MLP:FiM Season 2 Discussion (WARNING! Spoilers Within!)

[Ziel]

Wow... a tortuous. Who'd have thougt. Only the entire fandom since they realized RD was the only one without a pet. I wonder how much this episode was meant to be fan service. LOL

If I didn't know the time scale that it takes to write and produce these, I'd agree!  When we were hanging out and someone mentioned a turtle with a jet pack, you don't know how much willpower it took to keep a big apple-eating grin off my face to prevent spoiling it.  Now I just wonder if the tortoise (is he named?) will never appear again until next season like Winona.

I'm just dreading hearing all about "Oh, it's so predictable! There was too much fanservice!  They were acting out of character!"  I agree with all that to a small extent, but somehow I was still OK with this episode.  You could tell the tortoise was going to have some significant role at the end (if not definitely be the winning pet), but I was still surprised by the rockslide and how the tortoise lifted the rock to free RD.  Whoa, that's like the Incredible Hulk right there!

Dashie named him Tank.

Did I see the tortoise winning once RD gave in and let him compete? Yes. Wasn't sure how it was going to end up that way, but I saw it coming the whole time.  And yes, I do hope he'll make some random appearances again. I mean, Angel, Gummy, and Opel all have pretty regular appearances. The other two don't (didn't realize the owl was even still considered Twilight's pet). I was always just taking Spike as her companion.

Overall reaction? Well, I'm a bit biased towards Dashie myself, so I loved that she was the main focus. And while the song caught me a bit off-guard, as I was not expecting the first S2 song to be in an RD episode, I loved that it showed up. And that it was a Flutterdash duet was just icing on the cake. Musically, it was very well put together. It'll take some time to learn it, though, because it's a bit more complex and isn't structured with any sort of real catchy chorus. But I still loved the song.

Not a super-top-tier episode. But it's definitely one I will re-watch quite a bit.

[Foxxhoria]

(Reposted from the other thread, these are my thoughts from last night and first viewing:)

I was always dubious about Dash getting a pet...it seems to me out of character for her to even care about wanting one (at least in the way it happens in the episode).

I didn't really like this episode myself.  Dash being my favourite pony, I felt her character in this episode wasn't what I would have wanted from her.  It was kind of like someone took the stereotype Dash most closely resembles and applied it to her.
Fluttershy, also my favourite pony, also didn't live up to my expectations of her.  I know her character's always been the most fragile, but it annoys me that the only points she turns up in this episode she's overly forward and pro-active about stuff (yes to do with animals, and it was kind of like that in the very first episode of the whole thing with Spike, but here I feel that that was all she was reduced to...).  She sounds even more girly than usual to me somehow, too...

I didn't really like the song either; it was very cheesy and wasn't nearly as catchy as most of the other songs they've done.  And those faces. Damn.

It was an extremely simple episode too.  I know it takes a lot of effort to write something intricate and well, but it still kinda bugs me that this kind of episode turned up.  There wasn't really much happening in it.  22~minutes felt like just 10 :/

The turtletortoise annoyed me, I felt it came out of nowhere, and then just stayed.  And then was the whole "point" of the episode...

It bugged me when Dash got her wing trapped under the rock; she's usually determined and level-headed, and confident in her abilities, not to mention independent, but here she just immediately gave up and left her fate to anypony (or tortoise!).

And finally, while the Mane 6 were there, they didn't really do much.  This is my main reason why I disliked The Cutie Pox and Lesson Zero (but loved the whole barn scene), and loved Sisterhooves Social.  Cutie Pox redeemed itself quite a bit after watching it again; although Pinkie Pie was just sort of a throw in, and Applejack was just dropping one-liners all the time, there was some nice interaction between the CMC and their class, and Zecora was also cool throughout.

The animation was kinda weird too; not just the faces during the song, but the eyes were rather far apart quite a lot of the time, particularly noticeable on Fluttershy.

I just didn't feel particularly satisfied with this episode; it went past too quickly and felt rather...flat.  And barren.  The settings didn't help with that.  There just wasn't enough interaction - I don't feel like I've learnt anything about friendship in this, I felt I learnt more about why I've been liking the show instead.

Maybe the kiddies will like it though.


Random: Dun dun duuuun!

It seemed strangely wordy compared to all other episodes.
>"We had initially planned..."
>"...before you humiliate yourself in front of your peers",
>"Sorta speedy! Not speedy. Pretty speedy! Could be more speedy..." etc.

Gesundheit!

I also didn't like her hat.  But oh well...

Bleh.

Maybe after another viewing I'll grow to accept it a bit more... I don't know.  Happened with The Cutie Pox, but that had more going on in it.

(I'll watch it again today in the morning, and see what I think then ^^)

[Kay Alett]

Turtle. Called it months ago when I first heard talk about RD having a pet.

I'm reminded of an old song from Seseme Street called The Alligator King.

One two three four five six seven!
Said the Alligator King to his seven sons,
"I'm feelin' mighty down.
Whichever of you can cheer me up
Will get to wear my crown."

His first son brought seven oyster pearls
From the bottom of the China Sea.

The second gave him seven statues of girls
With clocks where their stomachs should be.

The third son gave him seven rubies
From the sheikdom of Down There Beneath.
The King thought the rubies were cherries,
And he broke off seven of his teeth.

The fourth son tried to cheer him up
With seven lemon drops.
The King said, "I'm sorry son,
Since that ruby episode, I just haven't got the chops."

The fifth son brought the King perfume
In seven fancy silver jars;
The King took a whiff, and he broke out in spots
'Cause it smelled like cheap cigars.

The sixth son gave him seven diamond rings
To wear upon his toes.
The King snagged his foot on the royal red rug
And crumpled up his nose.

The seventh son of the Alligator King
Was a thoughtful little whelp.
He said, "Daddy, appears to me
That you could use a little help."

Said the Alligator King to his seventh son,
"My son, you win the crown.
You didn't bring me diamonds or rubies, but
You helped me up when I was down.
Take the crown; it's yours, my son.
I hope you don't mind the dents.
I got it on sale at a discount store-
Cost me all of seven cents!"
Seven!

The lyrics that come to mind are:

Said the Alligator King to his seventh son,
"My son, you win the crown.
You didn't bring me diamonds or rubies, but
You helped me up when I was down.

This is a good episode with a wonderful song and I laughed hard at Rainbow talking about Twilight being her pet. (Big TwiDash shipping fan here)

I felt it was kinda weak in places though, not the best, not the worst. Kinda bland and predictable for me but I still enjoyed it.

[Foxxhoria]

Ok, second watch, and I connected with it more   It still felt it was a bit simple and linear, but I could feel more of the awesomeness from it this time
Dash was definitely cool.

Rainbow Dash seemed less out of character this time, though Fluttershy was going all sort of hysterical about getting Dash a pet, and she doesn't strike me as a hysterical type (maybe it's just animals )

I still felt the tortoise came out of no-where though, and then just stayed for no reason (it made the plot a whole lot more obvious).  Dash's disapproval of the tortoise was also rather focused on, which didn't help the whole thing.  Dash should have got the bat!  I'd have been much happier with that.  (A toy bat would have also been 20% cooler rather than the damn "turtle", but bleh, corporations.)

I actually kinda liked the song this time   I got more of a humour vibe from it than just cheesy musical singing.  The faces still creeped me out though

Not my favourite still overall, but there were some awesome Rainbow Dash moments, and animal moments

[Hoagiebot]

Hey everypony!  I have been meaning to share my analysis of the last episode, "May the Best Pet Win," for some time now, and I figured that if I was going to do it I had better do it now considering the fact that the next episode is going to air in less than 2-hours!     I am sorry for arriving so late to this discussion-- I was at Midwest Furfest last weekend, and then a combination of my younger siblings being back in town for the holidays, Thanksgiving, and other family events have just kept me from being able to sit in front of my computer long enough to write out my observations and thoughts for this episode.

As much as I wish that I could say that there will be one of my trademark giant walls of text inbound for this episode, the fact of the matter is that you have all pretty much already thoroughly discussed this episode here, so I will reply to all of your observations instead.

I'm just dreading hearing all about "Oh, it's so predictable!

You are dreading hearing people (like me) saying that this episode was too predictable because deep down inside yourself you know the truth: it was.  The foreshadowing of the tortoise being Rainbow Dash's pet was way too obvious and blatant, and the "anvilicious" nature of the overly driven-home moral of this story absolutely demanded that the tortoise win.  As soon as you saw how much the tortoise desperately wanted to be Rainbow Dash's pet, you knew that it would be inevitable that he would be.  The workings of the MLP:FiM universe just wouldn't do it any other way.

They were acting out of character!"  I agree with all that to a small extent, but somehow I was still OK with this episode.  You could tell the tortoise was going to have some significant role at the end (if not definitely be the winning pet), but I was still surprised by the rockslide and how the tortoise lifted the rock to free RD.  Whoa, that's like the Incredible Hulk right there!

It bugged me when Dash got her wing trapped under the rock; she's usually determined and level-headed, and confident in her abilities, not to mention independent, but here she just immediately gave up and left her fate to anypony (or tortoise!).

I too was slightly bothered by a lot of the things mentioned here-- that Rainbow Dash, who seemed more than happy without a pet, suddenly desired one, that she was able to single-handedly destroy an entire freakin' barn in a previous episode kicking and karate-chopping thick wood beams apart and yet she could suddenly not buck a small bolder off of her wing that a small tortoise later lifted, that she was so quick to panic in the face of being trapped when in previous episodes she was shown keeping her cool even when bucking a full-grown dragon in the face, etc. etc.  And as much as I would like to find some kind of fancy complicated in-universe explanations for what I find to be character-inaccuracies in this episode, the fact of the matter is that the reason for why all of these changes were made is probably a simple out-of-universe one: the writer (Charlotte Fullerton in this case) changed the characters through artistic license to make them fit her plot.  It is as simple as that.  Instead of coming up with a plot that actually fit the characters, Ms. Fullerton instead decided to change the characters to fit her plot.

Normally, when a writer does this, they do it by invoking something like the "Rule of Cool" or the "Rule of Funny", where the elements in the story turn out to be so awesome or so entertaining that the audience is willing to forgive whatever liberties the writer took with the characters to get them there.  However, considering the fact that several of us noticed these inaccuracies with the characters in this episode and are complaining about it, apparently the payoff in the episode resulting from these liberties was not cool enough or funny enough to cause us to overlook them.  As much as I hate to dis this particular writer because she wrote some very good episodes last season, the combination of the over-obvious foreshadowing and all of the artistic license (and even a little bit of past event revising) taken with the characters without a proportionally entertaining payoff at the end makes me feel that this episode was somewhat lazily-written.  I would expect writing like this to be par for the course for most cartoon shows, but most of the writing for MLP:FiM so far as been unbelievably exceptional.  Do I think that this episode was a bad one?  No, I thought that this episode was pretty much O.K.  But considering how many amazing episodes of MLP:FiM there are, running across an episode that is only O.K. really makes this episode stick out.

Dash being my favourite pony, I felt her character in this episode wasn't what I would have wanted from her.  It was kind of like someone took the stereotype Dash most closely resembles and applied it to her.

I too felt that the jerky side of Rainbow Dash's personality was amplified a bit too much in this episode.  Rainbow Dash is always a bit on the arrogant side, and she can have a bit of a mischievous streak (especially when she is pranking), but she usually stops well short of being downright mean.  That's what separates our dear protagonist Rainbow Dash from being an antagonist like Gilda-- Rainbow Dash knows when to stop, and is never so insensitive as to be purposely hurtful towards her friends.  But in this episode Rainbow Dash kind of crossed that line and acted rather bully-like and downright cruel to her pet-candidates.  She was continually verbally abusive to the poor tortoise, darn near gave the monarch butterfly a heart attack, and I don't think PETA would appreciate Rainbow Dash forcing several birds and a bat to have to fly through avalanches and thorn-bushes and darn near get eaten alive by monstrous quarray eels.  We're suppose to excuse these blatant acts of animal cruelty due to the Rule of Funny, but those moments weren't really all that funny so I can't really overlook them.  In the end I can't imagine why any animal in all of Equestria would want to go within 100-feet of Rainbow Dash let alone want to be her pet-- Tank must be a glutton for punishment!

I actually kinda liked the song this time   I got more of a humour vibe from it than just cheesy musical singing.

I too wasn't overly impressed with the song the first time around, but I am starting to like it more and more each time I watch the episode so I guess it is really starting to grow on me.

And finally, while the Mane 6 were there, they didn't really do much.

Yeah, the writers are kind of focusing on each character more individually this season, and I don't always like the results of that either.  In season 1 you had a pretty good formula going.  Twilight Sparkle was definitely the main character of the entire series during the first season, and since she was new in Ponyville many of the episodes resulted in her learning something new about her new home, trying to fit in in her new home, etc.  That is why Twilight Sparkle always learned the Aesop-style moral of the story at the end and wrote about it to the princess: the whole first season was largely geared towards Twilight Sparkle personally learning how to be a better person through her interactions with her new friends.  Season 2 has largely broken from this however, to the point where now anypony can be the character learning the episode's aesop and writing to the princess at the end.  This fundamental change allowed the writers more freedom to center their stories around characters other than Twilight, but the results of this break from the pattern aren't always up to expectations.  (For example, my favorite episode of Season 2 so far is still "Luna Eclipsed," which despite being a Season 2 episode still religiously sticks to the Season 1 formula of centering around Twilight Sparkle.)  This also leads to a lot of episodes barely including the entire Mane 6 cast at all, which is a shame because most of my favorite episodes feature the whole group together and the interesting interactions that result from all of their very different dynamics.  While some of the non-Twilight Sparkle-centric Season 2 episodes have been fine, I do find myself hoping that some of the future episodes focus on the entire Mane 6 cast as a whole a bit more.

In any case, I am really looking forward to this morning's episode, "The Mysterious Mare Do Well!"  I am really really curious to see who this mysterious new masked hero in Ponyville is, and how the always cavalier and swaggering Rainbow Dash is going to deal with the new found competition!  This episode has the potential to be as explosive as a water and sodium reaction, and I myself am absolutely dying to see the sparks fly!  As far as who I would like the mysterious new masked hero to turn out to be, I would be as pleased as punch if the hero turned out to be one of the following:

• Firefly - The G1-pony that was the character-blueprint for MLP:FiM's Rainbow Dash.  A match up of Firefly vs. Dash would be incredibly exciting because they essentially have the same personalities and skill-set, resulting in Rainbow Dash having the competition of her life on her hands because she would be facing an ace-flying opponent that is just as fast, skilled, brash, and fearless as she is!  Unfortunately, due to intellectual property rights issues, this match-up will probably never happen.  *grumbles*  Geez Hasbro, you have got to have some kind of hefty financial war chest and a vast army of soulless demonic corporate lawyers at your disposal!  Quit being so cheap and buy the rights to the G1 ponies back so that you can make this epic match up happen!  It would be the Rule of Cool in spades!
• The Great and Powerful Trixie - Trixie lives to be a pain in the @ss to the Mane 6.  How better than to get under Rainbow Dash's skin than to steal her job at being the town's superhero?  Trixie has powerful enough magic abilities to allow her to be able to utilize them to help her fill the role of a superhero, and she is definitely flamboyant and theatrical enough to don a mask and a secret identity!
• Spitfire - I don't know why I love Spitfire, but for whatever reason I just plain adore her!  She is definitely my favorite of all of the secondary characters!  I guess I just have a thing for stunningly attractive tomboys that are still "just one of the guys."  My personal affiliation towards her aside, she is also one of the few ponies out there that could take on Dash head-to-head when it comes to speed, aerial acrobatics, and heroics.  While I think that it has been fairly well-established that no pegasus is quite as fast in the air as Rainbow Dash, Spitfire is the captain of the Wonderbolts after all so she can't be too much of a slouch!  I think that she could give Dash a run for her money at the hero business at least well enough to be a threat to Dash's fragile ego.  I don't know what Spitfire's motivations would be to take on Rainbow Dash in the hero business, but any screentime for Spitfire is a good thing as far as I am concerned, so I will let MLP:FiM's writers figure that one out-- that's what they're paid for dang it!

I highly doubt that any of my three picks for the mysterious new masked hero will actually come to pass, but I would be ecstatic if one of them actually did!  Oh boy!  Less than one hour left until the new episode airs now!  I can't wait!!!  Tick... tick... tick...   

[Kay Alett]

Okay So I will give a bit of live commentarry as I am just gettting home from work and can see the episode.

0:52 seconds in: ha ha ha! Nyan-cat Dash!

2:55 Seriously... They went with the baby carriage thing?

6:20 -_-; ...honestly Rainbow, you're making it hard for me to like you right now... AJ needs to deflate that ego some.

6:30 I want a B&W print like that of RD. That is a beautiful shot of her.

7:00 Hey that pony in the balloon! Cool.

7:02 Darkwing Duck?! Er- ponyfied Darkwing Duck. Darkhoof Horse?  (It's probably actually Applejack)

 8:20 huh... Redoing the train sequence from Spider-Man 2 huh? Well she's stealing his "Friendly Neighborhood" phrase so why not? When does Octavia show up as Doctor Octopus? (Cuz his human name was "Octavius" for those not in the know.)

8:35 Oh, Darkhoof saved them... Cool. Go DH! Lets get friendly! Wait a second... She got to them Mountains fast.... Either Darkhoof is Pinkie Pie or its actually ALL off her friends switching places to seem like only one pony. 

11:20 ...Dash you're an idiot... Also, they have hydro electric dams? This is going to further stuff in the fandom like mad...

12:32 Okay so she has a unicorn horn AND wings? No doubt about it now, Darkhoof is most assuredly all her friends swapping places. I'd bet my horns that Rarity designed the outfits and Twilight came up with the plan.

13:15 ....Do I even have to comment on what her friends just said? They just gave it away! Augh! I wanted the reveal to be at the end... oh well.

14:00 oh no... I'm getting flashbacks to Lesson Zero... Don't do it Dashie!

15:25 I got nothing and Dash is an idiot.

16:25 Dash you're an idiot.

17:44 aw crud... Rainbow Dumbass is gonna try and unmask Darkhoof Horse isn't she?

19:02 I forsee thousands of images of this with suggestive themes.

19:30 AJ looks so pretty in that costume with her hood down. <3_<3

20:00 oh by the way, I called it back at 8:35 and should note I did all I could to avoid spoilers for this, even the title.

Credits: They aren't gonna narrate the letter? I mean they did already sum up the episode lesson and all i know but still... Oh well. Gotta say, better than the pet episode.

[Kay Alett]

I am the terror that trots in the night!
I am that little piece of hay that gets stuck to the roof of your mouth!
I. Am. Darkhoof Horse!

[Narei Mooncatt]

I just got through watching this and it was enjoyable. I'd say a good mid-tier episode. But really, an alternate title for this episdoe could have been: The Day Ponyville Broke. Seriously, everything is always all hunky dory and then in one day everything's gone CRAZY!!!! Babies and carraiges rolling down hills (they should really block the top of that road off and put a bridge out sign there. ), dams breaking, hot air balloons falling out of the sky, penut butter jars that wont open. It's like Murphy* had a field day that day.

*Murphy of the infamous Murphy's Law of course. LOL

[Foxxhoria]

I actually kinda liked the song this time  I got more of a humour vibe from it than just cheesy musical singing.

I too wasn't overly impressed with the song the first time around, but I am starting to like it more and more each time I watch the episode so I guess it is really starting to grow on me.

The only thing that bothers me with it now is how they animated some of the mouths there.

---

So to the new episode:

2:55 Seriously... They went with the baby carriage thing?

6:20 -_-; ...honestly Rainbow, you're making it hard for me to like you right now... AJ needs to deflate that ego some.

11:20 ...Dash you're an idiot... Also, they have hydro electric dams? This is going to further stuff in the fandom like mad...

13:15 ....Do I even have to comment on what her friends just said? They just gave it away! Augh! I wanted the reveal to be at the end... oh well.

14:00 oh no... I'm getting flashbacks to Lesson Zero... Don't do it Dashie!

15:25 I got nothing and Dash is an idiot.

16:25 Dash you're an idiot.

20:00 oh by the way, I called it back at 8:35 and should note I did all I could to avoid spoilers for this, even the title.

Credits: They aren't gonna narrate the letter? I mean they did already sum up the episode lesson and all i know but still... Oh well. Gotta say, better than the pet episode.

I agree with a lot of the points in this.  It was a very clichéd kind of episode, for FiM, and was so to the point of exaggerating Dash to the point where I nearly started to cringe.  She usually does stop becoming actually self-centred before it gets that bad (she comes across as such, but isn't really and knows when to be serious), so this episode was kind of like "...why's she being like this?".  I didn't think it was too bad in the beginning, I loved how she was actually rather bashful about it; but then it took a dramatic turn when she suddenly started milking it with the baby (kind of like the dramatic turn with Rarity in Sisterhooves Social, though that didn't matter so much because 1. it was kind of funny, 2. it was Rarity (who had been being a bit overdramatic anyway) and 3. it could easily have been toned down without affecting the plot at all). It makes me cringe horribly when otherwise tempered and capable characters become suddenly overly cocky and yet incapable, or just forlornly desperate like trying to push Granny Smith across the road against her will. Have you suddenly lost the ability to stop and think Dashie?  You're not completely insane like Twilight was that one episode...  Fortunately this was not nearly as bad as in many many cartoons and we still feel some of Rainbow Dash's real personality come through at lesser points in the episode.  

The other Mane 6 seemed a bit funny in their Mare-do-Well costume; although it would have spoiled the plot twist they were trying to create, I would have expected to have seen some characterisation while they were in costume - such as Pinkie Pie prancing about somewhat á-la Tom Bombadil (especially in the crane and the chase scenes), and Fluttershy flying perhaps slower and more gracefully.  In fact I think it could have changed the emphasis of the episode a bit - it would have shown us that her friends were there doing stuff, trying to teach her a lesson; it would have been great if we could have seen this, and Rainbow Dash not have known, because that may have emphasised that they were working together to make her realise her problem.  We've also already had a hidden-then-reveal of this magnitude in Sisterhooves Social; it would make me worry that they might start to rely on it too much.

And yes, Ponyville did seem very strange in this; it felt much bigger and more built up, you rather got the feeling that it was just a small and quiet village, previously, even as late as The Cutie Pox, but here it felt inexplicably much more built up, and was even expanding, with the crane and stuff.  There was even that completely out of place hydroelectric dam...  The premise of the episode is clichéd enough, and then we get the ever-clichéd dam? A hydroelectric one at that?  Why would they even need one?  Faust even stated they used magic for "electric" things (such as Vinyl Scratch's decks)...  It's also completely randomly somewhere near Ponyville in some place which was conveniently un-shown...  It felt nice in other episodes, it felt like we were peering into another, real world, with just a drop-in or two of some familiar stuff to make us connect a bit more and possibly for the ironic humour, like Scratch's decks.  In The Cutie Pox we get a completely fitted out modern bowling alley, although it was at least in a nice traditional-looking building, and (...did anyone notice it?) the bowling balls there had no finger holes .  I liked the way they had the construction plot though; the crane was made out of wood, and the building was taking on a seemingly (and wonderfully fitting!) timber-framed design.  Given that it was put in there, it was made nicely in-keeping. (and I don't care if a building that high wouldn't have been possible in wood!)  But the hydroelectric dam kind of brushed all that aside that and it was kind of lazy to put it in the first place. :/  (I really hope they don't do this again, they're dangerously close to making it some kind of Springfield with this episode...)  And what the hell is up with that road?  They could have so easily explained it by a bridge being out or something.  Slight oversight maybe...

Having said all that though, I liked this episode so much more than May the Best Pet Win.  There was much more action, and much more eye candy (background ponies, and Ponyville!) and it just felt more satisfying to watch.  It's important too, that, I think at least, this Dash was much more in-keeping with her personality than she was in MtBPW.  It may have been stretched rather too much in some areas, but overall, I can see this being the sort of thing she'd slip into doing.  I'd like to think she wouldn't be so abrasive with it, and just be caught up in the fun and the thrill of it all, but at least she wasn't being so outright (and clunkily) harsh like she was in MtBPW.  I don't really mind seeing one episode of this for Dash (and after all she is just about the only character they can do it to... or at least the most obvious), although it would have been the sort of thing I would have thought she'd have overcome before Twilight came along.  But then, yeah, there wouldn't have been an episode... (maybe they could have given it more context?)
I will say though, as a cartoon, this really isn't a bad episode.

It didn't completely capture the charm and down-to-earth nature of Season 1 for me like Luna Eclipsed, and particularly Sisterhooves Social (and even some bits of Lesson Zero (RoH doesn't count because it was meant to be weird )), but maybe that's because Ponyville felt so big and busy.  It did a much better job (and it's probably one of the most important things) than May the Best Pet Win did, maybe because it actually had Ponyville and background ponies to compare with previous episodes, and continue that same feeling (which is why it felt slightly weird that Ponyville was so big).
I did like the return of all the funny, derpy background characters, and it was amazing how many lines they got this episode!  The one whose peanut jar Dash was trying to open was amusingly (and perhaps refreshingly?) blunt, and a nice contrast to Dash's overeager urge to help at that point.
(Speaking of which... has anyone found Derpy yet...?  Is she even in this episode?)

Scootaloo was wonderful in this episode, firstly her Rainbow Dash Fanclub (seriously one of the best bits of this episode!), then her coming to see Rainbow Dash at the end... many have moaned at how it was completely out of character for her to lose her admiration for Rainbow Dash, but to me it seemed the very fact that she came back to invite her to the Mare-do-Well thank-you parade shows that she hadn't lost her admiration for Rainbow Dash, and still, even if she was at-that-moment idolising Mare-do-Well, deep down she still had a deep affection for Rainbow Dash and was the only one to come back for her when everyone else had forgotten her.  This could really have been picked up on and made more of a point on though, it's really weird and unexplained quite why Dash acted the way she there; I know she was all sulky and confused but seeing Scootaloo could have made her realise that not everyone had forgotten her.  It's touching moments like that could have been that make Season 1 so wonderful.  Whoever wrote Dash in that scene was really missing a good point, and a good opportunity to add some depth to this episode.  (that makes two places now where even I can see that the plot could have been improved upon.)

TL;DR:
I much prefer it to May the Best Pet Win, though I don't claim it to be a perfect episode.  I was initially thinking of this as slightly worse than The Cutie Pox, but after writing all this and watching little bits of it and reflecting on it, I actually think it was somewhat better than that.  It was a bigger episode, there was more happening, and that made it all the more enjoyable to watch.  The Cutie Pox still had a lot happening, and that made it better than May the Best Pet Win.  (I suppose you could argue that there wasn't a lot happening in Sisterhooves Social, but that had some really charming, and wonderfully relatable character-interaction moments, and really played from the characters' established personalities.  It was also a slower pace which added to the charm factor of it, and had some good background character moments (like I love how some background ponies won!).)  Scootaloo was absolutely wonderful in this, and I think where it failed to completely faithfully (though that's up to your interpretation) develop Dash's personality, it wonderfully added to and developed Scootaloo's.
Shame there were lots of missed opportunities with the plot, it could possibly have been an even deeper and more touching episode sorta like Luna Eclipsed was.  Ponyville was weird, and there was a lot of playing up to clichéd things like the runaway bus-carriage, the random baby carriage, and the goddamn hydroelectric dam(n )

Sometimes, I don't know it it's just me, but I felt a little like I was watching just a typical cartoon at times, although at others I did still feel I was watching MLP: FiM...  I don't know - I'm not sure if it was elements of the plot, the slightly over-the-top and clichéd characterisation (for the sake of the plot) or even, I've been noticing, the new faces, which are slightly overdone I think, and can look a little weird and stereotypical of cartoon faces...  I know it's just a kids programme, but I guess that's precisely what the problem is; they could have settled into that a bit too much - watching the first series I felt a genuine sense of connection to the characters, a genuine sense of mystery, a genuine sense of suspense and (have I said it already?) connection. The morals (though I know they've got to run out of these at some point...) were usually done in such a way I was like "...wow, I never really thought of it like that!" or even if they weren't, I had fun getting there. The characters felt loveable and you really cared what they were doing...  This one I didn't really care for Rainbow Dash when she was being all cocky and proud, and grabbing kids to have pictures with her...  That's kind of stereotypical of the character that is usually portrayed in this kind of story, and almost vain...  And not the fun-loving adventure Dash I knew.

I still prefer it to MtBPW; there's more happening and it felt slightly more complicated.  I just feel it could have been done better... and I can see where it could have been done better.  I guess I can extrapolate and imagine and make my own better story though... but it should have (and could have) been in the episode.  It did though have better characterisation of Rainbow Dash, and funny background ponies, and of course some excellent Scootaloo! And her Rainbow Dash fan-club!

(Though now I've had two episodes which just tell me: "disregard moral; just don't get complacent and lose your wits and senses! and you'll be fine!"  Oh Rainbow Dash, being the closest to this particular kind of character traditional story writers have... you never struck me as the kind of pony who would actually need to learn that.  You seemed pretty, well, cool before, all told...)
(Some TL;DR... )

What we really need is less of this character-focused stuff; less of this "you're a terrible person, this is what you need to do to improve!"
We need a real interaction episode, kind of like Sisterhooves Social was, but most importantly, a positive moral!  Something really hopeful!  Something that doesn't need a character to have flaws for.  For even Mary Sues should be able to learn from something like that... and that makes it a much more powerful and timeless kind of moral.  But it's easier to just criticise people for their flaws, none moreso than the kind of character Rainbow Dash has been interpreted as :/

I guess next week we'll be able to decide how the exact nature of Season 2 is seeming.

(Wow, I never thought I'd be writing so much about a cartoon!  But it was such an awesome cartoon, and didn't really feel like a cartoon, and I want to cling on to that the best I can!...

Enough of my mindless ramblings! Time for bed.


Edit: some thoughts upon waking up in the morning -

I liked the episode, although there were obvious plot flaws.

It could have played to Dash's established personality better, rather than playing up to the stereotype;
It could have utilised the world which had been created better - is Dash still on the Weather Patrol?  Is there still the Weather Patrol? It might have been nice to see the Wonderbolts too, they could have been relevant.  It would have been nice for them as well to not have created so much new stuff.

And something that I forgot to put into my huge analysis last night: the point where they stop and laughed would have been an excellent point for them to step in and say something, even if Dash didn't actually take it in (for the sake of the plot).  But no, they just kind of stopped and jeered, like they all did to Twilight before...

The best things were probably Scootaloo, and the background ponies, and the fact that there was more action.  Maybe this is the Feeling Pinkie Keen of Dash, contriving the world a bit to fit the intended moral.  It could have utilised the world better, and that would have given it more of that feeling I feel we liked from the first series.  I also felt it lacked a bit of humour.
But it wasn't too bad, all considered.

Ok, I think that's me over with

[Hoagiebot]

My short summary of my thoughts for this episode:

I really liked and was very entertained by it, and along with "Luna Eclipsed" and "The Cutie Pox" it is one of my favorite episodes this season so far.

The longer and more-detailed discussion of my thoughts and observations:

For starters, I thought that it was pretty hilarious that Scootaloo has her little Rainbow Dash fan club.  I would probably fit right in there considering the fact that I now own three Rainbow Dash t-shirts myself!  LOL!  I also had a laugh when one of the words that Scootaloo came up with to describe Rainbow Dash with was "bedazzeling!"  

It was a very clichéd kind of episode, for FiM, and was so to the point of exaggerating Dash to the point where I nearly started to cringe.  She usually does stop becoming actually self-centred before it gets that bad (she comes across as such, but isn't really and knows when to be serious), so this episode was kind of like "...why's she being like this?".

Rainbow Dash is my favorite pony as well, but I think you are putting her on way too high of a pedestal.  I personally thought that Rainbow Dash was acting perfectly in character in this episode.  Rainbow Dash is *extremely* competitive, and gets all bent out of shape if she gets bested at anything.  Just go back and watch the episode "Fall Weather Friends" for example-- Rainbow Dash gets cross over something as small as losing a simple game of horseshoes against Applejack, and that leads her to challenge Applejack in an Iron Pony competition and a rather intense Running of the Leaves race.  And when Rainbow Dash's dominance in the Running of Leaves race became threatened, she was the very first to resort to using shady underhanded tactics, such as whipping a branch into Applejack's face, changing the direction of a road sign, the first to start knocking herself into Applejack when they were running neck and neck, etc.  There is definitely a reason why Rainbow Dash's Element of Harmony is not "honesty!"  And as far as Rainbow Dash's ego goes, it almost knows no bounds.  Once again take a look at "Fall Weather Friends."  Practically every time Rainbow opens her mouth in the entire episode it is to trash-talk Applejack, and she even goes on to make fun of Twilight Sparkle for being an "egghead" as well.  And if that is not enough for you, then check out all of Rainbow Dash's bragging and posturing in the first half of "Sonic Rainboom."  Heck, the very first time we are ever even introduced to Rainbow Dash in the series she is bragging to Twilight about how she can clear Ponyville's skies in "ten seconds flat."  There was even a fan who made a very good argument that Rainbow Dash suffers from Paranoid Personality Disorder based on her overly competitive and overly defensive behavior.  Rainbow Dash is so extreme that there is not much to her personality that you could exaggerate, and if it wasn't for the occasional pony such as The Great and Powerful Trixie being somehow even worse, Rainbow Dash would probably have to be played as a minor antagonist in the series.  If it wasn't for Rainbow Dash sometimes reluctantly opening up and showing her frightened and vulnerable side effectively humanizing her and making her more sympathetic, she would be a pretty unlikable jerk.

2:55 Seriously... They went with the baby carriage thing?

I like how the road that the baby carriage was rolling out of control on went all the way down to the end of the cliff as if it was a ski jump!  Geez, there was some very good civic planning there!

7:02 Darkwing Duck?! Er- ponyfied Darkwing Duck. Darkhoof Horse?  (It's probably actually Applejack)

Personally, my first thought was, "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of ponies?  Who knows?  The Shadow Pony knows!"  

20:00 oh by the way, I called it back at 8:35 and should note I did all I could to avoid spoilers for this, even the title.

My deep-rooted hope that the Mare Do Well would turn out to be The Great and Powerful Trixie blinded my judgment a bit, so I didn't quite catch on to who the Mare Do Well really was as quickly as you did.  I pretty much had the fact that the rest of the Mane 6 was behind everything figured out when I saw Twilight in the Mare Do Well costume use her magic to repair the broken dam (though a small part of me at that point was still hoping that the masked magic-using unicorn was still Trixie).  When Fluttershy did her flyby as the Mare Do Well that finally solidified my suspicions that the entire rest of the Mane 6 was involved, and when all of the Mane 6 were commenting on how great the Mare Do Well was while they were together at Sugarcube Corner that really rubbed it in.

I had been extremely excited about who the Mare Do Well would turn out to be since I first learned about this episode back in October, so I had a really long time to allow myself to imagine what cool ponies the Mare Do Well could turn out to be.  So in a crazed fanboi Brony sense I was rather disappointed that out of all of the possible ponies that could have been cleverly made into the Mare Do Well that she ended up being the members of the Mane 6, but in a more general sense I thought that what the writers did for this episode worked out really well for what they were trying to accomplish.  Oh well, I guess I actually will have to go back to writing fan fiction if I ever want to see Rainbow Dash finally have that epic showdown against her predecessor, Firefly!

And yes, Ponyville did seem very strange in this; it felt much bigger and more built up, you rather got the feeling that it was just a small and quiet village, previously, even as late as The Cutie Pox, but here it felt inexplicably much more built up, and was even expanding, with the crane and stuff.  There was even that completely out of place hydroelectric dam...  The premise of the episode is clichéd enough, and then we get the ever-clichéd dam? A hydroelectric one at that?  Why would they even need one?  Faust even stated they used magic for "electric" things (such as Vinyl Scratch's decks)...  It's also completely randomly somewhere near Ponyville in some place which was conveniently un-shown...

Don't strain yourself too much by trying to find in-universe explanations for inconsistencies in this show that most likely have out-of-universe causes.  There are some TV shows out there, such as Star Trek: The Next Generation for example, that had very comprehensive, strict, and detailed Writers' Guides, or rules that the show's writers absolutely had to follow when writing new episodes to help maintain the show's in-universe continuity and consistency.  The Writers' Guide for ST:TNG for example described in exhaustive detail how every main character in the show was supposed to act, how every technology on the Enterprise-D was supposed to work, what the entire floor plan of the Enterprise-D was, what the Federation military procedures were in different situations, etc. etc., all in exhaustive detail, ensuring that for every episode the writers would have the same doors lead to the same places, procedures would be standardized, historical dates for past events would always agree, etc.  Everything in the ST:TNG universe was so well-regulated that entire Technical Manuals, Chronology Guides, Encyclopedias, Klingon language dictionaries, etc. were able to be derived based on it with little or no conflicts or inconsistencies.

The more and more that I watch My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic however, the more that I realize that the writers of this show are restrained by little to none of these kinds of strict rules or guidelines.  It seems as if something is convenient to a writer's plot for a particular episode than it will be added to the episode whether it really makes sense in the greater-MLP:FiM universe or not.  For example, if a plot-line requires a massive gorge with giant eels living in it despite the fact that one has never been mentioned before, it gets it.  If a gag in an episode requires a large multi-story building to be being built in Ponyville, a small village that up until that point pretty much only had small two-story buildings and shops, it gets it.  If an episode's gag needs have a giant hydroelectric dam to break apart despite the fact that the ponies don't really *seem* to use electricity on a daily basis, it gets it.  If you want to have a princess talk all Early Modern Englishly despite the fact that she spoke normally in an earlier appearance, you retcon it, and so on and so on and so on.  It is absolutely apparent that not much is held sacred in this show, and that just about anything can be added, removed, modified, or retconned it if serves that particular writer on that particular day.  I am currently waiting around to see if a future episode shows that the ponies actually have their own space shuttle and a space program.  Hey, at this point, why not?  In fact, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that any consistency that we have had thus far is probably only there due to the assorted writers' discretion.  Trying to impose a very strict and draconian ST:TNG-style set of in-universe continuity and rules on this show is really an effort in futility because it is obvious that the show's own writers aren't, and what you thought held true about the universe of the show today can be completely altered by next weekend's new episode.

(Speaking of which... has anyone found Derpy yet...?  Is she even in this episode?)

I personally have not spotted her yet.  Has anyone else found her, or was she left out of this episode?

Anyway, once again I thoroughly enjoyed this episode, and felt that it was well worth the wait.  I also thought that this episode had a good message behind it-- who here hasn't gotten a small taste of recognition for something that they accomplished, and then did everything that they could to extend the length of time that they were in the limelight for desperately find a way to get peoples' recognition once again?  I think that a lot of people can relate to that.  In any case, I am very glad that I liked this episode so much, because as I mentioned in an earlier post on this thread I don't have very high expectations for the next one.  Hopefully my lack of enthusiasm for "Sweet and Elite" is misplaced, and that I end up being pleasantly surprised!

[Foxxhoria]

Rainbow Dash is my favorite pony as well, but I think you are putting her on way too high of a pedestal.  [[A bunch of other stuff about Rainbow Dash and her ego]]

Maybe.  I definitely felt this was slightly better done than in May the Best Pet Win, if just a bit over the top at times.  The general idea is something I can see happening with Rainbow Dash, although I think they could have handled it slightly better.

Don't strain yourself too much by trying to find in-universe explanations for inconsistencies in this show that most likely have out-of-universe causes.  There are some TV shows out there, such as Star Trek: The Next Generation for example, that had very comprehensive, strict, and detailed Writers' Guides [...]
The more and more that I watch My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic however, the more that I realize that the writers of this show are restrained by little to none of these kinds of strict rules or guidelines.

Well, I got the impression they had a rough idea of what the world was like; Ponyville never seems this big even in The Cutie Pox where they introduced the random bowling alley.  It had had a consistent feel at least, and then it's kind of all changed in this episode just to suit the plot.

I feel like I'm coming across as overly harsh on this episode - I kind of liked it, I thought it was on par with The Cutie Pox.  The setting just felt a little too complex, and I felt too much was changed just to fit the much simpler plot, and there still wasn't enough pony-to-pony interaction, but I definitely enjoyed it more than MtBPW (which I also feel I'm coming across as overly harsh on, although I will say it's my least favourite episode so far); although it did still feel a little bit weird.  To me it seems like it was kind of like Lesson Zero; there were some great bits surrounding all the drama of the main plot.  There were some really touching moments with Scootaloo (although I don't feel it was capitalised upon), and the background ponies were very amusing, and there were some wonderful Dash moments.  And I love how the crane was made out of wood.

[redyoshi49q]

...I actually *didn't* see the ending of this one a mile away.  I probably should have.

...Oh well...

[Narei Mooncatt]

...I actually *didn't* see the ending of this one a mile away.  I probably should have.

...Oh well...

Don't worry, it caught me by surprise too.

[Ryffnah]

...I actually *didn't* see the ending of this one a mile away.  I probably should have.

...Oh well...

Don't worry, it caught me by surprise too.

I found the ends of both of the last two Rainbow Dash episodes easy to predict.  Though, that didn't stop me from enjoying them.  I did feel like her character was perhaps a little off in The Mysterious Mare-Do-Well, but I completely loved the pet episode.  Fluttershy is my favorite pony, and the way that she got all excited about picking out a pet for Rainbow Dash really spoke to me.  I've been known to be that way about convincing people to get pet cats.  I also found the turtle really charming with the way that he was so clearly interested in being Rainbow Dash's pet from the moment she arrived at Fluttershy's cottage.

[Landrav]

I agree, Ryffnah.  I was rooting for that tortoise from the very beginning.  And giving it a second thought,  it's actually kind of moving to see the little guy trying so hard.  You can tell he wants this more than he's wanted anything!

The Mare-do-well episode was only kind of predictable for me.  I guessed it when it showed she had wings as well as a horn.

And can I be the first to say...

PINKIE SENSE IS FINALLY WORKED IN AS A LEGITIMATE PART OF THE PONYVERSE. 

[Ryffnah]

I agree, Ryffnah.  I was rooting for that tortoise from the very beginning.  And giving it a second thought,  it's actually kind of moving to see the little guy trying so hard.  You can tell he wants this more than he's wanted anything!

It may have helped that my very first pet was a tortoise.  So, I have a bit of a soft spot for them.  I think this episode was the first time I've ever identified at all with Rainbow Dash -- they way she wanted the tortoise at the end but had to find a way to cover her pride about it.  For me, this episode did for Rainbow Dash what Suited For Success did for Rarity -- took a pony that didn't really speak to me and made her understandable and sympathetic.  It may be my new favorite episode.  Though, to be sure, I'd have to watch both it and Suited For Success a few more times.  Probably back to back.

You know, I think it's time for them to do a Fluttershy centric episode now.

[Landrav]

You know, I think it's time for them to do a Fluttershy centric episode now.

It's always time to do a Fluttershy-centric episode.

[Hoagiebot]

I am truly shocked that even though today was a new Pony-episode day here I am, at almost 3AM Sunday morning, and I am still the very first person here who is chiming in about the new episode.  How can that be?  I wonder if that is speaking something about this episode?  Is there no love for Rarity around here?

While I feel that I made it abundantly clear that I was not a big fan of the last episode that was largely devoted to Rarity, "Sisterhooves Social," this episode I thought was O.K.  The epsisode was definitely a "friend or idol decision" trope-following story just like I predicted that it would be, however as much as I wish that I could award myself a gold star for guessing that correctly the short description for this episode that was given by TV programing guide was enough to give that away.  As a result, my guess didn't really require much power of deduction on my part.

The moral dilemma of this episode's story rings true enough for me.  I for one can personally understand the trouble that Rarity was having when it came to introducing her Ponyville friends to her new Canterlot social circle.  For example, I have always been kind of a "Jack of all trades but master of none" kind of person, and my vast array of widely varying interests have allowed me to meet all sorts of people who wouldn't necessarily get along or understand one another.  In fact, I myself will sometimes get dirty looks from one group of people that I am involved with when they find out some of the other interests that I am involved in (which sadly far too often takes the form of X non-furry group finding out that I am also a furry  *sigh*).  As a result, I normally wouldn't ever try to plan some kind of event between groups of friends that wouldn't likely mesh with one another to avoid any trouble, awkwardness, or conflicts that may result from it.  I can also understand Rarity's conflict between wanting to go to Twilight Sparkle's birthday party and wanting to go to the Canterlot Garden Party.  I once missed a very long-time friend's wedding because I was attending and selling artwork in the art show of a Science Fiction convention that same weekend.  And while I bought my friend a very nice wedding gift in an attempt to make up for it, I am probably still the biggest jerk because I chose to miss his wedding instead of the art show and convention.  Sadly, I don't really hear much from that friend anymore.  Luckily for Rarity's sake Twilight Sparkle was unbelievably forgiving when Rarity made the same mistake!

Some of my random thoughts and observations for this episode:

• Rarity went pretty comically overboard when it came to thanking the Princess for her room!     After all of this time, I still don't know what to think about Princess Celestia though.  On one hand, her character seems to be pretty straightforward, but on the other hand she seems to be very enigmatic.  To explain, she seems very practical and down to Earth despite the fact that she's both a ruler and a princess.  She doesn't act at all like any of the snobbish hoity toity pony high-society members that surround her constantly day in and day out.  You would think that either her laid back personality would rub off a little on them, or that their constant snobbery would eventually rub off a bit on her, but strangely neither seems to be the case.  And while Princess Celestia seems to be extremely kind, understanding, and almost motherly to those around her, I still can't ignore that whole "Trollestia" angle.  When I first heard other Bronies talking about Celestia trolling all of the other ponies I thought that they were nuts and reading too much into things that weren't really there, but after enough time and enough episodes I too started to grow suspicious of Celestia and her true motives.  Is she a benevolent caring mother-figure who gently guides and protects her subjects with the greatest of loving care, or is she an all-powerful all-knowing godlike chessmaster character who is ever slowly but surely determining and manipulating the actions of all beneath her as part of some great scheme, or even worse, out of pure boredom?  Either way, given the fact that she is powerful enough to control the movements of both the sun and the moon and just about everything else in Equestria, if I was a pony living there I would be absolutely terrified of her and what would happen if I ever caught her negative attention!
• Speaking of princesses, once again we have had an episode that takes place in Canterlot and there was no appearance by Princess Luna.  I am wondering if Princess Luna doesn't actually live there, but somewhere else.  Or maybe she sleeps during the day?  That would cause her to miss most of the action too.  *shrugs*  Either way, she once again wasn't present.
• Rarity: "Opal, do you know what I love about Canterlot?  Everything!  I may have been born in Ponyville but I am a Canterlot pony at heart!"  Listening to Rairy go on like this, is there any reason why she couldn't move both her and her dressmaking business from Ponyville to Canterlot?  It seems to me that she would overall be much happier there.
• Hayseed Turniptruck!  LOL!  I'm going to have to tell Cimarron about this character!   
• Rarity's new song "Becoming Popular" in this episode was... well...  let me put it this way-- it makes a pretty damning argument that the Brony who wrote this blog article on how Rarity has Narcissistic Personality Disorder was probably right!  As far as the song itself goes, it wasn't really my cup of tea musically either.  I don't mind the more show tuney-type of music that this cartoon series typically has, such as "Winter Wrap Up," "At the Gala," and even "Art of the Dress," but this song was more of a pop song in my opinion, so I didn't really take to it as much.
• As I know I have already mentioned on these forums a least a half-a-dozen times before over the years, I have a real soft spot for female cartoon animal characters, such as "Duchess" from The Aristocats and Vixey from The Fox and the Hound for example.  It's characters like those that were primarily responsible for drawing me into the furry fandom to begin with.  Because of this, you would have thought that I would have been absolutely wild about MLP:FiM from the get go because it is absolutely loaded with female cartoon animal characters, but for whatever reason I initially wasn't too partial to any of them.  I don't know why per se, but maybe it was because their very simple and stylized character designs.  In any case, I definitely didn't start watching MLP:FiM because of the infamous "plot."  Over time however, I have had a few of the female ponies grow on me a bit, with the two that I think are the most attractive-looking being Spitfire and Octavia.  And wouldn't you know it, they were both actually in this episode albeit for a split-second!  I wasn't expecting that at all!  What a special treat for the Hoagiebot!
• I like how Rarity soaked Opalescence with water to make her look like she was sick!  You would think that I would be against that sort of thing considering how I chastised Rainbow Dash for nearly having all of her pet-candidates nearly get slaughtered by Quarray Eels, but Opalescence has a long history of being smug, ill-tempered, and downright mean, so she had that water-dunking coming!  Besides, it's not like a little water is anything compared to what Rainbow was putting her poor animals through!
• Yes!  Pinkie Pie has a party cannon!!!
• I'm kind of glad that Fancy Pants didn't turn out to be a complete and utter jerk like the rest of the high-society ponies turned out to be.  I have absolutely nothing against bashing stuck-up snobby high-society people, in fact I am in favor of it, but having Fancy Pants turn out to be a more open-minded and genuinely good individual added some variety by including a character with a bit of depth to a group of high-society characters that were otherwise very one-dimensional.  It also shows that you can't always judge a book by its cover (which was a lesson that was more formally anviled in the episode "Bridle Gossip").
• Twilight's adorkable dancing!  Even Steve Urkel would be proud of an adorkable dance like that!
• Applejack, you tried to garden at a gardening party?  Really?  Geez girl, you really need to start hanging out with Twilight Sparkle more.  She has books.  You should read some of them!  Expand your mind!  It makes me wonder if Applejack is yet another fine product of the absolutely "wonderful" Ponyville teacher, Cheerilee!  *facepalm*
• You have got to feel bad for any pony who has to carry Rarity's luggage!  Yeesh!
• Hey!  We learned two more of the Wonderbolt's names, "Rapid Fire" and "Fleetfoot!"  Now if they only showed us which ones were which...
• I like how absolutely selfless, cheerful, and understanding the writer made Twilight Sparkle in this epsiode.  The writer did that purposely to emotionally manipulate us, the viewers, into making us feel like Rarity was a really huge heel for skipping out on her obligations to Twilight to hang out with Canterlot's high society, and you know what?  It worked!

So while the subject matter of this episode wasn't really my cup of tea (I tend to be really more excited about episodes that involve Rainbow Dash bucking a full-grown cave-dwelling dragon in the face for example), the writing, the humor, and the neat little background characters and tidbits that were thrown in were more than enough to make me enjoy this episode anyways.  It was no "Luna Eclipsed" by any means, but it was still a good strong episode.

Hey!  Next week we are going to get to see Spike grow all huge and go all Godzilla-like on Ponyville!  What do you know, I just might get to see Rainbow Dash buck a dragon in the face again soon after all!  Huzzah!!!

[Foxxhoria]

I am truly shocked that even though today was a new Pony-episode day here I am, at almost 3AM Sunday morning, and I am still the very first person here who is chiming in about the new episode.  How can that be?  I wonder if that is speaking something about this episode?  Is there no love for Rarity around here?

I personally was preoccupied with adoring this episode on Ponychan...

But yes, this was an excellent episode!

Not much to add to your post really.
Wonderfully maturely written, lots of very subtle things which made it seem well-crafted and enjoyable to watch.
I loved the lesson, it's an important one but not an obvious one!
And particularly the way they got to it too; you would never have got that from the synopsis.

Some have been pointing out how Rarity got away with all her lying, but this is where the subtlety of the writing comes in: I really got the feeling Fancy Pants could tell that Rarity was lying, but also knew all too well what the more snooty ponies would make of her if he called her out; and it's just not gentlemanly to either.  He knew she had harmless intentions.
Really, the whole episode worked because of Fancy Pants, and you really end up feeling and empathising with Rarity that she was fretting over nothing.
There is also the small and wonderful thing of all the secondary morals this episode brings along with it, something which was wonderful about much of season 1.  It showed wonderfully that there will be people who accept you regardless of your background, in lovely complement to the main lesson; and it also echoed the lesson of Party of One in that you should always assume the best of your friends, and also Green is not your Colour in that it's always best to be honest to your friends!  Sticking to their morals there without even seeming to try, which is great. But you could really understand Rarity's position, you really felt like you wouldn't want to do it again (without even doing it a first time!).
It was also wonderful in giving you the feeling that you don't need to choose between your friends and your future, you can balance them and your friends will understand.  That's the kind of positive vibe I had grown to expect from the show.  It speaks about reality in some way.

Other bits:
- It was wonderful to see more of Canterlot, even if it was full of snooty ponies (but that was awesome in it's own way!).  Lots of lovely artwork there.
- Speaking of artwork, all the costumes Rarity wears during the song
- And the song, it was very nice, I don't care for it per se, but it fitted it's place perfectly, it was wonderfully refined and sophisticated yet still rather demure!  It didn't try to steal the spotlight at all, it just sort of made everything flow along nicely, while showing Rarity doing lots of social things around Canterlot.  I also like songs which fit into the world; it would be very hard to divorce this song from the world which had been created, what with all the "pony" and "Canterlot" and everything.  Which is why I like say, Winter Wrap Up so much, it really speaks about the world and couldn't really exist without it.  This probably places it for me above Find a Pet, which while it was a nice musical number, it was just about choosing between a lot of animals. (Obviously Pinkie Pie songs are exempt from this )
- I loved Celestia in this, wonderfully uncomfortable at all the thanks Rarity was giving, but still empathetic and grateful for it.
- I liked seeing all the celebrity ponies make a reappearance, or at least a brief cameo.  It was also interesting that Rarity had to spend some time with Prince Blueblood
- And that airship was awesome, simply, I can't describe it, I can now imagine ponies going on great adventures across the land up high up in the clouds   Simply amazing!
- And lastly
PARTY CANNON!  Pinkie couldn't have had a more appropriate device to facilitate a party wherever whenever!

My few complaints are that I still don't feel the Mane 6 are getting enough lines when they're not the focus of the episode, all they did here was mass partying.  I don't really feel I got an adequate impression of who they were.  Though I will say, and have to give special mention to, Rainbow Dash was actual in character this episode, subtle things like getting straight to the point and trying to call Rarity out on her true intentions, she just felt much better in this episode which was nice and felt wonderfully different to the thankfully-now-in-the-past previous episode.

My few issues are in the animation actually; I'm worried about all the mouths, they seem to be getting a little too human and the faces are getting a little too rubbery, I mean those HUGE GAPING MOUTHS they have when they lift their heads up, I think they're used a bit too much (it was alright at the end of Find a Pet though as they were belting out huge voices.  Unfortunately those really peculiar faces just before that also turned up a bit this episode too), and there were other places where there were awkward faces (such as when they're all at the door).
Some of the eyes felt a bit weird at times too; they seemed much simpler, I'm gonna go with it being down to time constraints or something.
Most of the issues I have with it actually I could put down to time constraints actually (such as the lack of Spike, which could have added a bit more dynamic to the interaction).
I also thought Twilight might have been a bit too "adorkable" here, though most of that dancing was a reference to something apparently, so I guess I can let it slide   The kind of odd dress might have had an effect too.

But in all, it was a wonderful return to form and I can't wait to see what they pull out next

I now compelled to listen to some Abney Park, because, AIRSHIP!  !!!
Wonderful quality episode overall!

[Ziel]

Okay. I am not, and don't think I ever really can be, a big Rarity fan. And I'd be lying if I said that I didn't let out an audible groan at the very start of the episode because I knew from the get-go that it would be Rarity-centric. And then for it to be set in Canterlot? Ugh, this is gong to be a long episode...

And I was right. At least at first. The first half of the episode just dragged on and on and on with all that high-society, snobby crap. I just can't stand when people, or ponies apparently, are just so shallow that the mere knowledge of where somepony is from, or whether or not they are known by somepony else important, defines all their opinions of that pony.

And then the song... okay, it was catchy (and the melody vaguely reminded me of some other broadway-type song but I can't lay a finger on which one exactly). But I wasn't too fond of the whole singing-about-being-important/popular. I could keep going on about this, but I'll give it a rest.

Once the episode kinda developed a bit further, and Rarity had to start covering for her lies and such, it started to pick up. (I really needed the rest of the cast to jump in to save this episode for me). I will also say that Fancy Pants was refreshing. He's still got that high-society feel, but he's different from the rest of them. As in, he's actually willing to give somepony a chance. We'll call him the crutch that held the episode up until the rest of the mane 6 finally showed up.

But despite all this negativity, I felt like the episode wrapped up very well, and managed to make up for most of the cringing I had to do during the early part of the show. I was actually quite pleased with how they handled the whole thing. The last 5 minutes or so definitely redeemed the episode in my eyes. It probably helps that one of the big take-aways from the episode is a lesson about the very thing that made me cringe through the first half.

I won't put this all that high on my list, but it's definitely an episode worth re-watching now and again. Mostly for the last 5 minutes of it. And also that scene where Rarity told that joke to those high-class ponies and they all had that snooty laugh. I think that was the only time I laughed until the others showed up.

Oh, and one big problem that was never addressed: Rarity had to have introduced Dashie to Fancy Pants at some point. However, she previously claimed that she was the Wonderbolts' trainer. Not sure how she'd get around that one.

[Landrav]

Despite having a ton of elements that I don't normally like in an episode (snobby characters, painfully awkward "thank-you", lying about being at two parties at once, unresolved lies at the end...) I still really enjoyed this one.  I don't know how they did it, but it's a testament to the writers' ability on this show that they managed to play everything off each other to build a great narrative around Rarity.  If some found it predictable, well, I'm not claiming it will go down in the annals of classic literature.  However, it was a good story and a good episode.

Rarisong: hmm, pop song about popularity.  Not sure if want.  Thirty seconds into the song: Want.

And I think  Hoagie mentioned Trollestia: I don't think you live 1000+ years without being something of a Chessmaster.  However, her actions show that she has a genuine love for the ponies under her care, and that's why she does what she does.  She has probably seen the aristocracy and their fashions and trends change dozens of times, if not hundreds, during her reign, so I don't see the down-to-earth side of her personality as out of place--it's just a reaction to seeing how shallow the trends are.

[Narei Mooncatt]

I agree with a lot of what was said here so far. I was pleasantly surprised with how much I enjoyed this show. It had a lot of small elements that other, less enjoyable shows had yet these elements were good in their own right. It's like they were all combined to this episode as a whole package and is one I'd recomend to others I think. Maybe not as the first one for someone to watch if they're not sure if they'd like it, but for someone leaning towards the show already. I like the contrast of the "rustic" Mane 6 to the snobby high society of Canterlot when they're all together. Maybe it's because hillarity always insues.

So my additional points of discussion:

-I'm now convinced the animators are playing a game with the Brony community. Who else spotted Derpy this episode? I say this because of HOW she's shown this time.

-Hayseed makes me wonder if the writer is a Jeff Dunham fan

-I wanna know who that lovely filly was hanging on to Fancy Pants! Honestly I think what struck me is she doesn't have the typical body of a pony on the show. After thinking about it, I wonder if she was the model for Rarity's manequin ponies? 

-Going back to the Luna Eclipsed episode, I'm now more convinced that it isn't Octavia that was playing the fiddle on stage as everypony else has been saying...

When I saw the violinest on stage with Octavia in Sweet and Elite, I initially thought it was the one from Luna Eclipsed because the fur was the same color. So when I did a side by side comparison, I noticed that the cutie marks weren't the same, so it wasn't her in Luna Eclipsed. BUT(!) I also noticed that while it was the same shape as Octavia's cutie mark, it wasn't the same color. I guess the arguement always was that the fiddler in Luna Eclipsed was wearing a full body costume to change the fur color (which makes some sense with the eye stitch being there), but I didn't see one other single pony that did that and still A) left their cutie mark showing, and/or B) changed the color of their cutie mark. Sure, it may have been possible to dye, paint, or air brush the color change. Given how things seem to work in the Ponyverse, I think that would be too impractical for her to go through all the time and extreme effort it would have to take to re-color such an intricate mark. Anypony else re-thinking who it was on stage in Luna Eclipsed now?

[Hoagiebot]

-I'm now convinced the animators are playing a game with the Brony community. Who else spotted Derpy this episode? I say this because of HOW she's shown this time.

The animators have been purposely playing a Derpy-spotting game with us in many of the episodes.  Remember, Derpy's original creation was completely by accident-- her googly eyes in her first appearance were an accidental animation mistake, and she only appeared in later season 1 episodes like that due solely to the show's creators responding to the wild fan reaction to her.  She has been ending up in weird places all of the time during this season, including briefly as a filly in the schoolyard in the episode "The Cutie Pox," at the entrance of Fluttershy's chicken coop in "May the Best Pet Win," among the crowd cheering after Rainbow Dash saves the old folks falling off the balcony in "The Mysterious Mare Do Well," etc.  The animators are definitely playing the "Derpy Spotting" game with us.  There is no question about it.

-I wanna know who that lovely filly was hanging on to Fancy Pants! Honestly I think what struck me is she doesn't have the typical body of a pony on the show. After thinking about it, I wonder if she was the model for Rarity's manequin ponies?  

The discussion on the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Wiki is that Fancypants's companion is actually based on the character model used for Princess Luna from her season 1 appearance in the episode "Friendship is Magic Part 2."  I can definitely see the resemblance.  Either way, her body type is definitely modeled more closely after the two princesses than it as after the rest of the mares in the show.  As far as what the character's name is, well, there is no official name yet as far as I know, and the fan community seems to have gone absolutely nuts this time with trying to come up with a name for her themselves.  Just a few of the fan-created names that I have seen for her so far include: Angelic Grace, Arm Candy, Eileen, Elizabeth, Fleur de Lis, Fleur de Lily, Jene sais quoi, Pink Chapeau, Sol, Soleil, Valentine Plots, Fleur De Lizzie, Hangers On, Katie Prance, and Gold Digger.  *facehoof*  It seems that everypony in the whole Brony fandom wants to take a crack at naming this one!  Geesh!

-Going back to the Luna Eclipsed episode, I'm now more convinced that it isn't Octavia that was playing the fiddle on stage as everypony else has been saying...

When I saw the violinest on stage with Octavia in Sweet and Elite, I initially thought it was the one from Luna Eclipsed because the fur was the same color. So when I did a side by side comparison, I noticed that the cutie marks weren't the same, so it wasn't her in Luna Eclipsed. BUT(!) I also noticed that while it was the same shape as Octavia's cutie mark, it wasn't the same color. I guess the argument always was that the fiddler in Luna Eclipsed was wearing a full body costume to change the fur color (which makes some sense with the eye stitch being there), but I didn't see one other single pony that did that and still A) left their cutie mark showing, and/or B) changed the color of their cutie mark. Sure, it may have been possible to dye, paint, or air brush the color change. Given how things seem to work in the Ponyverse, I think that would be too impractical for her to go through all the time and extreme effort it would have to take to re-color such an intricate mark. Anypony else re-thinking who it was on stage in Luna Eclipsed now?

There is a simple out-of-universe explanation for the appearance of the fiddle-playing pony in Luna Eclipsed-- to save both time and money, the animators behind MLP:FiM reuse Flash character models and just swap their palette-colors so that they don't need to go through both the time and the expense of creating a brand new fully original pony design every single time that they need a background character.  While this is a simple and practical solution to a minor production challenge for the producers of the show, for the fans of this show that feel the obsessive need to find an in-universe explanation for everything these little color-swapped background-pony shortcuts are driving them mad and making them have to create a whole new character to add to the MLP:FiM wiki each time a new palette-swapped background pony appears.  The fiddle-playing pony that was featured in the episode "Luna Eclipsed" was a palette-swapped and slightly modified version of Octavia's character model.  In "Sweet or Elite" they brought back both the original cello-playing Octavia and the yellow fiddle-playing mare and had them both playing at the garden party together.  However, since they were now being placed side-by-side, the animators couldn't get away with just making the yellow fiddle-playing mare a simple palette-swap of Octavia again-- it would look too odd.  So this time they based the yellow fiddle-playing mare off of a different character model so that she would look more distinct from Octavia.

What does this mean from a fanboi in-universe perspective?  Well, as you mentioned, there is no consensus about these string-instrument playing mares among the fans in places such as the MLP:FiM Wiki or Equestria Daily.  Was Octavia really the mare playing at the Nightmare Night party?  Is the yellow fiddle-playing mare from the Nightmare Night party the same yellow fiddle-playing mare from the garden party?  Are Octavia, the Nightmare Night fiddle-playing mare, and the garden party fiddle-playing mare three different characters entirely?  Until the show itself resolves these discrepancies, who knows.  All you can do is speculate, really.

Up until the episode "Luna Eclipsed" I was one of those obsessing fanbois that was trying to determinedly find in-universe explanations for every little new detail in the show, and I was particularly taken back by all of the retconning done to Princess Luna at the time.  But as I mentioned in my earlier comments in this thread about last week's episode, "The Mysterious Mare Do Well," it has become painfully obvious that there is not a strict writer's guide or continuity that the writers of this show have to really stick to when developing new episodes.  As a result, they can (hopefully within reason) seemingly change anything and everything about the world of Equestria to fit that week's particular plot, whether it is something as out of place as adding a hydroelectric dam across a river, making a princess start talking like Shakespeare when she hadn't in an earlier appearance, the constant inconsistencies with the level of technology that the ponies have, etc.  Because of this, I have started to give up with trying to make any kind of in-universe sense out of any of the seemingly out-of-place changes that the writers and animators are making from week-to-week.  After seeing that there was already 15+ competing fan names for that new mare companion to Fancypants earlier tonight I have been left feeling kind of a bit incredulous about it all.  I love speculating and talking about the finer details of the show as much as the next pony, but it is becoming *extremely* hard to tell what things the makers of the show are adding in that are meant to be important towards the show's continuity, what things were added in to help an onscreen gag without much thought or care really being given to them, and what stuff was put in to save time and/or money and were never meant to be noticed by the fans.

[redyoshi49q]

I'm surprised it took so long for replies to be posted, too.  I looked at this thread late Saturday and could barely believe that it hadn't been posted in yet.

I enjoyed this episode overall.  I was a bit uncomfortable about certain aspects of the episode (namely, that Rarity lied a few times and consistently shied away from her obligations to her friends), but on the other hand, one of the reasons I like this show is *because* there is "real" conflict such as this rather than superficial conflict that is often seen in other children's shows; the possibility of such conflict becoming uncomfortable at times is worth the risk of an overall better show.

I also enjoyed the song for this episode.  I think this is going to be one of the better songs of the season for me.  Its style greatly reminded me of "Art of the Dress"; it almost makes me think that the composer and possibly even the director for these episodes were the same...

[Hoagiebot]

I also enjoyed the song for this episode.  I think this is going to be one of the better songs of the season for me.  Its style greatly reminded me of "Art of the Dress"; it almost makes me think that the composer and possibly even the director for these episodes were the same...

I did some quick research at the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Wiki to answer those questions for you.  Believe it or not, Rarity's Dressmaking Song (The Art of the Dress), her latest song (Becoming Popular/The Pony Everypony Should Know), and in fact every other song in the show including the opening theme were actually all composed by the same person: Daniel Ingram.  So in other words, you were right in thinking that the two songs had the same composer because as it turns out, they all do!   

As far as the directors for the episodes "Suited For Success" and "Sweet or Elite" goes, they were different.  All season 1 episodes were directed by Jayson Thiessen.  In season 2, Jayson Thiessen took over Lauren Faust's former position as "Showrunner," and one of season 1's co-directors, James "Wootie" Wootton, took over as director for all of the season 2 episodes that we have seen thus far.  The writers for the two episodes "Suited for Success" and "Sweet or Elite" were also different.  "Suited For Success" was written by Charlotte Fullerton, who also wrote: "Look Before You Sleep," "A Bird in the Hoof," and "May the Best Pet Win!"  The episode "Sweet or Elite," on the other hand, was written by Meghan McCarthy, who also wrote "Dragonshy," "Call of the Cutie," "Green Isn't Your Color," "Party of One," and "Lesson Zero."

That was probably more crew information than you wanted to know about these two episodes, but hey, that's what your friendly neighborhood Hoagiebot is for!