The Return of Harmony Part 1

The Return of Harmony, part 1 is the first episode of the second season of My Little Pony Friendship is Magic''. ''It aired on September 17th, 2011 at 09:00 AM Eastern Time. This is the first episode of a two-parter.

Summary
The episode begins in the Canterlot castle gardens, where Cheerilee is giving a lesson to Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo, Diamond Tiara, Silver Spoon, Snips and Snails. She shows them statues of ponies representing elements such as Friendship and Victory; however, the Cutie Mark Crusaders seem more interested in arguing than listening. The school group come up to a statue which is not of a pony, but of what Cheerilee calls a 'draconequus', and describes it as "a creature with a head of a pony and a body made up of all sorts of things. She then asks her students what they think it represents. The Cutie Mark Crusaders start arguing that it repesents confusion, evil, and chaos, and eventually start fighting. Once the fight has been broken up, Cheerilee explains that they are all correct; the statue mainly represents 'discord', and because the three fillies showed exactly that, she gives them an essay to write on the subject. As they leave, the statue cracks.

After the introduction, Rainbow Dash is flying above Ponyville, when she spots a pink cloud. After chasing it down, she discovers it's made of cotton candy, and it starts to rain - chocolate. The main cast, apart from Pinkie Pie, starts panicking, as the corn in the fields Applejack is tending to starts popping. As they watch, the rain hits apple trees, and the apples swell to extraordinary sizes, bending the trees under their weight. Fluttershy tries to convince her animal friends not to eat them, but they do anyway, and the rabbits that eat the apples suddenly grow very long legs.

Twilight Sparkle arrives on the scene with Spike, and says she has a new spell to counteract the strange weather and reverse the changes to the animals, but once she casts it, she finds that nothing has happened. Undeterred, she organises the other ponies, getting Rainbow to corral the clouds (much to Pinkie's disgust), and with Fluttershy's help the changed animals are led to eat the clouds, and then follow up with the popcorn that lies everywhere. Not long after, Spike delivers a letter from Princess Celestia.

They meet the Princess in Canterlot's castle, and they follow her to a corridor lined with stained glass windows. Celestia explains that the strange weather is being caused by a creature that existed in Equestria before she and Princess Luna arrived - Discord, whom they defeated with the Elements of Harmony. However, since the two Princesses cannot wield the Elements any more, she tells them it falls to them to use them once again to defeat Discord. She opens the door at the end of the hall with her horn, and retrieves a box in which the Elements are stored; but to their horror, the box is empty.

Suddenly, Discord's voice echoes around the room, and he's soon spotted animating a depiction of himself in one of the stained glass windows. He displays uncanny knowledge about the main cast ponies, telling them about the Element they represent, and leaves them with a riddle - one which leads them to suspect that the Elements have been hidden inside the castle's hedge maze.

As they approach the maze, Rainbow, full of confidence, flies up into the air to get a pegasus' eye view of the route; but with a flash, her wings are suddenly gone, and she crashes to the ground. A moment later, the same happens to Fluttershy; and only seconds later both Twilight and Rarity find their horns are missing too. In a flash, Discord appears, and explains to them that they're going to be playing a game - a game to find the Elements of Harmony - and there are two strict rules:


 * No magic or flying
 * Everypony has to do their part

Confident in their friendship keeping them together, the ponies start into the maze, but suddenly additional hedges spring up in between them, separating them. They agree to meet in the middle of the maze.

Applejack: The Apples
As Applejack tries to find her way through the maze, she spots some apples on the ground, which roll away from her. She follows them, and finds herself at the edge of an apple orchard. The apples start falling off the trees, and start animating themselves - they taunt her, and tell her to look in a pool nearby. She does so, and sees a vision of the main cast finishing an argument by agreeing never to speak to each other again. As she watches, the camera pans up, showing Discord holding puppet crosses, animating the apples himself. Reluctantly, Applejack accepts the lie of her friends' friendship; and Discord hypnotises her, draining her of color. Almost immediately, the orchard fades, and a section of hedge vanishes behind her, revealing Twilight. Twilight tells her friend that she heard talking, and asks her who she was talking to; Applejack denies speaking, looking around shiftily. Twilight wonders for a moment about whether Applejack just lied, but she ignores it and continues.

Pinkie Pie: The Balloons
Pinkie hops merrily through the maze, and stumbles upon a wide area filled with balloons, all marked with smiling faces and laughing. She giggles her way through, until one of the balloons' strings ties itself around her leg and trips her into the mud, and she immediately stops laughing, but the balloons continue. Discord appears to her, and when Pinkie tells him it's not fun because the balloons are laughing at her, not with her, he tells her that it's the same story with her friends. She denies it, but when Discord makes her friends' faces appear on the balloons, she gives in. Discord hypnotises her, drains her of her color like he did Applejack, and the balloons pop; revealing Twilight and Applejack. When Twilight runs up to Pinkie, the pink pony rejects her greeting, and walks away. Again, Applejack lies, saying she didn't notice anything wrong with Pinkie; Twilight thinks it's the stress of the task causing their attitudes, and decides to pick up the pace.

Rarity: The Diamond
Rarity walks through the maze, complaining to herself, until she suddenly hits her face on a large rock that blocks her path. Embedded in it are three diamonds shaped like her cutie mark. Discord appears in the diamonds' reflections, telling her it's her lucky day for finding the beautiful diamonds (which he describes as being the one thing that could rival his face in beauty). He starts to hypnotise her, but she resists, turning away, and she struggles to walk away. However, she gives in, and runs back to the rock, losing her color and starting to dig. Eventually, covered in dirt, she reveals a huge diamond. As she starts to carry it away, the remainder of the rock cracks and collapses, revealing Twilight, Applejack, and Pinkie. Twilight's greeting is interrupted by seeing Rarity - from her point of view all Rarity's carrying is a large rock. Rarity becomes very protective of her 'diamond', refusing to share it with the others.

Fluttershy: The Butterflies
Instead of walking through the maze, Fluttershy hides in one of the hedges. Looking around, she climbs out, and starts giving herself a pep talk, but three butterflies interrupt her, causing her to dive back into the hedge in fright. Recognising them immediately after, she follows them, unwilling to be left behind. She loses sight of them for a moment, but they appear behind her and speak to her - they're actually Discord in disguise. He tries to convince her that her friends believe she's helpless, and laugh at her behind her back, but Fluttershy proves resilient, accepting the fact that she's helpless and that her friends understand. Again, Discord tries to corrupt her, and again Fluttershy resists, accepting that her friends want her to know of her flaws so she can improve on them. Frustrated by how ineffective his words are, Discord gives up and forces her to lose her color and be cruel by just touching her.

Another section of hedge disappears, revealing the others; but again, Twilight's greeting is answered with mocking statements from Fluttershy, who ends the conversation by whipping Twilight with the end of her tail, and continues to knock Pinkie Pie into the hedge. As Applejack laughs at her, and Pinkie responds in anger, Twilight realises that something's happening to her friends, and it isn't stress. Then she assists Rarity with her rock, but is warned that it's still the fashionista's.

Rainbow Dash: Cloudsdale
Rainbow runs through the maze, checking each area ahead of her, and suddenly spots a cloud bearing a remarkable similarity to her cutie mark, rainbow-colored lightning bolts and all. Believing it to be her element, she chases it, only to find Discord lying on a hammock made of clouds. Ignoring Discord's attempts to be civil, Rainbow tells him to prepare for a fight. Discord tells her that he's only there to deliver a serious message, which is a riddle about a choice. He then shows her an illusion of Cloudsdale collapsing. Rainbow, now hypnotised, screams with horror at the vision. Discord then makes a box appear in front of her and drains her color, telling her that it contains her wings, and that she can either take them and leave, or remain in the maze forever.

With the others, Rarity has stopped carrying her rock, leaving it entirely to Twilight. Twilight speaks, reassuring herself that the ponies as a team are unstoppable, and that Rainbow won't let them down. However, Applejack spots her flying away, and as she does so, stormclouds gather, and the hedges tremble and sink into the ground, completely erasing the maze. Discord finally appears to them all, telling them that somepony broke the no wings no magic rule, and that they lost the game, having failed to find the elements. After restoring the horns of Twilight and Rarity, and Fluttershy's wings, he opens an inverted umbrella, tells them to prepare for chaos, and on his laugh, the episode ends.

Wired.com preview
Wired.com posted a short preview of this episode. In the clip, the six main ponies come across a labyrinth, where they are confronted by Discord who magically takes their wings and horns as part of "a game".

Quotes
Sweetie Belle: It's not chaos, you dodo!

Scootaloo: Don't call me things I don't know the meaning of, and it is too chaos.

Sweetie Belle: Is not!

Apple Bloom: You're both wrong!

Pinkie Pie: Hold on a second! Eternal chaos comes with chocolate rain, you guys! CHOCOLATE! RAIN!

Rarity: You can keep the elements. I'll take that case!

Twilight/Rarity: Your horn! My horn!! [screams]

Discord: You should see the looks on your faces! Priceless!

Rarity:  I know where you live!

Discord:


 * A weighty choice is yours to make,
 * The right selection or a big mistake.
 * If the wrong choice you choose to pursue,
 * The foundations of home will crumble without you.

Gallery



 * The Return of Harmony, part 1 image gallery

Trivia

 * Storyboard artist Sabrina Alberghetti wrote that the two-parter was intended to air as season one's finale, but The Hub scheduled it for season two's premiere instead. Showrunner Jayson Thiessen, however, has stated that while the two episodes were produced at the tail-end of the first season, they were always supposed to be part of season two; this was done to shorten the production hiatus and to keep on as many of the show's staff as possible.
 * When the Cutie Mark Crusaders start fighting, Twist doesn't have her Cutie Mark.
 * The chocolate milk that falls from the sky near the beginning may be a reference to the famous, and viral, Tay Zonday song, "Chocolate Rain".
 * Discord is voiced by John De Lancie, who is famous for his work in Star Trek TNG and Deep Space Nine as the omnipotent being Q, who shares a similar mischevious personality with Discord.
 * As the ponies got hypnotized by Discord, their hypnotic eyes showed resemblances with Kaa's hypnotic ability from Disney's The Jungle Book.
 * This marks the first two-parter since the Friendship is Magic pilot.