The time has come once again. After almost 10 months since season 3 and only a movie of questionable quality the ponies have returned to the television. Which means I can once again say…
Fillies, gentlecolts, and foals of all ages, welcome once again to the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic recap/review. Season 4 is upon us, and unlike what felt like an overly rushed season that was season 3, we appear to be returning to form with another 26 episode season, and stories that feel like they have a lot more weight to them instead of what was for the most part rather meh episodes last season. And the biggest thing out of that last season was the ascension of Twilight Sparkle to princess. It took almost a whole year to get here, but will we finally get some explanations of what the newly alicorned princess is in charge of? And even if we don’t, how will they start this season? Let’s find out with a recap of “Princess Twilight Sparkle parts 1 & 2”
The Royal Window
The episode opens with Princess Twilight still having a hard time learning how to fly. Since the summer sun celebration is coming up, she needs to nail her part in it perfectly. However, if that wasn’t her only problem, she’s already hating that her royal duties is keeping her in Canterlot and further away from her friends. But Applejack and the others do their best to put the worries of Twilight at ease.
But it turns out that there is something bigger to worry about as Celestia and Luna end up missing, and both the sun and moon are in the sky. It also appears that giant vines from the Everfree Forest are invading Equestria, causing strange weather patterns and even being able to manipulate unicorn magic. Twilight reunites with her friends, and once again don the elements of harmony in order to try and solve the mystery.
Of course, their prime suspect in causing chaos and disorder in Equestria is Discord, who claims innocence for the entire detail, and claims to have no idea about what created the plants growing over Equestria. He tells them to go ask Zecora, who has been forced to flee the forest due to the overgrow. She just happens to have a convenient potion that can help Twilight get an answer as to what is really causing the problem.
The epic first encounter
However, when Twilight ingests the potion, she ends up in the old castle, and in front of an angry Princess Luna, who claims that there can only be one princess, and that that princess will be her. Luna undergoes the transformation that turns her into Nightmare Moon. Even though it takes Twilight a bit to realize it, she’s actually viewing the night when Luna was first banished to the moon by Celestia and the elements of harmony.
Despite that trip not fully answering the questions needed, she drinks the potion again, which now takes her to the stone banishment of Discord by Luna, Celestia, and the elements. The flashbacks go further still as Twilight sees Luna and Celestia in front of the tree of harmony, a glowing tree that was the holder of the elements. The princesses took the elements to ensure Discord would be defeated, but never gave the elements back, believing that the tree will survive without it.
The ponies now have their mission, which is to head to the Everfree Forest to find the tree of harmony. However, when an encounter with a cragodile nearly costs Twilight her life, the rest of the mane six believe that she should go back to Canterlot since she’s the only princess left. Twilight does so, but regrets the decision thanks to some classic Discord trolling about how quickly she was willing to abandon her friends due to being a princess.
The tree of harmony
The ponies find the tree of harmony which is dying thanks to the vines, and eventually reunite with Twilight. She realizes the only way to save the tree and stop the vines is to put the elements of harmony back on the tree. This of course means they’re defenseless if Discord does return to his evil ways, but they still do so, rejuvenating the tree, freeing the other princesses, and destroying the vines.
But there’s one more interesting development. The tree blooms a flower which has a strange box with six keyholes inside. So it appears a quest will have to be underway to find out where these keys are. Discord also drops one more bombshell on the girls, revealing that the vines were his doing ages ago during the stoning by the princesses. He had sown plunder seeds which were originally going to be used on the tree, but he never got the opportunity due to the tree’s magic. The episode ends at the summer sun celebration where Twilight manages to ace her performance.
A lot of stuff happened in these two parts, so let’s break the good and bad down with the pros and cons for “Princess Twilight Sparkle”
PRO
One of the major concerns by many going into this premiere was if they were going to change the character of Twilight. And I can honestly say they really haven’t. She’s still very neurotic about failure, still adorkable, and still puts the value of her friends above her own. The princess thing just feels like something new to add to her character, and not something that makes her a Mary Sue like so many have worried about in the past.
This was a major history building episode as we finally get to see where the elements of harmony came from, the original defeat of Discord, and finally the night that Luna would be banished to the moon. This history building has been a long time in the making for the series, and to see it finally animated was a treat.
Speaking of the animation, it once again is showing major improvement. The lighting on characters looks more natural, the blend of CGI into the series is becoming far more seamless, just to name a couple. It’s always good to see just how much improvement is going into this show, and if this is a sign of things to come, I can’t wait to see how much better the show will look throughout the season.
Discord was handled perfectly in this episode. I was mixed on the poor handling of Discord’s reforming in “Keep Calm and Flutter On” feeling that the change to good felt way too rushed. This episode proves that he isn’t exactly going to play nice despite being supposedly reformed. And with the elements gone, who knows if he’ll eventually try to take over again. Though if he doesn’t want to piss Fluttershy off, he’ll just stick to being the comic relief. Apparently this won’t be Discord’s only appearance in the season as more will be built around his character, and the show has promised a full on song for the character.
The series is going to try something new with a major arc this season involving the locked box. The show had tried something of an arc before with the Grand Galloping Gala in the first season, but this is definitely a bigger deal in scope than some gala. My current speculation is it may have something to do with the newest toy line for MLP called “Rainbow Power”, which depicts the ponies with new rainbow colors and marks. It might not be, but considering the last few toy lines have had major roles to play in the series, this isn’t out of the question either. The biggest pro in the locked box arc is that the show will not have issues involving characters not getting episodes this season, which was my biggest con to the third season.
CON
The show hasn’t fully answered what Twilight’s role as princess is. At the most we know she’s in charge of the place when Celestia and Luna are missing, but that’s it. But this con is really just a partial one since it could be likely that this locked box arc will answer that question definitively. It could be a part of a bigger story in time, as we learn of Twilight’s place in terms of being a princess as the season goes on.
The whole convenient time travel potion did feel like it comes out of absolutely nowhere, even if it belongs to a master potion maker like Zecora.
My other con is the scene with the others telling Twilight to go back to Ponyville. Honestly it felt like a mix of filler and forced drama for the episode, and never felt all that sad since you knew she’d just be going back to help her friends in the end anyway, so it was a waste of a scene.
The pacing felt off a bit in the 2nd part. The first handled things perfectly in terms of pace, but when the 2nd part had to fill in three flashbacks as well as conclude the story, it does fall off the rails. Especially when we get to the whole part with Twilight going back to Ponyville. It’s nothing that hurt the episode’s enjoyment, but you can certainly feel it.
“Princess Twilight Sparkle” is a really strong season premiere. Definitely the strongest since season 2. It answered a lot of questions, while also giving new ones to discover as the season goes on. It shows right off the bat that this season is definitely going to have a stronger build around it than season 3, and with a lot of the episodes announced so far, it feels like the stories are going to be more fun as well. The next 24 weeks are going to be an entertaining time.
RATING: 8.5 out of 10
Next week, Twilight and her friends take a trip to Luna and Celestia’s old castle. But could the old haunts really be… well… haunted? Find out on the next episode as the ponies catch a case of Castle-Maneia.
Until next week everypony!