Sugar Cube

As someone who loved Scooby-Doo growing up as a kid, I definitely could appreciate this episode's suspenseful mystery-like feel which was very reminiscent of Scooby. The first sub plot, involving Twilight and Spike, wasn't the highlight of the episode, the two of them still provided plenty of great moments all in all, between Spike's fears and Twilight's nerdouts, I'm actually a little bit pleased that Twilight didn't take up too much screen time in this one after being the obvious star of the season premiere. I always enjoy episodes that involve a near equal distribution of spotlight amongst the Mane Six, and Castle Mania accomplishes this very well. Next up, we have our two tomcolts, Applejack and Rainbow Dash, and their sub plot about who the most daring pony is. As always, these two were pure gold together. Seeing Pinkie Pie keep score of these two while they got absorbed in their bee competition reminded me of Fall Weather Friends. I've been wanting to see these two compete with one another once again for a while now, and so it was greatly appreciated to see this episode answer my call. And if that we're enough of a callback to older episodes, we got to see Applejack do the exact same ghostly gesture as she did in Look Before You Sleep. And there were countless hilarious expressions. I don't know which of the two of them proved more daring, but I wouldn't mind seeing them keep this friendly rivalry up, which the end of the episode seemed to hint at. As much I as love AJ and would like to call her the highlight of the show, I think that title goes to both Rarity and Fluttershy. I knew these two more ladylike ponies made for an amazing duo, as Green Isn't Your Color had proved once before. Fluttershy's over-the-top cries for Angel had me laughing the entire time, and Rarity had so many hilarious and expertly delivered lines, including: "Of all the castles in Equestria, this is by far the most ungrateful!" As well as: "Aah! Aaaah! I was only trying to restore ancient art!" There was no shortage of funny scenes with them either. And of course, we have Pinkie Pie. Admittedly, the outcome of the episode was pretty predictable, but at least you could tell the writers tried to write Pinkie off by having her scheduled to ring the bells. Of course with Pinkie, we always have to expect her to do what would normally be unexpected. And speaking of unexpected, the fact that Pinkie was able to surprise her friends in the end by being the creepy organ player definitely reminded me of Swarm of the Century when she proved herself an asset by playing a myriad of instruments to ward off the parasprites. The similarity? In both cases it was Pinkie's unorthodox and eccentric actions that led to the lesson and resolution. And I don't think I'll get this scene out of my head anytime soon: I was slightly disappointed that there wasn't a but I'm not complaining too much because we did get one of those back in A Bird in the Hoof, which I still herald as being one of MLP's funniest moments ever. I'm happy to see the show once again taking a new direction. The letters to Princess Celestia are a thing of the past now, but there is still just as much opportunity for our heroes to grow, as now they have their own journals to write in about their experiences in friendship. This is a great way to add progress to the show's storyline without it losing its emphasis on the morals and lessons. And lastly, I wonder about that mysterious figure at the end of the episode. Is there a pony of shadows? I'm wondering if that could have been our first glimpse of what is to come later on in MLP's first season to feature a major story arc. One thing's for sure, I had a lot of fun with this episode and I can't wait for more!