MMMystery on the Friendship Express

Dear Princess Luna...

So the Cakes are entering a dessert contest, and somehow entrusted Pinkie Pie to bring it to Canterlot. Pinkie, as we know, is an easily distracted glutton. She'll probably eat the thing in one bite.

"Mmmm, forbidden cake..."

Instead of using a cart or whatever, they are carrying this cake on Big Mac's back. Apparently his name is Big Macintosh. The cake is of course tottering about. Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash happened to be flying past, Pinkie recruits them to help stabilize it. The Cakes really don't seem to like Pinkie, yet they hired her to work in their shop (I think) and this is post-Baby Cakes, so she's their full time sitter. I guess they know, as I mentioned, that Pinkie is an 'easily distracted glutton' so if this cake makes it all the way in one piece, it will be via divine intervention only.

Pinkie recruits Twilight Sparkle to put a magic forcefield around it, and then Rarity and Applejack to carry a trampoline behind them.

Quasi-new use for magic, protecting cakes with forcefields.

They get the cake aboard the Canterlot train, and Pinkie starts boasting about how good the cake is going to be. A French accented 'human' griffon counters that his eclairs will destroy the 'crude cake' and he will be champion.

The 'Mane 6' better watch out, I'm just saying.

A Unicorn that Twilight calls Donut Joe enters, talking trash to the griffon. His entry is Donutopia. Once again hinting that Unicorns are innately driven to evil, he does a super villain laugh as he talks about how his donuts will 'steal' first prize.

"First Donutopia...

...tomorrow, the world! Muhahah!"

A mule I guess enters, calling herself Mulia Mild, and says her mousse moose will trample all their treats and win her first prize. So she's obviously going to use some kind of shamanistic magic to animate the mousse moose and just flat out ruin the competitions' entries.

That thing is creepy enough as-is, imagine if it was animated with some unholy magics.

The chefs and Pinkie start arguing, and Twilight Worth can't resist meddling, telling them all they should just try to get some sleep. It looked to be in the afternoon or middle of the day too.

The chefs go to their cabins, Pinkie starts freaking out, thinking the chefs will sabotage the cake. Twilight and the others think she's just being, well, Pinkie.

"So, a griffon, a mule, and a unicorn walk into a train..."

 Pinkie is left to guard the cake on her own.

We see no terror in your eyes.
They say that sleeping you were found;
Now we with bayonets guard you round.
Night's shadow up the hillside creeps,
But you still watch the lighted skies,
Although the sentinel that sleeps The next dawn dies.

So, either Pinkie's friends are to blame, or Donut Joe/Mulia Mild or some other passengers are the culprits, as Pinkie chases after two pony-ish shadows. Then, something simultaneously closes all the blinds, which points the finger at Donut Joe or a Unicorn, unless Mulia really does have shamanistic magic...

Pinkie feels proud that she was right that the cake was in danger, then promptly falls asleep.

Aww.

Twilight wakes up, Pinkie is congratulating herself, Twilight spins the cake around and shows that someone ate off the back side of it.

"Pinkie! The sentinel that sleeps, the next dawn dies!"

Pinkie freaks out and her scream wakes up/summons her friends and rivals.

Rainbow Dash looks guilty, Gustave looks bored. Theory: Gustave paid Rainbow to eat it?

Twilight says she knows what to do since she's read many mystery novels. Pinkie uses her Bugs Bunny abilities to conjure up some Sherlock Holmesian gear.

"Well, I've read mystery books, y'know."

Pinkie dubs Twilight her 'lowly assistant that asks silly questions with obvious answers' and then points the finger at the griffon.

Hahaha, I actually burst out laughing as this black and white silent movie about the griffon destroying the cake started playing. Damn, that was good. Complete with moustache twirling, girl-tied-up-on-train-tracks, and a conveyor belt and saw.

"Mua Hahhah! Your cake is mine, foolish damsel!"

Wow, Twilight debunks this theory, due to the fact that Pinkie wasn't tied to train tracks, and the cake wasn't sawn in half and has bite marks. (Which means Pinkie either narrated it out loud for everyone, or Bugs Bunny'd it so they all saw it, somehow) Because of this, Pinkie clears the griffon.

Oh man, I just mentioned it last episode, there's a James Bond parody for Pinkie's Donut Joe theory. =] It starts with the classic through the barrel/scope scene, and the blood is from Joe biting into a donut and spraying jelly. Go figure, the Unicorn James Bond in this case is Mane, Con Mane. Too bad my writing skill isn't what it was a decade ago, as I could probably get a job on this show, seems like we come up with almost the same bits. =]

"Blueberry donut. Frosted, not glazed."

In this 'flashback' Con Mane is chilling with a bunch of females, and gets a signal on his wrist communicator to go destroy the cake.

 

He cuts through the glass on the door and throws in a gas grenade to knock out Pinkie.

Con Mane then uses his bow tie to expose the security lasers around the cake. He then uses a mirror to refract the lasers and slice up the cake.

 The ladies swoon at his feet as he stands triumphantly.

No surprise non-Unicorns are fawning over him, Unicorns rock.

Twilight dismisses Joe as the culprit because the cake wasn't cut up by lasers, and he's not 'sleek, stealthy Con Mane, he's big, gruff, and messy!' Joe is offended by this, until Rarity says he would look dapper in a tuxedo, and his eyes pop out. Apparently he has the hots for Rarity. Also, if he really was Con Mane, wouldn't an unassuming alter-ego be exactly what a super spy would have?

I'm not entirely sure what this next one is a parody of, anime in general? Probably something specific but I'll be damned if I can remember. Mulia is ninja somersaulting across the train, sneaks in behind Pinkie and brains her with a frying pan. She then pulls out a katana/ninja to/wakizashi/whatever and dices up the cake.

I guess it was some kind of mystic ninja magic she was going to animate her mousse moose with.

I wish we had reaction shots of everyone after Pinkie tells these stories. The 'suspects' always look absolutely terrified when we cut back to them and Pinkie is all up in their face. Gee, I wonder why...

Haha, Twilight is telling Pinkie it can't be Mulia, as she is lying terrified on the floor, and Pinkie says "I guess you're right." Twilight responds with "Thank you!" and sounds like she has been waiting to hear those words for a really long time. It is Twilight Worth after all, so, yeah.

"Thank you!"

Pinkie starts talking about how good the other desserts look, and wondering why it was only the cake that was attacked. The train hits a tunnel and everything goes dark. On the other side, the desserts have been ravaged and Pinkie is perplexed.

Hmm, Pinkie, the notorious glutton, could she be 'blacking out' and eating it all and not remembering? Eh, probably not, as she would have surely ate the other desserts already.

Twilight decides to take over the investigation, dismissing the others except Pinkie back to their cabins.

Pretentious use for magic: wiping your friend's icky germs from a pipe.

Twilight manages to get the actual story out of Pinkie, collecting evidence in the caboose where she lost the first shadowy figure, evidence from the conductor's hat, which the second figure was wearing, and then evidence in the dessert car from the portrait. I didn't mention this before, but yeah, this kind of hints at some darker side of the Ponyverse, since it's of a military officer with lots of decorations.

Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are marching, the Kaiser standing at the door! And we'll get a submarine, and we'll strap him on a beam, and he won't be the Kaiser anymore!

They're also really into role playing and Twilight has been constantly puffing on the bubble pipe, and when Pinkie stole back the Sherlock hat, Twilight forced her to switch back.

"That's what I thought, Pinkie."

Twilight shows the evidence. Rainbow's feather was in the caboose, and she evaded Pinkie by flying against the roof. Fluttershy's hair was in the conductor's hat. She confirmed that magic made all the curtains close, score another point for magic/Unicorns, and that Rarity smashed into the portrait and lost an eyelash.

Pariah's use for magic: embarrassing one of your few friends.

So it turns out Rarity, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy were so enthralled by Pinkie's boasts about the cake that they just had to try some. Go figure, Applejack, Twilight, and Pinkie Pie were the ones able to resist.

"I was going to eat all of it if you hadn't caught me!"

They still have to figure out who ate the other desserts, they swap hats again and Pinkie figures it out. The griffon ate the mousse, the unicorn ate the eclairs, and the mule ate the donuts. Once again, Pinkie is to blame, as her descriptions of the desserts made them seem so good, they couldn't resist. They are downhearted that now they can't even enter the contest, and Pinkie says she can fix that.

Pinkie then narrates a letter to Princess Celestia, saying it's bad to jump to conclusions, and that from now on she'll make sure she has all the facts. So, they ended up making a combination of all their desserts...

That is even creepier than before.

..and won.

Hurrah! The decapitated moose head on funeral pyre won! (Which raises the question, are moose 'human' like ponies, or 'non-human' like goats/dogs/cats/birds. If they're 'human' then this thing is all kinds of disturbing, no?)

I think the whole dessert contest was just a scam, because as soon as they put the award on it, Princess Celestia appears, licking her lips. If you recall from the last episode I watched, the Cutie Mark Crusaders did an article about Celestia wolfing down cake. (Which Twilight complained about.) Looks like it is true.

"Mmmm, mounuteclaike...."

Twilight offers some cake/mousse/eclair/donut to Celestia, unfortunately she uses the phrase, "Care for a bite?" while Pinkie is near.

"Where the hell is mine, Twilight?"

"I was going to do that..."

I was sort of right once again. Start of the episode I figured Pinkie would 'eat it in one bite.'  Pinkie did indeed eat the thing in one bite, although it wasn't technically the cake at this time. The episode ends with 'bites' being taken out of the 'screen' and everyone laughing at Pinkie.

Pinkie's uncontrollable gluttony strikes again.

What I learned from this episode:

• Twilight is really into role playing, go figure for the 'nerdy' pony.
• This episode was pretty solid overall, but especially the silent movie/James Bond parodies. Those scenes alone would rate it pretty high for me.
• Once again, it is shown that Unicorns are probably the biggest scoundrels in Equestria, as those that turn to 'evil' will be nigh-unstoppable thieves or spies. Even Rarity was able to use magic to pull one over on Pinkie Pie

Update: Some additional, post-odyssey commentary can be found here.