My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic - Season 8 Episode 16: "Friendship University" (SPOILERS) · 4:01pm Aug 11th, 2018
In which every jerkass unicorn stallion seen to date returns all at once to fuck up Twilight's shit.
Jerkass the Bearded has been sending Twilight postcards from his travels across Equestria. One day, while Twilight and Rarity are looking over the postcard collection from Starswirl, Twilight finds out a rival school has opened--Friendship University. With the students hyped up about it, Twilight and Rarity decide to head to Las Pegasus to investigate.
Las Pegasus, of course, means it's Flim and Flam. Doing what they do, singing a song to draw in the rubes, and abusing Twilight to scam ponies.
As it happens, this whole thing is a mess of Chancellor Neighsay's making, since Flim and Flam conned him into accrediting their fake school. Even worse, Jerkass the Bearded is a student at Fuckshit U!
Starswirl is ridiculously naive, Neighsay is still ridiculously racist, and Flim and Flam are just ridiculous. Rarity decides the best way to find out what's going on is to go undercover.
Rarity's disguises are the absolute worst and most retarded, and yet somehow they work. Rarity's idea of "roleplaying" is as awful as Sweetie Belle's--probably where Sweetie Belle got it from.
Twilight tries to find dirt on Flim and Flam, only to accidentally give them dirt on HER. Way to go, "Eyepatch"!
Flim and Flam threaten to go to the press with their incriminating photo unless she gives up on investigating F-U. However, Rarity accidentally uncovers the scam: tuition at F-U is "free", but the worksheets cost bits. Tons of bits. It turns out the Friendship U scam is all about expanding their resort hotel. When Twilight traps them into confessing the whole thing within earshot of Starswirl, he forces them to return the bits to the "students", and Twilight's school gains a ton of new students.
Oh, and that evil little filly showed up again and she's TOTALLY how Flim and Flam got a copy of Twilight's book of schoolin'.
Hm. Decent episode. 7/10.
I guess the best way to describe this episode is: It's just there.
Also, Twilight better report Neighsay's actions to someone so he can be fired. Otherwise he's going to seriously damage the EEA's reputation out of his spite for Twilight's school.
I think it was Neighsay who did. I'm thining her name should be RED HERRING!
Freemium gaming in a nutshell. Or college textbooks, though they gouge you on tuition as well. Also, Twilight can't recognize her own work.
I still find it silly that people label Starswirl as a jerk despite the fact that he was justified in being angry during the finale and apologized by the end.
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Neighsay IS the someone she'd report Neighsay's actions to. She's pretty much stuck there.
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First impressions linger.
4918392 More like for profit colleges in a nutshell.
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I guess this goes to show Equestria isn't an absolute Quadrarchy, probably more of a constitutional one
Argh the level of cringe this episode had.
Seriously with how much evidence they have, how come those two con artists aren't already in jail?
The moment the Flim Flam brothers started to sing, I wanted Twilight to zap them.
As for Neighsay, with how cheap this "university" is, the moment he gave is EEA approval, Twilight should have him arrest on suspicion of bribery. Cause there is no way this "university" could have been approve by any architectural norm.
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Neighsay has a board. Though given the nature of boards and the people who end up on them, they are all probably just pliable dogsbodies.
sorry, it is missing one jerkass unicorn: Blueblood
Okay, little two cents on this episode.
Rarity's disguises really were awful, she's no Shadow Spade.
The school was actually legitimate as far as the lessons they taught. The issue was it was doing it as a money scam. If they were up front about hidden costs it would actually be worthy of staying open. It is kind of stupid of the Flim Flan brothers to just not be up front about the costs.
Piggybacking off that---does Twilight charge tuition?
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In that case, she should report his actions to the Press.
I wonder if Neighsay's group has accredited Equestria's Government funded schools. I imagine those schools are required by law to educate any intelligent being whose age is between certain values.
I’m thinking Neighsay is Cozy’s father and is making her act as a mole within Twilight’s school. My guess is maybe she will end up betraying him in the season finale.
A decent episode, though honestly Star Swirl isn’t a jerkass like he was in his debut anymore. He was a bit naive due to still learning about friendship, but he wasn’t an asshole.
This Friendship U is not really a bad concept per se. Taking the lessons from Twilight's school (and published journal from an earlier season), and apply them to grown ups (mares, stallions) could work - if it was run by the right ponies. And I got the perfect three...
The CMC should "steal" Flim & Flam's idea and merge it with their cutie mark consultations.
Starswirl: Everybody deserves a chance to prove themselves.
Me: The Flim Flam Brothers have definitely proven themselves, why would you ever trust known con artists?
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I thought Rarity's disguise was ok, at least as good as disguises in cartoons ever are. But the one she did for Twilight... yeah not so much.
The lessons were only good because they stole them from Twilight's book, and they were only using every other page of the book at that. So they could advertise getting the degree in half the time, but of course leaving out that students only got half the info as well.
I do imagine that if someone wanted to open a school using her materials she'd be happy to let them do so. But would probably want to make sure it's a legit operation and didn't discriminate against other species. Which would mean no accreditation of course.
Just like “free to play” mobile games
And if starswirl wanted to go to a friendship school, why didn’t he just go to twilight’s in the first place?
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Well he did spend a thousand years of purgatory with the pony of shadows believing Styngin would never be redeemed. If someone as evil as that can make a turn around it makes sense that Star Swirl would have an altered view of the world. I'm not sure I would call him a jerk ass he's become a much nicer person since last season.
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He hasn't shown up since season 1 and he never even interacted with Twilight.
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Yeah I mean he isn't untouchable. He can still be removed from office even if Celestia is trying to remain democratic despite being a monarch.
was honestly shocked by where this went. I thought the resolution would be that flim and flam are the ones being used by neighsay to push his bigoted agenda. ie firendship U only admits ponies and seeing the student 6 cry would be the resolution. instead nope it's the standard flim and flam are evil and I don't think they are inherently evil if they found honest means to make bank they'd be good ponies.
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I think Cozy is a changeling who's still loyal to Chrysalis. There's just too much evidence, plus I can't see a jerk like Neighsay having a family.
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Ah, you didn't catch the OTHER theme of this episode. I was all too aware of it myself because of Twitter. The OTHER theme of this episode was about gender equality. (I didn't bring it up in the blog itself because it WOULD have started a flamewar.)
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They're not evil, they're just jerks who can't be bothered to make an honest living. The world isn't that black and white.
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Eh, at least you didn’t say you think Cozy is Chrysalis. You have no idea how often I see that theory.
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Chrysalis isn't that smart.
I do know one thing.....whatever punishment will be doled out to Neighsay won't be imposed by a princess. That's what Starlight is for......putting the boot in on Twilight's enemies....
4918613 And why would she do something like say pass Twilight's lesson plans along to others? This is the same former queen whose master plan for revenge was to just make evil copies of the ones who'd wronged her. Her methods have always involved kidnapping and duplication, why would she change up her methods for something I doubt she even knew existed when she first started her plan?
4918487 That could be one theory, although wouldn't the subject of Cozy Glow's family be brought up during enrollment? I can't imagine Twilight wouldn't pry for information for things like permission slips.