My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic: "Magical Mystery Cure" Review

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Yeah, I think it’s pretty good.

Alright, alright, I’ll give you the full review right now, don’t get mad at me. But first lets go to the TL; DR. I honestly think this episode is still top tier, despite what everyone is saying, but I wouldn’t call it the best episode of the season. That honour still goes to “Sleepless in Ponyville”, but it does come close in some points, and if you want to find out I’ll tell you why.

FILM OF THE YEAR.

So the episode starts with Twilight Sparkle having a musical morning as she wakes up and sings about how everything in Ponyville is fine and dandy, how the sun shines, how everything is as it’s supposed to be, and suddenly she gets interrupted with a face full of water. Right when she’s about to call out Rainbow Dash for the mistake, she realizes that it’s not Dash but Rarity who is taking care of the weather, and even though her patterns look very pretty they really don’t have the most functional design as she’s causing weather disasters all over the place, giving the ponies sun burns, frost bites, and such. This is happening because Rarity has now Rainbow Dash’s cutie mark, and so she is taking care of Rainbow Dash’s job. Things don’t get better when Twilight goes to check on Rainbow Dash, who is taking care of Fluttershy’s animals because she now has Fluttershy’s cutie mark. This throws us into a second song during which we find out that each of the Mane Six, except Twilight, has swapped cutie marks with each other. Fluttershy has Pinkie’s cutie mark, and her attempts at making other ponies laugh are rather pathetic. Pinkie Pie has Applejack’s cutie mark and this gives her flat hair, depression and the inability to repair water chutes. Applejack has Rarity’s cutie mark, and since she doesn’t have a horn to find gems with she is relegated to do the next best thing Rarity can do, and that is making dresses. So now Twilight has five of her friends out of control doing everything but what they are meant to do, which means Ponyville is in shambles for the billionth time. I seriously don’t know why M.A. Larson has such an obsession with destroying Ponyville. Seriously, check his episodes: “Swarm of the Century”, “Return of Harmony”, “Secret of my Excess”, “Magic Duel”, and now “Magical Mystery Cure”. I even went and asked him during an interview why is he so obsessed with destroying the town and the best answer he could give me was: “Huh,I don’t know, I never thought about that. Maybe I should go see a psychiatrist”. I’m pretty sure he was joking. At least I hope he was joking.

This makes me think of the sixties, and how much I'd love to live them.

Okay so we have our conflict, one big, messy problem for Twilight to solve, but where did it come from? Nobody explained anything as this is probably the very first episode of the series that starts in media res. I am not a fan of this kind of stories though, but I think I like how they approached it this time, with a very happy-go-lucky start and then a total mood swing towards the dark and dreadful. We find out, through Twilight’s exposition, that princess Celestia sent her a package containing a notebook that belonged to Starswirl the Bearded who, if you remember from Season 2, was a very powerful unicorn mage and was the author of hundreds of spells. However, this notebook contains a spell that he could never finish, and Twilight decided that the most intelligent thing to do was casting it. Okay, be fair, that’s like someone handing you the unfinished works of a famous composer or the unfinished comic of Tintin. You seriously have to try it out, who’s going to resist!? Sadly this has terrible consequences, as the unfinished spell switched the colours on the Elements of Harmony (which are now kept inside a display case into Twilight’s library) which consequentially changed the cutie marks on the rest of the Mane Six. The only reason why Twilight’s mark is still hers is because it was her element that casted the spell on the others. This apparently hopeless situation has Twilight desperate, as the unfinished spell is useless for solving this situation and things just keep getting worse and worse in Ponyville, which brings us to another song, a gloomier, darker song that shows how the town is going to Tartarus down the fast lane. Sweet Apple Acres is dry and decimated, Rarity’s boutique is in shambles and the windows boarded, the weather is a complete and utter mess, and everypony in town has gone bitter and angry without laughter.

Insert jokes about Detroit here.

However this doesn’t let Twilight’s spirits down, as she figures out the best way to fix this whole situation, and I have to admit in my first viewing I didn’t quite get what she was doing with this or what her thought process was, but after a second viewing it does make a lot of sense. She goes to Fluttershy and drags her into her cottage, where Rainbow Dash has been tied down by the animals who are now intending to cook her into a pot. As soon as Fluttershy shows up the critters, big and small, calm down and the meek pony starts corralling them and feeding them. This unlocks something inside her, and as she glows with a mystical pink light, Twilight slaps her Element of Harmony on her neck, and the memories of who she is flash before her eyes, bringing her back to normal. I think Twilight’s thinking was pretty clever here, how she brings each pony to what they used to do before the cutie mark swap so they remember who each one of them are. With Fluttershy’s help, and assisted by yet another song, they go through town recovering each other’s memories and bringing things back to normal. Rainbow Dash takes care of the weather problem clearing out all the skies, Rarity recovers her boutique and removes all of Applejack’s abominable dresses, Applejack manages to bring Sweet Apple Acres back to normal (with the help of jump cutting and “Lion King Magic”), and Pinkie Pie returns to her puffy happy self to the joy of everyone in town. This last one is my favourite of the bunch. For some reason I start blubbering like an idiot when every pony shouts “Pinkie!” I guess it’s the sequels left by “Smile, Smile, Smile”.

They too have sequels left from "Games Ponies Play"

Once all is settled back to normal they share a group hug, as Twilight is hit with sudden realization that makes her eyes sparkle. She has figured out what was missing in that spell written by Starswirl the Bearded. They all return to the library as Twilight pulls the notebook out and writes the second half of the spell, which many have pointed out is a counter spell, and I will be willing to agree with their interpretation. As Twilight scribbles the full stop on the spell, the Elements of Harmony suddenly activate by themselves and zap Twilight out of existence, leaving a churned black spot on the floor.

BAD END.

Of course, she is still alive, but the place where she is teleported is somewhere we haven’t seen before or being explained what it is. It looks like a literally ethereal plane full of stars and clouds, and out of those clouds a too familiar figure emerges: princess Celestia. Twilight is confused as she doesn’t know what’s going on, but the Sun Goddess explains that, after she completed Starswirl’s unfinished spell, she then completed her destiny. When Twilight asks what destiny is this, Celestia replies with yet another song, this one fairly emotional to be honest, as we are giving a slide show of previous episodes, all focused around Twilight since the very first time she arrived to Ponyville. By the time the song ends, Twilight gets wrapped into a flashing pink light that swirls around her and then we cut to Ponyville, where what looks like a glowing shard of the element of magic is floating outside of the library, right in front of the rest of the Mane Six. Once the glow fades, Twilight stands up in its place, and unfurls her new pair of wings.

Half of the fandom: Yay! Other Half of the fandom: Ruined forever!

To the stupor of all her friends, Twilight has grown a new pair of wings and so she has completed her journey as princess Celestia’s student. They all seem shocked at first, especially Twilight who looks at her wings not sure if she likes it or not, but they quickly warm up to her. Rainbow Dash being the first one (and keeping in character) as she sees Twilight as a new flying buddy. They all mention how she looks just like a princess, and without wasting a second, princess Celestia shows up to confirm that she has, in fact, turned into a princess. Now Twilight is more than just the student, she is also the teacher, and someone everypony should follow. The next day the coronation event takes place in Canterlot, where Twilight is crowned princess and presented to the whole crowd of cheering ponies. Her friends cry happy tears, her brother Shining Armour has a heart melting moment and sheds a couple of tears too, and the parade departs from the castle as Twilight waves from her carriage with one last song playing.

But then she goes to trot with her friends, because screw oficial secured transportation.

So that was “Magical Mystery Cure”, possibly the most divisive and controversial episode of “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic”, at least concerning the brony fandom, and I can’t deny, I too have some mixed feelings towards this episode. I might have different mixed feelings than the majority, that’s for sure, and from what I have seen in message boards and talking to other people maybe those things that are deal breakers for them are not so much deal breakers for me. I have come to be very forgiving with movies and TV shows nowadays, as I have started to use my cynicism a lot less and leaving my vitriolic comments aside. So if it feels like I am going soft in this episode: One, you are right; and two, I’ve been going soft on this show since 2011, so this is nothing new if you are a long time follower of this blog. The one issue that many have talked about, the whole change that Twilight experiences, has already being addressed in a previous entry, so feel free to check it out to know what I think of this decision. I think the best thing to do is to focus on the one thing that I didn’t like which, oddly enough, is the one thing that everybody is bringing up.

Don't cross the fans!

People are saying that the episode feels rushed, even those who liked the episode said that it was a bit rushed and, yeah, they are right. It does feel rushed, it is rushed. There are a lot of things going on in a very short period of time and it’s hard to keep up if your attention diverts into something else. This episode demands that you have watched, at least all the episodes of Friendship is Magic that have a big focus on Twilight Sparkle, which amounts to more than fifty percent of the series, so if you want to initiate people in this show don’t pick this episode, they’ll probably hate it. However, this wasn’t a problem for me. I didn’t mind how fast the whole episode is, I actually understand why they had to do it like this. They are telling one epic story and giving the main character a permanent change in less than half an hour, so of course there are going to be setbacks. There are ways around it and I think the way they picked was the correct one. Besides, it saves us from incessant amounts of moping and crying and feeling miserable, and it also doesn’t have those boring, predictable moments where the heroine is blamed for all that’s been happening around town, so if we can avoid those moments I will be more than happy to sacrifice length of it. People say it should have been a two parter, that there should have been two episodes instead of one, and if we take Meghan McCarthy’s words to heart, I think they too know it should have been like that. And from the looks of it, it’s very possible we won’t get two episodes, but three, it’s just that the next two episodes are going to take a while to arrive.

Patience Avatar, patience. It is a virtue, isn't it?

So in their best attempt to make the episode feel less rushed they included a butt-load of songs, and let me tell you, I would have done exactly the same thing. The way I see this execution is very simple, let me explain. Music and songs in particular, are a very special media. They have to tell a story, transmit a set of emotions, and be cohesive, in a very short amount of time, especially with animation. That’s why so many animated movies are musicals, and that’s why so many animated movies are shorter than live action ones. The way they use the songs in this episode is very similar to that. The starts with a happy song to show how good things are in Ponyville, then we move to a conflict song to established how wrong everything is, then we have a sad song that shows how gloomy and bad everything has gone, then we have another happy song to solve the conflict established before, we continue with a ballad that introduces the ultimate change to Twilight Sparkle, and finally we end with another happy go lucky song. For me, all of these songs work fine, some better than others. Oddly enough, the short songs are my favourite ones, “Find a Way” and “Celestia’s Ballad”, mostly because I feel there is a lot more emotions thrown in than in the others. Don’t get me wrong, the other songs are good, but those in particular feel heavier and more meaningful, especially “Find a Way”. I am also a sucker for that style of singing, so the moment the instrumentals start I was just dragged into it. I am biased, I admit it, and I can see how some people get sick of so much song. I perfectly understand you if you decided to just give up after the fourth song, and I can actually feel the fans throwing their arms up in the air whenever a new musical number started. I personally didn’t mind, and those that I liked I liked them a lot.

Somepony activated the Bass Canon inside the library, again.

So an excess of songs, and the episode feeling rushed seems to be what everybody is bringing out, but there are a few other things that I heard people say and I am willing to tackle them just so I can come with a different perspective on the whole thing. By the way, this next paragraph is just me giving a very lengthy explanation about minute details, so it’s very likely I will start reading too much on everything. I’m mostly doing it to compare notes with everybody and to put out there a few different takes on things that have not been fully explained.

Is that Little Pip coming from behind the barn?

The whole cutie mark swapping idea is, in my opinion, pretty clever and it gives us the chance to see very interesting visuals. I thought it was quite a sight to see the weather in Ponyville looking like a patchwork bed cover, and how the snow and the sun were freezing and roasting the ponies. I also found the view of Sweet Apple Acres as a wasteland foreboding and downright scary. Fallout: Equestria has never been so close to be canon. However, this whole concept brings up a few questions, to which I might have answers. Why is Applejack making dresses when Rarity’s real talent is to find gems? Well, maybe because Applejack doesn’t have a horn to use magic and thus use her gem finding spell, so she chose the next best thing, and that is making dresses. Why is Rarity controlling the weather when Rainbow Dash’s cutie mark represents that she broke the light spectrum by breaking the sound barrier? For the same reasons, as Rarity doesn’t have wings to be a great flier she has to take control over the next thing Rainbow Dash does best, and that is weather managing. Another issue people brought up, even in this blog, is how Twilight can become an alicorn just because she completed one spell? Well, this opens the possibility that Starswirl the Bearded was, in fact, an alicorn and not a unicorn. There are no official pictures of this character, and the closest thing we know how he used to look like is Twilight’s costume, and from what we see the wings could be covered by the cape. This also reveals that the only species of pony powerful enough to create magic are alicorns, which brings me to the whole issue that some people are having regarding the title of princess.

Forget the head canon, we need a head battleship.

To crown a character princess is something more abstract than what we give it credit for. This show uses the terms princess and prince so they don’t have to add other titles like Duke, Empress, Emperor or Ambassador. If you think about it, Cadance shouldn’t be a princess at all; she should be an Empress because her duty is to rule the Crystal Empire. In a very early interview with Lauren Faust, her original ideas for Celestia and prince Blueblood were that Celestia was going to be a Queen, and Blueblood was going to be a duke. I’m willing to bet that the use of simple words like prince and princess is due to the show’s target demographic. It’s a much better idea to use simple words so things are not muddled when it comes to tell the story. I don’t mean to say that kids aren’t smart, I’m just saying that when you want to tell a story and deliver a moral all at the same time, you want it to be clear, not complicated. So with all this, what would Twilight’s actual title be? Will she be a duchess? An ambassador? This is me, again, reading too much into things, but I like to entertain the idea that the best term to describe Twilight would be archmage. Think about it for a second. She doesn’t really rule anything, she doesn’t control any patch of land, but she is a magical savant, she is prodigious when learning new spells, and now she has a power equitable to Celestia and Luna. So she might not rule over anything, but she’ll be able to produce astonishingly powerful spells and magic. What I’m trying to say with this whole paragraph is that I support the use of the word princess when referring to Twilight Sparkle and any other good alicorns on the show.

Oh, so this is where all those removed videos from YouTube go to.

Now it’s time to talk about what I liked and, yeah, I know it sounds too weird after I spent more than ten paragraphs talking about the things everybody hated weren’t such a bother to me, but there were things that I really did like of this episode. Don’t worry, I don’t intend to drone on and go gaga over every single point...Maybe on one or two, perhaps.

Expect me to say how much I love this design several times.

I loved Twilight in this episode. I loved her, I loved her, I loved her, she was awesome, she was cute, she was adorkable, she was determined, and brave. She was just the little purple unicorn pony that I grew to love. This season has been light on her, oddly enough, as it preferred to focus on those that surround her rather than herself. So to have an episode focused on her (besides “Magic Duel” and they were both by the same writer) makes me happy. She was in character the whole time, and to those who are worried that she is not going to be that adorkable little pony anymore, I have one line straight from the equine’s mouth so you can all stop worrying.

“But, what do I do now? Is there a book about being a princess that I should read?”

This line moves me beyond all repair. She went through a life changing transformation, she completed her destiny, and she is still obsessed over reading books and making sure everything goes perfect. She is the same Twilight Sparkle we all love, she just changed a little and now has a different view on things. That my friends, is good writing.

I'll hide in here just in case.

I thought the ideas they came up with were pretty creative. I think Fluttershy trying to make Pinkie Pie’s job was a genius swap. Put the anti-social, shy character to do the work of the out-going, extroverted girl. Rainbow Dash doing Fluttershy’s duty was also pretty smart too. What else could be more opposite to adrenaline junky than peaceful living in a cottage near the forest? Applejack doing Rarity’s work is a no brainer. I was actually surprised that some of the dresses AJ comes up with don’t look half bad. And it was hilarious and heart breaking every time she tries to make the sewing machine work and things turn out terrible. Pinkie Pie with a southern accent and flat hair was a joy to see. I am amongst the many fans of flat hair Pinkie Pie (referred often as Pinkamena) so seeing her back in the show for the first time since “Party of One” was really cool.

Maybe the sewing machine is an Android, that's why it's not compatible with Applejack.

There were continuity nods all over the place in this episode. We had call backs to “Return of Harmony”, “The Cutie Pox”, “Keep Calm and Flutter on” (with the Elements of Harmony being in the library), “Friendship is Magic”, “Luna Eclipsed”, and of course a lot of throw backs that we could see during Celestia’s song towards the end of the episode. For those who are continuity nuts like myself, this episode was perfect and full of it, and it all fell well into place. Also, is it just me or does the whole thing have a very “series finale” feel to it? I saw a few mentions regarding this and, yeah, I have to agree with them, it feels like the show runners were finishing the series right here, which will make perfect sense as well. It feels like the end of the journey, and in my opinion it’s going out with a bang. I myself feel rewarded for it.

Sibbling hug! This is always touching.

Overall, and in my opinion, I really liked this episode, errors and things to complain about and all. It was a very enjoyable experience and a very risky move from both Hasbro and DHX. I appreciate the care and attention they put into every frame, from Twilight’s new design, to sneaking Derpy Hooves and Vinyl Scratch into the background. It was fun, it was entertaining, it was gorgeous to look at with some staggering visuals, and it felt like a Friendship is Magic episode. A much faster, not slow paced at all, but still with the same magic from the very first day it aired. If I was to put it in a top five of the season, it will definitely make it into the fifth position, just below “Magic Duel”, “Too Many Pinkie Pies”, “One Bad Apple” and “Sleepless in Ponyville”. So yeah, I definitely enjoyed it.

The circle is complete.

I think that covers everything, both what people liked and what people didn’t like. Again, I’m not trying to change anyone’s opinions. They are yours, and as long as you can write them down without offending anybody or forcing them into anybody’s face, then go on ahead and do it. If you want to agree with me, awesome, if no then that’s cool too. I am an open guy, I don’t gain anything from this but knowing what you guys think, which I consider quite valuable. It’s good to have perspective on things, so that’s why I’m here typing words and trying to make them make sense, so you all can have perspective on a show about pastel coloured miniature equines.

Thank you all for being with me in this wild ride of a season. I will keep it up through the drought with editorials that will range from pony to other subjects. I hope you all the best, have very creative ideas, and don’t be afraid to share your opinion as long as you do it respectfully and properly. Thanks again, and see you all later.

Have an adorable Twiley gif. How can you be mad at that?

- Defining Moment: “Find a Way” and “Celestia’s Ballad” both songs full of feels and with a really visually interesting set up. And Twilight Sparkle’s design as an Alicorn princess, which is pretty awesome too.

- Moral: If you study hard, be a good person, payattention to what your grownups tell you, be humble, and keep a strong mindthrough difficult times, you can reach for the highest.