The Cutie Mark Chronicles

Dear Princess Luna...

I think it's probably 99.9% chance about the Cutie Mark Crusaders based off the name alone. =]

Yep, may not be completely focused on them, but there they are at the beginning.

I guess the Ponyverse must get South Park, and they recently saw that zip lining episode, but their parents/siblings saw and shut it off before they realized that zip lining sucks.

Spike apparently tried to murder the Crusaders, as Scootaloo says he told her zip lining was awesome, yet no pony has ever done it. Yep, he definitely did. As they go down, their hooks are super heated from the friction, they 'bottom out' on the line, and the hooks burn through.

Spike: "Well I heard Rarity saying how annoying her sister could be, and I couldn't let her bother my fair Rarity, so I did something about it!"

They crash down through the trees, with no cutie marks, and Sweetie Belle asks about Plan B. Scootaloo asks if they know where to find a cannon, then says forget it, because no matter what they do, they never get their marks and surprisingly often end up covered in tree sap. Sweetie Belle suggests something less dangerous, like pillow testing or flower sniffing.  Applebloom has a good idea: ask other ponies what they did to get their marks.

Scootaloo says they should go ask the coolest pony in Ponyville. Applebloom thinks that means Applejack, Sweetie Belle thinks Rarity. Aww. Scootaloo says no, she's fast, tough, and not scared of anything. Both the other Crusaders think she means Pinkie Pie. Scootaloo reiterates, the greatest flyer to come out of Cloudsdale. The others think Fluttershy. Scootaloo finally just says she is talking about Rainbow Dash, and the others agree that makes more sense. Shows how low of an opinion they must hold for Rainbow, if they think Fluttershy is the best flyer.

Also kind of sad that Twilight Sparkle didn't get any mention for being cool, or fast/tough/fearless.

They run into Applejack, chasing rabbits away from the apples. Applebloom asks her how she got her mark. Scootaloo is annoyed, whining that they agreed to go ask Rainbow Dash, not Applejack.

Well, as much as I too was anticipating the exciting Rainbow Dash cutie mark story, this gives me an opportunity to take more Applejack shots I reckon.

Applejack tells her story, saying she was even younger than them when she got it. She left Sweet Apple Acres, not wanting to live on a muddy old farm. She wanted to live like her aunt and uncle Orange. Turns out they lived in Manehattan. (Hey, we get to see it!)

Granny still looks super old, even like a decade ago.

Manehattan looks like a ponyfied New York City. It even has a Statue of Liberty.

The Orange family.

The citizens of Manehattan look as posh as the citizens of Canterlot. One even calls her a rube.

Either the Ponyverse is made over the graves of humanity, or their history played out pretty much the same way, with Ponyverse American colonies rebelling, getting aid from Ponyverse France, then Ponyverse France later sending them a statue of liberty, which eventually corroded to the familiar green shade.

This reminds me, even in this flashback, Applejack's parents are MIA.

Applejack uses the phrase 'y'all' and Aunt Orange says she will have her acting like a true Manehattanite in no time. Sometime later, they are hosting a dinner party, and the guests ask how Applejack is liking Manehattan. Applejack says the city noise took some getting used to, where she is from the nights are so quiet you don't hear a sound until the roosters wake you.

Fancy dinner party: plastic bendy straws.

The Manehattanite guests don't know what a rooster is.

"By Jove, what the devil is a 'rooster'?"

Dinner is brought in by Unicorns, who use magic to carry all the guests' meals. Applejack is glad to get something to eat, but it turns out it's just one slice of carrot in sauce with a sprig of a plant.

Ponies are pretty big animals, that doesn't even seem worth the energy to eat.

Applejack is in her room, watching the sun rise and making a cock-a-doodle-do sound. She gets homesick and wonders what Granny Smith and Big Mac are up to.

"Cock a doodle doo, I miss all of you..."

A tear slides down her cheek, and suddenly a rainbow appears, pointing back towards Ponyville.

Aww.

Hmm, a rainbow suddenly shoots across the sky, presumably was Rainbow Dash's rainbow-Tron trail.

She takes it as a sign and heads home, she embraces Granny and Big Mac and her cutie mark appears. Sweetie Belle and Applebloom think it was a sweet story, Scootaloo dismisses it as sappy.

"That story was bad and you should feel bad!"

Scootaloo resumes her quest to find out the 'cool' way to get a mark. On the way, they crash after trying to stop to avoid hitting Fluttershy, who is standing in the road so ducks can pass. They explain what's going on, and Fluttershy says she wouldn't have her mark if it wasn't for Rainbow. Scootaloo is intrigued. Fluttershy begins telling her story, going back to her traumatic days at flight camp.

As with all terrible things that haunt Fluttershy, it can be traced back to flight camp.

Fluttershy explains she was very shy and a weak flyer. She tried to fly through the loop seen above, barely made it, then tripped and slid down that 'hangar,' got launched into the air, and ripped one of those pennants off the pole. Two male pegasi swoop in to make fun of her, calling her Klutzershy. Rainbow flies past and comes in to defend her, they call her Rainbow Crash and ask what she's gonna do about it. They set up a race.

"I'll destroy you!"

The race starts, with Fluttershy waving the flag, and they zoom past, knocking her off the cloud. She plummets towards the ground and is saved by a huge swarm of butterflies.

"Are you kidding me, these things can fly better than me too?"

Fluttershy is shocked, never being on the ground before, and starts singing about how wonderful it is. I believe a sonic rainboom erupts, scaring the animals.

You remember two great cities in a distant foreign land
When scorched from the face of earth the power of Japan
Be careful my dear brother, don't take away the joy
But use it for the good of man and never to destroy

In the aftermath of the rainboom, Fluttershy goes around and tells the animals it is okay. She discovers she has the ability to communicate with animals, and her cutie mark appears. Scootaloo asks what happened with Rainbow and the race, Fluttershy doesn't know since she wasn't there and apparently never asked Rainbow about it in the years since. The Crusaders head off to Rarity's to see if she knows where Rainbow is. What are we betting here that Rainbow ends up just loafing on a cloud somewhere.

At Rarity's, the Crusaders are roped into helping Rarity set up some outfits or something. Or she is making them clothing. Scootaloo complains whatever it is.

Rarity goes into how she got her mark. She had made costumes for a school play, but no matter what she did they weren't fabulous enough for her. Suddenly, her unicorn horn activated and forcibly dragged her out into the woods.

New use for magic: helping you find your destiny.

Rarity says she knew unicorn magic happens for a reason, and that it had to do with her love of fashion, her destiny, and her cutie mark. It drags her out to the middle of nowhere and stops at a big rock.

"A rock!? What kind of cotton pickin' bunkum is this!"

As Rarity is raging at her horn and the rock, the sonic rainboom bursts o'er head and splits the rock, revealing it to be full of gems. So that's 3/5 of the mane 6 that have Rainbow connected to them getting their marks.

"Oh, horn, I'm so sorry!"

Later, Rarity's costumes are all spruced up with gems and the audience is amazed. Her cutie mark appears. Scootaloo complains about another namby-pamby story about finding who you really are and other boring things like that and pushes the Crusaders out of Rarity's, saying they need action and Rainbow Dash. Somehow, they end up listening to Twilight's instead.

Hang in their Scootaloo! You still have to get through Pinkie Pie, then you should finally get to see Rainbow based on how things are going so far.

Twilight says it all started when she was a filly in Canterlot, and that she had always wanted to go to the Summer Sun Celebration, where Princess Celestia raises the sun.

Doesn't Celestia raise the sun everyday? Any excuse for a carnival I suppose.

While there, Twilight says she saw the most amazing, most wonderful thing. Twilight is seen moving up in a crowd to get a better seat. She squeezes in between two ponies and they look really angry, probably confirming the whole 'Twilight was a terrible pony, thus her getting exiled' thing.

"Just ignore her, she'll get hers soon enough."

 Celestia arrives with much fanfare.

Is it dawn or twilight? Maybe the big deal is she forces the sun to rise up again and extends the day, that would make more sense.

She activates her magic and flies up in front of that sun statue thingy, the crowd goes wild as the light erupts behind her.

Holy spades, Celestia actually doing something awesome with her magic?!

Seeing this performance enkindled a love for magic in Twilight, and she started reading all she could about it, eventually being able to turn pages with her own magic.

Twilight started a love affair with not only magic, but books too it would seem.

 We actually get to see Twilight's parents.

Unicorns of course.

Her parents enrolled her in Princess Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns. Unfortunately for Twilight, she had to pass an entrance exam, where her task is to hatch a dragon egg apparently.

So this must be where she got Spike, and all Gifted Unicorn presumably must be given a dragon slave for a familiar.

The judges are impatient and Twilight tries with all her might but cannot harness the magic to hatch the egg.

Aww. =[

As she is giving up, the sonic rainboom detonates, which supercharges her horn and she hatches the egg. She then activates her Archon cooldown.

Hatching that egg must have made her hit level 30.

Her magic is out of control, she levitates the judges, enlarges Spike, and turns her own parents into a cactus and a plant. Celestia's attention is drawn, she walks up and puts a hoof on Twilight's shoulder, which snaps her out of Archon. The magic effects are dispelled.

Twilight is awesome.

Twilight is revealed to really be the Anakin Skywalker of the Ponyverse, possessing raw magical talent that Celestia has never seen before. (And remember, she's at least a thousand years old)

"Hmm. To a dark place this line of thought will carry us. Great care we must take."

Celestia invites Twilight to be her personal protege at the school. Twilight's parents anxiously encourage her to agree, and Twilight is ecstatic.

Aww.

Celestia interrupts Twilight's celebration to point out her cutie mark, and Twilight is even more excited. We then cut back to the current time, where Twilight is jumping around saying 'Yes!' like in the flashback, the Crusaders are scared and run away before Twilight notices. A crowd is formed and asks if Twilight is okay, she says, "Yes."

Scootaloo laments that they never smash into Rainbow Dash. Pinkie Pie suddenly is in their wagon and, you guessed it, ends up telling them how she got her mark. Aww. Turns out she grew up on a rock farm, where there was no talking or smiling.

Ooh, straight hair Pinkie again.

 We also see Pinkie's family.

Are they breaking open these rocks to get gems or what?

The sonic rainboom goes off and it sparks a joy in Pinkie she had never felt before. She wanted to keep smiling forever, and for all the ponies she knows to smile too.

"Double rainbow!"

Later, she sets up a party in the silo for her family. Her full name is apparently Pinkamina Diane Pie.

Is the mom's mark 3 rocks?

Her family stands astonished, Pinkie thinks they don't like her party, but turns out they love it.

"Awesome! Something besides rocks!"

As they are enjoying themselves, Pinkie's cutie mark appears. Pinkie confuses the Crusaders by telling them that was how Equestria was born, and that she can't wait to tell them how she got her cutie mark. They go into the Cake's shop, and find Rainbow Dash finally.

"Finally! Sister, you don't know how much boring tripe I hadta listen to today."

Rainbow begins her story, starting with the race to defend Fluttershy's honor.

"That freedom was unlike anything I've ever felt. The speed, the adrenaline, the wind in my mane... I liked it a lot."

One of the mean pegasi crashes into a pillar, the other rams into Rainbow and gets ahead of her. She realizes the one thing she likes more than flying fast is winning, and she zooms ahead. She goes so fast she ends up triggering the sonic rainboom, proving it was more than just an old mare's tale.

"Am I going to die??!?"

Sonic rainbooms must have been some kind of theoretical science thing that no one thought was possible, as Rainbow says she achieved the impossible.

"THIS IS AWESOME!"

She proudly tells the Crusaders "And that, little ones, is how you earn a cutie mark. "

The other mane ponies realize that they all had mysterious explosions and/or rainbows appear when they got their marks. They put two and two together and deduce that Rainbow helped them all get their marks. They say they have been BFFs before they even knew each other.

"I told you guys I rock!"

Aww...

Scootaloo is grossed out by the mane 6's display of affection for one another and thinks they should go try zip lining again. Fluttershy offers to sing a song, and Scootaloo screams, 'No!'

"The sweetness is too much!  I need to get the hell outta here!"

Twilight writes to Princess Celestia and says every pony has a special connection to their friends. If you're lonely and still searching for true friends, try looking up at the sky, who knows, you may be looking at the same rainbow.

What I learned from this episode:

• This was a really good episode, giving brief glimpses into the 'mane' characters' history. It seems they truly were destined to be the wielders of the Elements of Harmony, having a close connection before the majority even knew each other.
• Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy must be really close, knowing each other the longest out of the 6, and Rainbow defending her against bullies.
• Scootaloo definitely wants to be like Rainbow it seems, and does have a similar personality. I wonder if she's actually Rainbow's little sister or cousin or something.
• Twilight Sparkle truly is awesome, possessing terrifying magical power from a very young age.
• Rainbow clearly was the one that tied them all together, with the sonic rainboom influencing everyone else, seems like she should have been the 'leader' instead of Twilight.

Update -  This episode ended up being in my top 10 overall favorites, write-up copied from my Triumphant Return post:

The Crusaders decide to ask Rainbow Dash, the coolest pony they know, how she got her cutie mark. On their quest to find Rainbow, they encounter the rest of the 'mane 6' and learn their stories, and we get to see the 'filly' versions of the main characters earning their marks. We learn that their friendship was predestined, and Rainbow Dash's sonic rainboom helped bind them all together.