The Last Roundup

Dear Princess Luna...

We start off seeing Applejack, without her hat, training: running, jumping hurdles, throwing a bale of hay.

Applebloom, I think this is the first I've seen this character, presumably is Applejack's sister. Applejack is training for an Equestria rodeo, and is the 10 time rodeo champ of Ponyville.

Applejack's rodeo medals, mounted out in the open where any unicorn/dragon attracted to shiny things could take them.

Applejack blushes when Applebloom says her big sis is sure to become the Equestria rodeo champion.

Rainbow Dash is setting up a banner in Applejack's honor and is hit by lightning.

 

A pegasus named Derpy is jumping up and down on a storm cloud and sending lightning everywhere. I guess this confirms that there are indeed retarded ponies. I'm guessing this pony's name is due to the fan base.

I don't think this pegasus should be allowed to harness lightning.

Derpy has already managed to destroy some kind of tower, she tries to compliment Rainbow on setting up the banner, and sends a support beam plummeting. Rainbow tries to catch it, is smashed into the basement.

She tells Derpy to just sit there, Derpy sits, the floor gives way, and Derpy and Rainbow fall down into the basement again.

A big crowd of ponies has gathered to send off Applejack to the rodeo. Applejack is so thankful for all the support her community has given her over the years, she pledges her prize money to fix the tower Derpy is destroying, which is apparently Town Hall.

 

Applejack's friends, family, and the mayor wish her luck and say goodbye at the train station. Ponyville's budget must not be doing so hot as the mayor makes sure to stress that Applejack should get money.

 

A week later, her friends and family are setting up a surprise party for her. Instead of Applejack, a mailman arrives, thinking they had set up a surprise party for his birthday. Twilight uses magic to grab a letter from him and slams the door in his face. Pinkie at least gives him a piece of cake.

Pinkie startles Fluttershy.

Commence disappointment in 3, 2, 1...

At least Pinkie was kind enough to give him some cake.

The letter ends up being from Applejack. She writes that she's not coming back to Ponyville but will send the money soon.

Dear Twilight: Please don't kill me. Signed, Applejack.

The ponies immediately think something bad must have happened to Applejack. Hmm, she goes to some rodeo where there's huge cash prizes. Supposedly really good at rodeos and will win. Rodeo takes place. She doesn't want to come home, or send the money. So, either she lost and is hiding in shame, or she won big, and is using that money to buy a private island somewhere.

The 'Mane 5' vow to search all of Equestria if they have to to find her. They head to Canterlot and to the rodeo's arena. No one has seen Applejack except one pony, that points off into some arid desert.

"She's out there in Dead Pony Gorge!"

Alright, so back in Ponyville the Mane 5 were all 'Oh, yeah! We'll search every gas station, residence, warehouse, farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse and doghouse in Equestria until we find her!' Now on the train, it's suddenly changed to: "Oh dear, I hope this lead pans out, I don't want to go back empty handed." So they're just going to give up if she isn't in the first place they look.

They arrive at Dodge Junction, and immediately find her. Baby Cakes sort of went into this, and now we see Pinkie and Applejack using an outhouse (with a flusbable toilet in it). I'd imagine the majority of people try not to think about such aspects, but this proves ponies have to use restrooms, and that although they do wear clothes sometimes, usually they are just walking around where presumably every 'naughty' bit is on display. I wonder why Spike is always trying to hang out at Rarity's..

Cherry Jubilee looks more like a Western 'madame' than a cherry orchard owner..

Cherry Jubilee, owner of a cherry orchard, explains that Applejack won a bunch of ribbons and got her attention, and that Applejack was looking for a 'change of scenery' and this of course enrages Applejack's friends. They don't believe that Applejack just wanted to work in cherries instead of apples for a while, and Twilight knows there must be some dark secret Applejack is withholding.

"And now I'm going down to Emitt's Fix-It Shop, to fix Emitt."

 Cherry Jubilee has a cherry sorting facility, a conveyor belt powered by a 'hamster wheel'.

What happened to her normal workers, that the Mane 5 were able to take over? Better check and make sure they aren't bludgeoned to death in a ditch somewhere.

Applejack is upset that her friends are there, not buying that they came there because she made a 'cherry orchard' sound fun. Applejack tells them to not talk to her about Ponyville. They start interrogating her about the rodeo and Canterlot. Instead of yelling across the room, they abandon their posts at the conveyor to go talk to Applejack. Their continued questions start to upset Applejack and she begins running faster. At this point, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie are the only ones still working the line. Applejack goes into a full gallop and overwhelms the only other ponies actually doing the job they were paid(?) to do.

Aww, look at stressed out Fluttershy.

Oh, god! What.. what is happening here?

Rainbow, Twilight, and Rarity all wonder if Applejack wants to leave Ponyville because of something they each did to her. Rainbow made it rain on her that one time. Twilight gave her a book on oganizing orchards. Rarity insulted her hair.
Fluttershy screams 'Stop' as loud as she can. Somehow Applejack hears and stops, launching cherries which splatter all over the room. Applejack leaves in disgust and the Mane 5 are left to clean up the mess on their own. Rainbow says they are being too nice, and Rarity says desperate times call for desperate measures, and that they need the big guns. It zooms in ominously on Pinkie Pie.

Twilight and Rarity use their magic to use a mop and a cloth to clean up. Yay magic.

Pinkie decides to try and get Applejack to talk by confusing her with lunacy. "Have you ever had a cherry chonga?" "No" "Well, of course not, I just made it up myself! It's cherries fried in a tortilla." She then unleashes a litany of funny words, eventually resulting in Applejack cowering on the ground and screaming for it to stop.

Torture, Equestria style.

Applejack breaks down and promises to tell them tomorrow at breakfast. No one buys it, and they make her Pinkie Promise. At breakfast, surprise! Applejack didn't show up. Pinkie goes ballistic that she broke a Pinkie Promise.

Applejack has to 'get the heck outta Dodge' and hops onto a stagecoach, pulled by cowboy ponies. The Mane 5 steal their own cart and make Rainbow and Fluttershy pull it.

"I timed you from that tree over there, and you were doing fifty miles and hour!" "Now how could I do fifty mile an hour when I was only out for half an hour?" "Gosh, you're right! Never thought of that."

 They begin smashing their cart against the stage coach. Applejack says she'll pay her cowboy team double to outrun her friends. Her friends will pay them triple to slow down. Applejack says she'll pay them quadruple to leave them in the dust, which they do. Pinkie Pie is out for blood and bellows for her Fluttershy and Rainbow to GET THEM. They catch back up and Pinkie leaps aboard. Applejack explains she technically didn't break her promise since she never showed up for breakfast. Applejack continues to say that she just can't tell them the truth.

Applejack must have murdered someone during the rodeo and was trying to get a new identity out in the wild west of Equestria as Cherryjack, but of course her friends had to meddle.

"See? Now you feel bad, huh? Good."

Pinkie jumps off the stagecoach, yelling 'Rarity catch me!' and smashes into her, sending them both flying off the cart. Rainbow leaves them behind because, 'They knew what they were getting into.' Uh, given Rarity's shock, I don't think she expected to be smashed by Pinkie and left in the dust.

"Urge to kill: rising."

In the distance: a train crossing. Applejack decides to try and do the classic 'nearly kill yourself crossing before the train gets there to throw off your pursuer' except risking the lives of the four stagecoach ponies too. They make it, and the stagecoach ponies leave in disgust, telling her 'Lady, you're trouble.' I think they just left without being paid, so not only did they just almost die, they aren't getting that quadruple pay they were promised.

"Don't worry. We'll find where she lives and torch the joint. Nobody messes with the Stagecoach Boyz."

Applejack's plan is thwarted as the two pegasi just fly their cart over the train.

A desert, the perfect place to hide a body.

Applejack tries to run and Rainbow tackles her, spilling her saddlebags and revealing a bunch of her rodeo ribbons.

The big secret she nearly killed herself and four innocent ponies over? A ton of non-first place prizes.

The truth finally comes out. Despite her talents, she failed to win any first place prizes, coming in 2nd, 3rd, or 4th in every event, meaning she didn't win any money. Not wanting to let Ponyville down, she had signed on to the cherry grove to make some money for the town hall. So, yeah, her friends pretty much screwed everything up, not only making sure Applejack couldn't earn any money, but probably putting her into debt with Cherry Jubilee by ruining all those cherries.

kay, so how much money was Applejack going to win? How much was Cherry Jubilee going to pay her? CJ was probably going to pay her very little since she wrote saying she was never going back to Ponyville, which means her own family's apple orchard would likely have suffered since they apparently consist of a really old granny, a little girl pony, leaving all the work to the mature male pony. Good one, Applejack.

Fluttershy tells her they can always find a way to fix the hole in the roof, but not the holes in their hearts if Applejack left.

I was about to write, 'Even the normally stoic Rainbow Dash was moved by this' but we've seen her bursting into tears over cider and because Mare Do Well upstaged her.

Aww, even Rainbow was brought to tears.

The crowd of her friends and family, and her pet dog, welcome her back. Applejack writes to Princess Celestia, saying that she learned it isn't the end of the world if you don't win first place, and that you can't run from your problems and should seek aid and comfort with your friends and family.

Meanwhile, the Mane 4 apparently just abandoned Rarity and Pinkie out in the desert, and they are forced to find their own way home. Rarity is probably to going to use her magic to disintegrate Rainbow as soon as she sees her.

Rarity: "Serenity now. Serenity now. SERENITY NOW!"

 What I learned from this episode:

• Applejack really cares about her community, and will even sell herself out as slave labor to try and get the money she feels she owes Ponyville.
• The Pinkie in this episode seems very different from the calm-ish, responsible minded Pinkie in Baby Cakes. It would appear this one is directly after Baby Cakes, so apparently the lessons she learned there didn't hold too well.
• The 'Mane 6' must have a very strict lifestyle to adhere too, as it seems any divergence from what they deem appropriate results in some orchestrated campaign by the others to destroy that pony. Twilight seems to be the main instigator of this.