See * for disclaimer

Here we enter into Season 2 of Friendship is Magic. Lauren Faust moves more firmly into the executive producer role, and transitions out of the head writer role. Studio B gets officially renamed as DHX Media/Vancouver, but as they were already owned by DHX before Season 1 started, that's not really a big deal.

The Return of Harmony (Part 1 and 2) (September 17th, 24th 2011, 2 x 22 minutes)

Summary: Discord, whatever did we do to make you take our world away?

Part 1

Statue garden, all in a realism style, but in different scales.

Draconequus (apparently there is some dispute about the spelling, I'm using the one from Lauren Faust), with the head of a pony.... I wouldn't have called that the head of a pony, myself, unless ponies had different heads at one point.

Rather easily damaged statues. More likely the CMC was the 'straw that broke the draconequus' back', and the statue had just bee n accumulating chaos energy all this time until it hit critical mass.

Rainbow Dash appears to be the only pegasi trying to deal with this. Where's the rest of the weather ponies? Unless Rainbow is the only one for Ponyville?

"A spell that will fix everything." Yeah, I'm kinda glad that didn't work. Otherwise it's the magic fixes everything problem.

Love the stained glass history lesson. Discord ruled Equestria for an unknown amount of time. Celestia and Luna showed up because they saw the torment the regular ponies were experiencing and decided to interfere. Show up from where? They discovered the Elements of Harmony, which could mean making them or finding them, and combined their powers to 'rise up against' Discord... combined the Elements' powers or combined Celestia's and Luna's powers? Or both? That 'their' is a bit vague. And rise up implies that they were somehow beneath Discord to begin with. They weren't the ones oppressed, as that was the regular ponies... or was it? This story, even if taken at face value, has some interesting verbal tics in it. It implies that Celestia and Luna arrived fully formed from elsewhere, but also implies that they were from Equestria and oppressed by Discord.

Celestia's explanation of the spell being broken because they are no longer connected to the Elements is a bit odd. Again with the implications... Did they retain their connection right up to when the Mane 6 took over? If so, then was Luna still connected when she was Nightmare Moon? If the connection was broken back when Celestia had to exile Luna, then wouldn't the spell containing Discord break then? Or has it been broken all this time, and Discord randomly decided to not do anything until now?

Celestia states flat out that the Bearers are now connected to the Elements and nobody else can use them effectively.

Still tainted by PMVs: I'm expecting Lyra and Bon-Bon to be behind the vault doors doing Gangnam Style.

Celestia has a bit of an overconfidence issue. "A spell only *I* can break" when up against a magical spirit.

Tough glass, actually.

Okay, so exactly how does Discord know all this about the Mane 6? Did he somehow read this all from the Elements he stole... actually, that's not a bad idea. Since they're connected to the Mane 6 in some way, the communication between the two groups might run in both directions.

Discord is showing a magical aptitude way beyond the abilities of anything we've seen on this show. Complete with special effects that match Q from Star Trek. Of course.

Discord must be magically making the maze enormous, because there's no way this fits into Canterlot.

Three piles of apples that will answer any one question. This one's *old*. The version that re-introduced the idea of three magical entities that can answer questions to any brave enough to face them, to the modern world is the Wyrd Sisters of Shakespeare's Hamlet, and copies of that version show up in a variety of fantasy settings. Older than that are the Moirai, the Morrigna, and the Norns, from Greek, Celtic, and Nordic myth, and even older the Matronae but the idea is the same. Ancient mythology really liked Triads over Dualities.

Scrying pool, also a standard mythological divination system found all over the world.

And the physical changes from emotional state, as seen before. Interesting that Discord felt the need to break down the ponies' mental defenses before enchanting them rather than directly doing it. He's trying to play by some kind of rules, even if he's not telling anyone else what they are. Rarity actually seems to be doing better at resisting at first. Better than AJ or Pinkie anyway.

Right up until Fluttershy, when he breaks his own rules. It seems while he worked out what each pony's fear is, he was confused by Fluttershy being afraid of everything. Personally I'd switch the order between Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash, but that's just me.

Though it does seem like the frustration he's experiencing after dealing with Fluttershy has made him a bit more aggressive with RD.

Part 2

Rarity has some kind of martial arts training. Or she *thinks* she has marital arts training, which wouldn't surprise me.

Second stage Discording. Okay, Spike can see the gray coloring of the discorded ponies. Though it may be more subtle than what we're seeing.

"Big Crown Thing" Tiara, Twilight, it's a tiara. Although technically there are two types of tiaras. The half-crown like what Twilight has, and the tall crown in a vaguely cone-like shape like the papal tiara.

I still think that Spike would be a reasonable substitute for Loyalty if the system worked that way. This either shows that the Discorded versions don't have what it takes to activate the Elements, or they really are linked and the Spike/RD substitution didn't work. I lean more to the substitution not working.

How did Celestia know to send the letters back? She must be monitoring the situation somehow, but won't interfere directly for 'reasons'. Probably because there isn't anything she *can* do, and is having a bit of princess panic.

A bit of soft hoof...

For a second I thought this might turn into a clip show episode, but nope.

Fluttershy is very Canadian. I was running a PnP RPG for some friends in Victoria, BC some years back. Shadowrun, if I remember correctly. And their characters phoned ahead to see if it was okay to break into megacorp headquarters. (That's not what their actual intent was, but it was the end effect when the player got flustered during the 'call'.)

Fluttershy is... not as weak a flyer as billed.

Discord can't seem to tell that his discording isn't active anymore. So Spike could see the grayness, but Discord can't. Is Discord... completely colorblind and can't see colors?

And the Elements of Harmony not only turn Discord back to stone, it undoes all of Discord's chaos. The special effect indicates that it's the Elements doing that work, and not just because Discord's been 'turned off'.

Canterlot is still very Imperial Russia in appearance, I'm not seeing anything to contradict that.

Star Wars reference, and a large audience present for the unveiling of the new stained glass window. Which will make future episodes rather odd, but we'll get to those later.