Recap / My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic S3 E4 "One Bad Apple"

She looks so innocent, though! How bad can she possibly be?

Apple Bloom: We're not snitches!
Scootaloo: Yeah! And we're not babies!
Sweetie Belle: Then... why do I feel like crying?

Written by Cindy Morrow

Apple Bloom is anxious to meet Babs Seed, her cousin from Manehatten who's visiting for a few weeks, especially since Babs doesn't have her cutie mark either. The Cutie Mark Crusaders give Babs the grand tour of their clubhouse and show her their float for the upcoming Summer Harvest Parade, intent on inviting her into their club. Soon Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon show up and waste no time picking on the new "blank flank". Feeling insulted by their mean comments, Babs begins acting like a bully as mean as they are and knocks off one of the float's wheels, sending it rolling and crashing outside. She then trots off with her two new snobbish friends, leaving the Crusaders feeling crushed.

Sweetie Belle insists on telling Applejack about Babs' bad attitude, but Apple Bloom and Scootaloo are terrified of what Babs will do to them for snitching, and would much rather try to avoid her until her visit is over. This proves to be a challenge, since Babs, Diamond Tiara, and Silver Spoon are always one step ahead of them to make their lives miserable. Finally, when Babs kicks the Crusaders out of their clubhouse, the three decide it's time to get back at her by building a new float rigged to go off course into a muddy lake. On the day of the Summer Harvest Parade, Babs can't resist kicking the Crusaders out of their golden apple float to ride for herself. The three gloat over their plan's success until Applejack compliments the Crusaders for letting Babs ride their float; after all, Babs was bullied back in Manehatten for being a blank flank, and came to Ponyville to escape it all.

Realizing the error of their ways, the Crusaders hitch a ride on Pinkie Pie's float to warn Babs of her sabotaged ride. However, they fail to convince her in time before the float makes its way towards the lake. Acting fast, the Crusaders leap into the float and push Babs out as it crashes into the mud. Babs is touched the Crusaders would save her after all she did to them, and all is forgiven now that the four fillies have learned that nothing good will ever come of bullying, no matter what the reason. Applejack also brings up how the whole situation could've been avoided if any one of the fillies just spoke up, with Sweetie Belle pointing out that she kept on saying that. As a sign of their new friendship, Babs is accepted into the Cutie Mark Crusaders as their fourth member. Soon the time comes for Babs to leave, but not before Babs promises to talk to her family about the teasing back home, and gives Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon a good talk-down about their bad attitudes for good measure.

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Tropes:

• Accent Upon The Wrong Syllable: Sweetie Belle mispronounces some of the words in the CMC acceptance speech.
• Adults Are Useless: Zig-Zagged. While Babs' bullying goes for most of the episode unencumbered, Applejack points out that the entire plot would've been resolved had the CMC told an adult instead of trying to handle things themselves. In the end, Babs promises to tell her sister about her own bullying problem. However, when she witnesses Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon's bullying, Applejack does nothing but look enraged. Instead, Babs Seed handles things by scaring them off through intimidation, causing them to fall into mud (it isn't clear whether this result was intentional or not). Babs does threaten to tell the girls' mothers, but she never carries out this threat, and she was actually in no position to do so because she was about to leave town.
• Aerith and Bob: Babs' name seems to be the short form of "Barbara," which stands out in the land of Twilight Sparkle, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Scootaloo, and so on.
• All Your Base Are Belong to Us: Babs steals the CMC HQ for use by herself, Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon.
• Anthropomorphic Food: Seen in the movie theater during the "Bad Seed" song.
• A-Team Montage: The Cutie Mark Crusaders have one when they build their golden apple float, even including a Suspiciously Similar Song.
• Banana Peel: One of the mean pranks done by Babs to the CMC during the song.
• Batman Gambit: The CMC make a giant golden apple for their new parade float, knowing Babs wouldn't resist wanting to be the center of attention.
• Being Tortured Makes You Evil: And Being Bullied Makes You a Bully — Babs's Freudian Excuse in a nutshell; the CMC barely avoid meeting the same fate.
• Big Sister Instinct: When Applejack sees Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon bullying the CMC, she's clearly enraged by it, leveling them a Death Glare. If Babs hadn't laid into them, it's likely that AJ would have.
• Boomerang Bigot: Babs picks on the CMC for their lack of having cutie marks, when she herself doesn't have hers yet.
• Break the Cutie: The CMC get hit with this thanks to Babs' bullying. While Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon's bullying has never been Played for Laughs, Babs is far more serious and clearly hurts them worse than theirs ever has.
  Sweetie Belle: Why do I feel like crying?^note And she does, when Babs takes the Crusaders' clubhouse from them.
• Briar Patching: The Crusaders' revenge scheme depends on Babs stealing their parade float. They accomplish this by emphatically asking Babs not to steal it.
• Brooklyn Rage: Babs' bullying is a lot more physical than Diamond Tiara's and Silver Spoon's. She's also from Equestria's version of New York City. Make of that what you will.
• The Bully: Babs Seed, as well as the usual duo of Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon.
• Bully Brutality: At least from a comparative, TV-Y point of view: Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon feel content to just point out the CMC are "blank flanks" and insult them when the occasion arises. Babs Seed, however, hunts down the girls all over town to relentlessly terrorize them.
• Bully Hunter: Deconstructed. The CMC try to take revenge on Babs, but discover there's a fine line between getting payback on a bully and acting like a bully.
• By the Lights of Their Eyes: In the beginning of "Bad Seed", when the CMC try to sneak around.
• The Cameo:
  • Rarity and Sweetie Belle's father can be seen outside the house (presumably Sweetie Belle's) where the CMC plot their revenge.
  • The mule makes yet another appearance when Diamond Tiara makes a mule-related quip (except this time the speaker doesn't apologize).
  • The staff photographer of the Foal Free Press is there to take the humiliating shot of the CMC in the mud.
• Cartoonland Time: Even if their work was slapdash, their replacement float would have to have taken days to finish at the minimum, yet they finished it in a single night. Considering their previous demonstrations of woodworking ability, a few days is being generous, however there is justification: Apple Bloom has been shown to be a wiz at carpentry when she's on her own (she restored the clubhouse herself, whereas the backdrop during their performance was made by Sweetie Belle), so assuming she got the other two out of the way she could do it. We can also assume that the CMC cut corners when making their float — after all, the whole point of the thing is for it to be smashed by the end — so it seems their first priority is simply to make it look good.
• Character Development: In the past, Sweetie Belle has never shown any signs of being able to use magic, and Scootaloo has only used her wings to propel her scooter. In this episode, sparks shoot out of Sweetie Belle's horn when she gets excited, and Scootaloo is shown hovering. This may indicate that they are maturing. Also, Scootaloo's singing in the "Babs Seed" song is much better in tune than any of her past efforts and their new float ends up a whole lot better than Fluttershy's table, their very first crafts project.
• Character Tic: Babs Seed blowing her mane out of her face when it swings too close to her eye. She also covers up her flank with her tail whenever someone references cutie marks.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience:
  • Babs is light brown, just like a bad apple.
  • The Cutie Mark Crusaders have matching milkshakes in the music sequence. The white-furred Sweetie Belle gets vanilla, the red-maned Apple Bloom gets strawberry (with a cherry on top, no less), and the darker-hued Scootaloo gets chocolate. Averted when the bullies hijack their table; the brownish Babs ends up with strawberry, the pinkish Diamond Tiara gets vanilla, and the whitish Silver Spoon gets chocolate.
• Continuity Nod:
  • When the CMC demonstrate their clubhouse, Scootaloo hits the lamp like in "Family Appreciation Day".
  • The Pumpkin Float brings to mind the apple carriage Twilight transmuted from a real apple in "The Best Night Ever".
  • Babs wears a wolf costume similar to the one Scootaloo used during Nightmare Night during the episode's song.
  • Twilight's Star Swirl costume can be seen at the Carousel Boutique during the song, as well as several of the gala dresses.
  • Portions of the Parasprite Polka can be heard when the CMC come up with the idea for their revenge, and later during the parade.
  • Rarity's dad Magnum is seen fishing outside with some food: burnt juice and fried pancakes. Given this sets up for a scene in one of the Crusaders' bedrooms (and not Apple Bloom's), this likely confirms where Sweetie Belle and her parents live.
  • This episode is the first time Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon have teased the Crusaders about being "blank flanks" since "Call of the Cutie".
  • Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon also do their "Bump, bump, sugarlump rump" routine for the first time since "Call of the Cutie", but this time, they let Babs join in.
  • This isn't the first time the show has referenced The A-Team. (Note that the Suspiciously Similar Song to the A-Team theme in this episode is considerably different than the one from "Dragonshy" — the one in this episode is even more suspiciously similar to the original.)
  • Applebloom doesn't let Babs Seed get a word in when introducing herself and where she lives. This happened prior with Applejack in "Friendship Is Magic Part 1" and Braeburn in "Over a Barrel", suggesting that overly enthusiastic and aggressive introductions run in the Apple Family.
  • While initiating their new member the CMC wear their capes from "The Show Stoppers" and even make one for Babs.
• Contrived Coincidence: The fact that both Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon are walking by when the CMC are showing Babs their float. Complicated by the fact that Sweet Apple Acres is private property, though it may be justified since Diamond Tiara has come to Sweet Apple Acres before while accompanying her father on business meetings.
• "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: Applejack points this out when she finally finds out about the bullying, saying they could have just come to her in the first place. Lampshaded by Sweetie Belle, who insisted the same thing throughout the episode, with her friends sheepishly looking down, basically saying that they should've listen to Sweetie Belle.
• Cow Tools: Rarity's emergency edible boots.
• Crazy-Prepared: Apple Bloom pulls out an umbrella to cover her and Scootaloo moments before Sweetie Belle breaks out the Ocular Gushers. She also puts a mattress near the float for when Babs shoves the Crusaders aside.
• Cycle of Revenge: Babs turns to bullying herself rather than stick together with Cutie Mark Crusaders when Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon start their usual meanness. In turn, the CMC plan to take revenge on her with their rigged float. Applejack later reveals that Babs herself was a victim of bullying back in Manehatten, prompting the CMC to break the cycle by rescuing her.
• Death Glare: Applejack levels a pretty strong one at Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon when she finally witnesses their teasing of the CMC. She also looked like she would've let out some pretty choice words, if Babs hadn't spoken up for her.
• Deconstruction: This episode deconstructs the issues of bullying, why bullies act the way that they do, and the effects it has on the victims.
• Devil in Plain Sight: Babs hides her bullying of the CMC from Ponyville's adults. However, when Babs in the Crusaders' float sees Pinkie Pie driving them in her lettuce float, she rams into it causing it to crash. Pinkie Pie doesn't even react to this.
• The Dog Bites Back: Defied. The CMC attempt this... and then try to pull their punch when they learn Babs' motivation.
• Don't Tell Mama: Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon's reaction to Babs threatening to tell their mothers on them if she catches them bullying the CMC again.
• Double-Meaning Title: The title "One Bad Apple" can refer to the one badly-behaved member of the Apple family and it is also a reference to the saying "one bad apple spoils the barrel", indicating how the CMC pick up on the bad behavior.
• Drives Like Crazy: Pinkie Pie, if not bothering to drive at all◊ counts. Scootaloo briefly pulls off a straighter example as she takes the wheel and accelerates the float.
• Drum Roll, Please: Scootaloo takes this a bit far when the Crusaders accept Babs as a fellow Cutie Mark Crusader.
• Easily Forgiven: After tormenting them all episode, Babs is instantly forgiven when Applejack says she was bullied. Hell, the CMC apologize to her first. Similarly, Babs herself does not appear angry at all when she finds out that the CMC were planning on making her drive a float off a cliff with her inside of it.
• Eating Shoes: Rarity, apparently, makes emergency edible shoes.
• Evil Counterpart: Babs to the Cutie Mark Crusaders; she picks on her fellow blank flanks instead of standing up for them. She later returns to their side.
• Fighting Back Is Wrong: The episode displays this with Babs Seed, Apple Bloom's visiting cousin. Babs joins in with the local Alpha Bitches when they begin teasing the Cutie Mark Crusaders. The Crusaders come up with a revenge plan to get back at Babs, only to learn the reason for Babs' bullying was that she was being bullied herself back at home and didn't want to be the victim again. This makes the Crusaders realize that they were becoming bullies themselves in response.
  • This episode also plays with the trope at the end. After all of the above and saving Babs from their revenge prank, the Crusaders befriend Babs properly and, when the Alpha Bitches tear into them at the end of the episode, Babs stands up to them and makes them back off by threatening to tell on them. Possibly meant to show that it isn't bad to stand up for yourself, but how you go about it is important.
• Flat "What": Scootaloo's reaction to Apple Bloom planning to let Babs ride the float.
• Follow Your Nose: Spike tries to, but Pinkie interrupts him and does it instead.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Babs compulsively hides her blank flank each time cutie marks are mentioned.
  • The symbolism of the seed switching from white to black and to white during the "Bad Seed" song: it foreshadows the revelation of Babs' Face–Heel Turn and her eventual Heel–Face Turn back.
• The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: During "The Villain Sucks" Song, a gigantic Babs steps out of a movie theater screen at the Cutie Mark Crusaders.
• Freudian Slippery Slope: Sweetie Belle calls the Crusaders' float "smashing" and "a hit" and struggles to come up with less suspicious adjectives, though Babs, Diamond Tiara, and Silver Spoon don't catch on. This also may be Sweetie Belle trying to avoid giving Babs any ideas, since she "hit" and "smashed" their previous float.
• Gang of Bullies: Babs forms one with Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon.
• Genre Throwback: "The Villain Sucks" Song is specifically not a Disney Acid Sequence, but a throwback to classic Hanna-Barbera toons like Josie and the Pussycats and Scooby-Doo.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Whoever it was that bullied Babs back in Manehattan. They're indirectly responsible for the plot, but they never appear and we know next to nothing about them. If they didn't exist and Babs had some other Freudian Excuse for her actions, the plot probably wouldn't change much.
• Hand Rubbing: The Crusaders do this as they eagerly wait for their parade float to crash with Babs in it.
• Heel–Face Turn: In the end, Babs learns not to be a bully and becomes an official member of the Cutie Mark Crusaders. She even stands up to Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon.
• Heel Realization: After putting their revenge plan into motion, the CMC are crushed when Applejack tells them Babs was bullied back in Manehatten. Babs herself also has one when they rescue her and explain their own Heel Realization.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: After the Crusaders save Babs from their booby trapped float:
  Apple Bloom: Maybe we'll get our cutie marks in "stupidest ideas of all time".
• He Who Fights Monsters: The reason Babs Seed is a bully to the Crusaders is so she won't be bullied by Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon. It happens to the Crusaders as well when they try to get back at Babs. Lampshaded by Sweetie Belle:
  Sweetie Belle: Why does life have to be so ironic?!
• Hoist by His Own Petard: The Cutie Mark Crusaders save Babs from their self-sabotaged parade float, only to suffer the crash themselves.
• Hypocrite: Babs calls the Cutie Mark Crusaders "Whiny baby blank flanks" when she herself is a "blank flank".
• Idea Bulb: Invoked. When the CMC explain to Babs Seed that the spot under the lamp is where they often go to think, Scootaloo turns it on above Sweetie Belle.
• Initiation Ceremony: The Cutie Mark Crusaders welcome Babs to their ranks with tremendous pomp, including some Tribal drums played by Scootaloo.
• Innocently Insensitive: The Cutie Mark Crusaders claim Babs would be a perfect fit for their group considering her lack of a cutie mark, not realizing her insecurity about being a blank flank, and that she was teased about it so badly that she needed to get out of Manehatten for a while.
• In with the In Crowd: Babs Seed has the opportunity to be one of the socially dominant bullies rather than one of the blank-flank victims, and jumps at it.
• Irony: Sweetie Belle lampshades how ironic life can get in when they realize they've resorted to bullying to get back at a formerly bullied bully who was only bullying them to avoid getting bullied herself. (Try saying that ten times fast!) Well, at the end of the day, all four ponies learned a lesson that nothing good ever comes out of bullying.
• Jerkass: Babs pretends to be a bully in order to fit in with the local bullies and for lacking a cutie mark herself, which Applejack reveals to the CMC.
• Kick the Dog: Babs taking away the CMC clubhouse, which is the final straw that pushes them to plot revenge on her.
• Long List: The CMC acceptance speech contains a very long list of titles before finally getting to the point. Scootaloo wants Sweetie Belle to hurry it up, only to be reminded that she was the one who wrote it.
  Sweetie Belle: We, the Cutie Mark Crusaders, elect Babs Seed to join us as a sister, friend, confidante, ally, bosom buddy, gal pal, compadre, amiga, chum of chums, home girl, [...] and fellow Cutie Mark Crusader! You are solemnly sworn in, here this day, in witness of your fellow sisters, friends, confidantes, bosom buddies, compadres...
• Meaningful Name: Babs Seed is clearly a play on "bad seed", a term for someone genetically predisposed to do bad things purely because it's fun to them. Ironically, Babs only does those things to avoid being a victim herself.
• My God, What Have I Done?: The Cutie Mark Crusaders have this reaction when they find out Babs was bullied at home, and have now become bullies by trying to get back at her. Babs in turn goes through this when she finds out her bullying drove them to do such a thing.
• Nobody Likes a Tattletale: Babs sarcastically asks the Cutie Mark Crusaders if they're snitches when they threaten to tell Applejack about the way she's treated them. As such, the CMC decide they have to take matters into their own hooves. At the end of the episode, though, Applejack tells them that a lot of anguish could have been avoided had they come to her first, technically saying that nopony is a tattletale when someone bullies them.
• Noodle Implements: Sweetie Belle mentions Rarity's "emergency edible boots".
• Noodle Incident: We never find out how Babs was bullied in Manehattan but her treatment of the Crusaders implies that it must have been pretty bad.
• No OSHA Compliance: A hard turn right at the end of a muddy embankment with no signs or road barriers?
• No Sense of Personal Space: Seriously, Apple Bloom, give your cousin a chance to get her bearings before you start making introductions.
• Ocular Gushers: Sweetie Belle when Babs takes over the clubhouse. Apple Bloom pulls out an umbrella so she and Scootaloo won't get drenched by her tears.
• Offscreen Teleportation: During the song, not only does Babs stay a step ahead of the Crusaders, she can be in two places at once.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • All three of the Cutie Mark Crusaders sport one when Applejack delivers her Wham Line.
  • Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon have this reaction when Babs threatens to tell their mothers if they don't lay off the Crusaders.
• Only Sane Man: Sweetie Belle is the only CMC member to advocate talking to Applejack from the start.
• Pacifism Backfire: The CMC decide, at first, to just stay away from Babs Seed and their other bullies and try to keep living their lives as usual. It doesn't works: Babs just decides to pursue them all over town and spend every waking moment terrorizing them. They decide to fight back in the third act and eventually discover that they really should just have left their fears aside and talked to an adult like Sweetie Belle wanted and things would have stopped a whole lot sooner.
• Parental Obliviousness: She's not Apple Bloom's parent, but Applejack has no idea that Babs not only bullies Apple Bloom and her friends, but also kicks her out of her own bed and clubhouse, or that Babs is suddenly hanging around with Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon. Then again, she isn't the only member of the family not to notice that Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon are jerks to her sister, until Diamond Tiara insults Apple Bloom and the others while Applejack is standing right next to them. Babs is the one to tell them off, though.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: The CMC decide to make Babs see what it's like to be humiliated and pushed into the mud, only to call it off when they realize she already knows how that feels, all too well.
• Peer Pressure Makes You Evil: Babs turns on the Cutie Mark Crusaders because Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon turned up, and because she came to escape the bullying in Manehatten because of her blank flank.
• Poor Communication Kills: Applejack holds off on telling the Crusaders the reason Babs came to Ponyville. Justified because she thought it would've make Babs feel singled out for the very thing she was trying to escape. The Crusaders themselves also suffer from this, as the "snitches get stitches" mentality keeps them from ending the bullying early by telling Applejack.
• Produce Pelting: Babs throws tomatoes and milkshakes at the CMC during the song.
• Pun:
  • "Looks like somepony's pumpkin just got squashed."
  • "Let us in", said to Pinkie on the Lettuce float. She has another one when the CMC leave Pinkie after the float crashes.
• Punny Name: "Babs Seed" sounds similar to "bad seed". Lampshaded by Sweetie Belle near the episode's end.
• Running Gag: Apple Bloom mentions dictionaries yet again. Scootaloo has been reading one, perhaps to avoid being called things she doesn't know the meaning of again.
• Schizo Tech:
  • Movie theaters with color film are canon now. Though we have seen film projectors before in "Hurricane Fluttershy", so a movie theater isn't too far out of line.
  • Self-powered parade floats, complete with acceleration and brake pedals.
• School Bullying Is Harmless: Played with. The Cutie Mark Crusaders are clearly shown to not enjoy being bullied, but they are not shown to suffer any lasting harm, and the bully stops because of a single incident and never does it again. However, the focus is on the fact some people become bullies in response to bullying, which is treated as serious and avoiding it is the aesop of the episode. Babs Seed herself shows signs of psychological harm and was sent to Ponyville in the first place because of the bullying she suffered. While Applejack believes telling an adult will solve the problem, she also promises that she and the CMC will help if that doesn't solve the problem.
• Scooby Stack:
  • Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon make their entrance this way when the Crusaders show Babs their float.
  • Three times during "The Villain Sucks" Song.
• Seven Minute Lull: When Apple Bloom is trying to tell Applejack that they booby-trapped their float, she can't hear them over the noise of the parade. Naturally, it quiets down just as soon as she starts shouting at the top of her lungs.
• Shout-Out:
  • The giant pumpkin cart resembles the pumpkin coach from Cinderella.
  • Early on, Scootaloo says she thinks Babs just went to the dark side.
  • The song the CMC sing about Babs is stated by Word of Godinvoked to be a Homage to classic Hanna-Barbera songs.
  • Babs dresses as the wolf to the Cutie Mark Crusaders' Three Little Pigs in "The Villain Sucks" Song.
  • Part of the CMC's "The Villain Sucks" Song "Babs Seed" samples from Inner Circle's "Bad Boys", better known as the theme to COPS; much of the song itself seems like a sound-alike for Owl City's "Good Time" (with Carly Rae Jepsen) or "When Can I See You Again" (from Wreck-It Ralph).
  • Babs interrupts a "Let's All Go to the Lobby" movie bumper during the song and tortures its little cartoon caricatures.
  • The CMC building their second float is a nod to The A-Team—various shots of the Crusaders' hooves working on the float, complete with a similar music cue to The A-Team theme.
  • In the parade, Amethyst Star is dressed as another Hasbro property.
  • Also in the parade, several times in fact, is Doctor Whooves dressed up as a giant pear, wearing a bow tie, and with some sort of shawl on his back that looks suspiciously similar to the painting van Gogh did of the TARDIS exploding.
  • Emergency edible shoes.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: Babs does this to Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon while they're trying to bully the CMC again.
• Significant Green-Eyed Redhead: Babs is the first non-founding member of the CMC.
• Smug Smiler: Her default expression once she sides with Silver Spoon and Diamond Tiara. But this becomes When She Smiles by the end, though.
• Sour Outside, Sad Inside: Babs was bullied while living in Manehatten, so she bullies the Crusaders to avoid becoming another target. This is a stark contrast to Diamond Tiara, whose self-esteem is too high—she feels entitled to make everypony else miserable.
• Stealth Pun:
  • The episode title.
  • The second half of the episode centers on Babs Seed, from Manehatten, driving a big apple.
  • As pointed out above, Babs speaks with more of a Bronx accent. "Broncs" is often used as the shortened form of the word "broncos," adding it to the show's running theme of naming places using pony puns.
  • Sweetie Belle was the one who constantly said "Maybe we should tell Applejack," which makes her a snitch and she covered herself in the edible gold powder for demonstration purposes. Fillies and gentlecolts, Sweetie Belle is the Golden Snitch.
• Stock Footage: The chorus of "Babs Seed" repeats the same piece of animation two and a half times, which is in keeping with the homage the sequence is making to Josie and the Pussycats.
• Stock Shout-Out: "I think Babs just went to the dark side."
• The Stool Pigeon: Lampshaded. The only reason why the CMC didn't want to tell an adult about the bullying that was going on was because they didn't want to be labeled as "snitches" by Babs.
• Temporarily a Villain: Babs who bullies the CMC with Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon. After Babs makes amends with the CMC, she protects them from Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon.
• Tempting Fate: Right before "The Villain Sucks" Song.
  Scootaloo: Avoid her? Yeah. How hard could that be?
• Terrible Trio: Diamond Tiara, Silver Spoon, and Babs Seed are this for the majority of the episode. Later subverted when Babs has a Heel–Face Turn.
• Thinker Pose: Sweetie Belle adopts a version of this while demonstrating the Idea Spot.
• Threw My Bike on the Roof: When Babs joins in Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon's taunt of the CMC and tries to up the ante by kicking their float. In doing so, she inadvertently destroys it.
• Totally Radical: Applejack is quite confused by the ironic use of the word "bad".
• Vehicular Sabotage: The CMC booby-trap their own harvest float because they know Babs won't be able to resist driving it herself.
• "The Villain Sucks" Song: Possibly the most upbeat one in existence
• Visual Pun:
  • The corner of the clubhouse where they think up ideas has its own Idea Bulb.
  • The Crusaders' deflating balloons after Applejack's wham line about Babs.
• Vocal Dissonance: Babs has a rather deep voice for someone her age. Justified by her New York accent.
• The Voiceless: Although all the Mane Six are present, only Applejack and Pinkie speak.
• Wham Line: Applejack reveals to the CMC that Babs Seed was bullied herself back in Manehatten because she lacks a cutie mark herself, making the CMC realize their terrible mistake by getting revenge on her.
  Applejack: Well, that's just super sweet of y'all, making Babs feel so special... y'know, after all the heartache she's been havin' in Manehatten...
• When She Smiles: Near the end, when Babs has finally completed her Heel–Face Turn and is inducted into the Cutie Mark Crusaders, she has the first legitimately happy expression on her face she's had all episode.
• Wrench Wench: Scootaloo looks like one under the hood of the Apple Float.
• Yank the Dog's Chain: At one point, Scootaloo thinks she has a wrench cutie mark, but it's just a weirdly accurate grease stain, perhaps from where she laid the wrench on her hip or rolled onto and then off of it in the tight confines of working under the float.

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