Play-By-Play: The Return of Harmony Part 2

In these little play-by-plays I watch an episode and as it goes on I make commentary on it. It’s kind of like a Riff Track only there’s no time limit on jokes based on the progression of what you’re watching. And of course be aware that this commentary will contain MAJOR SPOILERS.

This is part 2 of a two-part episode. If you haven’t seen my play-by-play of part 1 yet, click here.

Let’s get started!

0:00 – LAST TIME ON DRAGONBALL Z! Goku and the gang encountered the stange and powerful Majin Buu! With his reality-warping magic powers and his great strength, he quickly defeated the Z warriors and went on a rampage around the rest of the Earth. Will Goku and the gang be able to stop the rampage of this monster? Find out on this episode of DRAGONBALL Z! Cha la, head cha la…

1:15 – rofl

1:23 – Oh, NOW Pinkie doesn’t like Discord.

1:55 – Rarity uses her horse-style kung fu. Is there a horse-style of kung fu? Well whatever, point is that all the ponies are being bitches to eachother.

2:04 – Where’d he get that couch and that popcorn? And why was Applejack farming corn?

2:23 – I had the same reaction as Discord. For someone who spends all her free time reading books, Twilight isn’t very perceptive.

2:31 – Whoa, astral projection!

3:00 – I made a Chocolate Rain joke last time, not gonna do it again.

3:01 – Pinkie Pie hating chocolate milk rain? THE END IS NEIGH!

3:26 – What the hell happened to Ponyville while they were away!?

3:40 – You know something’s wrong with Fluttershy when she praises her asshole pet rabbit for being an asshole.

3:46 – Hey, Applejack isn’t lying, she’s just being sarcastic! I call bullshit.

3:57 – Twilight, you can teleport. Why don’t you just do that to get to solid ground?

4:00 – Soap? Is that what it is? And it’s funny how he’s just skating along next to them like a pimp.

4:39 – “Not if I have anything to say about it!” Man, I wish I could come up with a joke for that.

4:41 – “Don’t worry, you won’t.” Nah, that’s lame. Thanks for trying though, Fluttershy.

4:46 – So if they all hate each other, why are they still walking around together?

4:55 – They seem to be getting worse. Interesting way of showing it.

5:19 – “Tom”? Well, Rarity, my days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle.

5:36 – I bet you thought Spike was sleeping because he was being lazy. This is not the case. Clearly, Discord put a sleeping spell on him. Spike would never sleep when there are gems to eat, bitches to fuck, and blunts to smoke cause he’s a bad motherfucker like that.

6:11 – OH SNAP!

6:32 – Hey, they used the same book here that they did in season 1 episode 1! I guess these writers do know what continuity is after all! Now if only they would explain why Applejack was farming corn…

6:50 – Twilight, just use your magic to telekinetically catch the book in midair. Jean Grey is probably rolling in her grave right now. Or being a balance issue in MvC3. There’s very little difference.

6:52 – OH SHIT! TACKLE THAT BITCH SPIKE! That’s what you get for interrupting his sleep, bitch!

6:56 – Stealing random shit that she sees? Wow, Rarity really is an Orange Lantern.

7:17 – And here we’ll take a brief break from our regular program to show you a preview of fan-developed fighting game My Little Pony: Fighting Is Magic.

7:23 – Wait, Applejack and Pinkie didn’t have the book, so how did Twilight come out of that fight with them holding the book? I mean I know that Discord punched the Source Wall and altered reality, but there’s only so many plot holes that can cover.

7:28 – LOOK OUT, HE’S GOT A SCROLL!

7:29 – “AND I’M GONNA READ IT!” Really? That’s it? How anticlimactic.

7:37 – Whoa! They were in the book! How convenient!

7:56 – “You don’t even care, do you?” No, Twilight, nobody cares about your gaming blog. Especially after you said that Tokido would top8 at Evo.

7:59 – “I never thought it would happen. My friends…have turned into complete jerks!” My friends have always been jerks, so I can’t sympathize.

8:09 – It’s called a tiara, Twilight. You should know, your doll comes with one. (NOTE: If it doesn’t, don’t tell me about it, I don’t care).

8:23 – Now, I have a number of jokes written here and I would like to read them now:

• Spike just got 20% cooler!
• But Spike’s male, how can he be a lesbian?
• Spike is gonna be so awesome! /)^ɛ^(\
• Oh no, that means…Spike, don’t eat any of Pinkie’s cupcakes!
• According to shippers, Applebloom had a crush on Spike, and I guess now that he’s Rainbow Dash, Scootaloo has a crush on him too!
• Now they’ll stop Discord in ten seconds flat!

These go on for several pages, but I’ll stop here.

8:34 – “…so we don’t ever have to talk to eachother again!” Whoa, kinda extreme don’t you think? I mean you all still live in the same town.

8:39 – And they cheer that? Damn, girls are catty as hell.

8:47 – Heeeeeeeeeere’s Tommy!

9:09 – So he wants to die with sunglasses on? What?

9:49 – Poor Twilight, she couldn’t get it up. Good thing I never have that problem.

9:57 – Yup, saw that one coming. Hell, I figured Larfleeze Rarity would have stolen the elements as soon as she saw them in the book.

10:06 – Nice, she set up a joke about Spike being Rainbow Dash on her own! I kinda like this new Fluttershy.

10:17 – “Discord rules, Celestia drools!” Man, the 90s sure were radical, dude.

10:44 – “I don’t need you guys either! I’ll make my own Elements of Harmony! With blackjack! And hookers! In fact, forget the Elements of Harmony!”

10:48 – “Ah, screw the whole thing.”

10:50 – Wow, and now Twilight has lost her color. Wait, since her element is magic, does that mean she’s lost her magic power too? And why was Applejack farming corn?

10:55 – Subtle.

11:00 – OH MAN, BALLERINA BISON! Good thing there wasn’t a really depressing moment before that or else this would seem to conflict with the tone!

11:07 – I’m sure there will be a name for the beanie hat pony soon enough. Hell, this episode’s been out for a few hours already, so there may even be porn of her.

11:20 – Pepper on berry punch? That would taste terrible.

11:26 – Good, Twilight, ignore the troll.

11:53 – Whoa, is she going back to Canterlot?

11:57 – Oh, no she has no idea. How uncharacteristic of Twilight to not have a plan. But I suppose that’s the point of being grayed-out. Oh, and she didn’t lose her magic.

12:03 – Holy shit, Spike vomited up his own weight in scrolls! And then some!

12:17 – If those are all the letters you’ve written to her, shouldn’t there only be about 24? I mean, I guess there was that one prank Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash pulled on Spike, but there shouldn’t be more than 30 scrolls.

12:52 – “Twilight, could you please put me down? I think I’m gonna be sick.”

13:11 – Wow, Spike looks like he’s about to die. Maybe you should get him some medical attention before you go off on a fruitless quest to help your friends, Twilight.

13:37 – Hey, pigs are flying. I guess this means the Detroit Lions are going to win the Superbowl this year!

13:39 – Okay, Big Mac and Granny Smith have gone insane.

14:00 – Big Mac licks Twilight? Yeah, I’ve read that slashfic too.

14:13 – Wow, Twilight learned the Season 1 montage spell!

14:49 – Speaking of montages…

15:09 – “Let us never speak of this again.” And the DCnU made it so that Rarity was never an Orange Lantern!

15:32 – So nopony found Rainbow Dash in her house, but Pinkie Pie saw her lounging around on a nearby cloud? Man these ponies are dense.

15:47 – “I’m staying here in Cloudsdale where everything is SO AWESOME!” /)^ɛ^(\

15:56 – And Applejack has knowledge of the pre-Flashpoint DCU. Would that make her Superboy Prime? God I hope not.

16:00 – “I thought we agreed that the retcon was permanent and we weren’t going to renege on it this time.”

16:04 – I was wondering if they were going to bust out the blimp to save Rainbow Dash.

16:11 – So this plan involves Fluttershy physically overpowering something larger than a bunny? WHAT COULD GO WRONG?

16:25 – Oh boy, dirty comments incoming.

16:45 – So this is where that promotional image came from.

17:05 – Hahahaha, they might die because of Pinkie’s carelessness.

17:17 – “If you can’t catch her, Celestia’s animals won’t hang out with you!”

18:00 – So how come it’s not explained why she thought Cloudsdale was in trouble but when they met her everything was “awesome”?

18:09 – I will never get tired of seeing the Ballet Buffalo.

18:38 – Heh, he drank the glass. That’s kinda funny.

18:40 – lol random explosion, shoutouts to Michael Bay.

18:57 – Whoa, Twilight actually using her powers to be useful! That’s a first for these episodes.

19:08 – “I’ll tell you what we’ve learned, Discord.” So that’s how they’re going to fit the friendship report into this episode.

19:17 – “Ugh, gag.” My thoughts exactly.

19:31 – Oh Pinkie Pie, you’re always trying to cockblock the action.

19:39 – Okay, the way they defeat Discord was pretty badass. Moments like this are the reason I got into this series in the first place.

20:40 – DERPY!

21:16 – I wasn’t aware that stained glass windows could be made so quickly.

21:26 – Oh cool, custom credits music because this is the first big story of the new season!

21:31 – And a commercial for another show on The Hub cuts it off!? What a load of shit. And WHY WAS APPLEJACK FARMING CORN!?

Now like the last episode, this episode is not without its faults. There were a lot of things introduced to the plot in part 1 that were ignored here. Rainbow Dash thought Cloudsdale was under attack in part 1, but in part 2 she acts like everything’s fine. What happened there? Where was Princess Celestia (and Princess Luna for that matter) during all this? What happened to the Cutie Mark Crusaders? Why was Applejack farming corn? None of these questions are answered and it kind of bugs me that they were just forgotten about like this. The episode also isn’t very character driven, as we only get a tiny glimpse of what the ponies are like before they get turned into their evil forms. This makes it a poor episode to start with for people who are just jumping onto the series, which I’m sure many might be because of all the hype around the new season. Maybe this could have been solved by making it a three-part episode, but that would seem a bit excessive.

Despite these flaws, the first two episodes of season two set a good tone for the direction of the show. The animation is good and the writing is solid. Everyone is in character and their grayed-out forms are like mirror universe versions of themselves. The villain is interesting and well-written and the way they defeat him is cool. It was also great how they referenced the events of season 1, but at the same time they should have paid more attention to those events to avoid creating any plot holes. Still, this is a solid episode. Not the best and not a good jumping-on point, but still very solid. When Lauren Faust demoted herself (or whatever) from being executive producer to creative consultant, many were worried that the quality of the show would decrease. If this episode is any indication of the quality we can expect in the future, then I’m not worried about the show getting worse at all. These were good episodes and I’m looking forward to more.

No, seriously though, why was Applejack farming corn? I still haven’t gotten an answer for that.