YMMV / My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic S5 E2 "The Cutie Map – Part 2"

• Accidental Innuendo:
  • When Party Favor makes his balloon binoculars and the balloon bridge, the shot shows him sitting down on his haunches, working his hooves feverishly in front of him to produce the final work. However, the shot cuts off just below his torso and the action in his hoofs just out of shot and blurred enough to make it look like he's working something else...
  • When Applejack gets her cutie mark back, the first thing she says is "Finally I can buck like a five-bit snake herder at an Appleloosa ranch house again!" It isn't immediately obvious to most viewers what bucking has to do with snake herding, or why a snake herder's services might be needed at a ranch house...but see also Genius Bonus below.
• Alternate Aesop Interpretation: Meghan McCarthy herself provides one.
  Meghan McCarthy: So the friendship lesson here is never follow weirdos into caves.
• Alternate Character Interpretation:
  • The Reveal about Starlight Glimmer has led to this. Did she genuinely believe in her philosophy, and was being sincere when she said she only kept her cutie mark to carry out her plan, or was she just a hypocritical dictator who simply wanted power? The season five finale reveals it to be the former.
  • Was Party Favor's breakdown after a night in Room 101 genuine, or was it engineered by the Mane 5 to occupy Starlight while they got a status report from Fluttershy?
• Fan Nickname: The four ponies who end up rescuing the Mane Six's cutie marks (Night Glider, Double Diamond, Party Favor and Sugar Belle) are collectively called "The Cutie Finders" or "The Equal Four".
• Fanfic Fuel:
  • Starlight Glimmer makes it sound like she wants to steal Twilight's cutie mark for herself when Double Diamond brings her the wagon of cutie marks. If it's possible she can steal cutie marks, can she also wear another's cutie mark and use its powers?
  • When Double Diamond found his skis, he starts thinking about how he had met Starlight Glimmer there, but the others interrupt him before he can say anything about it. Exactly what did happen that day?
    • Heck, how everypony in that village came to join Starlight's cult is Canon Fodder. Everypony has a story, and they're all begging to be written. How did they get there, what were their lives like before the cult, and what are they going to do now that they're free? Will they return to their previous homes and families, or will they stay in the newly-freed village?
• Genius Bonus:
  • How many people, outside of ski enthusiasts, would understand what Double Diamond's name refers to? (At a ski resort, a double black diamond trail is the hardest and only for expert skiers.)
  • More like a "redneck bonus". Most viewers who haven't lived in a rural area probably aren't aware that many species of snakes, especially rat snakes, love to make their homes in farmhouses, or that snakes respond to vibrations. With this knowledge, it becomes perfectly understandable that a snake herder might be hired to buck the walls of a ranch house to drive snakes out.
• Love to Hate: Starlight Glimmer is a hypocritical tyrant and she's been well-received as a villain in part because she's so good at what she does.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Party Favor's face◊ after saying "But I didn't listen!" made the rounds as a reaction image macro after the episode aired.
  • As has an image of Starlight Glimmer's rage face, as seen here.
• Narm:
  • Double Diamond's voice isn't so bad when he's The Dragon, but after his Heel–Face Turn it becomes rather hard to take anything he says seriously when he still sounds like a surfer lunkhead, or someone from a (different) little kid's show.
  • Starlight Glimmer's hypocrisy gets a little too blatant, coming off as this:
    Starlight: It's my magic that makes all this possible! You'd all still be living your miserable lives thinking you're better than everypony else if it weren't for my magical abilities! I brought you friendship! I brought you equality! I created harmony!
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: The Season 5 premiere is one of the most famous examples of the trope, especially part two. Behind the cutesy pony terminology like cutie marks and friendship, Starlight Glimmer has basically formed a cult, and her methods are very similar to how real cult leaders recruit people. She's convinced other ponies to join her cause because they felt alone and troubled in their lives and she promised them a sense of belonging and acceptance, being part of her village means giving up all signs of your former life and conforming to her standards of living, and anyone who dissents is locked up in a shack with nothing to do but sit and listen to Starlight's propaganda for hours and hours, until they agree to rejoin the community.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not Political?: Starlight Glimmer preaches equality as the true means to ensure harmony by eliminating all disagreements, anyone who questions her is imprisoned and brainwashed into submission again, and the resulting society is one ruled by fear and oppression with no cultural identity. Parallels have been drawn to, among other things, communism, Marxism, and even cults.
• Win Back the Crowd: Scott Sonneborn really didn't have the best first impression with the fans, but this seems to be his "Wonderbolt Academy".

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