
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Nah, she doesn't deserve it. Let her stew for a while. Maybe crawl back into her pillow fort like the useless lump she is.
I think I'd have enjoyed this more if I could have watched it properly, not the leaked version without sound effects or music.
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Maybe don't watch leaks then?
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I only watched it today, and even then, I couldn't find it with proper sound or special effects.
I have just watched the episode (a bit late, but last night I went with a few friends watching the Avengers movie in theater, so I suppose it was kind of a matter of priorities
) and I have to say: we need more Princess Celestia in our lives 
I mean, how can you dislike her? She's like a big adorable overpowered filly 
pre00.deviantart.net/b6c9/th/pre/f/2018/118/7/5/i_m_a_celestial_star_by_johnjoseco-dca3dml.png
(Unfortunately all the versions I could find online were either the one with the chipmunk voice effect or the leaked version without the background music or sound effects.)
premise was a little forced and the laughter during the play just felt like bullshit but the characters were particularly well written.