Lesson Zero

Dear Princess Luna..

Well, I believe I only have Return of Harmony Part 1&2, Lesson Zero, and Luna Eclipsed left for Season 2. I'm presuming that the latter is Luna focused, and so shall 'save the best for last' =]

Looks like a Twilight focused episode, nice. Starts off showing a nice tranquil sun rise over Ponyville, then we see Twilight and Spike gathering supplies. Twilight is obsessing over something, as they just made a checklist of supplies to make a checklist, so they can make a checklist of things she needs to get done that day. Spike is not thrilled.

"Of all the ponies in the world, I had to be given to her..."

Sometime later, Twilight and Spike are going through a massive checklist. I guess Twilight is planning a picnic, as when she picks up her cupcakes she ordered she is upset that there are 13 instead of 12, and that one has extra icing.

"I'm so not paying for that!"

Mrs. Cake explains she had an extra one and tossed it in for free. Twilight insists it is an issue, because now one cupcake might have more frosting, and she doesn't want any pony to get upset by that. She could just, I don't know, let Spike eat it, since he clearly wants one, instead she throws him back with magic. Which, as we have seen, is par for the course for Twilight.

"No! My precious cupcakes!!!!"

Twilight uses her magic to grab Mrs. Cake's spatula, then begins trying to evenly distribute the icing. She fails and eventually each one just has a small dollop of icing on it, instead of the large mountain of sugary goodness they had before Twilight's meddling.

Twilight's use for magic: being the Cupcake Nazi

Spike ends up covered in frosting, at least he got to eat a cupcake, or the 'good' part anyway, as he sticks out his tongue (which is insanely long) and then spins rapidly, licking up all the icing at it flies off him. Twilight calls it efficient, but gross. Sometime later, they get back to the library and are at the end of the checklist. Spike reads one of the last items, which is to triple check the checklist to make sure they didn't miss anything when they double checked it.

"Uh, to hell with this... Check."

Spike doesn't even go over the list and just checks it off, then drops the quill, saying he has been holding the quill so long he has a claw cramp. Twilight is going Cupcake Nazi again it looks like, inspecting the cupcakes, when Spike says it's a good thing they don't have to write to Princess Celestia that week, since his hand/claw is all FUBAR.

"Oh, dear! That cupcake is 1/10000th of an inch bigger than that one!"

Twilight goes crazy. Apparently part of her punishment is that she must write to the Princess every single week, telling her something new she learned about friendship. She starts freaking out about the location of her calendar, Spike finds it 'where it always is' and Twilight yanks it over to her with magic. Spike is still holding onto it, and for helping Twilight, gets smashed into a book stand. I guess that is how non-Unicorns would read?

"Medic!"

They last sent a letter on Tuesday, and it is now next Tuesday, so Twilight freaks out even more that she'll be tardy if she doesn't send one by the end of the day.

"B-but I haven't learned anything about friends! They all were avoiding me, I can't imagine why!"

As seen above, she has a crazy background radiance thing kind of like what Rarity was doing in Sisterhooves Social. Spike pushes it out of frame like it was the background piece in a play.

Twilight continues freaking out, thinking Princess Celestia will think Twilight doesn't care about her studies if she doesn't do a friendship report, or that she might force Twilight to take a test.

Spike the perv enjoying the view.

So Twilight is actually the personal apprentice to Princess Celestia it appears, that's pretty cool. She said something interesting, "The pony who holds my fate in her hooves!" Sounds like if Twilight screws up, she'll be executed or something.

Twilight fears that because she thinks of Celestia as her 'teacher' that she would have the power to send her back a grade for failing. Which would mean Twilight goes back to 'magic kindergarten.' Now, I'm not sure how all this magic schooling stuff works, but you'd think Twilight wouldn't be sent back to a 'filly' level school, as seen below, but perhaps Twilight is much younger than I was imagining.

"Haw Haw!"

Twilight pledges to get the letter written by helping some pony that needs her help. She tries to take the easy way out and asks Spike if she can help him, he says he's got nothing. Twilight then wanders down the street, and smiles as she hears Rarity scream.

"Rarity sounds like she's being murdered! Yes!"

Twilight kicks in Rarity's door, and finds her crying. Turns out she lost some diamond encrusted ribbon and has searched all over for it, but can't find it. She uses magic to drag a couch over to collapse on. Seeing her friend really upset just makes Twilight super-happy.

"YES! Look at all those tears!"

Rarity ends up a bust, finding the ribbon on her own, and just asks Twilight to get her measuring tape from a pile of fabric. Twilight moves on.

Rainbow Dash is destroying a barn at Sweet Apple Acres, by flying through it, smashing it with her hooves, and ripping it apart with her mouth.

Twilight sees Rainbow trashing Applejack's barn. She deduces that Rainbow must hate Applejack's guts, and smiles once again.

"Ahh.. The Apple family will kill Rainbow, then I can help all my friends grieve! Perfect!"

Twilight Worth springs into action, using her meddling ray on Rainbow.

I can't imagine that feels very pleasant, especially flying at Rainbow Dash speeds. (And after this, Twilight just drops her on the ground)

Twilight goes full Mary Worth mode, even trying to act like a therapist.

"This is really creepy, Twilight, even for you."

It turns out, of course, that Rainbow was just helping take the barn down. Rainbow then flies way up and nosedives into the barn, causing a rainbowy nuclear blast.

Einstein said that space is elastic, twist his theory, it comes out bombastic. A mushroom cloud: a site fantastic. Stick your head between your legs, kiss your ass goodbye.

Twilight leaves, disappointed. Her next victim is Fluttershy, who she cheerfully says, "Always has some fear she's trying to get over." How nice, Twilight. As she approaches, she sees Fluttershy beating the hell out of a giant bear.

Damn.

Twilight asks, 'Fluttershy??' in amazement.

God damn!

Twilight doesn't even risk going to talk to her and just leaves, thinking she just saw Fluttershy straight up murder a bear. Of course, in actuality, even though it looks like she was killing it, she was giving it a massage.

Twilight is freaking out, going Gollum on us. She's curled up on a bench, stroking her tail. Then she starts talking to her reflection in the water.

"Here's Twi-ligh!"

Spike arrives, but she is so far gone she doesn't even notice. She hears some kids playing, and we are shown the Twilight Vision of kids jump roping.

That's disturbing.

Spike snaps her out of it, reminding her about the picnic. Twilight's ravaged mind puts two and two together: the picnic = her friends will be there. She runs off.

"Twilight, I'm scared!" "Don't worry Spike, you'll be dead soon."

Her friends are setting up the picnic, Rarity managed to forget the plates. She magics over that couch thing again to collapse into. Twilight arrives, and her friends immediately are concerned.

"If you were to die now, is your soul ready?"

She starts telling them she really needs their help, I'm guessing they will just laugh at her 'problem.' (Have it paused for this next screenshot of supper stressed Twilight =] )

She looks worse than she did in It's About Time.

She tells them her letter is nearly overdue and she hasn't learned anything about friendship.

She teleports amongst her friends, making sure they all know what a big deal it is to her. As I figured, her friends just laugh at her problem.

"Are you guys serious? This is so not cool."

I am taking way too many pictures here, but I can't help it. I love Twilight, she always goes off at the drop of a hat. =]

I suppose you'd like to put me to sleep? Yeah, with a spade! Sez you! Sez me!

"And another thing, your mane is too pink! It should match the streak in my mane or dye it some other color!"

Even Rarity, who must have gone through magic school, fails to see what Twilight's problem is. After all her friends laughed at her, Twilight rage walked away, then rage teleported out of sight.

"If no pony has a problem for me to fix, maybe I'll make a problem! Yeah! Maybe Scootaloo will have a little accident..."

Hah! I just wrote the above caption, hit play, lo and behold, Twilight decides "If I can't find a friendship problem, I'll make a friendship problem!" =]

I love you Twilight, you're so crazy! <3

Hah, once more. She chooses the Cutie Mark Crusaders to make her friendship problem with. She stalks them from a bush, then teleports inside the ball they were playing with, destroying it.

"Please, Twilight! I don't want to die! I don't even know what my talent is yet!"

She tries to make the Crusaders battle each other for Smarty Pants, her old worn out doll. (It even comes with its own quill and pad of paper, so you can pretend she's doing homework) None of them want it since it is really worn out, and well, Twilight has reached a new level of insanity.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Twilight, getting even more desperate, if that were possible, and casts a 'Want it, need it' spell on the doll. The enchantment causes all the Crusaders to fight for it, but they are two busy pummeling each other to listen to Twilight Worth. Big Macintosh arrives, Twilight asks him for help, he grabs the doll and runs off with it, the enchantment affected him too.

Soon more ponies are drawn in by Twilight's spell. Twilight seems to have gone back to mostly-normal, and is trying to zap the doll to dispel the enchantment. Instead of sniping it from a far, she got into the cluster of ponies.

Use the magic, Twilight.

The crowd is too much, and Twilight can't make the shot. The mayor of Ponyville grabs the doll and runs off, the crowd pursues. A pegasus swoops in and grabs it, another pegasus starts fighting her for it. Twilight's friends are observing all this going down, Twilight runs up and tells them not to look at it, and explains how she enchanted it to make a problem to solve.

It turns out Twilight may have been right that Princess Celestia would be mad, because as the sun sets, the Princess arrives.

"Twilight Sparkle! I have come for you!"

"Oh no... I guess we should have tried to help her, instead of just laughing at her...."

The Princess uses her super magic to dispel the enchantment. The ponies are embarrassed that they were fighting over it once they see it.

I don't really want to think of it, since it takes a lot of fun out of it, but there's probably some huge bureaucracy and rules regulating magic usage. As seen here, Twilight sent a town berserk with one spell.

One of the ponies, the mayor I think, stomps on the doll as the crowd disperses. Big Mac steals it. Celestia lands, tells Twilight to meet her in the library, and flies off.

"Farewell, friends, you ignored my cry for help, now I shall never see you again."

Twilight says goodbye to her friends, telling them she'll be back at Canterlot in magic kindergarten. Now, her friends suddenly show concern. Gee, I don't know gals, you saw Twilight wigging out earlier, think maybe whatever her problem was was serious?

At the library, Spike is spying on the Princess and Twilight. The Princess tells her that she knows Twilight is a good student, and she doesn't need to get a letter from her every week.

"Of all the... You mean I just made myself look like a complete psychopath for no reason???"

Twilight's friends rush in, apologizing and saying it's all their fault for not being there for Twilight when she was obviously extremely stressed out and upset.

"What's all this then?"

Wow, so the Princess was either really going to punish Twilight, or just playing along with them, as she says she will forget Twilight's punishment, but in return they all must write to her whenever they learn about friendship, with no deadline

"The circle is now complete. When I left you, I was but the learner; now I am the master."

They all help compose a letter to Celestia, Spike tries to put in a post-script saying how great he was compared to everyone else. He crosses it out after Twilight glares at him.

"Didn't I already teach you a lesson twice today, Spike? Third times the charm, eh?"

The episode ends with everyone laughing at him.

"Hey everybody, it's the boy that laughs at everyone! Let's all laugh at him! Hah hah!"

What I learned from this episode:

• Ponyverse wars are probably decided by whichever force can incapacitate the others' magic users the fastest.
• I love the Twilight centric episodes. Only bad part is taking so many pictures ends up adding a bunch of time with uploading/formatting etc.
• The series might end like M*A*S*H (SPOILERS) with Twilight ending up in the 'funny farm.'
• Twilight must have had bad experiences with other 'fillies' since she has Fluttershy style freak outs about them, several times in this episode.