(Song Used: It’s Been A While - Staind)

This is an episode that was very much beloved at first, but since then there may have been a bit souring on the episode. I kinda still love it myself as it was wonderful with comedy and I like the concept of the Poison Joke. As it’s fun to imagine what Poison Joke would do to other characters other then the Mane 6. As well as the introduction to the wise Zecora. Unfortunately however you do kinda sense some unfortunate implications with everypony not trusting Zecora that they hide everytime she comes in and spread horrible stories that aren’t true whatsoever. It’s another of those times where the town of Ponyville suddenly doesn’t look like the nice place most episodes tend to portray it as. Granted I don’t think it’s as bad as what Putting Your Hoof Down did. But as it is it can easily be misconstrued as somewhat racist. If this episode weren’t one of the most entertaining episodes ever it might be even lower despite how much I like it. Besides Zecora this technically may be Apple Bloom’s proper debut since she has a much bigger role then her small part of the Pilot. Though another problem you could point out in this episode is again a South Park syndrome where the Children knows what’s up but the older people aren’t being as bright or are fooled. There are some reviewers and perhaps other fans that have legitimate reasons for hating this episode. 

But I think there is a reason this episode isn’t often put in the worst lists. It’s funny, the Poison Joke as I said is a great concept, Zecora is cool, Flutterguy is one of the top moments of the first season, and not to mention the fun of having Evil Enchantress sung by Pinkie and then later Flutterguy to really place it as a classic. It helps that Zecora’s made many reappearance’s since then and even Flutterguy returned in Season 4 for Filli Vanilli. Despite the strange implications there is very much a love for this episode that I can’t even say I can shake.

With the interaction we see between Rarity and Fluttershy in this episode. It’s kinda surprising we don’t actually see more of Fluttershy and Rarity having more episodes together especially since Suited for Success revealed Fluttershy kinda has a secret thing of being into the specifics of Fashion when Rarity asked her for critique. But at the very least there is this episode where in Rarity’s attempt to advertise her dresses only get’s Fluttershy to be the center attention for Photo Finish who proceeds to milk as much out of the shy model she can since it seems a lot of ponies seem to see a lot of appeal in Fluttershy (And judging by the fanbase, that works in real life too). Which leads of course to what the title refers to with Green for envy as Rarity gets jealous of her friend’s fame. Meanwhile Fluttershy still goes along with the modeling because she thinks that’s what Rarity says she must, must, MUST do. Add some secret sharing shenanigans involving Twilight and Pinkie and you have an episode that certainly goes places. Pinkie is actually somewhat creepy when she comes out of nowhere to warn Twilight. (Though this seems to come back to bite her in one particular Season 5 episode) But it’s pretty amusing. 

Though this is another of those episodes I don’t feel Twilight is as necessary for the exception of the scene where her magic is used to make Fluttershy move weird (Which becomes somewhat horrifying if you relate it to Blood Bending from Avatar: The Last Airbender and Legend of Korra). It’s not a big deal in this case as this is still a very fun episode at times, but it’s not like it’s Twilight who spills the secret at the end anyway (Well she does, but after Rarity and Fluttershy already talked it out. Still enough to disappoint Pinkie). Just another small problem with the limitations that the format Season 1 had, but it doesn’t ruin this particular episode.

*Maybe this is why Cheerilee didn’t befriend Big Mac prior to Hearts and Hooves Day…

This is one of those overlooked episodes. I don’t feel it’s a forgotten one, but it’s definitely one not mentioned much. For a show titled on Friendship, there’s a lot of Family oriented episodes that turn out very good and some even later far surpass quite a bit of the friendship focused episodes. There’s plenty of wacky moments to laugh at such as Applebloom pupating a sleepy Granny Smith in front of a very confused Cheerilee, Sweetie getting flung when attempting to buck a tree infused with the Zap apple magic, and Granny talking to jars of Zap Apple jam that can remind people of the TF2 Meet the Soldier video. But it also has a generally sweet moment with Granny Smith telling the story of how they discovered Zap Apple Jam and possibly even helped found Ponyville. With flashbacks to a young Granny Smith (Which reminds me, was she called Granny Smith even back then? I suppose it’s just as convenient as other ponies that have names that seem to predict their futures sometimes) and everything. It’s also the debut of Diamond Tiara’s Dad Filthy Rich who while hasn’t been all that big of a character within the fanbase but has certainly made a fair decent appearances every now and then. Unlike Diamond herself and her Mom, Filthy Rich seems to be somewhat a decent pony even if he does spoil his daughter. At the very least we get to laugh a bit with Diamond forced to wear Bunny Eyes to adhere to the tradition that Granny Smith does for Zap Apple Jam with Apple Bloom. 

The episode is a little less interesting if you’re not quite into Granny Smith as a character nor Ponyville’s history. But it’s certainly a sweet episode I can appreciate. Your elders can have the best stories sometimes.

*YOU SHALL NOT PASS!

I’m slightly nervous about this one, because I do feel there may be rabid Luna fans who thinks I put this way too low. I know how popular Luna is with the fanbase, almost any time Luna is involved in the Equestria Daily favorite polls she tends to win. If Hasbro ever felt like they needed to promote a character to Main character status at the cost of another, Applejack would probably unfortunately be tossed out for Luna. I don’t think that will ever happen, and I am definitely not supporting that as something they should do but I think that we are at the point where Luna is more popular then one or even two of the Mane 6. And that’s absolutely crazy since Luna is just a secondary character who’s gotten a bigger role in each following Season. Season 1 she never appeared anywhere beyond the Pilot, Season 2 she had the episode I’ll be covering in this part and a small more cameo-esque of Canterlot Wedding (Which a lot of people seem to complain about a lot. And I mean ALOT, even the ones who do really like the episode), to having her powers explored for the first time in Season 3 and be there for Twilight’s coronation, Season 4 continuing that trend, and then Season 5 finally have an episode that really could be qualified as the first true Luna episode. 

It seems either Hasbro or DHX has heavily picked up on Luna’s popularity and is taking full advantage of it after being scared if the target demographic would even be into Luna at first being a “dark princess” (The reason she didn’t appear a lot in Season 1 or 2). That said… as much as I hate this word… there are some aspects of Luna’s involvement in the show that I think has definitely got some of the strange feeling of being “Overrated” (Please don’t kill me, I honestly hate the word Overrated as much as the next guy). Like Luna can never do wrong, or episodes involving her in a big role are absolute perfection. I just want to go on the record that I do like Luna Eclipsed, I just don’t think it’s quite the masterpiece some big Luna fans may say it is. Heck even before this episode even aired there was this huge worry it was going to split the fandom because by the time Luna Eclipsed was going to air, the Fandom had already established so many fanon personalities on Luna that had nothing to go on aside from the final minutes of the Pilot to go off of. Thankfully that wasn’t the case and a lot of people actually accepted the loud and boisterous Luna we got. But the fact people were worried even back then, when the fandom was much smaller just goes to show how much Luna has been ingrained. 

Anyway, there are certainly many wonderful scenes such as Luna’s attempts to have “fun” and the utterly hilarious Luna meets Fluttershy scene (That is my favorite part of the entire episode, so excellently done). Though if there are issues to point towards to it’s probably be how kinda annoying Pinkie and to a lesser extent Rainbow was in the episode. Yeah they’re both doing it in the Halloween spirit, but it’s Pinkie’s “pretending to be scared” that caused all the problems for Luna in the first place. Luna can’t tell it was faking, she’s been stuck on the moon a long time and doesn’t quite understand the holiday given it’s a tradition that started after she was banished. It just comes off as insensitive, and you can’t say Rainbow and Pinkie didn’t know since they were there when they defeated Luna when she was Nightmare Moon. Aside from that though it’s still an enjoyable episode and hopefully I don’t piss off to too many with this episode’s placement. But don’t worry Luna fans, there are some episodes that involve Luna in a good role that certainly are much higher then this.

Some fans take issue with the fact that three of Pinkie’s friends took a bite out of the Cake. But I don’t know, I just found this episode to be a fun mystery inspired episode with many good laughs throughout. I laughed pretty loud the first time watching when we got to Pinkie’s imagine spot flashbacks for the suspects (Ninja Donkey? Old Timey villain Griffon? Great stuff!) And the chemistry between Twilight and Pinkie feels much stronger then it was in Feeling Pinkie Keen. And to be honest the ending isn’t entirely predictable, when Rarity had that bang over her eyes I thought that was just a nod to classic Mysteries where there’s this one lady that just has that trait to her. I didn’t assume at all that it was to hide something that would incriminate her. If that’s been a common cliche, then I apologize as I suppose I haven’t seen as many classic mysteries as I thought. This was for me just a fun little episode to hold us over prior to the big Season 2 Finale which certainly proved to be huge.