The Gilda episode! I watched this one twice, this is where the show really starts picking up in quality for me. A few things stand out to me in the first part – first of all, what are those scrolls Spike’s getting? It seems like he’s getting them out of what I assume is the town hall. Maybe it’s mail for Twilight? And also, when the first scroll that Spike accidentally sends to Celestia appears in her chamber, she seems surprised. The only reason I can think of for why Celestia would be surprised by this would be that Twilight only sends her letters on certain days. I looked up a few airdates for the episodes, they seemed to mostly be on various different weekendish slots – Friday afternoon, Saturday and Sunday, but I don’t know if there’s one in particular the episodes usually aired on. But it ties back in to that theory I had with the timeframe between episodes in Applebuck Season. At least so far in the show, my running theory is that it’s within a given week and the letter-writing portion at the end of an episode falls on a Saturday in-universe. I’m sure this will get disproven later but I like to think of it as being the case ‘for now’. It would mean Twilight’s been in Ponyville for 5-6 weeks, which feels right – she’s got a fair amount of background characterisation in this episode, where she’s reading books throughout. She reads one on the bench, she’s reading one whilst Pinkie talks to her, a theme which comes up next episode too. In addition, I’m interested that Twilight tries to give what SOUNDS like good advice but actually in the course of the episode turns out to be mistaken, showing she’s kind of trying to demonstrate almost to herself that she has learned a fair bit about friendship already but she hasn’t actually learned all that much yet, and in the next episode she has another misunderstanding about friendship in a similar vein. It makes it clear in both episodes that she’s taking her studies seriously, but hasn’t quite found her footing yet. Another thing I’m wondering about is what she was studying this episode – in the next one she tells us, but here it’s not clear. After reading through some books clearly to the exclusion of her concentration on other things – in both instances someone is talking to her and she’s only half paying attention as she reads – followed by this chemical experiment she’s doing. Is it somehow related to her friendship studies? Who knows, I’m probably going to keep pondering it though.

The other thing which stands out to me is the careful emphasis on SAFE pranking. When Spike’s hiccuping, Pinkie Pie is cautious to ask if he’s alright before laughing at the situation, which is frankly such superb characterisation that it actually makes me feel a little depressed at how the later seasons treat her, I think I’m beginning to see some of the pain the Pinkiefags were going through – steadfastly ensuring that she never laughs AT someone but always laughs with them is both a genuinely empathetic trait and a subtle one too, something which I think quickly got forgotten from her character. And of course there’s the relatively famous part where Pinkie doesn’t want to prank Fluttershy as she’s too sensitive, and Rainbow Dash veeery reluctantly agrees. Aside from characterisation, it’s also a good lesson to communicate, especially since it’s not even the main message of the episode. It is hard to distinguish between jokes which are harmless and jokes which are hurtful sometimes, especially for kids where so often it straddles the line between friendly joviality and bullying, pretty nicely demonstrated there with Rainbow Dash filling in for the potential bully role, even if it makes her seem strangely mean.

And I haven’t even gotten onto the lesbian bird yet!