My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Episode Six

I liked this episode a lot more than the past few, though I'm not really sure why.  Must be the mustaches.

Boast Busters
Although Twilight Sparkle is in Ponyville to study the magic of friendship, she doesn't neglect her regular magic studies.  With a little help from Spike, she perfects her twenty fifth magical ability: growing moustaches.  Spike's all set to impress Rarity, but Twilight also needs to practice reversing that spell, so off it goes, to his dismay.  Later on, as the two walk through town, Spike can't stop gushing over Twilight's awesome magic abilities, especially since unicorns usually only have a few tricks that match up with their talents.  Twilight hypothesizes that her talent is magic itself, but doesn't see this as anything special, claiming that there are other ponies just as talented as she is right there in town.  Spike doesn't think so, but before they can discuss it further, those two unicorn boys from Applejack's game on The Hub's website come galloping down the street, picking up Spike along the way.  They are Snips and Snails, and they're on their way to check out the new unicorn, rumored to be the most magical unicorn in all Equestria.  Hearing this, Twilight wants to check it out for herself, and so she and Spike join the crowd.

As a voice beckons the gathered throng, a wooden cart unfolds into a stage, and with a puff of smoke The Great and Powerful Trixie appears.  She continually refers to herself in the third person and boasts of her great magical abilities.  Rarity is not impressed, nor is Spike, though once he realizes who he's standing next to, his speaking abilities go downhill.  Twilight is surprised to hear her friends being so down on magic, but Applejack clarifies that it's the showing off that puts them off, not the magic itself.  Trixie hears this lack of enthusiasm for herself, and warns the "neigh-sayers" about her supreme powers.  Spike finally gets his voice back and starts to assert Twilight's superiority, but the unicorn shushes him and pulls him aside.  She explains that she doesn't want her friends to think she's a braggart like Trixie.  Speaking of whom, Rainbow Dash finally has enough, and demands to her face to know why Trixie thinks she's all that.  With a wave of her hoof, a fireworks display shows her fight with the dreaded Ursa Major, an enormous bear creature that normally could never be vanquished by just one pony.  Seeing this, Snips and Snails are totally sold, rushing up to proclaim Trixie as the most magical, talented, and all around awesome pony ever.  Spike cannot let this stand, but when he tries to say Twilight is better, she magics a zipper for his mouth and shuts him up.
The rest of the crowd is not quite as sold as Snips and Snails, so Trixie challenges the lot of them to see who is better.  Spike literally begs Twilight to take on Trixie, but she refuses.  Finding no takers to her challenge, Trixie picks out a pony from the crowd, appearing to choose Twilight.  But it turns out she actually chose Applejack, who has had enough of Trixie's condescending nature anyway.  She takes to the stage and uses her tail to perform a lasso routine, ending with grabbing an apple from a nearby tree and launching it directly into her mouth.  Trixies ditches her hat to better show off her powers, and makes Applejack's lasso sway like a snake, then truss up Applejack, complete with apple in her mouth.  Still annoyed at Trixie for earlier, Rainbow Dash shows off her own speed skills by flying through the clouds and coming back with the moisture clinging to her, making a little rainbow over her.  "They don't call me 'Rainbow' and 'Dash' for nothing."  In return, Trixie magics the rainbow into a colorful cyclone that whirls Rainbow Dash around so fast she actually gets nauseous, and conjures a raincloud to hit her with a lightning bolt to boot.

Seeing the defeat of the other two ponies, Spike nudges Twilight, commenting that it'll take a unicorn to beat a unicorn, and Rainbow Dash and Applejack agree.  Rarity assumes they're talking about her, but insists she won't do anything so brash.  Until Trixie goads her into it, that is.  So she puts her ultimate quick-change ability on display, creating an outfit and hairstyle for herself in mere moments, showing the grace and beauty all unicorns should aim for, in her opinion.  Trixie doesn't even break a sweat when taking on Rarity, merely tampering with her hairstyle by turning it green.  Seeing his crush run off, Spike once again implores Twilight to show her stuff against Trixie, but Twilight balks.  Trixie hears their conversation and directly challenges Twilight, who continues to insist that she's just an ordinary unicorn, and runs off herself, making claims about laundry.  Trixie proclaims herself victorious, and the show is over.
Later that day, Snips and Snails bring Trixie a smoothie and demand tales of her amazing prowess, but she claims to be tired and sends them off until the next day.  As they leave, Spike sees them and demands to know what they're doing.  Hearing that they're sucking up to Trixie, he scoffs, calling her a lame show-off, unlike Twilight.  Snips points out that Trixie took on an Ursa Major, but Spike counterpoints out that they didn't see it happen, so they shouldn't believe her.  This gives the boys an idea...
Meanwhile, Spike is still miffed that Twilight Sparkle is acting so uncharacteristically modest.  What ever happened to "Celestia's most faithful student?"  But Twilight is certain that if she shows off her magic, her friends will drop her faster than you can say "braggart."  Spike is adamant, though, insisting that it wouldn't be the same, since she'd be showing up Trixie, and thus defending her friends.  Twilight refuses to talk about it any more, which she communicates by conjuring a door in front of Spike.  Spike refuses to take this as an answer, opening the door to tell her she's the best.  But again Twilight tells him no, and finally Spike sighs in resignation, telling her if that's the way she's going to be, he'll just leave.  He slams the door behind him, but has to open it again to actually leave.

While all that was going on, Snips and Snail snuck into the Everfree Forest in order to find an Ursa Major for Trixie to fight.  All too soon, they find themselves in the dark, so Snails, with a bit of effort, lights up his horn, illuminating the huge Ursa Major behind them.  Not taking kindly to the intruders, it chases after them as they run back toward Ponyville, right past a melancholy Spike.  As the boys call for Trixie, Spike goes to get Twilight.  Trixie in not keen on being disturbed this late at night, and promptly freaks out at the sight of an actual Ursa Major.  The bear soon has the three of them cornered, but Snips and Snails aren't worried, and wait for her to vanquish the monster so they can see it for themselves, admitting that they lead it to town.  Trixie calls them crazy, but when they remind her that she's the Great and Powerful Trixie, she puts in a token effort, using her rope and thundercloud tricks.  They only serve to make the Ursa Major angrier, so the boys demand to see the cool magic the fireworks showed.  Before Trixie can respond, the Ursa lets loose a mighty roar, and they all beat a hasty retreat.
The roar brought forth the rest of Ponyville to see what was going on.  Meanwhile Twilight (alerted by Spike) heads toward town square.  Snips and Snails are still certain that Trixie can handle the Ursa, but finally she admits that she can't, and never did; the entire story was a fabrication.  This breaks the boys' little minds, and suddenly things are looking more grim.  The other ponies watch in terror as the Ursa Major rampages, and Spike nudges Twilight, motioning for her to do something.  And so Twilight steps forward, consequences be damned!  Using all the magical power she can muster, she creates a strong wind that blows through the rushes to create a soothing melody, stopping the bear's rampage.  With the bear calmed down, she switches her power over to manipulating the town's water tower, turning it into a makeshift bottle of milk.  She then lifts the entire bear, gives it the bottle, and sends it back to its cave in the forest, as the other ponies look on in awe.
With the threat taken care of, the other ponies cheer, but Twilight pleads for them not to hate her for showing off like Trixie.  Rainbow Dash quickly stops her to explain that they didn't like Trixie because she was an unpleasant loudmouth, not being she was showing off her magic.  There's a touching moment as her friends assure her that her magic is part of her, and they're proud to be her friend (especially after taking care of an Ursa Major like that).  Spike is more impressed that she didn't even have to think about what to do, and asks how she did it.  It just so happens that she spent the afternoon doing research on Ursa Majors after hearing Trixie's tale, and it turns out that the rampaging beast she handled was not actually an Ursa Major, but an Ursa Minor, the baby form, having a tantrum from being woken from its nap.
Proving she learned nothing from this whole escapade, Trixie still condescends toward Twilight before using a smokescreen to mask her exit from town.  Rainbow Dash starts to go after her, but Twilight stops her, certain that Trixie will learn her lesson someday.  Uh, if you say so, Twilight.  In the meantime, there's still the matter of two certain unicorns who caused the whole problem in the first place.  Snips and Snails try to get out of a punishment by flattering Twilight ("We just wanted to see some awesome magic."  "And what you did was awesome!"), but one glare from her is enough to send them to the ground, ready to accept whatever she dishes out.  But all Twilight asks is that they clean up the mess, but she gives them "Number 25" for good measure, plus one for Spike, too.  Mustaches for all!  To close things off, Twilight writes of what she's learned this week, but is interrupted by Spike, who finally gets her to admit to being the most talented pony in Ponyville, though she still doesn't plan to brag about it.  Sadly, Rarity was not charmed by his moustache.  Twilight advises him to just be himself, but Spike is certain that adding a beard to the mix would do the trick.

Call me crazy, but I really liked Trixie.  Maybe because I knew in advance that she was going to be an obnoxious character, or maybe because her design was really pretty.  But there was just something about her showmanship that was pretty entertaining, making a rather slight episode feel like it had more substance than it really did.  And you have to admit, getting other people to do most of your show, yet still coming off on top takes skill.  On the other hand, I did not really like Snips and Snails, although I was glad to see them actually appear and get confirmed names.  But I hated their voices so much.  So much.  And how stupid they are.  I know that the plot wouldn't have worked without them being idiots, but it was just...ugh.  But other than that, I liked this episode.  Plus, it had Spike with a mustache!  Very little beats that.

Misc. Screenshots:
Twilight Sparkle blushes
Trixie's awesome face
Trixie and the Ursa Minor
Trixie is shocked