Apologies once again for the delayed review ya'll, I had work yesterday from 11-5 and didn't get around to watching the episode until late on Saturday night. After watching it twice already, however, I am pleased to say that I have nothing but good things to say about "For Whom the Sweetie Belle Toils" (except maybe for the terribly punny episode title; seriously, worst ponified title since "Sleepless in Ponyville", but hey, that episode rocked as well ).

Anyways, let's get going with this thing. I have to start by giving major props to DashForever for his excellent insight following my first viewing of the episode. He and I spoke some afterwards, and we agreed and came to the conclusion that, while this wasn't necessarily the best episode of the season thus far, it was a flawless episode. I'm not exaggerating when I say that, "For Whom the Sweetie Belle Toils" was just about flawless in every single way. So if that's the case, you might be wondering why it wasn't the best episode of the season? Well here's why: this episode simply did not leave as much of an impact as other episodes this season. There have been more important episodes this season, episodes that contributed to this season's overarching plot considerably more than this episode did. Most of them may not have been as flawless as this episode was, but they were still great episodes all the same that affected the show more overall than this one will in the long run. That said, as I said, this was a flawless episode in the sense that it perfectly fulfilled what it wanted to be. It knew what it wanted to be, it set itself goals to achieve, and it accomplished those goals perfectly from start to finish in its execution. That in itself is damn impressive, and "For Whom the Sweetie Belle Toils" now joins the prestigious list of the handful of episodes in MLP history that I have pretty much nothing to complain about whatsoever. So what are the specific elements that make this episode work so well? Well I'm going to focus on four in particular, followed by some more general episode elements: (1) Sweetie Belle, (2) Rarity, (3) Princess Luna, and (4) the episode plot in general.

So I'm just gonna flat out state it, this was Sweetie Belle's best starring role ever, hands down. Besides this episode, in all of her other starring roles, with the exception of "Sisterhooves Social", Sweetie Belle's been a part of the CMC. This isn't a bad thing, and she's certainly made her fair share of mistakes with the group, but (1) usually the group as a whole makes a mistake together, even if one member in particular is more responsible than the others, and (2) the shenanigans they get into are usually not of the most serious nature. Not that they haven't made big mistakes before, but probably the worst mistake they ever made concerning personal relationships would have to be when they ran their gossip column and almost alienated themselves from the rest of Ponyville. As for "Sisterhooves Social", Sweetie Belle was quite obviously portrayed in a positive light there, and almost always in the right in that episode, despite some of the mischief she got up to. Here, however, we got to see Sweetie Belle portrayed in a light we've never seen before.

In every previous episode that's ever focused on it, we've always gotten the sense (unfairly in my opinion) that Sweetie Belle gets the short-end-of-the-stick in her relationship with Rarity. Even in comical situations, Rarity has almost always been portrayed as the less sisterly of the two, the one who has had a far harder time being a good sister to her little sister, whereas Sweetie Belle has almost always been portrayed as the precocious, energetic, accident-prone little sister who just wants some attention and love from her big sister. I'm not saying that's not true to her character, it worked to great effect in "Sisterhooves Social", but there was simply an imbalance in their portrayals. Rarity made all the mistakes in their relationship, Sweetie Belle always suffered for it, etc., etc., you get the picture. With this episode, however, their relationship officially feels more real than it ever has before. Here, Sweetie Belle did not just make an innocent mistake, she deliberately did something quite cruel in a fit of rage, more or less, and the episode went to some dark places as a result. While her anger was obviously misplaced, as a sibling myself (albeit an older sibling), I can say with confidence that this whole scenario felt very, very real. I've felt that level of anger Sweetie Belle felt here before, I've been that mad at members of my family that I just lock myself in my room, rage more than loud enough for them to hear, and can't even get to sleep and instead just scream into my pillow because I'm just that mad (granted, that was more when I was younger than now, but I'm sure plenty of other siblings have felt the same as well). So again, while her anger was obviously irrational and even selfish, it still made sense. Sweetie Belle has always lived in her sister's shadow (which cannot be said of Apple Bloom, since the Apple Family shares out of necessity in their family-oriented work quite equally, they're very much team based and not individualistic in that regard, nor Scootaloo, who has no actual siblings, despite Rainbow Dash taking her under her wing as a surrogate sister last season), and Rarity, with her eccentric, larger-than-life personality, fabulous lifestyle, and attention-grabbing career, most certainly has always cast a very big shadow (not to be mean of course, that's just who Rarity is). Sweetie Belle clearly wants to be more than "Rarity's little sister", and that too is a very realistic, believable reaction to expect from a younger sibling, and it was conveyed excellently here.

As for her action itself that led to all the episode's problems, I gotta say that Sweetie Belle's attempt to sabotage Rarity was one of the cruelest, deliberately ill-intentioned actions we've ever seen in the show from anyone (and that's not even taking into account the implications of said actions if Sweetie Belle hadn't corrected them). It was driven by nothing but anger, fury, hatred even (spur of the moment, yes, but still, that hatred was very raw and very real), and it was quite jarring to see all of that coming from the normally sweet and innocent Sweetie Belle. Even better was the punch to the gut she received when she saw the potential consequences of her actions, which, just like her earlier anger, was very raw in itself, and not watered down in the slightest. DHX went no holds barred here in the dark territory, and I love, love, loved that Sweetie Belle was forced to witness just how bad the consequences from her act of hatred could be. Basically, she came a few seconds away from ruining her sister's life; sure it might seem a bit melodramatic, but realistically speaking, sometimes all it takes is one act of anger or hatred to ruin a relationship, even between the closest of family or friends. Besides learning the dangers of unbridled anger, I loved what Sweetie Belle learned about her sister as well: (1) Rarity loves her dearly and has genuinely watched out for her numerous times in her life, and (2) Rarity's life is hardly perfect, she works extremely hard and earns everything that she gets. By the end, she no longer felt animosity towards her sister (despite the genuine difficulties that come with being a little sister sometimes); rather, she not only loved her sister more than ever, but wanted to strive to be as good a pony as Rarity is. Probably my favorite part of the conclusion was that she actually told Rarity what she did; she originally had planned, it seemed, on trying to fix her mess without Rarity knowing, but in the end she fessed up, and that bespeaks the love between those two. Truly loving siblings, heck, family in general, love and trust each other enough to tell each other when they've screwed up, when they did something they shouldn't have, because they know that their family will forgive them and still love them. That Sweetie Belle told Rarity displayed a lot of maturity and character growth on her part, and their reconciliation was a very sweet way to round out the episode.

Speaking of Rarity, let's talk about her next (thankfully her section shouldn't be nearly as long as SB's was, if only because Rarity wasn't in the episode as much). Honestly, Rarity was at her best here, especially the best I've ever seen her as a sister. She was more than generous with her time to Sweetie Belle, she put in real effort on those great costumes for Sweetie's play (not to mention worked her plot off on her own order for Sapphire Shores), and basically was all around just acting as a true, loving older sister to Sweetie Belle this whole episode. We saw her great work ethic, her generosity, her love for her little sis, all at their best and truest form here, and I loved every minute of it. It's about time Rarity got portrayed in a positive light from start to finish in her role as a big sister, and it truly worked wonders here. Some might say that Rarity was responsible for Sweetie Belle's insecurity, but that was indirect at best; Rarity, being an older sister, simply can't understand Sweetie Belle's genuine insecurity derived from living in her older sister's shadow. It was a nice touch seeing how both sisters share the insecurity that comes with being perfectionists, plus it was a whole lot of fun getting to yet again see Rarity actually working as a fashionista, I mean filling out a real, major order for none other than Sapphire Shores (which was a nice bit of continuity itself, very cool to see that Rarity is still Sapphire Shores's favorite designer). It was also wonderful seeing how Rarity actually had a history of looking out for her sister prior to their reconciliation in "Sisterhooves Social" (which both (1) suggests that in the time in between SB's 5th birthday and "Sisterhooves Social" that Rarity simply got too caught up in her work and independent, adult lifestyle and (2) illustrates nicely that Rarity is probably one of the oldest members of the group, I mean, heck, she had to be at the youngest in her late teenage years in that flashback, that's a pretty wide gap between her and SB age-wise). Finally, even though Rarity was her fabulous, eccentric self, and even though some of the time it worked to comedic effect, it really wasn't played up for comedic purposes at any point in the episode. Rarity was pretty much straight-laced the whole time, and really just worrying about truly pressing matters, like Sweetie Belle's costumes or her own order. I love it when Rarity is played straight like that, reminds us nicely that not only is she a normal character, not just some drama queen, but is also actually one of the more mature members of the Mane 6 believe it or not. Overall, Rarity was just at her best here, as a fashionista, a sister, and just a pony in general.

Finally, let's talk about what really made the episode for me as far as characters go: Princess Luna (a.k.a. MOTHERBUCKING BEST PRINCESS AND DON'T YA'LL FORGET IT!!! ).

Oh me, oh my, was Luna good here. No, wait, good doesn't do her justice... Luna was bucking perfect here! Seriously, this was probably her best appearance since "Luna Eclipsed". I loved seeing how Luna has continued to grow as a character since "Luna Eclipsed", even beyond "Sleepless in Ponyville", because she's really learned how to become her own sort of teacher to ponies, developed her own way to impart lessons to them. Keep in mind that her sister, Princess Celestia, has 1,000 years more experience than she does interacting with and mentoring ponies, and so has no trouble whatsoever interacting with any or delivering lessons in a straight-forward manner. Luna, on the other hand, is still learning present-day social customs, and on top of that still just recently got back from a 1,000 year banishment; add all those factors together, and you get one very shy, socially awkward pony. But she's made great progress since "Luna Eclipsed", as evidenced by this episode, and has really come into her own as her own unique kind of mentor and teacher. She seems to favor directly helping younger fillies so far (maybe it's because she relates more being a younger sister, maybe she just finds them to be more easily accessible, hard to say), her primary medium seems to be through her power to control and go into and out of others' dreams, and most importantly, she seems to favor showing more than telling. Yes, in "Sleepless in Ponyville" she kinda told Scootaloo a lot of what she needed to do, but she still employed visual mediums to make her point and help Scootaloo realize what was troubling her, but here she wasn't giving Sweetie Belle any direct answers and I LOVED IT!!! Instead, she let events, both past, present, and future, speak for themselves, and silently escorted Sweetie Belle from one event to another. I loved this indirect style of imparting a lesson, because it forced Sweetie Belle to realize the error of her ways on her own (for the most part) and like I said, it showed how Princess Luna stands apart from and differs in her own style of teaching lessons about friendship from her sister. Finally, you could tell from start to finish, despite her silence, that this was a deeply personal lesson for Luna to teach. She was angry when she came on the scene (in a very regal, serious sense that truly conveyed real gravitas), but that anger clearly wasn't directed at Sweetie Belle; rather, Luna was angry out of fear, for in Sweetie's hatred she saw her own past hatred that led her down the dark path to turning into Nightmare Moon, and she realized just what terrible things were at stake for both Sweetie Belle and Rarity if SB's hatred weren't dissipated. As the episode progressed, you could tell that Luna truly understood Sweetie Belle's frustration, for she herself had once experienced it with her own sister (it was interesting that she even said that "I too have a sister who often shines more brightly than me" in the present tense, suggesting that this is still the case even now and that it's even something that Luna still struggles with). By the end of the episode, a very regal peace and contentment had replaced Luna's earlier anger, satisfied and happy at seeing Sweetie Belle and Rarity reconcile before anything truly terrible had happened as it once had between her and Celestia. Overall, this episode highlighted not only fascinating character developments in Luna's character, but showed her at her absolute best, a teacher and mentor for all of ponykind who, although still getting the hang of it, is really coming into her own as she learns how to impart lessons of friendship to others. Basically, what I'm getting at is, this episode showed, as all her episodes do, that LUNA IS NOW AND ALWAYS SHALL BE BEST PRINCESS, AND DON'T... YOU... FORGET... IT!!!!!!!!!! :okiedokielokie:

Finally, I've just gotta praise the plot in general. I'm not going to cover each and every specific plot point, but I'm sorry, this plot was executed to perfection. The pacing was phenomenal (seriously, DHX fit in a lot but wisely didn't try to fit in too much), the tone was incredibly edgy, slice-of-life with a lot of dark thematic elements, and the overall execution was just perfect. Of particular note would have to be the dream segment; elements of Dickens's "A Christmas Carol" and Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life" were very present, but really despite those minor similarities this was an incredibly unique and creative segment in its own right, very original indeed. The segues were flawless, the animation was stunning and even trippy in some spots, the execution of the entire sequence was just amazing! Honestly, it was one of the best sequences I've seen in MLP in quite some time, and Princess Luna's silent presence is probably one thing that made it work so well. She was the conductor of these sequences, and she moved along from one memory or future possibility to the next seamlessly, without dwelling on them too much, but just enough that they'd leave the desired impact on both Sweetie Belle and the audience. So despite the fact that this was hardly the biggest story ever told in MLP, it was still a perfect story for what it was, and I give major kudos to the writing department at DHX on this one.

Besides these four elements, everything else worked in this episode just fine. Given the seriousness of the issue here, there actually wasn't as much comedy as in other episodes, but that worked just fine, and they still worked in enough laughs, especially from the CMC in general (favorite comedic bit had to be the train conversation, especially this bit: AB: "You seriously didn't know that? Don't you listen to her songs?" SB: "I... prefer show tunes" *cue the look of disgust from AB and Scoots, priceless! *). The Mane 6, for their brief appearance, were their usual awesome selves, aiding their friend when she needed them most without batting an eye. Five year old Sweetie Belle was simply ADORABLE, definitely one of the cutest bits this whole season. The background ponies got a surprising bit of love at the start, with quite a bit of speaking from two of 'em and some extended appearances by a few others, most notably Carrot Top and Cloud Kicker. The return of Sapphire Shores (yes I know she appeared earlier this season, but she wasn't speaking) was a pleasant surprise, and I give major kudos to DHX for retaining the same voice actress as she had in Season 1 three years ago, the last time she spoke! We even got to learn a little bit more about her (who knew she loved dolphins so much, or that they were her lucky animal, but hey, I guess that's what happens when they swim with you in your dreams). Finally, the animation, especially in the dream segment, was simply perfect, incredibly creative at times and some of the best we've seen in the show as a whole. Overall, I have nothing but good things to say about this episode; it may not have been the best episode of the season, but for what it was trying to be and do, this episode was simply perfect.