Pinkie presents our first major sign that things are starting to go wrong as she has her big happy spergout and gets the wrong kind of attention from the other guests. Prince Blueblood’s title is intriguing, theoretically it puts him on equal footing with Luna, Celestia and later Cadence, except of course that they’re all female and he’s male – is that the difference? I don’t think this works too badly, despite Faust’s stated wish that Celestia had been a Queen instead of a Princess. However, as I’ve mentioned previously I like the title when I think of it pertaining to a ‘Principality’, or a particular domain of rule, such as the raising and lowering of the sun. However, Celestia is clearly the foremost of all these Princes and Princesses in Equestria – if anything her and Luna act a little bit like President and Vice President. So I propose an additional theory – Queen Victoria, feeling slighted at some of her royal relatives ruling over in Europe styling themselves as Emperors and such, asked Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli to create for her an Imperial title. And so Disraeli had parliament establish the title of Empress (or Emperor) of India. Of course, we all still refer to her as Queen Victoria, and that was common at the time too, since the styling of Emperor felt a little bit tyrannical to the English ear. I suggest that Celestia has something similar, only I imagine she uses the title of Princess willingly, owing to her being rather more humble than Victoria was. So perhaps Celestia, Princess of the Sun, also holds the title of Empress of Equestria, but chooses not to use this latter title as her title of address. This would also make a little more sense out of Cadence, who comes to rule the Crystal EMPIRE yet remains a Princess – of course, if Cadence, as a sort of Equestrian puppet-regime ruler, were to style herself as ‘Empress’, this would raise quite a few eyebrows in Canterlot, so whilst I’m sure she too is humble, she couldn’t really call herself Empress even if she had the right and even if she wanted to. The mane six, faced with disappointment, are determined to make the night special in spite of everything, and of course as their harebrained schemes converge it all results in disaster. We then join Spike in Pony Joe’s having donuts and a hot chocolate. Joe seems to recognise Twilight, so she and Spike may have come here together somewhat regularly back when they lived in Canterlot. Then, after the Mane Six have been sat around discussing their night together for a while, Celestia enters – if she hasn’t been to Joe’s before, I can only imagine he’d want to get a photograph of Celestia at his establishment. And I’d imagine Equestria would have something like the royal seal that gets put on products and shops used by the royal family here in the UK, so maybe he could put the Princess’ crest up above his sign or something. 

The conclusion of this episode is pretty great. All the expectations that were built up were subverted in a way that felt both clever and satisfying, and it illustrates a great lesson that I think many other shows wouldn’t quite be courageous enough to attempt to communicate. Sometimes life is really disappointing, to the point even of your dreams getting crushed. I give it an 8.4 – it’s comparable to Dragonshy, another episode where all the Mane Six get to shine, but I find it slightly less rewatchable than Dragonshy so it’s just a point below it. 

And with that, we’re just about reaching the end of Season 1! It’s been a lot of fun so far, I think it’s taken about a year from start to end of this season. It’s been a consistent presence in my thoughts this year, and I think in future when I look back, it’ll be one of the specific things I recall about 2025.