Written by Michael Vogel
Grogar goes off from his lair to find a new source of power to defeat Twilight since Lord Tirek, Queen Chrysalis, and Cozy Glow had claimed to fail to recover his bell. With Grogar gone, the three conspire to use Grogar's bell against him, but have no idea how it works. Cozy recalls Twilight speaking of a special section of the Canterlot library that may have texts to help, and they set off on a "road trip".
In Canterlot, preparations are underway for the annual Summer Sun Celebration, but Princesses Celestia and Luna tell Twilight that with their pending retirement, they feel there no longer needs to be any more Summer Sun Celebration. Realizing this will be the latest such festival, Twilight decides to make last-minute changes to the event to make it more special, but to her friends' (and Discord's) surprise, she easily delegates the work to them with relatively simple tasks to get everything ready. Twilight asserts that over the past several weeks, outside of a trivia contest, she has learned not to panic in such situations as part of preparing to take the throne.
Tirek, Chrysalis, and Cozy sneak into the city and discover that the castle is still defended with the safeguards that Shining Armor had put in place earlier, making entry more difficult. However, as they scheme, they overhear Discord and Twilight's friends take about their updated responsibilities. Chrysalis realizes they can twist those plans to create chaos that will distract everypony from seeing them sneak into the castle.
The three split off to interfere into the plans. While Applejack and Pinkie are overseeing some of the food changes from Braeburn and others, Tirek drains the earth ponies of their magic, causing the earth ponies to appear sick. Rainbow and Fluttershy speak of their changes to a panicky Feather Flatterfly who is overseeing the weather-clearing and fears he may screw up but they assure him he will be fine. Cozy uses the opportunity to trick Feather to miss several critical details going forward. Rarity and Spike review the changes with Fire Flare and her troupe of firework specialists. After they leave, Chrysalis, in her pony disguise, guiles Fire Flare's troupe to consider the event below their skill level.
While Twilight goes off with the princesses to review how to use the sun and moon raising amulet, the others discover that all the preparations are ruined: the food seems to be poisoned, the weather has gone crazy, and Fire Flare's troupe refuses to perform, each group blaming the other for the problems; Discord nervously and honestly claims he had nothing to do with it. Twilight's friends agree not to tell Twilight to keep her from panicking and deal with the issues themselves, so they proceed to lie to her and pretend everything is fine. Twilight's friends proceed to try to remedy matters, giving Tirek, Chrysalis and Cozy the opporunity to sneak into the library unnoticed and find a book outlining the powers of Grogar's bell.
As the celebration nears, Twilight, Celestia, and Luna leave the castle and discover the problems with the celebration, but her friends try to keep covering up that anything is amiss. Twilight gathers her friends to demand answers, and they admit they wanted to try to fix things themselves so that Twilight would not panic. Twilight calls them out for not telling her and admits she would have done that in the past, but she's changed and would rather make sure everything gets fixed easily. With her friends along with Celestia, Luna, and Discord, they quickly undo all the problems; at the same time, the three villains successfully get the book on the bell from the archives without the heroes even noticing them or knowing they were there. Later on, the Celebration goes off without a hitch, but Twilight announces that with the princesses' retirement, the ceremony will become the Festival of the Two Sisters in honor of the duties that Celestia and Luna have done over the last 1000 years. Twilight's friends apologize for not trusting that she would not freak out, while Discord slyly comments from aside that she's ready for whatever comes next.
Back at Grogar's lair, Grogar returns, having found the object he wanted, and now only is a matter of acquiring it. After Grogar leaves, Tirek, Chrysalis and Cozy acknowledge their plan went off without a hitch, without even Grogar knowing, and consider how easy it was to turn the earth ponies, pegasi, and unicorns against each other; Chrysalis comments that is definitely something to think about.
Tropes:
- Accidental Hero: Tirek, since giving the Earth ponies back their magic to avoid facing punishment from Grogar, also cured them of their presumed food poisoning, allowing them to help the heroes put the preparations back in order, saving the celebration.
- Acting Unnatural: The ponies act like this toward Twilight to avoid having her hear of the celebration disasters, worrying she could freak out if she finds out about it.
- All There in the Script: Neither the pegasus weather manager nor the leader of the unicorn troupe is named in the episode itself, but their names — Feather Flatterfly and Fire Flare — are given in the credits and the episode transcript.
- An Aesop:
- There are many things you can't do alone.
- Don't hide the truth about something going wrong; it'll only make it worse.
- Aesop Amnesia: Once again, the ponies don't simply tell the truth about the situation (despite Applejack insisting otherwise). Twilight even lampshades this when she calls her friends out for not telling her what's going on.
- Answer Cut:
- Just after Spike asks, "What did happen?" we see Chrysalis, Cozy and Tirek amongst the chaos created because of them.
- As Discord is watching Twilight after the sunrise, he points out, "You know, it really does seem like you just might be ready for whatever comes next, your majesty," just before the scene changes to Grogar.
- Apple of Discord: Chrysalis briefly gets the firework troupe to turn on Twilight by insisting that, as unicorns, they should be doing more with their magic than just making pretty-colored things.
- Artistic License – Physics: Cozy finds the book she, Chrysalis and Tirek want in the library, but securely tied in metal chains. Unable to loosen them herself, she finds a book with a picture of a key on its cover, whacks it on the chains, shatters them, and grabs the book. There's no way a book made of paper should be able to break a metal chain. Magic may or may not have been involved, but no indication of this being so was given.
- The Bad Guy Wins: Grogar's Legion of Doom get away with their diversion, take off with the book that has instructions on how to use Grogar's bell, and leave their enemies none the wiser to their presence. On the bright side though, they at least gave Twilight and her friends another lesson to learn.
- Big Eater: Pinkie, as usual; she uses the job Twilight gave to her and Applejack (making minor adjustments to the menu) as an excuse to eat a lot of the food on offer, claiming to be an "official food-taster".
- Bittersweet Ending: The Summer Sun Celebration continues without a problem, Twilight's friends apologize and she's ready for whatever comes next, but the villains escape with the book, their diversion fooling the ponies completely, and the heroes still have no idea their foes still stand, waiting for the right moment to strike.
- Book Ends: Just like "Frenemies" the episode starts and ends in Grogar's lair.
- Buffy Speak:
- Pinkie Pie worries that Twilight finally taking on Celestia and Luna's role would drive into "full freak-y out-y mode".
- The instructions on the card Twilight gives Discord is for him to not do anything "Discord-y".
- Call-Back:
- Canterlot's defenses are still up since "Sparkle's Seven".
- As the immediate episode after "A Trivial Pursuit", where Twilight's OCD becomes maniacal at one point, Twilight has clearly learned her lesson from that and comes to delegate and not panic, putting trust in her friends to make last minute changes to the event.
- Following Celestia and Luna's vacation in "Between Dark and Dawn", this is the next step before their eventual retirement and Twilight becomes their successor. Twilight also gets to easily control the sun/moon amulet when she couldn't last time (albeit after an off-screen practice session at Celestia's suggestion).
- Character Development: Twilight has stopped freaking out. This is lampshaded by Discord a few times.
- Continuity Nod:
- Chrysalis refers to the last time she was in Canterlot.
- Discord references the sisters turning him to stone.
- This is the second time the Mane Six are completely unaware that their foes are in the same location as they are. Chrysalis also uses her pony disguise from the same episode.
- The villains find the book they're looking for in the Star Swirl the Bearded wing of the Canterlot library.
- Discord briefly wears the School of Friendship's cheerleading uniform from "2, 4, 6, Greaaat".
- Cuteness Proximity: Cozy Glow briefly distracts a unicorn guard by looking cute, allowing Tirek to steal his magic.
- Didn't Think This Through: As lampshaded by Spike.Rainbow Dash: We didn't want you to freak out!
Twilight: And you thought that not telling me everything was a total disaster would avoid a freak out?!
Spike: When you say it like that, it sounds like a really bad plan. - Dramatic Irony:
- The audience knows all the chaos is the villains' fault and is a distraction so they can steal the book, but the heroes don't.
- Grogar remains oblivious to the fact that the villains are planning to double-cross him as well as the fact that they lied about retrieving the Bewitching Bell. As such, he claims they've "only found failure", unaware of their successes in both getting the Bell and the instructions for it.
- End of an Age: Celestia and Luna announce that this will be the final Summer Sun Celebration, with Twilight announcing that a new holiday, the Festival of the Two Sisters, will be taking its place.
- Failed a Spot Check: The mane characters somehow don't recognize the result of Tirek's magic draining on the ponies, assuming they're sick and presumably suffering from food poisoning, despite dealing with this sort of affliction before.
- Fantastic Fireworks: Fire Flare and her Flaming Sky Firework Troupe create firework displays with their magic.
- Foreshadowing:
- Discord honestly saying he's not responsible for the chaos, anticipating Twilight's potential freak-out, and slyly commenting from aside she's ready for whatever comes next, all hide something strange about Discord that may have a connection with the villains. The fact that Grogar also leaves the lair and returns in the end at exactly the right moments also seem coincidental.
- Also, note that Discord sees Twilight's Character Development as "boring" as she begins planning, and instantly perks up right after all her plans fall apart.
- Given Name Reveal: Chrysalis' pony disguise from "The Mean Six" returns, and is given the name "Crackle Cosette".
- The Guards Must Be Crazy: It's bad enough when they shrug off a disguised Chrysalis's attempt to get in — she fails because she doesn't have their actual medals, but the attempt should have raised some alarm bells. Later on, Cozy Glow just waltzes right up to one of them, looking cute. The guard shows no sign that he even recognizes her, let alone sounds any alarm.
- Hard-Work Montage: Near the end as all the ponies work together to fix all the disasters caused to the celebration.
- Holy Backlight: As the celebration breaks down, Dash asks for some type of miracle to fix it, and then stares at Discord. Cut to the next shot, Discord appears as an angel, complete with a Holy Halo prop, backlit from one of the castle windows, only to say that they should be able to fix this themselves with the Magic of Friendship.
- Honesty Aesop: When the mane characters see all the preparations ruined, they vow to keep it a secret from Twilight, worried she'll relapse into her old Freak Out habit. Naturally, she's livid with them for not telling the truth when she witnesses all the chaos. To their surprise, she stays calm and assigns them what to do, and promise not to assume the worst anymore.
- Honesty Is the Best Policy: Applejack insists that they should just tell Twilight that things are going wrong (given she wields the Element of Honesty), but everypony else argues for trying to hide it. When the truth inevitably comes out, Applejack throws her hat down in frustration and says that no-one ever listens to her.
- Hope Spot: While the villains are sneaking through the castle trying to find the archives, one of the patrol geese is woken up and follows after them, investigating the noise it heard. But, Chrysalis disguises herself as another goose and tricks it into leaving, allowing the villains to continue without any alarms being raised.
- How Do I Shot Web?: The Legion of Doom has no idea how to use Grogar's bell themselves. Tirek at one point simply tries ringing it to make it work. They resort to sneaking into Canterlot Castle and stealing a book with instructions on how to use the bell.
- Innocently Insensitive: While Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash are trying to encourage Feather Flatterfly, Rainbow tells him that he's "not gonna panic and screw it up at all". This does not make him feel any better.
- Instantly Proven Wrong: Fluttershy tries to reassure the lead weather pony that Rainbow Dash and the Wonderbolts will have cleared the sky in no time... only for Rainbow to crash in a bush next to them.
- Irony: Discord openly finds Twilight's character growth "boring". How ironic that a creature of random chaos would dislike change.
- It's the Best Whatever, Ever!:
- Twilight hopes this will be "the best Summer Sun Celebration ever" as she plans with her friends.
- In the midst of the havoc the villains wrought, Cozy Glow exclaims "best road trip ever!"
- Jerkass: Tirek, Chrysalis and Cozy Glow don't exactly make themselves well-liked in this episode. For one, in order to complete their mission, they go out of their way to sabotage the Summer Sun Festival, the last one there will ever be. What's more, to achieve this, they actively put a wedge between Pegasus, Unicorn and Earth ponies, inciting disharmony among the usually friendly populace. No doubt if it hadn't been for Twilight's problem-solving (and character development), their machinations would've destroyed Celestia and Luna's last chance to make their presence in Equestria memorable.
- Karma Houdini: The villains receive no comeuppance and are never caught for ruining the festivities. (Though this will change in a big way by the end of the season, the ponies remain ignorant to the villains' involvement in this particular event.)
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
- Discord groans that "character growth is so boring".
- Chrysalis asks Cozy "how many holidays do you ponies have?" in exasperation. This could be a reflection of how fans have noted all the many holidays that seem to be celebrated by the ponies over the course of the series.
- Literally Shattered Lives: Averted. Discord turns to stone and shatters to pieces, but all as part of his reality-bending chaos magic, very different from what happened with the Storm King.
- Locked Out of the Loop:
- The villains are completely unaware of Canterlot castle's new security measures, with Chrysalis' attempt to get in disguised as a guard failing due to her lacking one of the medallions required to open the doors.
- Twilight and her friends are unaware of their enemies' presence and the book on the Bewitching Bell.
- Loophole Abuse: Twilight's instructions for Discord were for no "Discord-y" stuff, meaning no chaos. Discord agreed, but there was nothing there about stopping other kinds of chaos, or bringing Twilight's attention to that chaos.
- Meaningful Rename: The Summer Sun Celebration is renamed the Festival of the Two Sisters, to celebrate everything Celestia and Luna have done for Equestria.
- Mistaken for Disease: Tirek's Mana Drain makes the Earth ponies appear sick, and the mane cast assume they're suffering from some sort of food poisoning from the banquet.
- Nervous Wreck: Feather Flatterfly is stressing out about the new weather patterns. And after Cozy's deception, he's convinced he's going to be fired.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
- Twilight and her friends working to save the Celebration secretly gives the villains enough time to sneak into the Canterlot Archives and find the book unnoticed, which was their plan all along.
- Similarly, the ponies' attempts to fix the problems without telling Twilight only results in even bigger problems.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain:
- The villains didn't know it, but they've also given Twilight and her friends another important lesson to learn, allowing Twilight to announce her Character Development and show she's more confident toward becoming Celestia and Luna's successor, and how to decide the fate of the celebration.
- Tirek also ends up playing his part when he is forced to undo his Mana Drain on the ponies so Grogar isn't suspicious, which also restores them to full health and cures their presumed food poisoning thought up by the heroes.
- Not Me This Time: When the ponies see chaos happening outside, they all stare at Discord. He defensively says that he had nothing to do with it.Discord: Don't look at me!
- Oh, Crap!: The mane characters when they see all the preparations have been ruined, then by Twilight when she sees the disasters and her friends are lying to her.
- Painting the Medium: How does Discord help to clear the sky? By pulling up the bottom edge of the screen like a curtain to expose a mass of TV static behind it and shoving a cloud through.
- Pet the Dog: Tirek catches a bird that got blown away by the castle's defensive fans.
- Possession Implies Mastery: Subverted. Despite the Legion possessing the Bewitching Bell, they do not know how to unlock its powers, hence the reason they need to get a book on its secrets from the Canterlot Archives.
- Pragmatic Villainy:
- Cozy Glow notes at the end of the episode that she and Chrysalis convinced Tirek to give back the magic he stole from the earth ponies. They convinced him to do it by saying that Grogar would have gotten suspicious if Tirek hadn't done so.
- Cozy Glow expresses disappointment that they failed at sabotaging the Summer Sun Celebration. Chrysalis replies that the purpose of their mission was to get the book on how to use Grogar's bell; they only caused problems for the celebration to distract the ponies long enough to fulfill their goal.
- Race Against the Clock: The Legion of Doom hurry to retrieve the book with the instructions they need for Grogar's bell and return to the lair before Grogar gets back and realizes they are gone. At the end of the episode when Grogar says he will leave to retrieve a new source of power himself, they must now learn to master the bell before Grogar returns.
- Recognition Failure: Nopony seems to recognize Cozy Glow at all, despite her attempt to take all magic from Equestria.
- Schmuck Bait: The reason behind the Summer Sun Celebration becoming a disaster. All of the chaos was caused by the villains so they can distract the ponies and sneak into the Canterlot Archives unnoticed and retrieve the book on the Bewitching Bell. Even Twilight and her friends fell for it, and thus the villains get off scot-free.
- Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: The ponies don't tell Twilight about the disasters because they are worried she will have one of her freak outs from when she was asked to be the new ruler. Naturally, she finds out and does just that, but not out of fear and panic, she's furious with them.
- Sequel Hook: The villains now have the instruction book to use Grogar's bell, and Chrysalis and Cozy begin pondering over another scheme based on what happened earlier, apparently planning on turning the three pony types against each other a second time. Grogar also claims to have located a substitute source of power in place of his bell to defeat Twilight and her friends, and claims once he retrieves it himself they can finally begin his plan. In addition, the heroes still have no idea of their presence, and once that time comes, they must be ready.
- Series Continuity Error: A minor one. Last time, when Tirek drained ponies of magic, it caused their cutie marks to disappear. For some reason, that doesn't happen in this episode. Also, Discord is seemingly unable to sense Tirek doing this like he had been before, despite both of them being in the castle grounds at the time.
- Sick Episode: Tirek's Mana Drain seems to work differently here; instead of just draining ponies of their magic, it also causes them to become violently ill, leading the heroes to assume they've gotten sick from the food being poisoned.
- Silence Is Golden: A whole three-minute or so montage of the ponies working to fix all the disasters together, while the villains get the book from the archives unnoticed, and ending with the last Summer Sun Celebration ever.
- Slasher Smile: The villains, especially Cozy and Chrysalis, flash many of these, especially when they're looking upon the chaos they caused and when they successfully get the book from the archives.
- Smug Super: Even before Chrysalis plays to their egos, Fire Flare and his fireworks troupe are very proud of their work. Afterward, they start believing that unicorns like them are better than the other ponies.
- Soup Is Medicine: While the Mane Five and Spike are trying to deal with the trouble caused by the villains, Pinkie carts around a big cauldron full of what appears to be soup.
- Stating the Simple Solution: Applejack insists right away that Twilight be told about the sudden disasters popping up, but the others don't listen (to her annoyance).
- Super Gullible: Fire Flare and her troupe are easily convinced by the disguised Chrysalis that performing is beneath them, and that as unicorns, they should be aiming higher. Fortunately, Twilight is able to convince them otherwise even more easily.
- Tears of Joy: Princess Celestia is seen getting a little misty-eyed as she sees the fireworks display bring a spectacular end to the last Summer Sun Celebration.
- Tempting Fate: Spike states his belief that everything will turn out fine... just before the other ponies burst in with all the new problems.
- This Is the Part Where...: Subverted twice.
- Discord believes he's arrived just in time for the "Twilight gives her friends an impossibly long and overly detailed list" predicament, only to be proven wrong when Twilight gives them each a card with minor task to perform.
- When Twilight's friends tell her what's been happening, Discord believes she's going to go into another Freak Out and anticipates. Twilight instead takes a calming breath and comes up with a plan to fix everything.
- Treachery Cover Up: Tirek was forced by Cozy and Chrysalis to give back the earth pony magic he stole (and healing them in return) as to avoid Grogar discovering their little "road trip".
- Two Lines, No Waiting: The A-plot has Twilight and her friends trying to prepare for the Summer Sun Celebration, while the B-plot has the Legion of Doom infiltrate the Canterlot Library while trying to find a book with instructions on how to use Grogar's bell. The two plots intersect when the villains end up ruining Twilight's preparations, but she never realizes it's their fault.
- Unknown Rival: The Mane Six and princesses are completely unaware that the Legion of Doom is secretly infiltrating the festivities and all the disasters caused were made by them as a diversion. And more personally for Discord, he doesn't seem to be aware of Tirek's presence.
- The Unreveal: The Cold Opening has Grogar heading out to find another source of magical power he and his recruits can use to defeat Twilight and her friends, since he does not have his bewitching bell like he originally planned. The final scene has him claiming to have found such a source of power, and that he plans to retrieve it himself the next day, but he never says what this source is, where it is, or how it compares to his bell.
- Unspoken Plan Guarantee: Chrysalis comes up with a plan early in the episode and whispers it to her allies as the camera fades out. The audience only knows that they plan to use Twilight's friends to set up a distraction so as to break into the archives, but not the details. The plan works.
- Villain No Longer Idle: Believing Tirek, Chrysalis and Cozy Glow's lie that they couldn't retrieve his bell, Grogar leaves his lair to find another source of magical power himself.
- Villain Opening Scene: The episode opens with the Mane Six's enemies at Grogar's lair.
- Visual Pun: Cozy Glow finds the book on Grogar's bell in the Canterlot Castle library, but it's locked up in chains. She gets them open by hitting them with a book that has a key on the cover.
- Vocal Dissonance: Chrysalis' "Crackle Cosette" disguise has a deeper voice compared to when she used it in "The Mean 6".
- We Need a Distraction: The villains are responsible for all the disasters of the celebration; they caused them to distract everypony from seeing them so they can sneak into the Canterlot Archives unguarded and take the book on the Bewitching Bell without getting caught. Of course, the heroes never find out.
- Wham Line: Exchanged in the end.Cozy: You know, it really was super easy to get all of those earth ponies and pegasi and unicorns to turn on each other.
Chrysalis: It was, wasn't it? Now that is something to think about... - What the Hell, Hero?: Twilight felt this way to her friends for keeping all the disasters a secret from her and they should've just told her about it.
