Fillies, gentlecolts, and foals of all ages, welcome once again to another edition of the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic recap/review. Now, for anyone who follows the show or at least the reviews may well know by now, one Pinkie Pie can be a hooffull. But what about two Pinkie Pies? Or four? Or even forty? That’s as many as four tens, and that’s terrible. But is this multi-Pinkie episode terrible? Let’s find out with “Too Many Pinkie Pies”
It's only fun until someone wears out the Pie
We open the episode with Twilight Sparkle practicing her magic, trying to turn an apple into an orange. Pinkie gives her a running hug. She then runs into Rarity, and learns that she wasn’t around while Rarity was working on her latest outfit. Pinkie begins to worry that she’s missing out on fun with the rest of her friends and rushes to see what they’re up to, eventually wearing herself out in the process.
Pinkie finally calms down, but ends up with another conundrum. She gets invites to go hang out with Rainbow Dash by the lake, or to go help Applejack with a barn raising. Despite trying to plan her time out, she is still stuck with what to do. Until she’s reminded of an old story that her Nana Pinkie told her of, the legend of the mirror pond.
While searching through the Everfree Forest for the pond, she falls down a hole, which conveniently leads to said pond. She says the incantation, and takes a dip. When she exits, there is now another Pinkie Pie. This one doesn’t have the same knowledge of Ponyville and her friends like the original, but Pinkie’s plan is still well into motion.
"I'm seeing double. Four Pinkie Pies!"
However, despite everything going according to plan, the clone Pinkie is invited to a picnic with Fluttershy and her animal friends. So, Pinkie decides that it would be easier to just go back to the pond and make two more clones.
However that plan hits a slight snag when the Pinkies make more and more copies. However, this still doesn’t phase the original Pinkie, who still has faith in this foolproof plan.
Too bad she’s quite the fool, huh?
And as expected, the Pinkie’s run rampant over Ponyville. Ruining Applejack’s new barn, and bombarding Rainbow Dash during her rest. The entire town goes to Twilight to find a solution to the Pink menace.
Pink havoc
Spike and Twilight find a book in the library that has the solution needed to deal with the clones. But this makes them worry that they may accidentally get rid of the real Pinkie Pie in the process. And what’s worse is that the real Pinkie Pie doesn’t even believe she’s the real one any more.
The now depressed Pinkie suggest that Twilight holds a challenge for the clones to see which one truly is the real Pinkie Pie. They lead all the clones into town hall to see which one can stand the ultimate challenge of… watching paint dry!
The Pinkies hang on for a while, until they start to lose focus, and be the silly, random ponies that they’re known for. Twilight gets rid of all of them, except for the one remaining Pinkie Pie, who has learned her lesson about the mirror pond.
Dat's a lotta Pinkies
The episode ends with Pinkie Pie sending this week’s letter to Princess Celestia. The lesson being that despite having lots of great friends, sometimes you will have to choose which friend you can spend time with. And that good friends are fine with if you miss out on some things.
Twilight and the gang ask Pinkie if there’s anything she wants to do, and the pink pony does the most logical thing she’s done all episode… just go to sleep.
___________
So, that was quite the bevy of pink pony this week, but was there “too many Pinkie Pies” or not enough? Let’s look at this week’s Pros and Cons.
PRO
What I think worked the most about this episode is that for as many Pinkies as there were, and for how silly they can be, the episode maintained a pretty normal pace. It didn’t feel like it had to go to silly or too crazy. And the moments of crazy we did get were quite memorable, like Pinkie Pie morphing her face into an old school My Little Pony, or her making fingers on her hooves.
I liked that the rest of the mane six got ample enough time in this episode, and no one was left out. Season 2 had a nasty habit of often writing out one character, so giving them fair airtime is always something that I love.
I loved the Fancypants cameo. Very random a character to pick, but awesome still.
I like that we didn’t really go too diverse with the Pinkies personalities, or make them evil. The fact that they were just Pinkie only with less knowledge was a nice touch.
CON
Not too much to con about this week, but I will say the lack of a Pinkie song, even a minor one felt disappointing. I know it wasn’t needed, but come on, it’s Pinkie. And a lot of Pinkies at that.
So, Twilight not only couldn’t tell that maybe the one depressed Pinkie may be the real one, but was willing to undergo a task that may have actually got rid of the real Pinkie. Somehow that just doesn’t sit well with me at all.
Something about this episode felt just… there. Nothing amazing really happens that makes it feel like it truly gets to use the premise to its full potential. Not saying it had to be super wacky or silly, but yeah, something just feels off.
All in all, I’d say “Too Many Pinkie Pies” was a fun episode. Nothing special, and certainly not the greatest Pinkie Pie episode ever in my opinion, but still a fun episode that any fan would enjoy. It’s certainly more fun than watching paint dry, that’s for certain.
RATING: 7 out of 10.
Next week, it’s a bully epidemic in Ponyville. Apple Bloom’s cousin Babs Seed comes to visit. But instead of joining the Cutie Mark Crusaders, she decides to bully our three favorite fillies. How will the Crusaders deal with “One Bad Apple”? Find out in seven days.
Until next week everypony!