So, the upcoming episode is called "Common Bond", and is by Josh Haber.

Trouble is I've already heard enough about this one to probably constitute spoilers. The guest star is Patton Oswalt, along with his daughter and wife. This obviously implies that the episode is about Quibble Pants, and it sounds like any romance between him and Rainbow Dash is probably doomed. I've heard events in this episode mirror ones in Patton's life, actually.

In any case, this'll be the discussion thread for speculation before the episode and discussion afterwards, so enjoy!

--Sweetie Belle

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So the time has come to learn the truth. Is Scootaloo daughter of Quibble Pants?

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I need to know

The guest star is Patton Oswalt, along with his daughter and wife.

He married his daughter?

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I don’t think that is what they meant.

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The importance of an Oxford comma.

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Ok, i gauss

The new episode was fairly meh.
Decent message. Good for family, but cringy.
The humor and the feels trip at end felt forced.

ow my heart.

This was too damn adorable for mortal men!

Just thought I'd mention that Big Jim had a lot to say about this episode on Twitter. (He's actually a really good person to follow if you want this type of information...) I'll put it below:
https://twitter.com/TheBiggestJim/status/1124811384020029443

Here’s a short thread with some backstory about today’s #MLPSeason9 episode featuring @MeredthSalenger, @pattonoswalt and Alice Oswalt.

When @joshhaber, @NicoleDubuc, @prag_o_matic, @mhmyhre, @Fruit_Of_The_Lu, and @MMeghanMcCarthy all were discussing story ideas for S9 back in August of 2017, we knew we wanted to try and bring back some of our previous guest stars.

@pattonoswalt was the obvious choice as we all loved his previous appearance as Quibble. We were tossing around ideas, and I remembered one of Patton’s bits where he ruminates about a future son, and how he’s likely to hate all the geeky things Patton’s in to and love sports.

The bit involves Patton’s imagined future son tossing his Boba Fett figure on the roof out of his dad’s reach. It’s hilarious. Seek it out if you’ve never heard it.

We also remembered that Patton’s daughter was a huge fan of MLP from early on, and was the primary reason he was even aware of the series from when we had him on back in S6. He’s asked if we could have a small part for her back then, but for whatever reason...

...we couldn’t make it work. So we had to try and get her in this story. Then we remembered that his wife was ALSO an amazing actor, and had a lot of VA experience. Maybe we could make this a family affair?

We broke some of the general beats of the story, mostly around the concept of Quibble needing RD’s help to deal with not knowing anything about sports. Since he had previously written Quibble’s first appearance with @mktoon, @joshhaber was the natural choice to take on the script

Josh took our thin premise and worked it in to a lovely, sweet and emotionally honest story about accepting yourself (a classic MLP trope) as well as a story about blended families. We were all very excited.

We pitched it to the Oswalt’s and they all loved the idea. In March of 2018, I flew down to LA and met up with Josh to go to the voice record. We met Patton, Meredith and Alice at the studio.

Patton and Meredith were well experienced with doing VA work, but this would be a first for Alice. Josh and I had some trepidation. First time kid actors can be tricky. Could we get the performance we needed to sell the idea for the story? Would she be able to convey the nuance?

The very first thing Alice recorded for the show was one of Wind Sprint’s disdainful “ugh”s to Quibble. She said it and we all howled with laughter. She totally got it. She was a natural. The rest of the afternoon, she was a total pro. She gave us a ton of takes,...

...and lots of variety in line readings. We asked her if she wanted a break at one point, and she said “Nah, I’m good”. Who passes up a break?! She was awesome.

It was also amazing to see the three of them in the room acting together. A real family playing a pretend one. The emotion and love in their performances is 100% real because it’s the same love and emotion they have in their real lives. It was incredibly special to watch...

...and a real privilege to direct them that day. After that, it was time to make the episode! Our design team looked a photos of Alice to try and capture her look in pony form (peep the freckles on Wind Sprint’s nose. Just like real life Alice!) We had Alice and Meredith...

...tell us the kinds of ponies they wanted to be and they suggested their characters’ colour schemes.

The whole crew came together and worked really hard to make this episode special and memorable for such an awesome family.

Hopefully the familial love of the Oswalts comes through when you watch it. And hopefully the same can be said about the love and care coming from the crew in the final product.

--Sweetie Belle

Hmm... so it seems that this ep was almost as actor driven as the one before last, which makes it a bit difficult to judge. Defiantly a cute premise, though, and a nice reminder of a couple of perhaps easily overlooked quality eps from Season 6.

This was a good episode. The first of season 9 to really wow me.

as well as a story about blended families

Man I loved that. Very few MLP families in-canon are cross-tribe. We've certainly never seen a divorce or widow before!

Also, why does the pink unicorn have a pegasus name--"Clear Sky?"

That's a story all by itself...

I'll repost what I said about it on the episode discussion thread over at /r/mylittlepony.

In which buckball strikes back with a vengeance.

But before we get to buckball: I felt that this episode was moving almost too fast. From the explosive cold opening through the buckball scenes and the tension between Quibble Pants, Clear Sky, and Wind Sprint left little breathing room for me.

One thing that caught me from left field was how buckball factored into the episode a lot. Judging from the one hype screenshot of the episode I saw months ago, I thought it would be something that just appeared at the end or something to set the climactic turning point. Nope: it's the setting for the whole episode.

And, wow, kudos to the writing team for giving buckball just enough spotlight! Not too little that it's barely a passing reference or set dressing, not too much that it's an in-your-face, exaggerated caricatures of worldbuilding. For short: Just enough for me to know more about the sport and its influence on Equestria... and for me to be left wanting more.

On to more important matters: Quibble's characterization here might have partially been accidental. His introduction to the show back in Stranger Than Fan Fiction was as a rather one-note Daring Do fanpony, so his coming back to star in another episode still felt like a new character was going to star because I didn't think the writers were going to rehash that Daring Do thread with him. But since he was so characterized and defined by his fandom of Daring Do... who else is he?

Judging from the episode, he's pretty much a bookworm and a nerd, yet a lot of the episode draws much more on what he is not: an athlete. Why? Because it shows how Quibble wants to relate to Wind Sprint, even to the point of pretending to be sporty just to please her.

Now that I think about it, this reminds me a lot of The Gift of the Maud Pie with that episode's own theme of gift-giving being an expression of love, not a competition. Here, Quibble isn't competing with anybody (except maybe for Wind Sprint's real father; more on that later), so what's the point? That love and friendship shouldn't be measured (or gotten) in how flashy or over-the-top it is. The essence of bonding is in spending time with your friends and enjoying each other's company, flashy or simple.

In a world where the tendency to project an idealized version of daily life via social media is prevalent and where it's very easy to pretend you're knowledgeable about a topic thanks to the Internet just to impress someone, this is a surprisingly relevant moral. Flexing (through material wealth, knowledge, liking certain things, or something else) is an option (though not a good one) to get others to like you and to impress them. However, true friendship is about those other people you hang out with, not you. You see, there's that hidden selfishness: that feeling or desire to impress and get others to like you, when there's the better alternative of spending time with others for others and seeing them happy. (Under that light, Quibble sounds awfully selfish himself for a good chunk of the episode.)

Now, on to minor aspects of the episode:

• Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy somehow find time to work at Sugarcube Corner and tend to animals respectively, be teachers at the School of Friendship, do adventures here and there, spend time with each other and the rest of the Mane Six, and still be available enough to maintain their buckball careers. Is this a recreational league? Because if it's pro, then it has to be a once-a-week thing l(or even less!) like football come the regular season, and if this is the playoffs (judging from the announcer saying "round"), then I guess it's all done in a single day from the first to the finals.
• Snails is still a colt and he's already on par with the best of the best in buckball, not to mention that it's implied that he's already part of a championship team.
• With the Cutie Mark Crusaders' voice actresses now adults, it's not just authetnic but also nostalgic to hear Wind Sprint voiced by a child (and Patton Oswalt's child no less!) because it harkens back to when the CMC's voice actresses were children/early teenagers.
• This episode clears all doubt: Quibble Pants' coat and mane colors are either naturally like Daring Do's or he's so dedicated, he legally changed his appearance.
• I've said it before, but I get the feeling that Clear Sky is divorced (or at least a widow). Where is the husband? Not much talk about him, actually. Honestly, the show handles this sort of situation rather decently despite (or because of?) how they left it all vague and just instead focusing on Quibble wanting to bond with Clear Sky and Wind Sprint.

Overall, a fun and surprising episode!