Feeling Pinkie Keen

Feeling Pinkie Keen is the fifteenth episode of the first season of My Little Pony Friendship is Magic. In this episode, Twilight Sparkle learns that Pinkie Pie has an unusual ability to sense happenings in the immediate future, known as a "Pinkie Sense".

Episode summary
The episode begins with Twilight Sparkle practicing in magic spells on Spike. She notices Pinkie Pie hiding all over Ponyville, wearing an umbrella hat and being fearful of the sky. At first, she thought it was another day of Pinkie being... Pinkie. Asking her what was the matter, Pinkie responds that her twitchy tail means that "stuff is gonna start falling". Twilight states the impossibility of rain but is interrupted by a frog falling on her face. The amphibian in question came from Fluttershy's cart, the caretaker pegasus carrying an excess group to Froggy Bottom Bog. While Spike is impressed about what just happened, Twilight quickly dismisses it as a mere coincidence, since the frog just happened to fall right after Pinkie called it. The pink pony catches up with her with her tail twitching again, meaning that something else was going to fall. The skeptical unicorn keeps walking... until she falls into a nearby ditch. Spike wonders if it is safe to help her; Pinkie confirms it since her tail ceased to twitch before hopping away. Applejack arrives to see the commotion, but freaks out when she hears about Pinkie's tail-twitches. She tell Twilight that those who had lived in Ponyville for a while know one thing: "If Pinkie's a-twitchin', you'd better listen". At this point, Pinkie reappears, her ears flopping. She tell Twilight that she would start a bath for her. Just as the unicorn begins to scoff at this random set of events, a hay cart passes by, splashing her with mud from a nearby puddle.

In Pinkie's house, the earth pony explains, while cleaning up Twilight, that her "Pinkie Sense" involved odd reactions of her body that indicate if something will happen; an itchy back means luck, while a pinchy knee means something scary. She then felt her shoulder ache, telling her that an alligator is in her tub, before she showed her friend a toothless pet alligator named Gummy... who was swimming in the very bathtub Twilight is in! As they leave the house, Twilight tries to differentiate her magic with Pinkie's strange ability, saying that the latter makes absolutely no sense. The pink pony then tells her that different combinations of her reactions can help her predict other occurrences, exemplifying that an ear-flop/knee-twitch/eye-flutter combo means that a beautiful rainbow is about to happen. However, she ends up with a ear-flop/eye-flutter/knee-twitch one instead. Mistaking it for the rainbow prediction, Twilight does not turn round in time before Spike opened the front door to the library in her face.

Determined to find some understanding to Pinkie's "power", she takes her down to the library basement where she has a labratory set up, and straps her into a complex machine to analyze her Pinkie Sense. Minutes pass, and the skeptical unicorn becomes more frustrated from the lack of information. Pinkie reminds her that her twitches just happen with no warning when it will happen, and just because Twilight doesn't understand something doesn't exclude it from reality; a piece of advice Twilight Sparkle refused to acknowledge. Just then, she fells something about to happen again. However, it is just her tummy rumbling. It was no twitch, just her being hungry. Twilight pulls the plug on the experiment in frustration, no longer caring about something that defies all logic, and they both went back up to the basement door. Immediately before the unicorn reaches the door, she saw her friend's ear-flop/eye-flutter/knee-twitch combo again... before the door was slammed into her face again by Spike, who was trying to find her. Fed up with trying to ignore this crazy chain of events, Twilight decides to find out the truth. Following the happy pony in secret, her investigation on the "Pinkius Piekus" would help her gather scientific proof behind the connection between the pony's constant twitching and the events that follow.

"This is ridiculous! This can't be happening! This makes no sense! I have to figure this out."

- Twilight Sparkle

At the school playground, she sees her scratching her nose before rushing to find a place to hide. Twilight believes that this contradicts Pinkie's twitchy tail indicating something would fall, but before she makes her immediate conclusion, she is attacked by a random swarm of bees. Next, around Applejack's farm, she sees another ear-flop/eye-flutter/knee-twitch combo with the earlier warning of opening doors. Spike, who was following Twilight, backs away, but the unicorn shows him that there is nothing to worry about. As she finishes leaning on the barn door, she takes off... before falling though the opening door to a newly built apple cellar. Finally, the injured unicorn sees Pinkie's tail twitch. Something is definitely going to fall now. Spike runs for cover, while Twilight Sparkle again dismisses this reaction. In quick succession, a flowerpot, anvil, full hay wagon, and upright piano lands on her, all dropped by a careless pegasus moving crew. To add insult to injury (literally), she later finds out that Pinkie is aware of her presence the whole time.

As she confronts the pink pony about this, with Spike and Applejack with them, Pinkie's tail was no longer twitching. Suddenly, her entire body begins shaking. This is an entirely new reaction that even she does not know about. All she knows is that something unexpected was going to happen, a real "doozy", near none other than Froggy Bottom Bog. Remembering that was where Fluttershy was heading, they rush to the bog. Twilight tags along, positive that nothing is going to happen when they reach the bog.

It seemed that Twilight was right. Fluttershy had just finished guiding all the frogs into the swamp. Just as the unicorn begins to gloat about Pinkie being wrong, she is told to turn around. In complete horror, they all see something indeed unexpected: a gigantic four-headed hydra! As they run for their lives, Twilight wonders what a brave pegasus like Rainbow Dash would do and charges at the monster head-on, or in this case right under it, in an attempt to distract it while her friends cross the canyon rocks. Before she has a chance to cross herself, the hydra lashes out and knocks most of the stepping-stone pillars over the swamp. Prompted by Pinkie to take a "leap of faith" across the gap, Twilight hesitantly jumps, only to miss the remaining rocks. However, she falls onto a huge swamp bubble, which bounces her up to the other side with her friends. They are safe from the hydra.

Unfortunately, Pinkie's body is still shaking. The hydra, as it turns out, was not the "doozy" she was referring to. Twilight completely loses it. What could possibly be "doozy-er" than a giant hydra? After a momentary tantrum she collapses in defeat, humbled, having literally no choice but to accept the fact that Pinkie's "ability" is real and follows it's own set of rules, even if Twilight doesn't understand them. At this point, the pink pony stops shaking - Twilight finally believing in Pinkie's ability is the unexpected event at the bog.

Wearing an umbrella hat, Twilight gives Spike her newest report; she learns that just because some things cannot be explained does not mean they are not true, and a good friend, like Pinkie Pie, can help her choose whether to believe them. As the episode ends, Pinkie's tail twitches once more, Spike takes Twilight's report out to the balcony. Before he could send it, though, one last thing falls out of the sky - Princess Celestia herself, who took the scroll from him before immediately lifting off again.

Quotes
Pinkie Pie: It's my tail! It's my tail! It's a-twitchin' twitchin'! And you know what that means...

Twilight Sparkle: Actually, Pinkie, I haven't the slightest idea.

Pinkie Pie: The twitching means my Pinkie Sense is telling me stuff is gonna start falling.

Pinkie Pie: Um, Twilight? You got a little something on your face there...

Twilight Sparkle : Oh really? Did your "Pinkie Sense" tell you that, too?

Pinkie Pie: No, I can just see it.

Twilight Sparkle: OK. Take this down: Twitchy... Tail...

Spike: "Twitchy tail"? [gasp] TWITCHY TAIL!!!

Pinkie Pie: Hey, Applejack. What'cha doin'?

Applejack: Taking more apples to my new apple cellar. How about you, Pinkie? What'cha doin'?

Pinkie Pie: Oh, letting Twilight secretly follow me without me knowing...

Twilight Sparkle: You mean you knew all along?! Why didn't you tell me?!

Pinkie Pie: [giggle] Silly. That would've spoiled the secret.

Pinkie Pie: What if she exploded? And then... and then exploded again?!

Spike: Can you do that? Can you explode twice?!

Applejack: Of course not!

Twilight Sparkle: WHAT?! The Hydra wasn't the doozy?! How could it not be the doozy?! What could be "doozy-er" than that?!!

Gallery



 * Feeling Pinkie Keen image gallery

Trivia

 * The title of this episode is a pun on the phrase feeling peachy keen, which means to feel great or exuberant.
 * The pony pulling the cart which splashes Twilight Sparkle is the castle gardener seen in The Best Night Ever.
 * When Spike is backing up with the armload of books, he's making a sound like a truck backing up.
 * When Twilight Sparkle makes her speech about Pinkie Pie's ability making no sense, she literally climbs onto a soapbox first. The expression "being on one's soapbox" refers to a person who is engaging in unofficial public speaking, usually in a self-serving or overly dramatic manner.
 * The episode's director incorporated Derpy Hooves with her derp-eyed expression into the movers' truck shot. All episodes from this episode onwards feature her at least once with a cross-eyed expression.
 * Continuing Pinkie Pie's theme of classic cartoon gags and comedy props, Twilight Sparkle is hit on the head by several random falling items, including an anvil and a piano. When they have to jump across the platforms to get away from the hydra, Pinkie Pie goes over the edge, but does not fall, which is another classic comedy gag.
 * As in Dragonshy, Fluttershy's fear prevents her from flying. However when she has to jump to safety, she uses what she learned from Dragonshy and works up her nerve by repeating a line from Pinkie Pie's song. She is the first pony to cross the chasm.
 * When Twilight Sparkle comically bursts into flames from anger, she looks reminiscent of Rapidash from the Pokémon franchise.
 * The inkwell Spike uses to write the letter to Princess Celestia has the same label as the disappearing ink seen in Griffon the Brush Off.
 * Celestia comically drops from the sky at the end of the episode.