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 and the twenty-seventh episode overall. This is the first half of a two part episode, in which Princess Celestia tasks the ponies with retrieving the Elements of Harmony and defeating Discord.

Production
The show's director, Jayson Thiessen, 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. Lauren Faust notes that the episode's writing was completed before the series premiered, and was not created or altered as a reaction to the fanbase. The two episodes' writer M.A. Larson has stated that Applejack was to have said a line that was cut from the episode, "Hope everything's ok back in Ponyville. I don't know if Big McIntosh and Granny Smith have enough butter for all that popcorn." A line that "got cut early on, and with good reason" ("Doesn't really fit 'in universe.'") was Rainbow Dash saying "Get off that cloud and put 'em up! I'm not afraid of you! Come on, Marquess of Queensbury rules! Let's go!" instead of "Get off there and put 'em up! Come on! Let's go!"

Prologue: the statue of Discord
The episode begins with Cheerilee taking her students on a field trip, beginning in the "world-famous" Canterlot sculpture garden. Her class consists of Apple Bloom, Diamond Tiara, Scootaloo, Silver Spoon, Snails, Snips, Sweetie Belle, and Twist. Cheerilee points out statues representing friendship and victory that impress the Cutie Mark Crusaders. When Scootaloo remarks how cool it would be to have victory as a cutie mark, Apple Bloom snidely laments that Scootaloo is not "victoryful" at anything. Sweetie Belle says that's not a word, and Scootaloo indignantly asks her, "What are you, a dictionary?" Cheerilee interrupts their bickering by noting a particularly interesting statue. She asks her students what they notice about it, and the Cutie Mark Crusaders describe the animal body parts that it is composed of. Cheerilee says it's a "draconequus", "a creature with the head of a pony and a body made up of all sorts of things", and asks her students to guess what the statue represents. The trio all guess negative concepts, but Sweetie Belle incorrectly corrects Scootaloo's guess of "chaos". Apple Bloom jumps on her friends' heads and calls them both wrong, and they start fighting. Above them, a small circle on the draconequus statue glows briefly. The fistfight ends when Cheerilee pronounces all three correct, saying that the statue represents "discord", or "a lack of harmony between ponies". She says that the three have demonstrated the concept of discord so well that they must write an essay about it. The three of them look disappointed. As the class leaves, a large crack travels up the body of the draconequus statue and a low cackle is heard.

The first signs
After the introduction, Rainbow Dash is flying above Ponyville when a fast-moving pink cloud sends her spinning. She chases it down and discovers that the cloud is made of cotton candy. The sky fills with cotton candy clouds that rain chocolate milk.

Applejack is harvesting corn when Rainbow Dash alights and starts complaining about the crazy weather. Suddenly, the kernels on the corn start popping, and popcorn starts flooding the field. Pinkie Pie, however, is delighted by the delicious abnormalities. Rarity shows up in a purple rainsuit and matching umbrella. Even as she speaks, the apples on the trees swell, making the trees sag with their weight. Applejack yells at Fluttershy to control the squirrels and rabbits who are feeding on the enormous apples, but the forest creatures' legs elongate into spindly deer-like legs.

Twilight Sparkle arrives on the scene with Spike, and says she has a new "fail-safe" spell to counteract the strange weather and reverse the changes to the animals. She casts it and a bright purple band sweeps the land, but nothing happens. Undeterred, she organizes the other ponies, getting Rainbow to corral the clouds, much to Pinkie's dismay, and asks Applejack to pull the clouds to earth with a well-thrown lasso. Twilight instructs Fluttershy to tempt the animals into eating the clouds and popcorn instead of the apples. Not long after, Spike receives a letter from Princess Celestia; she wants the six ponies to come to Canterlot immediately.

Discord returns
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 long ago whose rule caused unrest and unhappiness for all ponies until she and Princess Luna stood up to him - Discord, whom they defeated with the Elements of Harmony. However, since the two Princesses cannot wield the Elements any more, she tells the six ponies that it falls to them to use the Elements once again to defeat Discord. While Twilight promises that the princess can count on them, Pinkie interrupts them saying that chaos is a good thing if chocolate rain is involved, a possible reference to Tay Zonday's Chocolate Rain song. Princess Celestia 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.

"Eternal chaos comes with chocolate rain, you guys. Chocolate rain!"

- Pinkie Pie

Suddenly, Discord's voice echoes around the room, and he is soon spotted animating a depiction of himself in one of the stained glass windows. Discord is voiced by John De Lancie who is famous for his work in Star Trek: The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager as the omnipotent being Q, who shares many traits with Discord. Both are mischievous tricksters who delight in playing "games" with their victims. He displays uncanny knowledge about the main cast ponies, telling them about the Element they each represent, and leaves them with a riddle that hints of "twist and turns" and finding the Elements "back to where they began". This leads Twilight to suspect that the Elements have been hidden inside the castle's hedge maze.

"To retrieve your missing elements just make sense of this change of events. Twists and turns are my master plan. Then find the elements back where you began."

- Discord

The 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 are going to be playing a game - a game to find the Elements of Harmony - and there are two strict rules:
 * No magic.
 * No flying.
 * Every pony has to take part, or the game ends.

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 tries to upset the applecart
As Applejack tries to find her way through the maze, she spots three apples, like the ones on her cutie mark, 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 six friends finishing an argument by agreeing never to speak to each other again in front of a discorded Ponyville. As she watches, the camera cranes up, showing Discord holding puppet crosses, animating the apples himself. Applejack cracks under the idea she needs to lie in order to preserve her friendship with the other ponies, and Discord hypnotizes 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 continue on their way.

Pinkie Pie gets serious
Pinkie hops merrily through the maze, and stumbles upon a wide area filled with balloons, led by balloons akin to those on her cutie mark, 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 is not fun because the balloons are laughing at her, not with her. He tells her that it is the same story with her friends. She initially denies it, but when Discord makes her friends' faces appear on the balloons, she gives in: laughter can be cruel and hurtful. Discord hypnotizes 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 did not notice anything wrong with Pinkie; Twilight thinks it is the stress of the task causing their attitudes, and decides to pick up the pace.

Rarity finds a new best friend
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 sheer beauty. He starts to hypnotize her, but she resists, turning away, and she struggles to walk away, but to no avail. Rarity succumbs to her personal flaws in record time and runs back to the rock, losing her color as she begins digging. 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 is carrying is a large rock. Rarity becomes very protective of her "diamond", refusing to share it with the others. Rarity later names the boulder "Tom".

Fluttershy learns to sting
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, the same type on her cutie mark, interrupt her, causing her to dive back into the hedge in fright. Recognizing 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 were actually Discord in disguise. He tries to convince her that her friends believe she is helpless, and laugh at her behind her back, but Fluttershy proves resilient, accepting the fact that she is 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 simply by 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 realizes that something is happening to her friends, and it is not stress. Then she assists Rarity with her rock, but is warned that the rock is still the fashionista's.

Rainbow Dash takes wing
Rainbow Dash runs through the maze, checking each area ahead of her, and suddenly spots a cloud bearing a remarkable similarity to her cutie mark. 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 Dash tells him to prepare for a fight. Discord tells her that he is only there to deliver a message, which is a riddle about the consequences of picking the wrong choice. He then shows her an illusion of Cloudsdale collapsing. Rainbow Dash, being hypnotized, 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.

Epilogue
With the others, Rarity has stopped carrying her rock, leaving it entirely to Twilight Sparkle. Twilight speaks, reassuring herself that the ponies as a team are unstoppable, and that Rainbow Dash would not let them down. However, Applejack spots her flying away, and as she does so, storm clouds gather, and the hedges tremble and sink into the ground, completely erasing the maze. Discord finally appears, telling them all that someone broke the "no wings, no magic" rule, and that they lost the game, and so have 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.

Reuse of backgrounds
The star background in which corrupted Applejack, Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash are over is the same as Twilight's background in the previous episode. It is also seen in May the Best Pet Win!.

Quotes

 * Scootaloo: How cool would it be to have that for a cutie mark?
 * Apple Bloom: Cool, if you were actually victoryful at somethin'.
 * Sweetie Belle: That's not a word!
 * Scootaloo: What are you, a dictionary?


 * 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!


 * Pinkie Pie: Oh well, if anyone needs me, I'll be outside in the chocolate puddles with a giant swizzle straw!


 * Discord: Making sense? Oh, what fun is there in making sense?


 * Discord: Oh, I've forgotten how grim you can be, Celestia. It's really quite boring.
 * Rainbow Dash: Hey! Nopony insults the princess!
 * Discord: Oh, you must be Rainbow Dash, famed for her loyalty, the element of harmony you represent.
 * Rainbow Dash: That's right! I'll always be loyal to the princess!
 * Discord: We'll see about that.


 * Pinkie Pie: [laugh] He's dancing on your head!


 * Discord:
 * Twists and turns, are my master plan
 * Then find the elements,
 * Back where you began.


 * Twilight and Rarity: Your horn! My horn! [screams]
 * Discord: You should see the looks on your faces! Priceless!


 * Discord:
 * When all the truth does
 * Is make your heart ache,
 * Sometimes a lie
 * Is easier to take.


 * Discord (as butterflies): Fluttershy, looks like you've been left behind by your so called friends, huh?
 * Fluttershy: Oh no, I'm certain they're doing their best to find me.
 * Discord (as butterflies): Well it must be so upsetting to know how weak and helpless they think you are.
 * Fluttershy: Not at all, I AM weak and helpless and I appreciate their understanding.
 * Discord (as butterflies): Yes well, I'm sure it burns you up, that they're always pointing out your flaws right?
 * Fluttershy: Not really. In fact, I think I'm awfully lucky to have friends who want me to be the best I can be.
 * Discord: Oh, for goodness sake! [mesmerizes Fluttershy] You've been kind for far too long, my dear! Time to be cruel! Arrivederci!


 * Rarity: ...But don't get any ideas about my gem. I know where you live.


 * Rainbow Dash: Get off there and put 'em up! C'mon! Let's go!


 * 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.


 * Discord: Looks like we're in for a big ol' storm of chaos!