Feeling Pinkie Keen
Twilight Sparkle tries to explain Pinkie Pie's mysterious predictions.
Feeling Pinkie Keen is the fifteenth episode of the first season of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. It originally aired on The Hub on February 11, 2011, and was written by Dave Polsky. The episode centers on Twilight Sparkle's attempt to scientifically analyze Pinkie Pie's alleged clairvoyance, known as the Pinkie Sense.
Quick Facts
- Series
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
- Writer
- Dave Polsky
- Director
- Jayson Thiessen; James Wootton
- Air date
- 11 February 2011
- Length
- 22 minutes
Facts from the source article.
Plot
Twilight Sparkle is practicing magic with Spike when they notice Pinkie Pie wearing an umbrella hat and looking nervously at the sky. Pinkie explains that her tail is twitching, a sign from her Pinkie Sense that objects will fall from the sky. Twilight dismisses this until a frog lands on her face. Fluttershy appears above with a cart of frogs and apologizes before continuing to move them to Froggy Bottom Bogg. Pinkie's tail twitches again, and Twilight falls into a ditch. Applejack explains that the townsfolk have learned to heed Pinkie's twitching, but Twilight remains skeptical. Determined to disprove Pinkie Sense scientifically, Twilight hooks Pinkie up to measuring devices in the library basement. The experiments fail to produce results, and Twilight grows frustrated as each prediction comes true. When Pinkie shivers violently and says a doozy will happen at Froggy Bottom Bogg, Twilight dismisses it but follows along. At the bog, Fluttershy is safe, and Twilight begins to gloat until a gigantic hydra rises behind her and chases them. Twilight distracts the hydra while her friends cross on stepping-stone pillars, but the creature destroys several pillars, leaving Twilight stranded. Pinkie tells her to take a leap of faith while her body wiggles intensely. Twilight jumps short, but a large bubble bounces her to safety. Twilight congratulates Pinkie, but Pinkie experiences more shudders and insists the hydra was not the doozy. Frustrated, Twilight finally admits belief in Pinkie Sense despite not understanding it. Pinkie's shudders stop, and she reveals that Twilight's acceptance was the real doozy.
Reception
Sherilyn Connelly, author of Ponyville Confidential, gave the episode a B rating. In a review for SF Weekly, she wrote that just because Twilight cannot explain Pinkie Sense does not make it less real, and that there is no implication it is beyond explanation or evidence of an invisible, omniscient pony. Jen A. Blue described Feeling Pinkie Keen as one of the more controversial first-season episodes and unquestionably deeply flawed. Blue identified structural problems, including a random hydra attack lacking thematic resonance, and criticized Twilight as badly out of character, displaying openly contemptuous behavior. Blue wrote that the cartoon slapstick was tonally inappropriate for My Little Pony, falling on the cynical side of the cynicism-sincerity binary. She noted that while the main brony complaint was that the episode was anti-science, it could be read as anti-atheist due to Twilight's portrayal as an angry skeptic who becomes happier after embracing belief, or alternatively as a critique of conspiracy theorists. Blue postulated the episode might function as a wish-fulfillment fantasy of a frustrated believer and a revenge fantasy toward skeptics. Brendan Kachel of flayrah praised the episode as a string of hilariously violent slapstick but noted a problem with its believers versus non-believers theme centered on faith, writing that while the moral of being open to ideas could apply to both religious and non-religious viewers, the use of the word faith typically aligned it with one side.
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