It’s that time of the week again folks! Season 4 of My Little Pony is off to a great start and this week we got ourselves a NEW WRITER! Josh Haber cuts his teeth with this wonderful mystery episode. Lets Breakdown “Castle Mane-ia“!

The episode opens with out beloved Twilight Sparkle, PRINCESS TWILIGHT SPARKLE, furiously going through every book in her library for some sort of clue as to what the mysterious six-keyed chest the Tree of Harmony gave her is. The one thing I noticed right away is her nonchalantly flying around in her library. It shows that she is deep down actually comfortable with her new wings, and doesn’t mind them at all. Her flying phobia only comes out when she is making a conscious effort at it. Kind of like manual breathing. Which you are now doing. Breathe in… and out.

Twilight’s worrying soon comes to an abrupt halt. Spike upchucks a letter from Celestia that says Twilight should skedaddle on out to the ancient castle that Celestia and Luna used to live in (before Luna went all grimdark on Equestria) and check the library there! She knows there will be a book there with the answers Twilight seeks. So an adventuring we go!

Again she opts for walking instead of flying, she still isn’t comfortable with it. When Twilight and Spike get to the ruined castle, she pulls a card from the opening scene and goes all hummingbird again. The site of books gets her all nerdcited and she forgets she has wings. I feel as if this is going to be a sudden realization she will have half way through the season. While she is totally engrossed in the stacks, Spike is slowly starting to notice the true level of creep this place gives out. *FORESHADOWING!*

We quick cut to Pinkie, Applejack and Rainbowdash at… the Bee farm? OK, I’ll roll with it. Applejack and Rainbowdash are having a competition to see who is the most “Daring Pony in Ponyville!”. So the most logical way of finding this out is to cover themselves in Bees. Yeah, they’re recreating their favorite scene from The Wicker Man.

Well, the Beekeeper needs his Bees and this competition ends with no winner. After some creative accounting Pinkie determines that Applejack and Rainbowdash are sitting tied! This becomes the motivation for these two ponies to head to the Castle (while Pinkie goes to her job ringing the school bell). Only the most daring pony could spend a night in the old Castle, where the rumored “Pony of Shadows” resides. JINKIES!

This setup scene feels kind of contrived. Yeah I’m calling the writing for a show about Pantone colored horses use the power of friendship to defeat evil, contrived. What isn’t contrived is the sound design. This scene I really began to notice the subtle sounds. The beekeeping outfits rubbing together, the birds in the background and the airy echo Applejack and Rainbowdash have while outside was really impressive. The one thing I didn’t really comment on during the premiere was how sophisticated the show’s sound has gotten. Complex combinations of SFX, VO and Music really have this blowing shows of a higher caliber out of the water.

The sound also had me start to notice the upped animation quality. The next scene was the setup for Fluttershy and my girl Rarity getting to the same castle. While Rarity outlined her desire to get her hands (hoofs?) on some ancient tapestry to restore and use for inspiration for a new clothing line, I noticed the new walk cycle for the ponies. The human walk cycle is one of the hardest things for an animator to…animate, and the pony walk cycle a close second. The folks who work on this show have always had an impressive eye to detail on how the characters move, but this season it has been pushed up to the next level. Raity’s legs move and stretch in a realistic way, while her hair has weight and moves realistically.

Cut back to the castle library, Twilight and spike discovery a secret room behind a bookcase. Inside is Celestia’s and Luna’s old double diary! Yeah, from about a thousand years ago. Literally, this book has been there longer than Christianity has existed, and Twilight’s first instinct is to run over and thumb through it like it’s an old Highlights at a doctors office and she is hoping the hidden image puzzle hasn’t been solved yet. What is inside is pretty much the user manual for the castle. Each time Twilight gets to a new passage about the castles secret passages, traps and ins and outs, another pair of ponies runs into the same thing. All the while Rarity, Fluttershy, Applejack and Rainbowdash are submitted to scare after scare a mysterious cloaked pony wanders the shadows. Watching. Waiting. Commiserating.

This set of scenes is full of the hardest part of a cartoon horse to animate properly. The straight on face shot. These characters were designed from the ground up in profile. Their profile and silhouette are distinctive. That is why the toys for this show are mostly in the old G3 styling, it doesn’t translate well to other angles.  There is a lot of running, and screaming and looking terrified in these scenes and it is mostly done from straight on. These characters just don’t work that well. They rely to much on their pronounced mouths (muzzles? snouts?) to provide definition. Take the famous “FlutterDash Singing” scene from season 2. We’re setting up shop in the uncanny valley here.

Twilight soon gets to the part of the diary about the “Organ to The Outside”, just as the cloaked mystery pony starts to play it. This organ is like the master control for all the traps and secret doors. So while the organ is played the four wandering ponies get thrown around like rag dolls. The single best frame of this episode is after Rarity is tossed in a bush and then immediately thrown back inside and gets hit with a rock.

So all the while the four ponies of the apocalypse are going about their four individual crises, Twilight is happily reading through the Princess’ private journal. Only until some serious whining from Rarity does she come out to see what is going on. Honestly watching the four characters all freaking out was pretty hilarious. Twilight zapped them with her magicks and knocks some sense into them. They don’t have ANYTHING to be afraid of thanks to the power of friendship! BUT! The organ keeps playing, time for Mystery Inc. to investigate!

As the team sneaks up on the organ player, the riffs that were being played felt really familiar. They kept leading up and I was expecting a certain drum riff to kick in and one of the most famous words of the 60’s to be sung.

Twilight walks up to the playing pony and pulls off it’s cloak. ITS PINKIE! DUHHH! Her logic if flawless as to how and why she got to the organ, but it makes sense. I guess. The team retires to the library to have a friendship pow wow and close things down. Right before the credits roll we see ANOTHER shadowy figure spying in on them…with evil yellow eyes.

Final Thoughts

This episode was very enjoyable to watch. Josh Haber put together a nice episode, though the plot lines were a little weak. I mean really? MOST DARING PONY COMPETITION? I was most impressed with Tabitha St. Germain’s performance. Her rarity voice was absolutely fabulous and I loved every line. Besides the next level VO and SFX, this episode was just OK in the long run. There wasn’t really any conflict, everyone just ended up at the castle for random reasons. Speaking of random, they need to stop turning Pinkie Pie into “Katy Teh Penguin of Doom”. She can be goofy and not come off sounding like she has late stage dementia.

That’s all until next week!