“Honest Apple”

…Applejack judges a fashion contest at Rarity’s behest and it doesn’t go smoothly. There’s an acoustic guitar making electric guitar noises in this episode.

“A Royal Problem”

…Starlight Yeltsin does a little trolling and magically swaps Celestia and Luna’s cutie marks and roles. This episode is notable for introducing Celestia’s equivalent to Nightmare Moon, who is never seen again after this point except in like a vision in the first episode of season 9 I think?

“Not Asking For Trouble”

…We return to Yakyakistan as Pinkie happens to be in the area when an avalanche buries the nation, or at least its capital, during the holiday of yickslurberfest.

“Discordant Harmony”

…Discord tries to be less chaotic to make Fluttershy feel comfortable, but finds that it’s literally killing him.

“The Perfect Pear”

…The Apple siblings learn a shocking truth about their parents, who have even before this point been strongly implied to be dead — there’s even a leaked internal e-mail confirming their deaths in a rather dysphemistic way. William Shatner, known for playing Marc in the 1966 Esperanto-language horror film Inkubo, and also for being a transphobic weirdo, stars in this episode as the Apple siblings’ grandpa.

This episode was an explosive hit in the fandom and is still well-remembered as an impactful love story, so it’s definitely tonight’s highlight. It also contains tonight’s first song.

“Fame and Misfortune”

…This episode was much more divisive, as it’s a clear allegory for the brony fandom itself (and it incidentally aired during BronyCon!). The Mane Six publish their Friendship Journal as a proper book, and although it’s a huge hit, the fandom ends up being a bit toxic.

• Natural disaster: avalanche (Not Asking for Trouble)
• Strongly implied dead parents (The Perfect Pear)

Not a lot this time, huh. Reminder as always that you can tell me if there’s anything missing from the content warnings.