The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000

Dear Princess Luna...

Episode begins with Fluttershy's house at night. Rainbow knocks at her door, then crashes through the window. Cider season is about to start. As I mentioned last episode, the ponies normally walk about with their 'bits' out. Rainbow rips the blanket off of Fluttershy, and this happens.

...

AWKWARD!

 So... yeah. Fluttershy and Rainbow clearly bringing attention to Fluttershy's nether region. What's worse is there have been a variety of shots in past episodes that expose or 'present' that area, so Spike must be having the time of his life.

Rainbow says that every year, Pinkie drinks all this cider and they always run out, so they are going to get there early just so Rainbow can laugh at Pinkie when she doesn't get any. Her evil plan to torture poor Pinkie is interrupted as they see a long line of ponies have already set up camp at the cider stand. First in line is none other than Pinkie Pie herself.

Pinkie Pie: 1 Rainbow: None

Pinkie had the same idea as Rainbow, and told other ponies about camping out, and they all thought it was a good idea. I think Pinkie has the same cider deprivation plan as Rainbow, as she casually taunts 'hope they don't run out before you get any' and resumes her place as first in line. Rainbow is not amused.

Ponies really like cider apparently.

"Stupid Pinkie Pie."

 Morning comes, and there is a humongous line for cider. Spike is excited because it's 'only 30 more days until sapphire season!' Twilight and Rarity are not amused.

At least Rarity isn't having Spike ogle her rear while waiting in this huge line, and Twilight has the decency to at least subject herself to his perversion instead of that random pony in front of them.

 Cider season officially opens, and Pinkie uses her life's savings or something to buy a ton of it.

Not only did Pinkie buy tons of cider, she has mastered walking on two legs.

Rainbow moves closer and closer to getting her cider, as the cider supply quickly depletes. Finally, it is her turn, and of course, they are all out of cider for the day.

Aww...

Rainbow starts talking trash, and the other cider-less ponies join in. Applejack tries to quiet the angry mob by explaining how much love and care they put into their cider. The mob finally walks away. Pinkie decides to make sure Rainbow hates her forever by boasting about how perfect the cider was.

"If you want to blame someone, blame Pinkie Pie, she bought damn near a dozen mugs I reckon."

A bizzare vehicle drives up and gets every pony's attention.

The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000 arrives.

Out come two traveling cider salesunicorns, who comment that it's 'the same in every town', not enough cider and too many thirsty ponies.

Con artists nonpareil!

They continue singing their prepared spiel about their vehicle, the Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000, and the crowd is really getting into it.

Rarity swoons and nearly crushes Spike.

They ask to 'borrow' some apples, and Applejack agrees. Magic, once again, is proving extremely useful, as the Flim Flam brothers use it to manipulate their machine.

Green magic, hmm. Just like the 'evil' Mi Amore Cadenza? Every other unicorn/royalty seems to use white, gold, pink, purple, blue, etc. so green may be reserved for 'evil' unicorns...

As their machine starts producing cider, Applejack's granny interrupts to talk trash about their cider. She claims it is no good because it lacks the quality and care of their cider, is offered a mug and enjoys it, much to her surprise.

Aww.

The Apple family huddles to discuss whether they trust these guys or not. Flim and Flam offer to supply the SSCS6k and the Apples provide, well, the apples, sharing profit 75:25. We saw the ponies buying this stuff and were paying two coins a mug. I have no idea what the currency is in Equestria, but seems like the Apples were making so-so profit from it.

Applejack asks who gets the 75, and of course it is Flim and Flam. Proving Unicorns/magic rock once again, Flam? adds they'll throw in the magic that powers the machine in for free.

Horn envy.

The cider sales are necessary to keep the Apples' orchard going through winter. The Apples decline the deal, and Flim and Flam are angered. They decide to become competitors if the Apples don't want to be partners, and threaten to run the Apples out of business. Yep, green must mean evil for Unicorns.

So, the Apples own probably all the apple trees in the area. I doubt they would sell apples to two ponies that just threatened their livelihood. So, are we to believe Flim and Flam would just steal apples, or go to a nearby town, make cider, then bring it back just to spite the Apples?

The next day, they run out of cider, and Rainbow once again is denied. Haha, looks like I was wrong, instead of getting apples from a nearby town and returning, they are just trying to sell the cider they made with the 'borrowed' apples.

 

Rainbow is immediately given a mug, and Applejack lassos the cider barrel, knocking Rainbow's mug to the ground before she can finally savor that delicious cider.

Applejack, you're her friend! Just save her a mug already, look at that poor girl, eating dirt.

I was only partly wrong I guess, as Flim and Flam threaten to just go find some other apples and come back with cider. I think they only sucked up one tree's worth and they had like 6 barrels of cider though, which is around how much the Apples sell each day, so you can see why Rainbow and the others aren't happy with the Apples' cider production.

The little girl Applebloom starts talking trash to Flim and Flam, challenging them to some kind of cider race. The Apples have walked right into Flim and Flam's trap. Not only did they trick Granny into letting them use their apples, the bet is now whoever makes the most cider in an hour (as mentioned they had like 6 or so barrels they made in maybe a minute from earlier) gets to be the exclusive provider of cider for Ponyville.

As mentioned, not being able to get the full profits from the cider season will make them lose their farm. So it's pretty clear who has the upperhand here, wandering unicorn 'bamboozlers' with nothing to lose.

"Maybe letting a little filly and a senile old mare make decisions that affect our livelihood ain't the best idea."

Haha, yesterday: Twilight "I'm sure you'll win" next morning: Twilight "Are you sure this is such a good idea?"

Unicorns know how to travel in style and comfort.

The mayor announces the rules of the contest. Let me make sure I pay attention to them, because as we saw in the horrible memory that is May the Best Pet Win, ponies are extremely picky about verbal contracts. "The teams have one hour to produce as much cider as they can. After which, the barrels will be counted and the winner will be named the sole cider provider of Ponyville." Okay, seems pretty straight forward, but it's quantity and not quality that is going to matter.

The contest begins,  and the Apples (except the granny) race into action. Flim and Flam merely yawn and use their magic to get their machine going.

 The Apples' method on the other hand involves Applejack kicking apples from trees, Applebloom catching them in a basket on her head and running them over to the granny, who screens out the bad apples and puts the good ones into a chute, where their brother runs on a treadmill to power the cider mill and has to stop to replace the barrels.

Applebloom starts talking trash again, thinking Flim and Flam don't even have one barrel done. Well, they don't have one done, they have 6. They could have even just had some empty barrels stacked up, as the sight of them has the intended demoralization effects on the Apples.

Rarity comments that Flim and Flam are making 3 barrels for every 1 the Apples do. Twilight, the Mary Worth of the Ponyverse, decides it is time to meddle once again. At least this time it's to try and help her friend instead of just attacking them for not conforming perfectly to her views of how ponies should behave.

Flim and Flam are so sure of themselves, that they wouldn't even care if the whole kingdom of Canterlot helps the Apples.

"Yay! We get to work!"

"You are not all going to die, only two percent of you right here today would die in a major battle. Death must not be feared. Death, in time, comes to all men. Yes, every man is scared in his first battle. If he says he's not, he's a liar. Some men are cowards but they fight the same as the brave men or they get the hell slammed out of them watching men fight who are just as scared as they are. The real hero is the man who fights even though he is scared."

Fluttershy is assigned to help knock apples out of trees. Pinkie will help catch them. Rarity will help sort out the bad apples. Rainbow will help Big Mac (must be Applejack's brother) run the cider press. Twilight apparently decided her only task should be moving the barrels around with magic. Update: There's a Season 1 episode where Twilight picks a ton of apples all at once with magic.

Yeah, someone had to do it, but that does seem like a very easy job for someone with magic, and she was the one assigning them..

With her friends helping, the Apples are now making 5 barrels for every 3 of Flim and Flam's. Flim and Flam are alarmed, and double the power of their machine. This causes it to suck up entire trees, and every apple gets rejected since it has a bunch of branches and leaves around it. They disable their QA and every apple plus leaves and branches passes. Their cider production picks up pace, but the result doesn't look good.

The nasty cider.

Rainbow panics and wants them to skip their quality control step. Granny and Applejack don't want to 'cheat,' even though their livelihood is on the line.

The contest ends, Twilight says how proud she is of Applejack for her integrity, and that integrity will always be rewarded, and... Flim and Flam won.

Your sad devotion to that 'Apple family quality' has not helped you conjure up more barrels, or given you enough clairvoyance to realize you were doomed to lose in the first place

Wait, so the bet was 'whoever makes more barrels gets exclusive cider selling rights' right? So now the Apples have immediately lost their farm to Flim and Flam apparently. Rainbow tries to physically assault them and is stopped by the honorable Applejack. Somehow, the bet really meant that whoever won got ownership of the farm, not just the rights to sell cider in Ponyville.

Flim-Flam Fields

Flim and Flam offer their cider and choose one of the poor quality barrels they made at the end. Really, we are to believe they are that dumb to pick one of the barrels they made while sucking up entire trees with QA turned off? Although, all the barrels are in this giant tower so I guess it makes sense. They really should have known better, considering they came across as these evil manipulators.

They also pay no heed when the nasty cider is poured in front of them.

The ponies of course don't like it and say they won't even pay 1 cent for it. That's the magic word for Flim and Flam. They offer two mugs for a cent, a barrel for two bits. The barrels are probably worth more than two bits on their own, but still the ponies say no.

Wow, stupidly Flim and Flam decide to just leave to the next town since no pony wants their product. What the hell. They already won the contest, and somehow the Apple farm, so they could certainly go through their barrels and get rid of the 'double power, no quality control' worthless cider, but no.

Applebloom had just talked about how they have enough cider for everyone, there's a huge thing of Apple family cider barrels, Rainbow is next in line and the current barrel runs out and tears start welling up. Really, Rainbow? Pinkie gives Rainbow her own mug. That seems unnecessary since Rainbow could just wait the 20 seconds for Big Mac to move in a new barrel, but I can see why they put it in there to try and make the whole Pinkie-Rainbow cider war come to an end.

The Apples, formerly complaining how they need the cider money to keep their farm, appear to just be giving it away, too.

Applejack writes to Princess Celestia, and just brags about how everything went her way even though we all know she lost the contest and her farm, even with her friends helping, and only 'won' in the end because she's a 'mane' character, as the evil Flim and Flam, extortionists nonpareil, were suddenly rendered into morons.

What I learned from this episode:

• Ponies are extremely obsessed with cider, especially Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie.
• More of Equestria's dark side was revealed, as there are traveling con-ponies that just want to steal apple farms, since there must be big money in cider.
• Unicorns are probably responsible for all the high-tech stuff in the Ponyverse, as Flim and Flam likely built (and power) their Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000 thanks to magic. Like I said last night or so, this also proves that the power of magic is not something all unicorns can control, and like Flim and Flam, some are lured into a life of criminality thanks to the many uses of magic.