My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic/Recap/S1/E15 Feeling Pinkie Keen



"Pinkie Pie: It's my tail! It's my tail! It's a-twitchin' twitchin'! And you know what that means! Twilight Sparkle: Actually, Pinkie, I haven't the slightest idea."

"Written by Dave Polsky"

Twilight Sparkle learns that Pinkie Pie has an unusual ability to sense happenings in the immediate future based on twitches and tics of her body, known as "Pinkie Sense". Twilight is skeptical, but much to her frustration all of Pinkie's predictions seem to come true... and even more frustrating is that they all seem to target Twilight, whether it's falling objects, slamming doors, or an alligator in the bath tub. Twilight tries to investigate Pinkie's so-called abilities, but her efforts are hampered by her own impatience and a series of slapstick disasters, all of which are seemingly predicted by the Pinkie Sense.

There's clearly a pattern going on, but Twilight stubbornly refuses to admit it. When Pinkie suddenly predicts "a doozy" of an event happening in the Froggy Bottom Bog, Twilight tags along with her friends only out of concern for Fluttershy, who had earlier gone there to help some frogs find a new home.

The gang finds Fluttershy safe and sound in the marsh, and Twilight is all set to rub it in that the Pinkie Sense has apparently failed... but she never gets the chance, as a vicious hydra emerges from the swamp and attacks! A frantic chase ensues, and Twilight is forced to buy time for her friends to get to safety. Twilight herself only escapes the hydra by trusting in the Pinkie Sense and making a literal leap of faith. Much to Twilight's bafflement, it turns out the hydra attack wasn't "the doozy" Pinkie had predicted, but she's too worn out to be angry for long. Twilight finally admits that Pinkie's senses are real, even if she doesn't understand how or why they work. And guess what? The "doozy" Pinkie predicted was Twilight admitting she was wrong.

Later, Twilight prepares a letter to Princess Celestia with her lesson for the day (that there are some things you don't have to understand completely to accept as real or true), then goes to hang out with Pinkie. Her Pinkie Sense is telling her there'll be another falling object today, but she and Twilight are prepared. Spike, however, is not prepared for Princess Celestia literally dropping in to pick up Twilight's report in person.

Tropes (YMMV items can be found here):
"Pinkie Pie: What's not to believe? You do magic, what's the difference? Twilight Sparkle: Huge! For one thing...] magic is something you study and practice. It only happens when you decide to do it. It's meant to make something specific that you want to happen happen. With you, ugh, it makes no sense at all! Pinkie Pie: That's so not true, Twilight! [beat] Sometimes it's a bunch of random things happening to my body at random times that supposedly predict the future. I call 'em "combos"."
 * Absentee Actor: Rainbow Dash and Rarity are both absent in this episode.
 * Agent Scully: Twilight becomes this, refusing to accept that Pinkie's "Pinkie Sense" is real up until the very end of the episode. Part of her problem is that she's more interested in being right than in finding the truth.
 * Anvil on Head: A flower pot, a big anvil, a hay cart, and then a piano fall over Twilight Sparkle. Justified in the best way possible, as they all fell from a sky delivery truck managed by a group of bumbling pegasi, one of whom is Derpy Hooves.
 * Arbitrary Skepticism: Twilight's dismissal of Pinkie Pie's special senses comes off as this when you consider all the fantastic things that go down in this show on a regular basis. Pinkie even points out that Twilight herself uses magic, although Twilight counters that magic just doesn't work that way.
 * Ascended Meme: This would be the first episode (and generally at least once in every following episode to date) where Derpy Hooves is present with the derped eyes that she was accidentally given in the very first episode "Mare in the Moon". She has had appeared in several episodes but lacking the derped eyes. Here, she's even given a job as a delivery pony, tangentially related to the fandom's take as the Ponyville mailmare.
 * Burning with Anger: Twilight Sparkle at being informed the Hydra wasn't "the doozy."
 * Call Back/Continuity Nod: Fluttershy recites "A hop, skip and a...jump!" when leaping from a cliff to a stone pillar, the mantra Pinkie Pie taught her back in "Dragonshy".
 * Canis Latinicus: Twilight is observing Pinkie Pie, scientific name Pinkius pieicus, in its natural habitat, and she totally didn't just make that up.
 * Captain Obvious: Pinkie Pie said to Twilight that when her tummy rumbles, it means that she's hungry.
 * And when Pinkie mentioned the frog attached to Twilight's face
 * Catch Phrase: The episode appears to be trying to make "Holy guacamole" into one for Spike. Thankfully, it didn't take.
 * This episode was also the introduction of Pinkie's "Okie Dokie Lokie!"
 * Cosmic Plaything: Every disaster Pinkie predicts specifically targets Twilight and nopony else.
 * The Cuckoolander Was Right
 * Deer in the Headlights: When the rest run away from the Hydra, Pinkie is almost paralyzed in fear. Twilight pulls her tail to get her out of it.
 * The Door Slams You
 * Flower Pot Drop: When the already horribly-injured Twilight Sparkle is assuring Spike that something is not going to fall, a flowerpot then crashes on her head. Then an anvil. Then a hay wagon. Then a grand piano. They all turned out to have fallen out from a delivery truck that Derpy Hooves was working at.
 * Forgot About Her Powers: Twilight could have easily teleported past the broken platforms (even though she was able to teleport out of the last adrenaline-pumping chase she was in).
 * Fluttershy doesn't just fly over for some reason. Though it may be justified in this case, as the last time she tried to fly when she was scared her wings locked up.
 * Twilight not teleporting could also be justified, as when she does it in the Ticket Master she tells Spike she couldn't warn him (Spike comes out singed) because she didn't know it was going to happen. She may not be able to use that spell consciously.
 * For Science!: A benign example, but it's still shown as the wrong approach. You just can't investigate this. You probably could make something of it with proper investigation, but that would ruin the plot.
 * Furry Reminder: At one point, Pinkie rolls around in the grass. You may think it's just her randomness, but real horses do that a lot.
 * Gravity Is a Harsh Mistress: Pinkie Pie shudders her way right off a cliff, only to get yanked back by Applejack. But gravity fails to grab her for long enough that you'd almost think her shudders would get her across the gap on their own.
 * High-Pressure Emotion: Apparently Twilight evolves into Rapidash when she's really angry.
 * I Take Offense to That Last One:


 * Instant Bandages
 * Lampshade Hanging: Twilight delivers a speech about magic while standing on a soapbox.
 * Leap of Faith
 * Leeroy Jenkins: Twilight's idea of what Rainbow Dash would do when faced with a Hydra. See it here.
 * The Load: Spike. He can't keep up with the rest of the ponies on foot as they run and later gets stuck in the bog, requiring Twilight to run back to save him.
 * Made of Iron: Twilight falls down a ditch, gets slammed by doors, is stung by a swarm of angry bees, falls down a steep stairwell, then later takes a flower pot to the head, followed by an anvil, a hay cart and a piano. Still, she shakes it off within seconds and is fit as a fiddle and ready to go off on a rescue adventure. (OK, she's in bandages after a couple of these, and even ends up in a wheelchair at one point, but those are gone within a scene or two.)
 * Said adventure ends with Twilight falling down a cliff, landing on a big swamp gas bubble that sends her flying until she lands on top of a stone pillar, from where she bounces onto a second pillar, from where she bounces a second time until finally crashing against a solid rock wall. After a couple of seconds, Twilight shakes her head and she's fine again.
 * Mobile Shrubbery: Twilight uses this when spying on Pinkie.
 * Piano Drop
 * Schizo-Tech: Twilight's basement lab, complete with flashing lights, computers, scientific equipment, and more. Pretty much fulfills the typical Mad Scientist Laboratory, and most likely Played for Laughs.
 * Science Cannot Comprehend Phlebotinum: Twilight runs herself ragged trying to analyze/disprove Pinkie Pie's "Pinkie Sense". In the end, she gives up and admits that maybe the "Pinkie Sense" can't be analyzed (which turns out to be the "doozy" that Pinkie predicted would happen).
 * The point isn't so much that it can't be analyzed, but that it exists, even though Twilight doesn't understand how it works.
 * Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Pinkie predicts that the "doozy" was going to happen at Froggy Bottom Bog, which leads the gang to investigate there. Had they not gone to Froggy Bottom Bog, Twilight wouldn't have admitted that Pinkie Sense was real there, which would have made her right about it in the first place.
 * Of course, that would mean that Fluttershy is probably left to the mercy of the Hydra. That could have qualified as a "doozy".
 * Shout-Out
 * As a result of her High-Pressure Emotion, Twilight briefly evolves into Rapidash.
 * Twilight's "Latin" name for Pinkie Pie sounds like a reference to the Roadrunner cartoons where they'd do the same, fitting since Twilight is stalking Pinkie Pie and in the process suffers much the same sort of injurious Humiliation Conga Wile E. Coyote often did.
 * "Pinkie Sense" is named after Spider-Man's Spider Sense.
 * The cloud of apparently nasty smelling gas that appears when the hydra first shows up may be a reference to the original myth in which the hydra produced a deadly poisonous gas that constantly surrounded its lair.
 * Soapbox Sadie: Twilight stands on an actual soap box at one point, to lecture on why her magic makes rational sense and Pinkie's "Pinkie sense" doesn't.
 * Spider Sense
 * Straw Vulcan: Twilight
 * Sufficiently Analyzed Magic: Twilight's rationale for why unicorn magic is believable, and the "Pinkie sense" isn't.
 * Surprise Creepy: Mostly a silly, funny episode...Then the hydra shows up.
 * Though the hydra has its own brand of silliness, with one of the heads apparently being slow on the uptake.
 * Wacky Sound Effect: Spike, backing out of the library's main door with a stack of books, emits the same "backing up" alarm that vehicles like delivery trucks and forklifts make.
 * What Would X Do?: "What would a brave pony like Rainbow Dash do....? CHARGE!"
 * Wildlife Commentary Spoof: Twilight does one while observing Pinkie Pie. She even wears a safari hat and uses binoculars.
 * Wrong-Context Magic: Inspired by this episode.