Winter Wrap Up

Dear Princess Luna...

Twilight wakes up Spike, telling him it is Winter Wrap Up Day, the day before spring where all the Ponyville ponies 'clean up' winter. Spike asks why they don't just use magic to change seasons like they do in Canterlot, and Twilight explains Ponyville was founded by Earth ponies, so they don't use magic to keep with tradition. Twilight gets prepared in winter garb, and is ready to rock, only to find every other pony is still asleep.

There are apparently three teams, which each have vests Rarity designed: blue vests for Weather, green vests for Plants, and tan vests for Animals.

Twilight is so excited to get started.

The Mayor asks them to try and have the quickest Winter Wrap Up ever, and the ponies disperse. Twilight wasn't assigned a vest and doesn't know where to go. Applejack is leader of Plants, random unicorn leads Animals, and Rainbow leads Weather, marked by arm/leg bands. Twilight asks herself what exactly every pony does, and a song begins.

I like how the leaders are Rainbow, Applejack, and random Unicorn instead of Fluttershy, but then again Fluttershy isn't cut out to be a leader like that.

The song begins with some details on Ponyverse winter. It lasts 3 months and has lots of awesome holidays (Hearth's Warming Eve), they get vacations, but their food supply gets depleted and so they have to end it. We see scenes of the ponies clearing away snow etc, and bits detailing each team's duties.

Bringing home the southern birds

A Pegasus' job begins

And clearing all the gloomy skies

To let the sunshine in

We move the clouds 

 And we melt the white snow

When the sun comes up

Its warmth and beauty will glow!

Little critters hibernate

Under the snow and ice 

We wake up all their sleepy heads

So quietly and nice 

We help them gather up their food

Fix their homes below 

We welcome back the southern birds  

So their families can grow!

Twilight continues to wander around in amazement, and gets snow dropped on her by Rainbow Dash.

"Rainbow, you prick!"

No easy task to clear the ground

Plant our tiny seeds

With proper care and sunshine

Everyone it feeds

Apples, carrots, celery stalks

Colorful flowers too

We must work so very hard 

It's just so much to do!

Twilight doesn't know where she should go, and says she just wants to belong. Aww.

Now that I know what they all do

I have to find my place

And help with all of my heart

Tough task ahead I face

How will I do without my magic

Help the Earth pony way

I wanna belong so I must

Do my best today,

Do my best today!

Winter Wrap Up! Winter Wrap Up!

Let's finish our holiday cheer

Winter Wrap Up! Winter Wrap Up!

'Cause tomorrow spring is here

Winter Wrap Up! Winter Wrap Up!

Cause tomorrow spring is here

'Cause tomorrow spring is here

'Cause tomorrow spring is here!

Twilight still doesn't know what she should do, and happens to see Rainbow Dash. She asks to join the Weather team, but of course can't since she's not a pegasus, or allowed to use magic. She sees Rarity and asks to help her. Rarity is making birds' nests, Twilight completely fails at this. As Rarity starts working to fix Twilight's horrible nest, they slink away.

"It's just a little crappy, it's still good! It's still good!"

Next up is Pinkie Pie, who is on the weather team. So Rainbow, instead of giving some non-pegasus work to Twilight, just blew her off. Nice. Pinkie's job is to 'score' the ice on the lakes so the rest of the Weather team can break it up easier. Twilight awkwardly invites herself to help, and Pinkie agrees.

"You're a pony... I'm a pony... You do stuff... I want to do stuff.."

Twilight forgot one thing: she can't skate. You know you've hit rock bottom when Spike is laughing at you.

"Why didn't you tell me you can't skate!" "I was just so happy to be a part of something... I didn't think it would lead to our untimely demise!"

Pinkie gets rid of Twilight by telling her to go see if Fluttershy needs help with the critters. Turns out Fluttershy does need help (what happened to the rest of team Animals?) and Twilight volunteers. (For those keeping score at home, that would be Rarity, Pinkie, Rainbow, and Fluttershy, leaving Applejack as her next likely visit once she fails at this task)

Twilight is all excited, wondering what cute little animals she woke up. It turns out to be snakes.

"Fubar!"

She backs into a cave full of bats, runs from those, hitting into a tree, which drops a beehive on her head, she then staggers back into a cave full of skunks. Back at home, Spike is helping her bathe in tomato juice.

"I've got the blues, I've got the blues, I've got the tomato juice blues. So many bee stings, makes me feel all queasy. Nasty skunk spray, I let them off too easy."

Spike tries to convince Twilight to ruin Ponyville's decades long tradition by using magic. She says they have never needed magic, and he tries to justify her being a dick because she was never here before either.

Twilight seeks out Applejack, and volunteers to help move snow. Applejack is really surprised at this, and highly skeptical that Twilight can do the work.

"This is some kind of Canterlot prank right? You offer to do somethin' you know you can't then I end up havin' to do it for you or somethin' like that?"

Twilight is unable to move the plow thingy, and Spike's words echo in her mind. She uses a Come to Life spell, and the plow moves on its own. The plow eventually goes out of control and Twilight crashes into Applejack and Spike, rolling them into a giant snowball, then smashing into a cliff face or whatever it is.

"I was just trying to help..." "Help who, the windigos?!"

This causes an avalanche, which covers back up most of the field the other ponies had cleared. Applejack yells at Twilight for using magic, especially on her farm, and Twilight runs off in tears. One of the plow pushing ponies may have tried to run her over.

Aww... =[

Twilight is hiding in some shrubbery and Spike makes sure to point out what a failure she is in everything she tried to do. Applejack orders Rainbow's Weather team to melt all the snow, Fluttershy belays that order, saying if the snow melts the animals' homes will flood. They start arguing and the Mayor walks up, scolding them and says stuff like that is why they are always late for Spring. That gets Twilight's attention.

All hell does indeed seem to be breaking loose at Winter Wrap Up, and it is going to be later than ever. The ice scorer (ahem Pinkie) made the ice chunks too big to melt.

"Uh, Twilight did it?"

The nest maker, Rarity, has only made one nest and they need several hundred.

"Why did Twilight run off instead of helping me!"

There are still clouds and icicles that need to be cleared. Caramel Apple lost the grass seeds, again.  Ditzy Doo went north to get southern birds, and apparently went west last year. All the ponies start complaining at once.

"Wait a second, wait a second! There's one common factor here: Twilight Sparkle, she messed up all our stuff!"

The mayor says they are going to be late again, and what they need is to be more organized which is the magic word for Twilight. Rejuvenated, she springs forth and orders Spike to get her clipboard.

"Spike, we salute the rank, not the mare."

Twilight Worth tries to get every pony to listen to her, but they ignore her, she then uses magic on a bird to get their attention.

Twilight's new use for magic: torturing birds to make them scream.

No one objects to Twilight taking over, and she quickly gets things back under control. She gets a team organized to make the birds' nests.

Why was Rarity tasked with making hundreds of nests on her own, anyway.

Plots out how to properly score the lake ice.

"You want to know if they're true or not... the stories about me. Did you ever notice with stories like that, everyone says they heard it from someone who was there. But then when you ask *that* person, they say *they* heard it from someone who was there. It's nothing new, really. I bet if you went back two thousand years, you'd hear a couple of centurions standing around, yakking about how Tertius lopped off the heads of some Carthaginian prisoners."

A more efficient way to plow and plant the seeds.

"This almost makes up for you ruinin' our hard work earlier. Thanks for not screwing things up a second time."

A seemingly not that efficient bell and rope system to simultaneously ring bells at all the critter dens. (Why not just ring the bell when in front of the dens while setting up this system?) The snakes comes out and scare Twilight again.

"Snakes, why is it always snakes..."

The pegasi create some kind of horizontal vortex to drag away the clouds and snow.

The work continues into the night and the next morning, and they are on time for Spring, thanks to the obsessive organizational skills of Twilight Sparkle.

"Hurrah! Hurrah! We bring the jubilee! Hurrah! Hurrah! The Spring that sets you free!"

Twilight gets her very own vest and the title of All-Team Organizer.

Aww.

Spike fell asleep, and they set him adrift on a piece of ice, and the whole town laughs at the thought of him drowning.

"Hope you can swim, Spike!"

Back at Twilight's she dictates a letter to Celestia, to a sick Spike. She says Winter Wrap Up was one of the most special things she's experienced in Ponyville, and it helped her learn they all have hidden talents, sometimes you just need to be patient, and as always, good friendship and teamwork can conquer anything. Spike falls asleep and the episode ends with Twilight laughing at him.

What I learned from this episode:

• Twilight may be all about magic, and fail hard when she isn't allowed to use it, but her other aspects can shine if given the chance. I don't think they really touch upon that whole 'Twilight has her own lab' angle besides in that one episode (or perhaps in ones before this), but they ought to expand on that instead of her non-magic roles being obsessively organizing and meddling.
• What would happen to the Ponyverse if all the pony tribes died out, since they are in control of the weather, sunrise/sunset, the moon aka tides, etc. ? Other magic wielding things might be able to take over, but probably not.
• For an episode where magic is verboten, we did see two new uses. Torturing a bird and the 'come to life' spell. Although, the latter is kind of like what Luna uses on those spider game pieces I suppose.

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

We learn that the ponies can't use magic and have to manually change the season from winter to spring in Ponyville as part of a longstanding tradition, since the town was founded by Earth ponies. (The Apple Family) Twilight Sparkle, Miss Element of Magic herself, really wants to get involved, but wasn't assigned to one of the three teams (Weather, Animals, and Plants) and can't decide. She tries to help each of her friends in their tasks but fails. In desperation, she tries to use magic and gets scolded by Applejack. In tears, she goes back to town and hides in a bush. Winter Wrap Up Day is descending into chaos, but there's one mare for the job: Twilight Sparkle. Her organizational skills save the day, and she gets her own special position and tri-color vest for future Winter Wrap Up Days.