Season Two

Dear Princess Luna...

Alright, so I have now officially watched and commented on all 26 episodes of Season 2. Ooyah!

Time for some after-the-show thoughts.

I've learned a lot about the show's universe. If you had asked me to choose a universe to live in without evil and that sort of thing, before I knew what I now know, I'd probably have said My Little Pony's, based off what little I knew of it being some sugar-coated, girly, show. However, as I and my readers have discovered, that is definitely not the case, as great evil lurks in the Ponyverse. However, there is also great heroism lurking as well, as seen with Twilight Sparkle.

My top 5 characters, in no particular order:

Twilight Sparkle

 

She's smart, heroic, cares for her friends and family, loyal to her monarch, and, oh yes, she's a Unicorn and not only that, is potentially the Anakin Skywalker of the Ponyverse, representing the Element of Magic itself and likely destined to be an immensely powerful mage.

Daring Do

I know not whether she is a 'real' character or merely the Ponyverse's Harry Potter equivalent. Regardless, she is awesome. Part Indiana Jones, part Lara Croft, all badass.

Princess Luna

Dark and mysterious, Princess Luna is one of the two guardians of the realm. A demigod, she has incredible mastery over magic, able to animate the inanimate, summon storm clouds and lightning, and alter her appearance at will, among other things.

Princess Mi Amore Cadenza

 

There's actually two characters here, the real Princess Cadence and the Evil Cadence, I'm mostly talking about the Evil Cadence, as, lord knows why, I really liked her attitude, but if it wasn't for them both singing 'perfect,' I doubt I would be writing this right now.  The Evil Cadence possesses mastery over infernal magic, the Good Cadence has mastery over love magic. If I had watched almost any other episode first, I doubt I would have continued going with this project, the Cadences really drew me in.

Rainbow Dash

She's cool, has a pretty snazzy character design, and has got moxie in spades. She dreams of joining the Wonderbolts, and is one of the fastest pegasi around. She isn't necessarily the most helpful pony, but she really cares for her friends, especially Fluttershy. She also loves cider.

I'd probably have to go back and read what I wrote for each episode, but from what I recall...

My top 10 episodes, in no particular order:

• Luna Eclipsed
• Read It and Weep
• A Canterlot Wedding Part 1
• A Canterlot Wedding Part 2
  
• Hearth's Warming Eve
  
• Sweet and Elite
• It's About Time
  
• MMMystery on the Friendship Express
• Putting Your Hoof Down
• The Mysterious Mare Do Well
  

I doubt I could even make a 'worst 5,' let alone a 'worst 10,' as there was really only one, everything else was good. (It was hard just choosing 10 for the above list)

Obviously, that one terrible episode would be: May the Best Pet Win.
It does have some redeeming features (like the pet talent show and the Find a Pet song) but, yeah, definitely the worst episode so far in my opinion.


To be honest, I can definitely see why there are some unusual fans of this show. It is rather charming. The humor's pretty good, it isn't sullied with an over abundance of toilet humor or things like that. It also, with the dishonorable exception of May the Best Pet Win, didn't really feel like other 'kids' shows with extremely predictable/forced plots/humor.

Well, I think I actually was able to guess a decent chunk of story bits, but I never had the bad taste that was left from May the Best Pet Win in any other episodes that I can remember.



I'm still debating whether I will go through Season 1 or not, I probably will, so long as 'real life' doesn't throw any more monkey wrenches my way.


What I Would Like to See in Season 3 or beyond:

More Daring Do! Preferably as a 'real' character, but either way works, so long as we get to see her wrecking stuff up again. Especially if we get a The Last Crusade parody, so we can get some Knight Templar action going on. =]

More Princess Luna! For such a central character to the lore (reigning over the night) we saw barely any of her. Luna Eclipsed and a few shots in A Canterlot Wedding, I think that was it. (Or possibly shots of Nightmare Moon in the stained glass windows in The Return of Harmony) Make sure she keeps talking with 'thous' 'thys' and 'thees'  though, it's charming and adds a little to the character.

In that episode where Cerberus had left his post, future villains could have escaped. That could probably be a running plot for a couple episodes.

Return of Flim and Flam. Have them come back, continually trying to run other businesses out of town with a variety of crazy machines. Eventually Twilight convinces them to just make machines to sell.

If it isn't shown in Season 1, there needs to be an episode showing the Wonderbolts as something other than useless. 

A 'pony' James Bond/secret agent. We had a brief James Bond parody in MMMystery, should be able to get a good episode out of spy stuff like that.

The 'other' Equestria, what happened to the ponies old home? What about other regions like Manehattan, Fillydelphia, Las Pegasus(?), Trottingham? Maybe Season 1 visits some of those, but it would be interesting to see the 'mane 6' travel their world.

My 'dream' episode:
Tying in some of the above, Daring Do is a real pony. For the Last Crusade parody, the Holy Grail (the Chalice of Forever Friends or something for the Ponyverse version) is an ancient artifact that Luna and Celestia used to become immortals, and/or got their powers. A villain/group of villains that escaped from Tartarus is after the Chalice. The villain should be able to use magic so they can conjure up enemies that can be destroyed without the whole, you know, actually killing living things jazz. Perhaps they should be an evil 'royalty' breed pony, an ancient warlord. Daring Do teams up with Twilight and co. plus Luna and Celestia to thwart the villains. The villain might also have cursed Celestia and Luna. removing their immortality, making it much more important to them to actually interfere in mortal affairs. (Especially for Celestia, who usually just lets others do all the dirty work)

The entire kingdom of Equestria is mobilized against this threat. Battle scenes like in A Canterlot Wedding Pt. 2 to show off Ponyverse military tech. Unicorns melt faces with their magic, not literally of course since it's a 'kids' show. =] The Wonderbolts are shown as the Equestrian air force and actually accomplish things. As they push the enemy back, Celestia and Luna leave Shining Armor in charge so they can accompany Twilight.

Flim and Flam, former ne'er do wells turned Thomas Edison/Nikola Tesla, build a B-17 Flying Fortress inspired flying machine for Twilight.  Daring Do pilots, Spike 'co-pilots', Twilight navigates, Fluttershy is radioman, Applejack is flight engineer, Rarity is bombardier, Rainbow and Pinkie are gunners (using their speed/Bugs Bunny powers to rapidly switch between all the gun positions) and Celestia and Luna use magic to fight off enemies and keep the craft together. They fight through hordes of the warlord's summons, but eventually get shot down/crash/land close to the Chalice's location.

The Chalice is in a heavily booby trapped cathedral. Twilight and co. are smug, preparing to use the Elements of Harmony. The warlord does something to make it even harder for them to proceed. Casts a spell that swaps their minds perhaps. Luna and Celestia swap, Daring Do and Rainbow swap, Pinkie and Fluttershy swap, Applejack and Twilight swap, and Rarity and Spike swap. Or he just keeps swapping them around, so that they can't get the Elements to function and he escapes. They work through their new difficulties and the cathedral's traps. They arrive at the Chalice chamber, where the Ponyverse Knight Templar, a Unicorn or 'royalty' breed pony, dispels the warlord's magic and restores their minds.

As that happens, the warlord teleports in and finds himself in a room full of Chalices. I think something would need to be done to Celestia and Luna, since they would know which Chalice was legit, maybe they have been progressively weakening from his curse and pass out. The Knight Templar says the choice is always up to the mortals and refuses to reveal it, either. The warlord isn't taking any chances and forces the mane 6, Spike, and Daring Do to try the chalices. Instead of instant death like in the real deal, crazy magical effects occur.

In the mayhem from the above, a chalice is knocked over, spilling its contents onto Celestia and Luna. They regain their full strength, dispel the magic effects from their allies, then they all unite and defeat the warlord. The mane 6 contemplate drinking the immortality elixir and choose not to, agreeing that they still have so much more to do and learn and don't want to be teenagers forever, the Knight Templar says it shall always be there if they change their minds.The episode(s) end with a brief scene of Tartarus, then there is a great victory celebration all across Equestria, showing celebratory scenes in different regions so we can see Trottingham/Las Pegasus/Fillydeplhia etc.


That would be amazing to see, I can almost picture some of the scenes too, especially the Chalice chamber. Everyone is cautiously sipping at chalices while Pinkie runs around gulping them down.