Magic has returned to Equestria, but Sunny and her friends have to deal with the consequences of only two of the three ponies species getting to use it. Meanwhile, Zipp investigates strange disruptions in the Unity Crystals.
Tropes in the special include:
- Are You Pondering What I'm Pondering?: Invoked when the Mane Five brainstorm ways to end the tensions between the three tribes.Izzy: Wow! Are you ponies thinking what I'm thinking?
Sunny: I think I might be.
Izzy: All right, everypony. On the count of three. One... two... three... Floating parade! Right?
Sunny: Not exactly, but close. - Bizarre Taste in Food: During Maretime Bay Day, one Unicorn offers moss-flavored ice cream, which few others enjoy.
- Brief Accent Imitation: Sunny briefly imitates Izzy's voice while reminding Zipp of how much she loves to fly, and that it makes her "sparkle" shine brighter.
- Call-Back:
- Zipp invokes Izzy's "maximum sneaky" comment while sneaking into the Zephyr Heights castle.
- Izzy fixes up the lantern Argyle made for Sunny.
- Continuity Snarl: While this special includes several elements from the Tell Your Tale series, it also shows Cloudpuff still living with Queen Haven (the sisters brought him with them in the web series).
- Distinction Without a Difference: When Sunny gets angry at Hitch for calling her "huffy", Hitch retorts that he was just saying she was being huffy.
- The Dragons Come Back: The egg Hitch found hatches into a dragon, which haven't been seen in Equestria for centuries.
- Easy Evangelism: Subverted, in that the movie's events were not enough to completely heal the inter-breed rift that has existed for centuries. It takes being saved by an alicorn for Posey to give up her bigotry, and it's unclear whether all of her cronies followed suit.
- Foreshadowing:
- Zipp sneaking into her family's castle to fetch Pipp's lucky microphone rather than simply walking through the front door hints at how she is actively trying to avoid Queen Haven.
- The green vine-like patterns briefly created by the crystals foreshadow the earth ponies gaining Green Thumb abilities.
- When Posey reports strange happenings to Hitch, one of her claims is that a unicorn is attempting to prank her, since her hooves were stuck to the ground, and she couldn't move for a long time. It is later revealed that the disharmony of ponykind caused the earth ponies to be stuck to the ground, since their abilities were not yet granted.
- Given Name Reveal: After Hitch gains the ability to understand animals, he learns that one of the seagulls that follows him and wears a can on his head is named Kenneth.
- Green-Eyed Monster: The earth ponies are jealous that they don't have any special abilities compared to the unicorns' magic and the pegasi's ability to fly.
- Green Thumb: When the magic of the crystals is revitalized, the earth ponies gain the ability to make plants grow with their hooves.
- Hostile Weather: A thunderstorm forms in response to the ponies arguing, and becomes worse as the situation devolves.
- How Do I Shot Web?: Even though months have passed, both unicorns and pegasi are still struggling to control their magic. Even Sunny has difficulties using her alicorn magic.
- Incredibly Lame Fun: When Hitch thinks Zipp is bored, he suggests that they order fries from three different places and decide which ones are the best.
- It Was Here, I Swear!: While alone in the crystal room, Zipp sees them glow and create green vine-like patterns on the glass. When she leaves the room to get the others, the vines vanish, and they think she was seeing things.
- Lampshade Hanging: Zipp points out that singing a song about being happy doesn't make everything better.
- Magic A Is Magic A: Magic Is shown to require a degree of unity between ponies (and the crystals that embody that unity). Sunny's alicorn magic activates when she's doing something she loves, like running her smoothie business, or is completely confident about, like saving ponies — essentially, when she feels most herself.
- Mythology Gag:
- A picture at the Maretime Bay Day festivities resembles the original G1 pony designs.
- Hitch being able to speak with critters is the same ability Fluttershy had in My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.
- No Antagonist: Posey is the closest thing we have to a villain in the special. However the only reason Posey is acting antagonistic is due to jealously over not having any magical ablities at all. The real conflict comes from the thunderstorm created from the distrust and disharmony from everypony. While the special does introduce the antagonist for the following season, she isn't responsible for any of the problems in this one.
- Power Incontinence: Sunny confesses that she's been having trouble calling upon the alicorn form she attained at the end of the movie.
- The Power of Friendship: It is revealed that the crystals rely on the three pony tribes being friends with each other to maintain their magic. When division starts to form it causes the crystals' magic to glitch, causing such dire consequences, the cast speculates it might have been why the crystals were separated.
- Pun:
- When the others compliment Izzy on her decorations of the glimmerberry tarts they made, she jokes that they're a "true work of tart".
- After agreeing not to tell anypony about the egg Hitch found, Zipp jokes that she'll "Zipp it".
- The Resenter: Posey and several other earth ponies resent the fact that the unicorns and pegasi now have magic, while they have none.
- Running Gag: Izzy keeps dropping food whenever she's surprised.
- The Scapegoat: While trying to make Pipp angry, Zipp reveals that, when they were fillies, she would take their mothers' chocolate-dipped cherries and blame Pipp for it.
- Sequel Hook: A mysterious alicorn mare is shown watching the reconciled ponies, and announcing that she is going to take "what is [hers]".
- Speaks Fluent Animal: Hitch gains this ability when magic is revitalized.
- Stalker Shot: Just before Pipp sings her new Bay Day song near the end, the camera zooms out to reveal a mysterious alicorn and unicorn watching the town on a screen.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Despite coming together at the end of A New Generation, some within the pony species still have a bit of distrust of one another. They've been divided and prejudiced for as long as recollection and while Sunny's quest has at least lead to them interacting once more, such prejudice isn't going to go away overnight and needs to be worked on and disabused.
- Tall Poppy Syndrome: Posey's gang are motivated partly by fear of magical accidents, but mostly by 1) racism, and 2) their inability to bear that other ponies have things they don't. This is illustrated literally when Posey's posse complain that pegasi have an unfair advantage in a sandcastle contest because a pegasus contestant can fly to build higher.
- Technologically Blind Elders: Queen Haven struggles with making video calls to Zipp, often holding her phone's camera too close to her face.
- Trailers Always Spoil: The trailer for the TV special reveals most of what the special is about while the officially released synopsis
explains the whole plot. - Wham Shot:
- The Unity Crystals begin to crack as a result of multiple lightning strikes.
- A mysterious alicorn watching the events from afar proclaims she will take back what belongs to her.
