Well, the newest song is never leaving my head. Par for the course.
We learned that they dance by bending their knees. Although we saw that Twilight has a different way of dancing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkC-53tC3Zs
I like that they made the characters of a children’s show demonstrate great enthousiasm for alcohol. I suppose it would have been asking too much to see drunk ponies.
Well, one of the main characters is named after an alcoholic beverage…and when she got “cursed”, Spike nicknamed her after another one.
Since the cider was fresh squeezed I doubt much fermentation went on, so it was probably not alcoholic. Then again the apples in Equestria might be intoxicating to the ponies, since they do seem awful fond of them.
Yes, I loved how drunk Pinkie Pie looked.
I grew up in England so it is hard to think of cider as anything else than an alcoholic beverage.
I’m still reeling from “A Friend in Deed”. The fourth wall isn’t just broken, it’s a pile of rubble.
The lens flare during the first musical number made me very happy. There’s one in the opening credits of course, but this latest example was both subtle and spectacular.
There was one jarring bit later on during the “welcome wagon” sequence, when Pinkie and Cranky were covered in cake batter. That’s nothing new, but then Pinkie stepped back leaving the liquid “shell” standing in place momentarily… and then swallowed the Pinkie-shaped blob. It was over in a flash, but Holy Celestia! That was borderline squick right there.
Shoulda known it would be Pinkie Pie who outed me as a pony fan on the Dope. [hoofwave]
While I loved the continuity nods (baby Cakes, Zecora) and FOUR NEW SONGS(!), I’m disappointed that we haven’t had a Fluttershy episode yet. Next week is an off week and then it’s a Fluttershy one, but 19 ones in? Not enough.
This was the first episode I felt had a broken aesop - I know a lot of people think that about Feeling Pinkie Keen, but I saw the intended aesop pretty clearly, so can’t really agree.
But this one came off as, as someone on TV Tropes put it, ‘Stalking is Magic’. Would have been better if Cranky had thanked her for finding Mathilda, but still didn’t like her, and asked her to leave him alone, so she could learn ‘not everypony will like you, and that’s OK, so don’t be an annoying idiot trying to make them’.
I don’t think Fluttershy would want an episode about her. It would feel very invasive.
Thing One broke up with her Brony virtual fiance, at least until he gets his doctorate. 
At least this gives Mine Goodwife a shot with him. “Ponies AND freshwater invertebrates? Let’s talk because my husband has no interest in either.” :eek:
Plus Dash reading a Daring-Do book at the library.
I liked the felt bit and the black and white. It’s nice to see them getting experimental with the animation.
The plot actually reminded me a lot of an arc in one of the Anne of Green Gables books (Anne of Avonlea), where they get a new neighbor, Mr Harrison.
I’ve finally been catching up on Season Two, just finished ‘The Last Roundup’ yesterday. Hooray for Derpy!
I love Twilight Sparkle the most, probably because I can relate to her. We are both young, geeky, bookworm girls.
Also, she strikes me as the Harry Potter type despite her name.
Rainbow Dash and Rarity are amazing too, but they tie for second.
At my school, my friends and I are the unofficial (and secret) ‘MLP: FiM’ fanclub. As in, we all love the show and watch it, but we don’t talk about it where people can hear us… to be honest I sometimes think that adult Bronies/Pegasisters have it easier. My guy friends have to hide their Rainbow Dash t-shirts under their hoodies for fear of being found out by anyone in our school who… might not take kindly to the idea of dudes watching My Little Pony. 
Well, looks like we’ve found this season’s “Winter Wrap Up.” I haven’t been able to get “Smile Smile Smile” out of my head for the past two days, and its earworminess shows no signs of abating anytime soon.
I liked it quite well up until the end. “Come on, everypony, smile, smile, smile. Fill my heart up with sunshine, sunshine. All I really need is a smile, smile, smile, From these happy friends of mine!”
I know it’s a song, and I know that’s shorthand for “I can’t be happy unless my friends are happy,” but given that I’m a little biased against Pinkie, I simply can’t help but hear that as a purely superficial selfish demand in the same vein as “Turn that frown upside down!” Why should I smile just because you can’t stand serious or frowny-faces around you?
Needless to say, Cranky was kind of my hero in this episode.
I have to say I disliked this episode, it sends all the wrong messages. That a young person needs others approval to be happy, that you can stalk someone into liking you, it’s especially disturbing if you watch “Party of One” before it.
But, most of all; I hate how hard it is to get “Smile Smile Smile” out of my head. I actually started humming it in the computer room… There’s such a thing as a song being TOO catchy.
Maybe I don’t think Pinkie’s (for lack of a better word) cartoonish antics aren’t enough to carry a whole episode. It’s kind of like George Lucas releasing a sequel trilogy with Jar-Jar in every role.
It’s funny, because I’ve been somewhat underwhelmed by the episodes during the middle of the season (hence my absence from the thread), but I loved “A Friend In Deed.” Then again, I have a pretty high Pinkie tolerance, and I enjoy her fourth wall-breaking antics. I also tend to watch shows more for the characters than the plots or morals, and the back and forth between Pinkie and Cranky Doodle was (IMO, at least) enormously entertaining. I just about bust a gut at Cranky’s “No, you’re extra special, kid!” line.
That being said, I’d quibble somewhat with the interpretation that the message of the episode is that stalking is OK and that it’s normal to need others’ approval to be happy. Pinkie’s intrusiveness is treated by the episode as a negative personality quirk overall, and we’ve seen from “Party of One” that her dependence on her friends’ attention is based on some pretty deep-seated insecurity. I think it’s important that the very end of the episode has Pinkie briefly breaking back into Cranky’s quiet time with Mathilda - but importantly, this time, she quickly stops herself and retreats to give them privacy. It may not be the stated moral in her “letter to Celestia” (but most of the letter morals are pretty random anyway), but Pinkie’s obsessive need for attention is critiqued in the episode, and she does learn something about it in the end.
It’s sort of like how Rarity’s lies to her friends in “Sweet and Elite” don’t directly blow up in her face, but I don’t think you could claim that “Sweet and Elite” condones lying. 
Well, I’ve given it another shot, and it was better the second time. I treated it as a bugs bunny cartoon and laughed a lot.
I watch it for the character-interactions too, but that wasn’t present in this episode. Pinkie talked at Cranky and Cranky talked at Pinkie, but there was no adaption or empathy.
I think that despite the letter at the end, it still condones stalking and pursueing, the happy end wouldn’t have occured if PP didn’t barge into his home to rummage through his stuff.
“FLYlNG FEATHER!”
When Fluttershy started yelling at Pinkie and Rarity, they burst into tears, my kid burst into tears, then I burst into tears.
It’s hard for me to say if this was an objectively good episode because it was too close to home for me. Like Fluttershy, if I am pushed I will flip the fuck out, but I try to avoid conflict because I never win unless I Hulk out. Like how those rude ponies cut her in line or stood on the bridge? That kind of thing happens to me all the time and like with her, no amount of “Excuse me?” helps. So watching her was like watching me, especially as I’ve taken it on as my project lately to not just freeze or be polite when other people are insane around me. So since it was hard to watch and I related to it too much, I can’t tell if it was good or just mediocre.