Wow, this episode… the feels. The everything.
Just when Spike thinks they’ll have some downtime after recent events, he opens his big mouth and reminds Twilight that she used to be a bad friend back in Canterlot. Determined to make amends with her old friends, Twilight packs everything up and heads back to her old home.
She meets with Minuette, Lemon Hearts and Twinkleshine, who didn’t take it personally when Twilight just went up and left Canterlot for Ponyville, and they seem to rekindle their friendship quickly. Twilight asks about Moondancer, and the group visits her. Turns out, she’s become a reclusive grump.
After having a chat with Minuette (while spying on Moondancer for 3 days), Twilight realizes she may be to blame for Moondancer having no friends when she skipped out on Moondancer’s party to study.
Twilight desperately tries to get Moondancer to talk to her, but she refuses… at least until Twilight offers to teach Moondancer a spell that can literally transport her inside a book (Haycartes’ method).
Moondancer is invited to dinner, but she has very low tolerance for all the small talk and ditches. Out of ideas, Twilight calls in Pinkie Pie to make the perfect party for Moondancer. Moondancer isn’t impressed and tees off on Twilight, telling her just how humiliated and devastated she was when she finally put herself out there to hold a party for her friends and Twilight, who she thought was her best friend, not only never showed up, but moved away without ever saying goodbye.
While Moondancer is sobbing in a corner, Twilight introduces some other ponies Moondancer knows, apologizes again and says that seeing what her actions did to Moondancer is the worst feeling she ever had. Since we need to wrap this whole scenario up in less than 22 minutes, Moondancer finally accepts, and the party finally starts for real.
We end the story with Spike giving Moondancer the gift he wanted to give her way back in the first episode, and we transition to Moondancer hanging out with her old friends.
Honestly, I think this is one of the best episodes of the entire series. It was near perfection, really. It was very emotional, very relatable, had several important morals, and digs deep to make callbacks to the very first episode. The sheer fact that they made an episode out of a throwaway scene from the first few minutes of the first episode is just amazing and is an idea I’ve had for a few years now (I’m utterly shocked they actually went and did it AND pulled it off).
“Flaskhead Hearts,” which is basically filly Lemon Hearts with her head stuck in a “beaker.” It’s a thing that happened when they were young.
As much as I desperately want to hug Moondancer, I have to throw props up to Minuette for keeping this episode from being a black hole of depression. Her cheerful and bubbly personality was an unexpected but well-appreciated addition to the episode, and the ponyverse in general. She was already a popular background pony before, but she’s more popular than ever now.
Once again, Quizia tries to kill us all with this image of the Canterlot Six as humanized girls.
Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep is the last episode before the season goes on a three month hiatus. It’s going to suck waiting for a new episode… but on the other hand, we’re leaving on a Luna episode!
