This thread’s a bit late this time, but I was up late doing other things. I still felt I should get this out before going to bed, though. Hopefully that doesn’t affect the rewatch.

This week is Dave Polsky’s “Feeling Pinkie Keen”. Dave Polsky episodes do tend to be controversial, and this is where it started. Let’s get into it!

That’s a rather bizarre starting scene. Spike has a rock balanced on his head, is holding a stick as a staff, and is that a scarf? Twilight is bent over, though her horn is glowing, so she must be doing some sort of spell.

Think the scarf is a bunch of leaves tied together? Twilight turns it into a tux and the stick into a cane, anyways.

And the rock becomes a top hat. But apparently Spike has to keep his concentration for the spell to work, and when he gets distracted, it turns back into a rock and bashes him in the head.

Twilight, are you sure you weren’t the one getting distracted there? And what were you thinking, using a big heavy rock for this?

And now you’re yelling at Spike while he has a concussion. Great.

Pinkie is very distracting. T: “Never mind her, she’s just being Pinkie Pie.” S:“Super extra Pinkie Pie today.” Already forgotten about “Swarm of the Century”?

I do like Pinkie’s umbrella, though.

“Hmm... Twitchy Twich a Twich a Twitch.”

And Pinkie shoves her tail right in Twilight’s face to demonstrate its twichyness. She never really learned about boundaries, did she?

Apparently her tail twitching means to watch out for things falling from the sky. Like the frog that hits Twilight in the face.

So how does this work, exactly? How close does something have to be falling to set it off, and how much time is involved? Her tail is a motion detector? Does her tail start twitching when it starts raining, and continually twitch until the rain stops?

And Pinkie can talk to frogs. Shouldn’t that be Fluttershy?

Oh, Fluttershy was the one who dropped it. And she’s feeling compelled to call Twilight by her full name today.Why is she flying here, with a full cart behind her that shouldn’t be in the air? She doesn’t even like flying.

When she talks with the basket in her mouth at the end, it doesn’t sound like her, too.

Twilight is rather immediately dismissive of Pinkie’s ‘Pinkie Sense’, though Spike is impressed.

As she’s talking about it being coincidence, Pinkie comes back, and it’s telling her something else will fall. Which is apparently Twilight.

And Twilight still thinks it’s coincidence. She’s not being very scientific here. You’re supposed to draw conclusions from your observations, not come up with a conclusion first and try to make things fit.

Applejack, meanwhile, is apparently all too familiar with Pinkie’s twichy tail, and is hiding. Maybe Pinkie’s tail twitching makes things fall from the sky.

And Pinkie’s ears are flopping. Maybe that means someone’s talking about her?

No,I guess it means mud’s going to splash on you? The full meaning wasn’t explained there.

Pinkie does start to go through what the various different sensations she gets mean, though. This must make living difficult, with parts of your body constantly vibrating and such.

Having an alligator in the bathtub seems like an awfully specific one, and that one could have been predicted just by having a pet alligator that likes baths, though.

TS:“Well, I still don't believe all this... "special power" stuff. It's just a bunch of mumbo-jumbo.” PP: “What's not to believe? You do magic, what's the difference?” This obviously is some sort of innate magic of Pinkie’s, so no difference.

But Twilight literally gets up on a soapbox. Subtle, this episode isn’t.

“Huge! For one thing, [clears throat] magic is something you study and practice. It only happens when you decide to do it, and it's meant to make something specific that you choose to happen, happen. With you, uh, it makes no sense at all!” Twilight, that’s how unicorn magic works, not magic in general. Are you sure you’ve been studying?

“Sure! You know, like, ear flop, then knee twitch, then eye flutter. That means the sky is about to be graced with a beautiful rainbow!” Rainbow Dash?

Why is she suddenly getting lots of these combos and twitches and such all in a row in a short span of time, when she’s never done it in any of the previous episodes, and generally doesn’t later?

And Twilight’s taken Pinkie down to her secret basement, put some restraints on her, put a mad scientist helmet on her, and is ready to do experiments. This part of the episode, I don’t mind. More should have been done with her secret basement mad scientist laboratory.

And naturally, it can’t be reproduced under laboratory conditions. Not that Twilight leaves her hooked up for more than five minutes. Seriously, patience is kinda important for experiments!

Everything’s really blatant, too, all debunking psychics type stuff.

Now we get a shot of Fluttershy delivering the flogs frogs for no reason. To show passage of time, I guess?

And Twilight is stalking Pinkie, with a jungle explorer helmet on, and background music that goes with it, taking notes.

Boy, this is dumb. I bet Pinkie knows exactly where she is, too.

She’s still trying to force facts to fit her conclusions, too. I guess an itchy nose means a swarm of bees is coming.

And Twilight is now covered in bandaids, which are conveniently a color that I’ve never actually seen any pony be.

I do like Spike saying “Holy Guacamole! I wonder what that means?” It’s the type of cheesy exclamation you’d hear in the old live action Batman tv show.

And Twilight has no pattern recognition. Sure, correlation does not mean causation, but when it repeatedly happens and is consistent, you should be expecting it.

Applejack has a new apple cellar?

Now Twilight is in a wheelchair with her forelegs wrapped in bandages. Great.

Just to hammer things in more, a moving van in the sky being loaded by Raindrops and Derpy spills out a flower pot, anvil, and piano, among others, to all drop on Twilight’s head.

And Applejack’s carrying apples because she has to do apple things, like Fluttershy was doing animal things earlier. Pinkie reveals when talking to Applejack that she knew Twilight was following her. This isn’t surprising. Subtle, Twilight isn’t, much like this episode.

There goes Pinkie’s full body vibrating. Usually if that happens to me, it’s an earthquake.

Somehow, we know it’s going to happen at the bog Fluttershy was going to. I’m not sure how, but everyone’s headed there.

So far, no Rarity in this episode, I notice,

They are at the bog, and some dumb dialogue happens.

And they run around calling out for Fluttershy, and when they find her, Spike hugs her! I’m okay with this.

Twilight starts going into a speech about how right she is about nothing happens as it obviously starts to happen. Sheesh.

That’s a big four headed hydra. I see four heads at the moment, anyways.

Looks hungry.

Yep, four heads, and it’s chasing them.

It also seems to slam its heads into the ground a lot, and is rather goofy looking.

Twilight has to rescue Spike from the mud.

They have to get across a series of platforms, and Fluttershy si the first across, referencing “Dragonshy”, with “A hop, skip, and a jump.”. Continuity!

Applejack grabs Pinkie Pie by the tail with her mouth, in a gesture she usually reserves for Rainbow Dash. Where is Rainbow Dash? She’d be helpful about now. So would Rarity. Rarity would kick that hydra right in the snoot.

Even Twilight is thinking about what Rainbow Dash would do, and decides to charge the hydra. She runs under the hydra, tangling its heads.

The platforms are mostly gone, and Twilight has to ‘take a leap of faith’. Oh brother. Twilight, teleport over to the other side.

But she jumps, and hits a bubble of mud and bounces up onto the other side. Um, mud doesn’t work that way.

The hydra wasn’t the doozy, and Twilight bursts into flame. And things are dumb again.

Oh good, a moral. The episode must be about over.

Dear Princess Celestia, I'm happy to report that… <dialogue omitted> I am happy to report that I now realize there are wonderful things in this world you just can't explain, but that doesn't necessarily make them any less true. It just means you have to choose to believe in them, and sometimes it takes a friend to show you the way. … Always your faithful student, Twilight Sparkle.

Yeah, Twilight should already have known that.

And, um, Pinkie’s tail twitches, Spike opens the upper window of the treehouse, Princess Celesta lands on a branch outside, takes Spike’s scroll in her mouth, and flies off. Yeah, that happened.

Well, that was… probably so far, the worst episode of the season. For me, anyways. But it’s over, and not a moment too soon!

Next week, we’ll have “Sonic Rainboom”, by M.A. Larson. I could do that one as normal, or if Haphazred wants to do it, that’d be a possibility, too! I’ll watch it either way, tho’. See you then!

--Sweetie Belle

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Can I just say, this episode along with many episodes in season 1 are pretty weird with magic. Like, in this episode Twilight technically uses transmogrification to turn random objects into clothing, a technique I'd expect Rarity to use at some point in the series but never does. Not to mention the spells Twilight demonstrated in Trixie's debut episode, none of which are ever used again. Seriously, she made a door from thin air just to slam it in Spike's face. Should we consider the possibility that Princess Celestia taught her a little chaos magic since she already taught Twilight the bare basics of dark magic.

Seriously, she talks about magic having rules but what rules? It seems like magic can do just about anything and that "rules" are only a convenient suggestion.

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or if Haphazred wants to do it, that’d be a possibility, too!

Hap certainly might! Hap likes Sonic Rainboom loads...

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So one thing that always left me puzzled in this episode. Is frog moving Fluttershy's job? Because I think this is closest we have seen her doing work. Of course could be just her being nice to the frogs....or hydra she was going to feed.

Oh, right it is Pinkie Twilight episode and I should say something about that. Um, magic magic trust trust faith oranges. Oh and this feels more like episode trying to be Looney Toons with any plot just being tacked on around Twilight's cartoon misery. Show didn't really know yet what it is.

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Sonic Hap Boom! With liquor instead rainbows.

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I always thought Fluttershy ran an adoption center that nobody ever went to. It would explain why she was so willing to give an animal away to Rainbow Dash.

7118547 An interesting fact about Spike's "Holy Guacamole!" line, it was an attempt to try and give him a catchphrase, which is why he repeats it a lot in this episode. It never took off though and was dropped after this episode.

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Ah, FPK - the episode which taught me to form my own opinion rather than just following the assessments of others. In my earliest days of pony, i followed one reviewer in particular very closely - a devoted atheist and skeptic who, after praising the show for 14 episodes, virtually had an apoplexy over this one. And since I was following him closely, I saw that before the episode - only to watch it and find little wrong with it save a mild fumble on the moral's presentation. (Of course, I didn't know at the time that Polsky would turn out to be "the controversy writer" - none of us did. It's mostly not his fault, save that he's better at fun episodes than morals and probably thinks more about how to entertain viewers than how to present a message.)

Pinkie is very distracting. T: “Never mind her, she’s just being Pinkie Pie.” S:“Super extra Pinkie Pie today.” Already forgotten about “Swarm of the Century”?

Decent odds this is pretty early in our Canterlot duo's time in Ponyville - maybe even just a few weeks.

So how does this work, exactly? How close does something have to be falling to set it off, and how much time is involved? Her tail is a motion detector? Does her tail start twitching when it starts raining, and continually twitch until the rain stops?

Just the sort of questions that might have occurred to a slightly less sceptical Twilight - and one reason even those who like the episode don't necessarily like the ending.

Oh, Fluttershy was the one who dropped it. And she’s feeling compelled to call Twilight by her full name today.Why is she flying here, with a full cart behind her that shouldn’t be in the air? She doesn’t even like flying.

Another possible indication that this is quite early in their friendship. And just because she's not the best flyer doesn't mean she can't - sometimes, like now, it's pretty useful in her job.

And Twilight still thinks it’s coincidence. She’s not being very scientific here. You’re supposed to draw conclusions from your observations, not come up with a conclusion first and try to make things fit.

A point a lot of people miss about this episode - jury's still out if Dave Polsky was one of them.

Pinkie does start to go through what the various different sensations she gets mean, though. This must make living difficult, with parts of your body constantly vibrating and such.

Another thing that rarely comes up - and indeed, I wonder if anyone showside even thought of - is that to learn all those codes without an instruction manual probably makes Pinkie a very good scientist, in her own way. Indeed, given the rest of her abilities, it's possible that this is the only form of empirical science she's even capable of, and she knocks it out of the park. All very ironic and contrasting - but also so second-order it may all have been emergent and unintended.

Twilight, that’s how unicorn magic works, not magic in general. Are you sure you’ve been studying?

i'll give her enough credit to assume that she knows enough about pony magic in general - and earthpony magic in particular - that this kind of stuff is beyond any form of it that's been studied and written down. I mean. even Applejack doesn't treat it as a magic thing, just a Pinkie thing.

Why is she suddenly getting lots of these combos and twitches and such all in a row in a short span of time, when she’s never done it in any of the previous episodes, and generally doesn’t later?

A curse of the show's episodic nature, combined with a lack of popularity of the gimmick with writers I guess. But the common fan assumption is she gets plenty offscreen - which adds to the "probably early days" scorecard.

This part of the episode, I don’t mind. More should have been done with her secret basement mad scientist laboratory.

Second that - especially since, being a basement and all, it should have survived the library above's destruction.

And Twilight is stalking Pinkie, with a jungle explorer helmet on, and background music that goes with it, taking notes.

Boy, this is dumb. I bet Pinkie knows exactly where she is, too.

FPK was arguably our introduction to one of Twilight's major flaws - a somewhat narrow worldview and a degree of reactionism against all that challenges it. She doesn't change her mind easily, which can be a problem for a scientist - but then, she's arguably more of a scholar.

Just to hammer things in more, a moving van in the sky being loaded by Raindrops and Derpy spills out a flower pot, anvil, and piano, among others, to all drop on Twilight’s head.

Miss Grey Bubbles' codifying scene, really - certainly the first one she was cross-eyed in on purpose, and you can trace most of her later canon characterisation back to here as well.

(Also this episode really helps codify the idea of pegasus-pulled aerial ground vehicles as a thing for the common pony and not just the elite.)

Where is Rainbow Dash? She’d be helpful about now. So would Rarity. Rarity would kick that hydra right in the snoot.

It was around this time it was becoming clear that only our leading lady was guaranteed a role in episodes (for now) - the rest of the ensemble could take breaks.

And it's true that the no-teleport, leap-of-faith climax is a weaker point here - I have to resort to the somewhat forced rationalisation that she used up nearly all her magic healing herself from "wheelchair bound" to "can run and jump" in under a minute. (2 holes plugged for the price of 1!) I say nearly all because her spontaneous combustion - still an iconic image of hers IMO - has to come from somewhere.

And s we close on an awkwardly-worded moral - an awkward ending in general really, although I do like Celestia's part. But an awkward ending that doesn't spoil a good episode for me - it is the worst episode so far, then it's only because one has to be and the average quality is so high. (Which of the prior 14 do you feel it displaces in said last position?)

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Well the show was still establishing the possible here. And I don't think we really saw anything too overpowered - if anything, it was nice that it wasn't only Twilight who was allowed to cast it. (If you saw Boast Busters, you might recall that Rarity does produce a dress for a stage curtain with magic - but if it's as temporary a trick as seen here, that would certainly explain why she generally works by hoof.) And certainly Pinkie Sense seems to fall outside the magic we've seen so far by some margin.

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It always seemed perfectly obvious to me that she was in charge of local animals the same way RD was responsible for local weather. "Ponies don't do uncontrolled nature" was a big theme early on.

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I should say, too, that these are, naturally my own opinions and impressions of these episodes. People are different. Sometimes things that majorly irritate other people are things that you don't really have a problem with and vice-versa. Different things weigh heavier for different people, and it can make a difference what mindset you go into an episode with. (It probably didn't help that last week, I watched the best episode up to this point...)

And I will say, as much as I disliked this episode, I'm not one of the people that majorly dislikes Dave Polsky. He did "Twilight Time" and "Rarity Takes Manhattan", both of which I enjoyed, and he was the showrunner for Hanazuki, which I quite liked.

Decent odds this is pretty early in our Canterlot duo's time in Ponyville - maybe even just a few weeks.

Yeah, I tend to assume they are in order, even when they obviously aren't.

Just the sort of questions that might have occurred to a slightly less skeptical Twilight - and one reason even those who like the episode don't necessarily like the ending.

Yeah, it was one of these cases where there were serious issues with "Pinkie Sense", so there was reason to be skeptical of it, but in universe, it obviously was a real thing, so Twilight shouldn't have been going full denial on it.

Another thing that rarely comes up - and indeed, I wonder if anyone showside even thought of - is that to learn all those codes without an instruction manual probably makes Pinkie a very good scientist, in her own way. Indeed, given the rest of her abilities, it's possible that this is the only form of empirical science she's even capable of, and she knocks it out of the park. All very ironic and contrasting - but also so second-order it may all have been emergent and unintended.

Yeah, it almost implies that she's been taking notes for years on what happened and what code preceded it... and given we know she has notes on everyone in town from later in the show, this is believable.

Second that - especially since, being a basement and all, it should have survived the library above's destruction.

Yeah, that's a good point. It would've been interesting to see something referenced about that.

FPK was arguably our introduction to one of Twilight's major flaws - a somewhat narrow worldview and a degree of reactionism against all that challenges it. She doesn't change her mind easily, which can be a problem for a scientist - but then, she's arguably more of a scholar.

It is certainly showing off her major OCD. Some of "Lesson Zero" starts here.

Miss Grey Bubbles' codifying scene, really - certainly the first one she was cross-eyed in on purpose, and you can trace most of her later canon characterisation back to here as well.

(Also this episode really helps codify the idea of pegasus-pulled aerial ground vehicles as a thing for the common pony and not just the elite.)

Whereas Raindrops didn't go on to much. The aerial ground vehicles actually kind of bug me, because even if the pony is flying, the vehicle itself should be falling and only being pulled up by the part attached to the pony. I prefer the balloon and Pinkie's bike helicopter thing, and zeppelins.

And it's true that the no-teleport, leap-of-faith climax is a weaker point here - I have to resort to the somewhat forced rationalisation that she used up nearly all her magic healing herself from "wheelchair bound" to "can run and jump" in under a minute. (2 holes plugged for the price of 1!) I say nearly all because her spontaneous combustion - still an iconic image of hers IMO - has to come from somewhere.

That is a point. She was pretty beat up and shouldn't have been able to just get up like that.

That was actually the second time we've seen her do that, too. She also did it in the first episode, after drinking hot sauce.

Which of the prior 14 do you feel it displaces in said last position?

I'm not sure. The bottom three for me this far in the series were Dragonshy, Griffin the Brushoff, and Bridle Gossip, but I'm not sure what order they'd be in.

One thing with this episode for me, too, was a lot of times on episodes, I may have generally had trouble with the episode, but other things in it were helping bring it back up. "Winter Wrapup" had that song and great storyboarding and animation, for example, and sometimes there were just excellent dialogue or really memorable scenes holding up an episode.

This one... there just wasn't much of that for me. And I was a bit surprised how much I disliked it, because I did have good memories of the lab, at least. Funny thing is the other Dave Polsky episode this season is also very likely to be pretty close to the bottom ("Over A Barrel").

I'm not that worried about it, since while Sonic Rainboom has gotten vague for me, after that are Stare Master and The Show Stoppers, which are both episodes I've watched multiple times and enjoyed.

Oh, incidentally, I went back and looked at the original outline for this story. A lot of it was the same, but instead of Gummy in the tub... it was a toaster. Not a plugged in toaster, but a toaster. At least that didn't make it to the final script, and I'm glad we got Gummy. I do like Gummy.

--Sweetie Belle

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I always felt she was more like the town vet, until we found out there was a town vet.

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It's probably just as well that didn't take off. I don't mind it... but if it stayed as Guacamole instead of lots of variations, I might have.

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Well, just let me know before Friday night/Saturday morning! I still plan on watching it and taking notes, but if you do the main post, I'll probably just reply with anything additional I had beyond what you said.

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It would've been nice if they'd been keeping track of spells used and reusing them. I'd certainly like to have seen the mustache spell again. Unless she used it in Twilight Time?

--Sweetie Belle

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Yes, I suspect this one's placement did it no favours - Sonic Rainboom was very popular too. (And to add to the subjectivity, I don't particularly like "Twilight Time" myself.)

Yeah, I tend to assume they are in order, even when they obviously aren't.

Coming two episodes after autumn and four after winter, I don't think that position had many advocates at the time.

Whereas Raindrops didn't go on to much. The aerial ground vehicles actually kind of bug me, because even if the pony is flying, the vehicle itself should be falling and only being pulled up by the part attached to the pony. I prefer the balloon and Pinkie's bike helicopter thing, and zeppelins.

Well, Raindrops wasn't already a meme. She did get a steady gig in the Lunaverse, though, which was pretty big in it's day.

And i's obviously a function of pegasus magic - the same bit that lets them fly without being particularly aerodynamic, extended by physical contact. Balloons and the like are still useful if you don't have any pegasi or to reduce the weight they have to pull, and it might not scale up so well to zeppelin level.

That was actually the second time we've seen her do that, too. She also did it in the first episode, after drinking hot sauce.

Partially, but not full-on Rapidash like here.

I'm not sure. The bottom three for me this far in the series were Dragonshy, Griffin the Brushoff, and Bridle Gossip, but I'm not sure what order they'd be in.

Well I love all of those - but then, I love Season 1. I mean, this ep is about as close as it gets to a misstep IMO, and it's still really fun until nearly the end.

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I mean, this ep is about as close as it gets to a misstep IMO, and it's still really fun until nearly the end.

The moral is probably the only reason this episode is even remotely viewed through such a negative lense. If the moral hadn't been botched so horribly the episode probably would've been okay, maybe forgettable. But because of the moral it touched off a huge firestorm of controversy, which was almost everywhere on the Internet in early 2011.

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Of course since then we've had actual controversies in the fandom, so it almost seems cute to think this was any sort of big deal... but it was a more innocent time.

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Coming two episodes after autumn and four after winter, I don't think that position had many advocates at the time.

This is mainly a bias from watching them in order, of course.

And i's obviously a function of pegasus magic - the same bit that lets them fly without being particularly aerodynamic, extended by physical contact. Balloons and the like are still useful if you don't have any pegasi or to reduce the weight they have to pull, and it might not scale up so well to zeppelin level.

It could be. I just end up wondering when I see vehicles that were obviously ended for use with wheels on the ground in the sky...

Well I love all of those - but then, I love Season 1. I mean, this ep is about as close as it gets to a misstep IMO, and it's still really fun until nearly the end.

Most of those, there were things I liked. They just weren't enough to quite counterbalance the things I didn't, if you know what I mean. And I'm only counting ones in this rewatch so far. There are episodes in later seasons or later this season that would easily go below those.

The biggest problem with this episode for me really was Twilight acting like she's acting scientific when she's not, combined with the misstep on the moral, and how it kept being repeated over and over¹. And, of course, I'm never a fan of Spike abuse, and it was otherwise mostly a meh or forgettable episode for me, without much in the way of memorable dialogue or scenes other than the lab.

--Sweetie Belle

1. Seriously, this would have been better if you had at least one or two less "Twilight gets hurt while denying Pinkie Sense is a thing" scenes. And maybe show Twilight at least considering that Pinkie Sense might be real, even if she dismisses it?

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It could be. I just end up wondering when I see vehicles that were obviously ended for use with wheels on the ground in the sky...

Well the wheels make them landing-capable - or more likely, they were designed for ground use in the first place. Yeah, you probably could use just a box, but wheels are cheap.

"Having an alligator in the bathtub seems like an awfully specific one, and that one could have been predicted just by having a pet alligator that likes baths, though."

It would not at all surprise me if that Pinkie Sense was how Pinkie met Gummy in the first place.

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It's entirely possible that it means something else, but the only time it's triggered was when Gummy was in her bathtub, so she decided that was what it meant.

--Sweetie Belle

When the creator of this show has to publicly apologize for an episode, you know that this episode is going to be bad. No, I’m not kidding. This episode was so reviled among the brony fandom that Lauren Faust actually had to give a public apology for how poorly it was received. Is the hatred for this episode warranted? After watching it, I believe so.

Now this is an episode I can sink my critical claws into. For starters, we learn that Pinkie has this thing called a Pinkie Sense, a involuntary bodily convulsion that allows her to predict the future. A twitchy tail means that something is going to fall. Sometimes these convulsions come in combinations. For example, an ear flap, wobbly knees, and an eye flutter all mean to watch out for opening doors.

So, what does Twilight decide to do with this information? Does she study Pinkie for several months, writing down every single bodily convulsion and combination and see what they mean, and then maybe hooking Pinkie up to examine her for scientific data? Does she even extract some DNA from Pinkie and have it sent to some scientific research facility in Canterlot? Of course not. That’s what an actual scientist would do. Instead, she dismisses the Pinkie Sense completely, saying that it’s not scientifically possible because it’s completely random. I’m sorry, what? Most of what your body does, such as breathing, heart rate, blood flow, etc, is controlled by your brain. It’s completely involuntary. You can’t choose when these actions happen. Does that mean that your body doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do simply because that these things are out of your control?

No. The Pinkie Sense is not random. Pinkie’s tail twitches. That means that something is going to fall. That’s a perfectly valid hypothesis. If Twilight was as smart as she says she is, she would have known that. She attempts to take a scientific approach to the situation, but she goes about it all wrong. As soon as she can’t prove Pinkie wrong, she decides to give up on the experiment. Yes, because that’s staying true to the Scientific Method. But even so, Twilight still didn’t deserve to get sent to the hospital just because she was trying to understand Pinkie’s abilities.

What makes this episode ever worse is the ending. First of all, the hydra. Okay, so let me see if I can understand this. Fluttershy can talk down a dragon, a manticore, and a cockatrice, but when it comes to a hydra, she can’t do anything. And this is all for the sake of the plot, so that Twilight will learn some lesson in the end.

Speaking of the lesson, that’s the second problem that I have with this episode. What exactly was wrong with making the hydra the doozy Pinkie was talking about? Why did the doozy have to be Twilight accepting the idea that Pinkie’s abilities might be true? It would have been better had Twilight come to appreciate Pinkie’s abilities rather than accept them on blind faith. Having her just accept Pinkie Sense without any further investigation is such a giant leap in logic that it’s just baffling to me. Not helping is the moral, which was badly worded. The moral is the idea that you should accept something as true even if it doesn’t make sense, which is a horrible lesson to be teaching kids. So you’re telling me that it’s a good idea to just take something like the Bible on its word alone without questioning it or doing any research on it to find out if what you’re reading is true or not? Atheists already have a bad reputation of thinking that Christians are stupid morons who live their lives on blind faith. Crap like this is not helping! But let’s not even get started on the science v. religion aspect of this episode. After all, that’s the whole reason why Faust had to apologize for this episode in the first place.

Finally, and probably most problematic of all, is the fact that after this episode, Twilight doesn’t proceed to conduct any further investigations on the Pinkie Sense. It’s never going to be brought up again. Nopony’s ever going to ask questions about. It’s never going to be expanded upon or applied usefully in other episodes. Very rarely is it ever referenced, such as in episodes like “The Mysterious Mare Do-Well” and “Princess Twilight Sparkle, Part 1.”

A terrible moral, bad writing, and bad characterization makes this one of the worst episodes this season, if not one of the worst episodes of the entire series. Like many episodes, I like to pretend as if this episode doesn’t even exist. I hate it that much.