The cold open sets up that this is gonna be our first Pinkie/Dash centered episode. This is peak early series pinkie being pinkie and one of the episodes that made me a huge fan of her. It also led Pinkie to bond with RD over their mutual enjoyment of pranks (and of course the hiccups with Spike and Pinkie). Much of this first segment was peak RD/Pinkie pranking fun, which is what made the episode enjoyable to begin with. Gilda joins the fray and instantly I got transported into 'dweeb' land. THis part of the episode where Gilda is basically trying to pull RD away from Pinkie is one of my least favorite parts of the season. Gilda wasn't exactly a great antagonist to begin with, with her only defining variable being her 'friendship' with RD. Pinkie being persistent in her attempts to appear to Gilda als makes this episode pretty good. But... the only one worse is the part where Gilda basically screamed at Fluttershy for getting in the way. This does not make her a good antagonist, this just makes her a jerk. I know that's how they wrote her, but that's no excuse. The party was just one large prankfest to attempt to ingratiate Gilda into her new friends was a great way to end this episode. Overall, it was a nice early series episode establishing a bit of RD's past and the start of the RD/Pinkie dynamic seen throughout the entire rest of the series. It's just a shame that Gilda was in so few episodes, because she had so much potential as a character.

Grade: B