First Fimpressions: "Horse Play"

Now the season is starting to hit its stride! It's rare for us to get more characterization of Princess Celestia, but it's hardly ever unwelcome. Our lives rarely pan out how we desire them to, and given Celestia's status, it's easy to see how her desires for acting never panned out.

So when presented an opportunity to achieve a childhood dream, she jumps at the chance! It must be said, Celstia's squees are some of the most adorable in the entire show. Of course, being in a serious position, her acting and imagination aren't exactly up to snuff.

The sheer enthusiasm of Celestia is vital to Twilight's dilemma. She feels the level of importance of giving Celestia the lead role, yet she doesn't want to cause her to be the laughing stock of Equestria. Twilight makes a genuine effort to help Celestia improve, trying every option she can think of to make everything work.

But this, in combined with her friends' bickering over some of the stage effects, is far too much for her to keep a lid on. It's fairly typical for Twilight to become overloaded, but this is an episode that manages to avoid falling into boring clichés by keeping its humour self aware.

Following the Rule of Funny, the contrast of such a regal figure such as Celestia failing so bad at acting, when the most we've seen of her is calm and sophisticated. It brings her down to the level of Twilight, being a pony with strengths and flaws like any other.

The only thing I didn't like about the episode was Pinkie Pie's destructive special effects, as she is normally a pony to be more considerate of her surroundings after making mistakes at least once. Though this is generally a minor point since it follows the Rule of 3, escalating to yet again follow the Rule of Funny. Perhaps if she'd at least made an effort to be less destructive, only for it to backfire, it could have reflected Pinky's development. But as it stands, this is a small blot on an otherwise gleaming episode.

What I enjoyed most was the fact we get to see Celestia as genuinely disappointed in Twilight. Requiring them to talk out their issues is something we almost never see, and the last time I can think of it happening was way back in Season 2 with "Lesson Zero". It rounds off Celestia's character in a beautiful way, showing how she can be creative in her organisation in a more indirect way, while still achieving her dream.

Overall, this is a beautiful episode which I suspect will be remembered as one of the season's best! A+