Look Before You Sleep

Look Before You Sleep is the eighth episode of My Little Pony Friendship is Magic, season one. In this episode, Twilight Sparkle invites Applejack and Rarity to her house for a slumber party during a thunderstorm, but Applejack and Rarity aren't thrilled.

Episode summary
Ponyville needs a rainstorm to make up for a missed scheduled drizzle the other day, and the ponies proceed to clean up the town square by pruning loose branches from the trees. This leads to an argument between Applejack and Rarity. The former works slowly, trying to make sure everything is perfect, while the latter prefers to just get the job done quickly. When the storm begins, the try to find shelter.

""Slumber 101: All you ever wanted know about slumber parties but were afraid to ask.""

- Rarity reading Twilight's book

They are invited by Twilight Sparkle to stay at her place until the storm is over. She is on her own while Spike is back in Canterlot on "royal business". Twilight sees this as an opportunity to set up her first-ever slumber party, using a "slumber party manual" she owns as a checklist. Rarity and Applejack are wary of the prospect of spending a night in each other's company, but the severity of the storm convinces them to give putting their differences aside a try. However, their different personalities make it difficult to get along. For instance, their ghost stories devolve into covert name-calling, they dare each other in "Truth or Dare" without including Twilight, and turn a pillow fight into a pillow war.

Their arguments continue even when the ponies try to go to bed, fighting over the blanket. At this point, Twilight Sparkle interrupts their bickering, upset that her friends are fighting too much to have any fun, hence ruining her slumber party. Just as Twilight asks if there is "anything else that can possibly go wrong", a nearby tree is hit by lightning and begins to topple towards a neighboring house. Applejack lassoes the falling tree, but instead of stabilizing, it crashes through Twilight's bedroom window instead. Rarity focuses on cleaning up the mess of books while Twilight desperately searches through her slumber party book for a section on dealing with fallen trees in the middle of the bedroom.



When Applejack fails to move the tree out on her own, she eventually convinces Rarity to instead focus on helping her with the bigger task and not worry about getting her hooves dirty, while apologizing to her about criticizing her habit of attention to detail. Rarity uses her unicorn magic to turn the tree top into tiny bush sculptures, clearing the house at the price of getting dirt all over herself; Applejack can then proceed to gently toss the broken trunk section out the window.

With the storm (and their differences) finally settled, Applejack, Rarity and Twilight are finally having fun and, in the end, Twilight Sparkle officially declares the slumber party a success.

Quotes
Rarity: You know, there's messy, and then there's just plain rude.

Applejack: You know, there's fussy, and there's just plain gettin' on my nerves.

Applejack: I'd like to tell ya'll the terrifying tale of the prissy ghost, who drove everypony crazy with her unnecessary neatness! OooooOOwwoOOO! I'm sure ya'll are familiar with that one?

Rarity: Never heard of it. But I have a much better one... It's the horrifying story of the messy inconsiderate ghost, who irritated everypony within a hundred miles! OoooooOOOwwwwOOOoo...

Applejack: That's not a real story. You made it up!

Rarity: It is a ghost story. They're all made up...

Rarity: You could at least say "excuse me".

Applejack: Oh, I was about to! But you interrupted me! ...Pardon.

Twilight Sparkle: Now the next item of fun we have to do is... "Truth or Dare"...

Rarity: I dare Applejack to do something carefully and neatly for a change.

Applejack: Oh yeah? Well, I dare Rarity to lighten up, and stop obssessin' over every... last... little... detail... For a change.

Rarity: I think the truth of the matter is that somepony could stand to pay a little more attention to detail.

Applejack: And I think the truth is somepony aught'a quit with her fussin', so the rest of us can get things done!

Applejack: I dare you to step outside and let your precious tidy mane get ruined again!

Twilight Sparkle: You have to. It's the rule...

Applejack: Hah!

Rarity: Fine!

Rarity: OK. I dare Applejack to play "dress-up" in a frou-frou, glittery, lacey outfit!

Applejack: Happy?

Rarity: Very...

Twilight Sparkle: What does this mean? "Pillow Fight"?

Rarity: Oh please. I am not at all interested in participating in something so crude.

* Rarity is hit by Applejack's pillow*

Rarity: IT! IS! ON!

Applejack: I... ain't... budgin'!

Applejack: And that, my friends, is called "Gettin' 'er done"...

Applejack: Is it... a six-legged pony with a purple polka-dotted mane and shootin' stars comin' out of his eyes?

Rarity: Who flies through the air all over the world to hide magic, sparkly eggs?

Twilight Sparkle: That's it!

Applejack/Rarity: It is?

Twilight Sparkle: No.

Gallery



 * Look Before You Sleep image gallery

Trivia

 * The title of the episode is a pun on the saying look before you leap.
 * This is the first episode without all six of the main ponies appearing.
 * This episode has the smallest cast of any in the series. Half of the show's main characters (Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, and Rainbow Dash) do not appear, and no recurring characters appear, save for a few background ponies who appear in the opening scene but do not speak. This is also the first episode in which any of the main cast does not appear at all.
 * The title of Twilight Sparkle's book "Slumber 101: All You've Ever Wanted to Know About Slumber Parties But Were Afraid to Ask" is a reference to the 1972 Woody Allen film Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask) and the book of the same name.
 * This episode's slumber party subplot is very similiar to the Spongebob Squarepants episode, House Party, in that both Twilight and Spongebob try to throw parties "by the book". But Twilight's party is more lenient as she only consults the book for fun ideas, whereas Spongebob uses it to plan out every minute.
 * In the beginning of the episode, one pony uses magic to pick up a tree branch, despite the fact that she is an earth pony.
 * When they tell ghost stories to each other, Twilight Sparkle tells of the "Headless Horse", which is a play on the name of the ghost story of The Headless Horseman.
 * At one point of the slumber party, they all put their hair up in curls, but once they take them out, their hair is exactly the same as before.
 * Derpy Hooves appears at the beginning of the episode with non-derpy eyes.