Applebuck Season

Applebuck Season is the fourth episode of My Little Pony Friendship is Magic, season one. In this episode, with her big brother, Big Macintosh hurt, Applejack volunteers to harvest the apple trees in Ponyville all by herself. Hasbro started packaging a DVD of this episode with certain pony toys in January 2012.

Production and development
Originally, the episode involved "applebumping", with Applejack's loss of acuity resulting from using her head to bump apples off trees. The concept was dropped and replaced with "applebucking".

The most dependable of ponies
The episode begins in Sweet Apple Acres, where Applejack points out how much work she has, seeing all the apples in the orchard. With Big Macintosh injured, she decides to take her brother's place. Despite Big Macintosh warning her that it would be a huge task for just one pony, she vows that she could take care of it by herself.

"How many times do I gotta say it!? I don't need NO help from NO pony!"

- Applejack

The scene cuts and fades in to Applejack readying to buck the apple trees. As she's about to begin, she notices a herd of cattle stampeding towards Ponyville, but she is able to lead the cows away from the town with the help of her dog, Winona. Impressed by the farm pony's loyalty and reliability, the ponies throw a ceremonial party in her honor. Twilight Sparkle tries to give a speech, while being constantly interrupted by her friends, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, and Fluttershy, all excitedly announcing their plans with the guest of honor. When Applejack is finally introduced, she is nowhere to be found. When Applejack finally arrives late, her sleep-deprived state causes most of the ponies become concerned enough for Twilight to investigate. "Applebuck Season," she learns, is when the apple orchard is harvested. After hearing the story of Applebuck Season, and learning that her large family only came for her family reunion (in the first episode) and were away dealing with their own orchards, she offers to help, but Applejack stubbornly refuses.

Swing and miss
Having earlier promised to help out some of her friends, an exhausted Applejack ends up hindering them more than anything. During her favor to help catapult Rainbow Dash so she can perform special aerial tricks, she is unable to focus and ends up hurting herself by missing her side of the launcher repeatedly. Dash wonders in annoyance if Applejack is really Ponyville's best athlete. In the end, she succeeds in one last attempt, but the unprepared Pegasus is sent flying onto Twilight's balcony. Twilight guesses that Applejack is involved and returns to Sweet Apple Acres to offer her help. Applejack has difficulty hearing after hitting her head, but still declines.

Baked bads
Later, she helps Pinkie Pie with baking muffins at Sugarcube Corner while Mr. and Mrs. Cake are away. Her state causes her to misunderstand her friend's instructions, substituting potato chips for chocolate chips, regular soda for baking soda, a cup of sour lemon juice for a cup of flour, and earthworms for wheat germ. After they're done, Pinkie Pie offers the muffins to a crowd of ponies, one of which is Minuette and Derpy. Derpy and Minuette's mouths moves along with the line "Muffins!", which would make it her first line on the show, though one other pony's mouth also match the line. The scene wipes into a sick-tent where many ponies are lying sick from eating the baked goods, which Pinkie Pie calls "baked bads". Spike, however, gleefully eats the discarded muffins, even one with a live worm still wriggling in it. Baking and eating such muffins would not cause food poisoning to humans if properly baked. Contrary to Pinkie's song in Over a Barrel, the ponies in this episode are not "strictly vegetarian", as some of them eat cupcakes baked with worms. They do, however, get sick from the cupcakes, though despite the depiction in the episode, real equines are incapable of vomiting.

Continuing her apple harvest later, AJ once more is offered help from Twilight, and once more she refuses. Twilight expresses her annoyance of her friend being "stubborn as a mule", but apologizes to a nearby mule afterwards.

Bunny census
During her third promised task, helping Fluttershy with rounding up a group of baby rabbits during the "bunny census", the farm pony becomes too frustrated to handle a delicate operation, treating the bunnies like the cattle she herded earlier. The herd panics and stampedes into Ponyville where they eat most of the town's plants, ruining some gardens and making Fluttershy's task harder to finish. Twilight sees all this happening and decides to confront Applejack once and for all. During the bunny stampede, one of the background ponies, Rose, delivers the line "The horror, the horror...", which is from the Joseph Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness, later used as the basis for the movie Apocalypse Now, which also uses the line at its end. The stampede scene features bunnies running around a pony lying on the ground in a down shot, much like a scene in The Lion King when Mufasa is killed by a stampede.

Confronting Applejack
Twilight arrives at the orchard and tells Applejack that her stubbornness caused as much problems with her friends as with her, and that she really needs help. Applejack thinks that she's finally finished, but Big Macintosh arrives to point out that she only gathered half of the harvest after this whole time. After fainting from shock and exhaustion, she wakes up to hear Twilight appreciate how reliable she normally is, but that she should set her pride aside. No longer in any condition to continue, Applejack finally gives in and accepts, or rather begs for, the help of her friends. They finish in half the time she herself tried to do, and are all treated to apple juice. She thanks them all for their help and apologizes for causing them so much trouble from her stubborn streak. Applejack learns that it is just as okay to accept help as it is to give help. Spike comes by in the end to offer the bad muffins he found in the garbage, which the ponies refuse to try, or even touch, and leave in disgust.

Quotes

 * Applejack: "Are you sayin' my mouth is makin' promises my legs can't keep?"
 * Big Macintosh: "Eeyup."
 * Applejack: "Why of all the... This is your sister Applejack, remember? The loyalest of friends and the most dependable of ponies?"
 * Big Macintosh: "But still only one pony, and one pony plus hundreds o' apple trees just doesn't add up to..."
 * Applejack: "Don't you use your fancy mathematics to muddle the issue!"


 * Rainbow Dash: "Did you see Applejack's slick moves out there? What an athlete. This week she's gonna help me with my new flying trick, and I know it's gonna be so awesome."


 * Twilight Sparkle: "Now, if I can just make a point without being inter--
 * Fluttershy: Twilight?"
 * Twilight Sparkle: "...--rupted!"


 * Twilight Sparkle: "Anyone else? Anyone? No? Well then, as I was trying to say... UGH! Never mind!"


 * Rainbow Dash: "Applejack, what the 'hay' is going on? I mean, I thought I was working with "Ponyville's best athlete"."


 * Twilight Sparkle: "Oh no! What happened?"
 * Nurse Redheart: "It was a mishap with some of the baked goods."
 * Pinkie Pie : "No... not baked goods. baked... bads..."


 * Twilight Sparkle: "AJ, I think you're beating a dead... tree."


 * Twilight Sparkle: "Ugh. That pony is as stubborn as a mule. No offense...
 * Mule: None taken."


 * Rose: "The horror, the horror."
 * Lily: "It was awful."
 * Daisy: "A disaster. A horrible, horrible disaster."


 * Twilight Sparkle: "All right, Applejack. Your apple-bucking hasn't just caused you problems. It's over-propelled Pegasus, practically poisoned plenty of ponies, and terrorized bushels of brand-new bouncing baby bunnies."


 * Applejack: "I harvested the entire Sweet Apple Acres without your help. How do you like them apples?"
 * Big Macintosh: "Um... How do you like them apples?"

Gallery

 * Applebuck Season image gallery