EP 21: Dragon Quest
Rating: 4 6 5
We start by learning that there's a dragon migration and that they only occur once in a generation. Twilight and Rainbow Dash are trying to get Fluttershy to come see it with them but Flutters is terrified. In a possible continuity callback to the sigma mare episode, Flutters says "No!" and then knocks Rainbow Dash over and stomps on her and jumps out a window to run away.
Confirmation that Fluttershy's cottage is south of Ponyville:
While watching the dragon migration, Spike comments about dragons being a force to be reckoned with and then everyone makes fun of him for not being dragon-like. Rarity then tries to defend him which makes him feel even more emasculated.
Spike then has an existential crisis about his dragonhood and then he and Twilight do research on dragons to help him. They find nothing with Twilight stating that ponies know almost nothing about dragons due to dragons being too rare and too scary to talk to or study. Spike then sets off and joins the dragon migration to prove his dragonhood.
Spike arrives at the dragon place and decides to try to befriend a group of teenage dragons but they just dunk on him. When Spike states he from Ponyville, they make fun of him more and reveal that dragons look down on ponies. To prove Spike's a dragon, they have a bunch of contests. After the first one, Spike burps up a letter from Celestia and the other dragons read it and make fun of him for being pen pals with a princess revealing that they don't fear or respect Celestia. One of the contests involves jumping into a pit of lava and this shows that dragons are completely immune to lava.
After Spike proves his dragonhood to the teenage dragons, they decide to raid a phoenix nest for its eggs. Spike doesn't want to commit animal cruelty though. After the plan goes to shit, Spike finds an egg and refuses to break it and the episode ends. I really didn't have much to add to this episode.
4 EV because it's a fine episode. 6 VB for the message of refusing to give into the influence of others which can be further interpreted to societal bullshit at large. It also is about how your inherent traits don't make you the same as others with those inherent traits. People will use inherent traits to propagandise themselves and their group to seem superior, attacked, or in most cases, both. This perpetuates memetic viruses of hate and persecution that only worsen the world. 5 DV because we learn a lot about dragons.
EP 22: Hurricane Fluttershy
Rating: 4 3 4
Derpy.
There's a mandatory meeting for all Ponyville pegasi and Fluttershy achieved her dream of being a tree.
After the theme song, we see that movies exist. The movie explains how pegasi need to create a tornado to funnel water to Cloudsdale. RD explains Ponyville's been selected to be the town that supplies the water this time. We learn that the shit's measured with wing power and Fillydelphia has the record.
RD's training ponies and Flutters is missing. Flutters pretends being sick. I don't have much to say on this episode. I have no notes past this point. Rest of the episodes, I have very few notes of things to talk about. This entire page probably sucks.
After RD tries to get Flutters to join the thing, we get a Fluttershy flashback and we see filly Fluttershy again.
Rest of the episode is Flutters being insecure and obviously it ends with her gaining confidence and crap. There're some calculations or something to be made about Ponyville's population based on wing power and stuff but someone else can do that. Fillydelphia is also about the size of Ponyville based on these wing power measurements too.
Fine episode. 4 EV. 3 VB because I don't vibe with anything and the message is a generic "believe in yourself". 4 DV because we learn a little about pegasus weather manipulation.
EP 23: Ponyville Confidential
Rating: 5 2 4
So this episode starts with Scoots and Sweetie upset that their classmate got a cutie mark and then Apple Bloom comes out with newspapers saying she found a way to potentially get their cutie marks. Scoots and Sweetie then try a bunch of arts and crafts things but don't get their cutie marks and go to Apple Bloom pissed. Apple Bloom then slaps Sweetie with a newspaper telling them they're idiots and I thought this was pretty funny. Apple Bloom proposes they try to get their cutie marks in journalism.
Cheerilee tells the school foals about the newspaper club thing and that there is a new editor who is revealed to be Diamond Tiara who makes a pretty showy entrance.
Diamond Tiara announces she will bring the Foal Free Press to newfound glory and commands the other foals to do their jobs. The CMC write their stories but Diamond Tiara rejects them telling them to get better shit.
They then discover that reporting on ponies' embarrassing moments is what sells the newspaper and Diamond Tiara tells them to get more gossip stories. Afterwards, they can't think of anything to write about like me with half these episodes.
Rarity then snoops through Sweetie Belle's crap like a cunt. The CMC then start reporting on every little embarrassing thing a pony does like a bunch of A-Logs. There's also a story about Trixie which may imply she's in Ponyville at this time.
Eventually, Rarity's diary is published in the paper which is what she deserves for going through Sweetie's stuff. Also this is why you don't write in physical diaries. If your crap is that sensitive, either use some sort of encrypted writing software or keep you writings in an encrypted container or drive. If you must write in a physical diary, use a different writing system so people can't read it if it's stolen. Might I recommend Moxi for this?
Sweetie then gets got. Now everyone refuses to talk to the CMC. Then they apologize and everyone forgives them. Episode over.
Good episode so it gets 5 EV. I only gave it 2 VB because I would kind of be a hypocrite if I didn't. Seeing as I get a large amount of my entertainment by watching videos and streams about lolcows and wackos and that shit is basically just gossip with some extra layers, saying I agree with this episode's message would be disingenuous. I can agree that lying about people is bad and you shouldn't do that but laughing at them for real shit, now that I can get behind. I've even written on here about the wacky people I've come across myself in the Wacky Individuals article. 4 DV because some of the gossip is little details we learn about characters or are a continuity callback.
EP 24: MMMystery On The Friendship Express
Rating: 5 4 3
Canterlot's holding a national dessert competition and the ponies have to make sure their dessert arrives safe. Other creatures arrive with desserts for the competition too and Pinkie gets paranoid that one of them will sabotage the cake she's escorting. This is another episode I don't have much to say on.
Cute Pinkie:
It's a murder mystery episode with movie references to movies I've never seen. I really don't have anything to add at really any point. Not even detail stuff.
There's a part with a conductor's hat which reminds me of how I would always steal a conductor's hat in Red Dead Online because it was my favorite hat for some reason.
This episode also confirms Rarity's eyelashes are fake.
I liked this episode enough to give it 5 EV. 4 VB for message of not assuming crap. 3 DV because nothing interesting happens in terms of development.
EP 25: A Canterlot Wedding Part 1
Rating: 5 5 5
Twilight and the girls are invited to a wedding to help with stuff and it is then revealed that the ponies getting married are Twilight's brother and Princess Mi Amore Cadenza. Twilight has a flashback.
After Twilight complains about people in her life making decisions for themselves, we get a song. It's ok.
It's revealed Twilight's brother Shining Armor is captain of the royal guard and now the ponies get really giddy now that they know they will be helping with a wedding of 'important' ponies. What is with people caring so much about playing kiss-ass to those with social status? Celebrities, high ranking political people, and executives are not your friends unless they literally are your friends. I'm not your fucking friend.
They then have to take a train to Canterlot. Maybe the railway was recently built this season and that's why they take the train now. Twilight confronts Shining pissed that he made his own life decisions. It's revealed that Canterlot is under threat. 8:25 animation error; lances disappear as camera zooms in.
We learn that Mi Amore Cadenza is Twilight's old foalsitter Cadance and that she was an alicorn and a princess as a teenager when she foalsitted Twilight. This was also before Twilight had a cutie mark.
Present Cadance comes and she's a complete cunt to everyone. She eventually insults Pinkie but she takes it as a compliment and this is pretty funny. Just noticed the closed captions call Cadance "Cadence" which is wrong.
Twilight goes to talk to Shining Armor about Cadance being a cunt and Twilight says "people". He and Cadance talk in private and Shining mentions how his chest badge thing was his favorite uncle's which means Twilight and Shining have at least two uncles, one of which is probably dead. Twilight sees Cadance cast a spell on him and runs sway.
Look at the happy little ponies!
At wedding practice, Twilight ruins the thing by saying Cadance is evil and now everyone hates her and Cadance sends her to a pocket dimension while everyone is out of the room and the episode ends.
EP 26: A Canterlot Wedding Part 2
Rating: 5 5 5
In the pocket dimension which is actually just caves beneath Canterlot which have been mostly forgotten about, Cadance taunts Twilight and makes her go into a rage blowing shit up with her magic blasts until she finds the real Cadance and tackles her and almost kills her. Cadance proves she real and they try to find an exit.
We then get This Day Aria song which is pretty good. Twilight and Cadance then find a mine cart and rail but unfortunately there are no children yearning for the mines to go to work and they use it to escape.
Twilight and Cadance then arrive to stop the wedding and fake Cadance reveals herself to be Queen Chrysalis who I will just call Queen Chrissy and she's the queen of the changelings. She and Celestia fight and she dunks on Celestia showing that Chrissy is stronger than Celestia at this time.
Then the changelings break the city barrier and invade and attack the Mane 6. We then get an actual fight scene of them straight up using violence to defend themselves which is one of the reasons I love this show so much; not everything ends with friendship solving your problems, sometimes violence is the only option.
While Chrissy is reveling in Canterlot's destruction, Twilight frees Cadance and she gets rid of Shining's mind control. Shining and Cadance do a combo spell that then saves the day and forces the changelings out of the city in a kinda rushed ending. Then the real wedding happens and the episode ends with Love is in Bloom which is possibly the best song of the season.
Both these episodes had equal entertainment value worth 5 EV. I give them 5 VB for the fight scene and the message of trusting your instincts which is really just your subconscious. Since I was a child, I've found little ways to consciously observe my subconscious so I understand this message probably more than most. The message is also about persisting during doubt and seeing as I've persisted through the doubt of others despite my own suffering, this gets that VB rating. 5 DV for introducing Shining Armor, Cadance, and Queen Chrissy.
Post-Season Notes
This season seemed more consistently fine but I believe it was a weaker season than season 1 overall. I noticed that a lot of the episodes relied on making the characters complete cunts and I believe that's a major reason. This season also lacks an arc like the gala arc during season 1 but still maintains a lot of continuity which I have been surprised at just how much continuity these early seasons have. I remember the middle and later seasons having a lot of it but I never noticed just how much there was even in these early seasons.
Now let's sperg out about this season's timeframe. We don't get any absolute dates for when The Return of Harmony takes place but we can deduce that it takes place sometime after May 21 of year 2 and probably before October 31 of year 2. We don't know for certain if Nightmare Night is on October 31 unless there's some official celebration post on some social media platform I don't know about. Luna Eclipsed is on Nightmare Night which may be October 31. This means Lesson Zero also takes place some time between May 22 and October 31 of year 2.
In Sweet and Elite we know that it's Twilight's birthday. We also know it's before but close to the Grand Galloping Gala. I found This (Archive.ph, Wayback) which states that Twilight's birthday is March 30 using a shot of a calendar from Equestria Girls as proof. However, they are wrong about the gala date stating it's either March 21 or April 21 since we already proved that the gala is May 21 as I wrote in season 1's post-season notes. I thought maybe they're still right about Twilight's birthday being March 30 but then I noticed something. The calendar in the screenshot only has 30 days and March has 31 days and the squares after the birthday cake are greyed out meaning it can't be March 30. But April does have only 30 days meaning that Twilight's birthday would actually have to be on April 30, a few days before Pinkie's on May 3. April 2014 also matches the day placement. 2014 probably being when Friendship Games was being animated or storyboarded or something before its release in 2015. This means episodes 5-8 took place between November of year 2 and a few days before the end of April in year 3.
In Secret Of My Excess, we know it's Spike's first birthday in Ponyville. Twilight and and Spike arrived in Ponyville June 20 so Spike's birthday has to be between May 21 and June 20. Since Spike was hatched from his egg due to Twilight's magic surge caused by the sonic rainboom, we also know that event happened on this day sometime within this one month timeframe. But this conflicts with it being year 3 since he would've actually had his first birthday in year 2 unless they were away from Ponyville. I'm just going to assume the writers didn't plan this out, creating this conflict and that Spike was indeed away from Ponyville on his birthday in year 2.
There's a one month time skip in Baby Cakes but this gives us no actual information. Then we get to Hearth's Warming Eve which is obviously some time in winter since we see snow. I'm going to assume this takes place on the winter solstice or the day before and not Christmas day because I doubt the ponies manufactured this holiday as a religious psyop like how Christmas was based off of other winter solstice holidays. This means episodes 10-13 take place from sometime between late May or early June to probably some time in December.
In The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000, there's a part where the Apple family mentions how cider sales last them through the winter so episodes 14 and this one 15 take place sometime between December of year 3 and March of year 4, more likely on the earlier side.
In A Friend In Deed, we get a lot of birth dates and we can deduce that the episode takes place on one of two days. So we know the episode takes place on Cheerilee's birthday, yesterday was Zecora's birthday, and Matilda's is in 132 days. Pinkie also states her birthday isn't for another 75 days. Jackpot! We know Pinkie's birthday is May 3 and 75 days before May 3 is February 17. Which means that Cheerilee's birthday is February 17, Zecora's February 16, and Matilda's June 29. But 2012, the year this episode aired was a leap year and the episode aired on February 18, also 75 days before Pinkie's birthday on May 3. This does confirm Pinkie's birthday but does the pony world have leap years? Since the Alicorn Sisters control the day cycle, you wouldn't need leap years which account for inaccuracies in calendars with years actually not being exact days length of time. So these dates could be these characters' birthdays or they could be plus one day or minus one depending on whether they're before or after the leap day. This does however mean that actually, episodes 14-18 take place between December and February 17 or 18.
It's About Time mentions Arbor Day but I couldn't find a compatible date and Equestria's may have just been made up but most countries' Arbor Days seemed to be around June-August with a few in fall. So I'm going to assume this episode takes place sometime in an early portion of a summer month of year 4. So episode 19, Putting Your Hoof Down takes place sometime between late February and summer of year 4. I don't think there's any timeframe hints for the rest of this season's episodes so I'm just going to guess that A Canterlot Wedding takes place around late summer or fall of year 4. You're welcome, future YouTubers that use this information in their MLP video essays, hope I didn't make you have to censor too much for your corpobucks.
MLP Commentaries IndexWritten 2024-10-25 Published 2024-11-1