Well... buck. *sigh* I suppose it had to happen sometime, right? I mean, no show is perfect; even the best have their duds. But gosh bucking dang it, why did it have to come in Season 2, a season so exceptional and picture perfect in almost every way? Why did it have to come so close to the end?! Why oh why is "MMMystery on the Friendship Express" such a sweet-Celestia-what-were-the-writers-even-thinking-this-is-so-bucking-atrocious bad episode?!?! *sigh* Well, no sense in fighting it, might as well write this review and be done with it. Buck... whatever, let's get this over with.

OK, so seeing as there's so much wrong with this episode, let's go in chronological order, shall we? First off, the Cakes: they're bucking stupid in this episode, even if they only appear for about a minute and a half. Why, you may ask? BECAUSE IT'S THEIR FAULT THIS EPISODE HAPPENS IN THE FIRST PLACE!!! They've baked a delicious looking cake for the National Dessert Competition in Canterlot (given the high-sugar intake of pretty much every pony in this show well-established by this point, this really shouldn't come as a surprise), BUT for no explained reason have left Pinkie Pie and the Mane 6 in charge of safely transporting it there. Are they taking a different train? NOPE, they're not going at all! This seems stupid as it is, seeing as, oh I don't know, it's only THE NATIONAL DESSERT COMPETITION, a competition that could bring all sorts of rewards and open up business opportunities for the Cakes, and it comes across as even stupider once we see that THREE OTHER BAKERS are traveling on the same train because they've figured out that, gee, maybe they oughta present their baked goods themselves. The lack of an explanation doesn't really bug me if only because there is no good explanation for their not going. Are they not going because they want to keep Sugarcube Corner open? If so, that's bucking stupid; clearly pretty much every other baker in Equestria would rather close shop for a few days than miss such an important competition. Are they worried about leaving Pound and Pumpkin Cake by themselves? Well then maybe they should get a sitter, oh wait, THEY ALREADY HAVE ONE, WE SPENT AN ENTIRE EPISODE ESTABLISHING THAT, AND IT'S THE BUCKING PONY TRANSPORTING THEIR CAKE!!! So I rest my case: the Cake's are bucking stupid for not going to the competition at all, and already we've got a major bit of bad writing on the writers' parts. Brilliant, 2 minutes in and there's already a gaping plot hole!!!

Next, Pinkie Pie... oh Pinkie. Pinkie, Pinkie, Pinkie, Pinkie... Pinkie. BY LUNA'S SWEET FLANK WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN THIS EPISODE?!?!?!? Pinkie Pie, to be blunt, is an idiot in this episode, and as such, terribly OOC. I get the lesson they're going for, I really do; they're trying to teach that you shouldn't jump to conclusions before you have all the facts, that's a commendable lesson. But it's executed sooooooo poorly!!! Pinkie is just dense as a doorknob the entire episode. I mean, yeah, she's definitely not the brightest pony out of the bunch, but she's never displayed these levels of incompetency before or since this episode! The most ludicrous part is that she actually believes these ridiculous "theories" she comes up with as to who bit the cake when she's accusing Gustave le Grand, Donut Joe, and Mulia Mild of doing so; this is a bucking shame, seeing as these segments are one of the only highlights of the episode, but when you realize that she actually thinks it happened that way, it loses all its comedy and just comes across as stupid, plain and simple. She's coming up with these stories by the second, jumping from one to the next, and it seriously makes you question her sanity even. I mean, there is just no way that any character in a show so-well written as this one, a MAIN CHARACTER, should act this stupid!!! As a result of her stupidity, the entire effect of the lesson is lost, seeing as there should have been no need to learn this lesson in the first place AS MOST PEOPLE WOULD NEVER BEHAVE THIS STUPIDLY WHILE TRYING TO INVESTIGATE OR FIGURE OUT ANYTHING AT ALL!!! Pinkie's incompetence completely kills the lesson, is extraordinarily OOC behavior for her, and just gets plain annoying. Two thumbs way, way down on the writing for Pinkie Pie alone!

Finally, let's talk about everyone else. Are they as stupid as Pinkie Pie in this episode? Nope. They're just terrible, terrible, terrible individuals with HORRIBLE self control! Let me recap what's going on here, just to put this in perspective; they're traveling to Canterlot for the NATIONAL DESSERT COMPETITION. This competition, I'd wager, is a huge business opportunity for thousands of bakers across Equestria, including the Cakes, so there's a lot (and by a lot, I do mean A LOT) riding on their getting the cake to Canterlot intact, along with every other dessert. So, should be no problem, right? In a sane world, or just a logical world even, they would've packed plenty to eat on the train ride or gotten some food on there at least. Instead, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, and Rarity ALL take HUGE bites of the cake just because (and here's the real kicker) Pinkie Pie made it sound delicious in her description of it.

Hey guys, guess what? YOU ARE HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE FRIENDS!!!!!!!!!! This train ride takes about a day, you're going to a dessert competition that'll probably have thousands of entries that you can try, and you seriously couldn't restrain yourselves from taking three big bites of a cake that your good friends the Cakes are most likely counting on to boost their business?!?! WHAT THE BUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!?! Oh, and just when you didn't think it could get any worse, it does, it gets a lot worse; THE BUCKING BAKERS THEMSELVES ALL TAKE BITES OF EACH OTHERS BAKED GOODS BECAUSE PINKIE MAKES THEM SOUND SO GOOD!!! Gosh dang it, does the stupidity and lack of self control in this episode know no bounds?!?! THEY'RE BAKERS, professional, seasoned bakers, they should know how to restrain themselves from eating product, especially when it's not their own to eat at the time. Major kudos to Twilight and Applejack for being the only ponies to maintain their self-control in this entire episode (though according to Amy Keating Rodgers, Applejack was originally supposed to confess at the end that she did take a bite and just hid it... I'm really glad that didn't happen). Finally, their solution is possibly their stupidest decision of all; they combine desserts that have already been bitten into, not cut by a sterile utensil, BUT BITTEN, into one massive dessert crawling with the germs of at least four ponies, a griffon, and a mule, AND DON'T NOTIFY ANYPONY! Not only is that kind of unethical given the competition format, it's also gross and extremely stupid.

Wow, that cake is all kinds of wrong. I seriously do not want to think about how many different individuals have already bitten into all those desserts that they have now PUT TOGETHER AFTER THE FACT. That is sooooooo bucking gross it's not even funny.

Besides the terrible writing for so many characters, the episode has plenty of other problems. It's terribly paced, with some parts dragging and others feeling too rushed, especially the conclusion, which is extraordinarily fast! The setting is extremely boring; they're in one train cart that doesn't change at all for most of the episode, and my bucking gosh does the episode drag largely because of the stale setting (and yes, I get that it's a bottle episode in some regards, but did we really need a bottle episode in MLP??? Or at least if we did, I'm sure they could make one better than that!)! Finally, it's just not that funny; aside from a few standout moments, such as Pinkie's ludicrous theories (which are a blast to watch to be honest) and Rarity's "I wear false eyelashes" line, there's really not that much that tickles my funny bone in this episode, and that just makes its stupidity all the more noticeable for me. We've had a couple of bad episodes in MLP history, but they were never bad overall, they just had bad elements, and at the very least they usually were either really fun, had unique, interesting, and varied settings and stories, or both even! This episode just has nothing, and it's a bucking shame because they send up a lot of genres that could've made for some fun material: Sherlock Holmes, James Bond, silent movies, even ninja movies! But instead, every pop culture reference either falls dead, comes across as forced, or just doesn't do that much for the viewer seeing as it's in such a terrible episode. Besides Twilight remaining competent and those theory sequences being hilarious and pretty original, I can't say anything good about this episode. Terrible writing resulted in poor execution, horribly OOC characters, a boring setting, and one of the stupidest conflicts I've ever seen in a kids show, born out of total lack of self control. Overall, it's my least favorite episode in all of MLP: FiM; it's bland and stupid and just does nothing for me whatsoever, and I cannot recommend rewatching it more than you have to, say, when you're attempting to rewatch all of the seasons chronologically. Beyond that, there's no reason one should torture themselves by rewatching this travesty out of order for its own merits, because as far as I'm concerned, it has none.

Besides the fact that I understand, with the season so close to an end and having already produced so many amazing gems for Season 2, Studio B must've been absolutely exhausted of ideas for the regular episodes of the season, there is only one other reason that I'm usually quite forgiving of this episode: because of what followed this episode...

Well, this sounds like fun. What could possibly go wrong?