MLP:FiM 2x03 "Lesson Zero"

[Amaris]

I thought that was Equestria Girls! Classic!

 

[Amaris]

OMG! Magic love spell!

 

[Amaris]

Shit's about to go down.

 

[Wanderlust]

Big mac! loooool

 

[Gepard]

OMG! Magic love spell!

The creepy fanfic just writes itself, doesn't it?

Anyway, really good episode. I was worried in the beginning they wouldn't go far enough with Crazy Twilight, but holy crap, they didn't pull their punches. The extent of her breakdown was actually a little disturbing.

 

[Jetfire]

Crazy Twilight eh? I have a feeling my avatar will be changing later.

 

[Kemaiku]

I know, the filly moment with the red on black was right out that Blank Flank story/game.

 

[Wanderlust]

 

[Jetfire]

Yeah Twilight Sparkle got pretty disturbing there for a bit. Fluttershy and the bear was funny. Over all it was a pretty good ep. Good to see some Derpy in this ep and in the opening.

 

[cardinal biggles]

I see this episode was written by Meghan McCarthy, who also penned "Party of One," which of course featured Pinkie's infamous mental breakdown. I've got to hand it to her, she sure can write the crazy.

 

[Count Zero]

Great fun but I thought they slightly overdid it with Twilight's crazyness, especially the facial expressions. I suspect we'll see tons of threadbombs from that, though. I liked the ending a lot, i.e. how her friends stood up for her and how Spike turned out to have been so considerate.

The little things in the episode were great - Rainbow Nuke, drama queen Rarity, Fluttershy fighting the bear, Rainbow Dash with cool sunglasses, the Cutie Mark Crusaders already fighting over who has to pretend to like Twilight's doll before Twilight casts the spell and Macintosh getting the doll in the end. I also liked Derpy's appearance(s).

ETA: Again, no poll.

 

[Gepard]

Twilight beingover the top is what makes this a good-not-great episode, IMHO. It was tremendously entertaining the first time through, but I don't think the rematch factor is there. They put everything up-front as it were and didn't leave any subtle details to catch on later viewings.

Gep, watched it twice.

 

[Kemaiku]

Enough with the poll shit, we all know we'd give them all A's anyway.

But yeah it was essentially one long nervous breakdown over nothing in paticular. But the other Ponies had great moments and held up the rest of the plot.

Loved the little Appledash hints (Twilight's attitude made it as outright as possible for a kids show that it was relationship counselling), RD being awesome as usual.

Although why she was applying sunscreen with fur and all being a Pegasus and normally living in brighter sunlight was...weird. But you know, Rainboom Nuke

Fluttershy the bear assassin moment was a real WTF moment

Rairty was a whiner and actually not annoying for once, nice to see her grow, and realise her own drama-esque behaviour.

Derpy gets into the opening credits and in a fight with the mayor in one episode, nice it was nice to see Big Mac get more of a cameo too, and showing his feminine side.

And more Trollestia, always good for a laugh.

 

[Kelthaz]

Yeah, you really need to start adding a poll to these. An episode discussion thread without a poll just isn't right.

I found Twilight's over-the-top craziness a little hard to swallow. She's always been rather OCD, but never to this extent. Once I got past that little hangup it was a pretty good episode. The best scenes have already been mentioned, so I won't bother repeating them.

I'll go with pretty good, but still lacking a bit. 3/5.

 

[Gepard]

I was thinking a little bit more about why Twilight's freakout didn't (quite) work, and I think it comes down to motive. This is a very similar episode to "Party of One," which is highly regarded, but in that case, we know the mane six and see them (apparently) turn their backs on Pinkie. Problem is, this week Twilight is freaking out about her relationship with Celestia -- which we in the audience know next to nothing about. We don't know much about Celestia as a character, and we have even less information about she feels about Twilight. The whole episode is about her and Twilight, and Celestia doesn't even put in an appearance until the end. Imagine "Party of One" had Pinkie lose it over a bunch of friends we knew nothing about and never saw during that episode. You could keep her meltdown otherwise the same, and I bet it wouldn't play nearly as well.

This week was an episode about a relationship problem where we're not in on the relationship. The details were well-executed indeed, but it was built on a conceptual flaw that hindered the story.

 

[Roger Wilco]

It's true the main story didn't work that well, but I loved all the other stuff happening around Twilight in the episode - Rarity being fabulous, Rainbow being awesome, Fluttershy being badass etc.

 

[Gepard]

Oh, no argument here. The details were fantastic (Flutterboxer was a bit OTT, but...) and I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it. But it doesn't get higher than a "B" from me for the above reason.

(It's also better than a number of season one episodes, if I'm being fair.)

 

[Kelthaz]

I'll agree, the details were fantastic. If it were just the details I would give the episode an A, but story does bring it down a few notches.

 

[Peach Wookiee]

I understand Twi, though... I was a lot like her as a student... not to that extreme, mind you, but I would freak out totally if I was going to be late with an assignment. Or late to class. I was laughing so hard. I seriously thought of showing my dad this episode. "Look, Dad! She's worse than I was!"

 

[Amaris]

Same. As a student in elementary and middle school, it was my life. Tardiness? Not a chance in Equestria would I be late on an assignment. My straight A's reflected that mindset, and I would fly into a panic if it wasn't exactly perfect on every level. So for me, the episode made perfect sense. This would explain why that while Dashie is my very favorite pony, I connect more with Twilight Sparkle. We're pretty much the same pony.