"She's All Yak" Review: Late-Night Foals

I waited for this episode and looked forward to it for a while now. And I was wrong with all of my theories and thoughts about it. The party seen in the trailer was not a party for Starlight Glimmer, but instead the pony dance we heard about, we did not just see the preparations for the dance, but also the dance itself, they did manage to fit both the preparations and the dance itself into 22 minutes and there is not a little arc for this dance like it was the case with the Grand Gallopping Gala in Season 1.
Also, Yona didn't get drunk. I lost 10 bits. But I was right with it when I said that the episode would be crazy and wild.
But, wait, did I say Yona didn't get drunk? I think she actually did, not with high percentage party beverages, but with love. And Sandbar even more so. When he asked Yona out, he was blushing all over his cheeks and acted completely sheepish, embarrassed and nervous. Behavior that only happens like that when a crush is at play. And the sudden happiness and (literal) skip in his movement when he ran away to get prepared after Yona said yes made it even more clear.C
It makes me happy how far My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic has come in the portrayal of romantic love. In the early seasons, there were mere implications that two ponies are together and a kiss between a newly-wed couple and it didn't happen before Season 4 that we actually saw a pony being in love with another one ("Simple Ways"). Then we saw Lyra and Bon Bon being BEST FRIENDS (with benefits) in Season 5 and then "Top Bolt" in Season 6 came and it suddenly was very straight-forward and serious. It was so easy to see that more feelings than friendship were going on between Sky Stinger and Vapor Trail (and here's an excellent, new fic for them by Arwhale that you should check out) and even "A Hearth's Warming Tail" before showed us Lemon Hearts kissing a stallion under a mistletoe. Then we got the relationship between Big Mac and Sugar Belle in Season 7, which even got followed up with an episode one season later in "The Break Up Break Down" (and we even saw homosexual couples in an implied way in this episode), then Maud and Mudbriar in Season 8 and, just last week, we saw Clear Sky kissing Quibble Pants in an episode that was partially about being parents of a little filly.
And now, in Episode 7 of Season 9, we have arrived at inter-species romance with Sandbar evidently crushing on Yona and inviting her to a school dance.
It is a very interesting progression, from subtle implications to full-blown relationship portrayals, and the added interspecies aspect now brings something new to the show once again. The only other thing we could still need to make everything complete is a 100% straight-forward portrayal of a gay or lesbian relationship (would that still be a straight-forward portrayal then?), something I don't put past them, and I'm eager to find out if Season 9 will surprise us with that.

What amazes me the most from this episode, though, are the younger attendees of the dance. No, I'm not talking about young love (although, in Equestria, that is quite possible, too), but rather about the fact that, even though the dance happened at night, the foal students were still present.
If you look closely at the background, you can see that Lemon Crumble, Gooseberry, Water Spout and Citrus Bit were at the dance, as well.
Something that I love about Twilight's friendship school since we saw it for the first time last year is that adult ponies and foals visit the school together and even sit next to each other in the same classrooms. Which is something that, here on Earth, would be near impossible due to certain paranoia and fears society has. And while human society has established some schools whose students go over the entire age range from pre-school to ýoung adult, such schools are divided into sections and it would be considered at least odd if an adult student would venture forth into the building's section that contains the classes of young students and start talking to such children. In the worst case, hysterical parents would mark them as a pedosexual person with ulterior motives and they would be put under a restraining order.
But in Twilight's friendship school, things are different. And since we know that Chancellor Neighsay was the only one who had a problem with her concept for a school, we also know that the parents of these foals are chill with it that their children mingle with adults or, as that is the purpose of the school, even become close friends with them.
And with this episode, it went a step further. Instead of excluding the foal students for reasons like "They are too young to stay up for so long." or "They shouldn't attend a dance with adult students where alcohol is consumed!", Twilight let them attend the dance and showed even more clearly that foal students are treated equally.
It was already back in Season 1 that I noticed signs for it that Equestria's society takes its children much more serious than human society does and today's episode demonstrates this very effectively once again. It is one of the big reasons why I admire Equestria and its culture. If a human child would come to Equestria, it would, depending on its upbringing, either feel overchallenged with all the freedom it gets or seize the opportunity to its full advantage. A foal coming to Earth would feel incredibly restricted when it sees how children are raised in human society.
There is a level of trust and faith in foals and freedom that foals have in Equestria that Earth cannot match.

Also, speaking about a progressive society, I love how Yona got treated at the end, when she returned with Sandbar. She created a huge mess, disturbed the entire dance, caused a lot of damage, all because of a mishap she was, despite self-doubts and nervousness, completely responsible for because she wasn't careful enough. If such a thing would happen to someone here on Earth, they would be in huge trouble. They would get scolded, yelled at, probably banned from all future dances without a chance to appeal or to make amends and they would have to pay for the repair of all the damage they caused. Everyone would be entirely insensitive and not look for the reasons behind the accident.
But here, Twilight and her friends were not mad. Yona's friends weren't mad at her. None of the other students were mad at her. Instead, they just cleaned everything up, they reassured Yona and even went so far to take the blame for what happened to cheer her up again and then, they continued the party like nothing happened.
No yelling. No accusations. No threats. No blaming. No punishment. Instead, thoughtful reflection about what happened, how it could come so far and how it could have been avoided, resulting in a harmonic situation of care, reassurance and comfort. And a nice night where everycreature could still he happy and have fun.
It is a mature way of dealing with such a situation that you will only see in Equestria. If inter-dimensional travelling is ever going to be possible while I still live on this planet, I'll be the first one to book a one-way ticket.

My favourite moment of the episode is right before Yona arrived at the dance, though. Silverstream, Smolder and Yona, they were all teasing Sandbar with Yona's efforts to fit in and to impress him that way and it was glorious seeing that moment. Especially Silverstream wiggling her eyebrows at Sandbar. It's this kind of dynamic of their friendship why I love the Student Six.
And all of their appearances in this episode were delightful. We've seen Ocellus transforming herself into the pony again we saw her as in the Season 8 Opener and Silverstream even made a comment about something she didn't have in Seaquestria again. I absolutely need to try and write a chapter for that this week. And then we saw Silverstream eating potato chips and later popcorn. A feeling tells me this was the first time she tried both, due to the lack of that food down in Seaquestria.

Lastly, we got another callback in this episode. After we have already seen a flashback with moments that remind us on moments we've seen in flashbacks in the Season 2 Finale and shards of Chrysalis' throne in "Sparkle's Seven", a flashback to Season 1 times and the Tasty Treat in "The Point of No Return" and have seen Quibble Pants and buckball again in "Common Ground" last week (interestingly enough here, three episodes that referenced events from Season 6 in a row), this week we have not only seen Silverstream and Ocellus doing something that reminds us on the Season 8 Opener, but also Fluttershy's Grand Galloping Gala dress. This might be a coincidence, as it regularly hangs in Rarity's boutique and we've seen it there often across the seasons, but it still invokes nostalgia.
We also got a song by Rarity, something we got the last time in Season 6 (and even there it was not a solo song), more than two and a half seasons and almost three years ago now.
As I already said in my review for "The Point of No Return", this season will probably bury us under memories when DHX intentionally shows us moments from the past and references to previous events. I'm not sure if my heart will be able to take that for the entire season, but this is what it looks like more and more.

And that's about it. There were a few more things that I wanted to write in this review, like that we finally see the crystal treehouse again that Silverstream and her friends got from the Tree of Harmony and how the fact that Yona went there so casually means that they have already settled in there without us seeing that, but I am getting tired because I did not get much sleep last night, so I'm ending it here to still get this review out today before I collapse.
Anyway, this episode was a little different than I thought it would be. I hoped to see more of the dance, but what we saw of it was worth the wait.
Next week airs "Frenemies", which will prove to be especially interesting. Unlike all the other episodes up until Episode 10, we have only a synopsis for this one and have not gotten any previews for it, so there's probably something big going to happen.
I tune in again with another review for that next Saturday and now, I will place my tired pony head to sleep on a pillow. See you next week for the next review!

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[Bronycommander]

Rest well!