Feeling Pinkie Keen

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

Production
The episode's premise stemmed from the common occurrence of having aching joints when the weather is about to change, and Twilight's skepticism towards the phenomenon. The episode was #9 in the We Heart Ponies Fan Favorite Mare-a-thon, in the leadup to Hearts and Hooves Day.

Frog from the sky
The episode begins with Twilight Sparkle practicing magic spells on Spike. Spike notices Pinkie Pie sneaking from cover to cover, wearing an umbrella hat and looking up at the sky.

Twilight dismisses it as Pinkie Pie being herself, but then approaches her and asks what she's up to. Pinkie explains that her tail is twitching, which means her "Pinkie Sense" is telling her that "stuff's gonna start falling." Twilight dismisses this but a frog falls on her face mid-sentence.

More predictions
Fluttershy is flying above Pinkie and Twilight carrying a basket, a bag, and a cart, all loaded with goofy-looking frogs. She apologizes to Twilight and explains that she's moving the frogs from the pond to Froggy Bottom Bog, and then carries on her way.

When Pinkie Pie tells Twilight she has something on her face (a frog), Twilight sarcastically asks if Pinkie's Pinkie Sense told her that. Twilight and Spike go on their way and talk about Pinkie's prediction, which Twilight dismisses as a coincidence. Pinkie catches up to them and warns them that her tail is twitching and something else is going to fall. Twilight dismisses this and again gets cut mid-sentence, this time falling into a ditch. Spike asks Pinkie if it's safe to go help Twilight, and she confirms since her tail stopped twitching.

Applejack arrives and asks Twilight what she's doing in the ditch, and Spike replies that Pinkie predicted it. Twilight again dismisses the events as a coincidence. When Applejack hears Twilight mention "twitchy tail" she goes for cover, but Spike tells her it's safe since the prediction already came true. Applejack explains to Twilight that "those of us who've been in Ponyville a while have learned over time that if Pinkie's a-twitchin', you'd better listen." Pinkie Pie rushes back and warns them that her ears are flopping and that she'll start a bath for Twilight. Twilight, again, dismisses the prediction, but gets caked in mud from a hay cart passing through a puddle behind her.

Studying the Pinkie Sense
The scene fades to Pinkie's bathroom in her apartment above Sugarcube Corner. She explains to Twilight, who's having a bath, that her Pinkie Sense involves "different little niggly feelings naming different things. [...] When my back is itchy, it means it's my lucky day. And, when my knee gets pinchy, that means something scary's about to happen [...] my shoulder's achy, that means there's an alligator in the tub!" Twilight jumps out of the tub in fright and asks Pinkie why her knee didn't get pinchy. Pinkie explains that it's not scary because it's her pet alligator named Gummy who's got no teeth, while Gummy gums at her mane and tail.

The scene fades to Twilight and Pinkie walking away from Sugarcube Corner. Twilight says she still doesn't believe this "mumbo jumbo". Pinkie Pie asks "What's not to believe? You do magic, what's the difference?" Twilight's jaw drops and she exclaims that the difference is huge. She literally climbs onto a soapbox and explains that magic only happens when you decide it to happen, and that Pinkie's sense makes no sense at all. Soapbox usually figuratively refers to a platform for public speaking, often in a self-serving or overly dramatic manner.

The two reach Golden Oak Library, and Pinkie Pie tells Twilight that different combinations of her reactions also predict the future, for example "ear-flop then knee-twitch then eye-flutter" means the sky will be graced with a beautiful rainbow. Pinkie then experiences "ear-flop, eye-flutter, knee-twitch", and Twilight gets squashed by Spike slamming the library door open. Spike backs up out of the library with an armload of books, accompanied by a sound effect of a truck backing up. Twilight, still recuperating, tells Pinkie that she said the combo meant "beautiful rainbow", and Pinkie corrects her about the order of the twitches, which in this case meant "look out for opening doors." Pinkie tells Twilight she doesn't believe because she doesn't understand. Twilight hums and rubs her chin with a thoughtful expression on her face.

The scene cross-fades to the library basement where Pinkie Pie is hooked up to some sort of measuring instrument, a helmet with blinking lights strapped on her head, and her forelegs secured by metallic clasps. Twilight says that when she'll get another twitch, they'll have "all kinds of scientific information." They wait for a twitch, but Pinkie says they just come and go, which Twilight says makes no sense. Pinkie affirms that "sometimes you just have to believe in things", but Twilight protests and asserts she will not believe in anything she cannot explain. Twilight angrily gives up, and Pinkie slips out of her helmet and restraints. On their way out of the basement Pinkie gets an ear flop, eye flutter, and knee-twitch, then Twilight again gets smashed behind a door that Spike opens. Still stuck to the back of the door, she asks Spike if he and Pinkie planned this prediction. She asserts that "this can't be happening, this makes no sense" and that she has to figure it out.

Observation
In a brief scene, Fluttershy reaches Froggy Bottom Bog with the frogs. The scene wipes to Pinkie Pie skipping about, with Twilight spying on her using a bush as concealment. Twilight wears a pith helmet and uses binoculars to observe Pinkie's actions. Spike walks up to Twilight and accidentally startles her, and she explains to him that she's observing Pinkie, "scientific name Pinkius Pieicus", in her "natural habitat", and expresses her mistrust in Pinkie's Pinkie Sense.

At the school playground, she sees her scratching her nose before rushing to find a place to hide "like something's about to fall from the sky". Twilight says this makes no sense because a twitchy tail indicates something would fall. Before she finishes dictating her conclusion to Spike, a swarm of bees appears and attacks her. Next, outside Applejack's barn, she sees another ear-flop eye-flutter knee-twitch combo. Spike identifies it as the combo for opening doors, and Twilight scoffs her belief in the prediction, and again suffers mid-sentence when she falls into a cellar door that had just opened.

The scene fades to Twilight in leg casts sitting in a wheelchair, still observing Pinkie Pie with her binoculars. She reports "twitchy tail" to Spike, who panics and runs away. Twilight again dismisses the prediction and tells Spike he's overreacting, but before she can finish her sentence a series of classic cartoon props drop on her head: a flower pot, an anvil, a cart of hay and finally a piano. The frame moves up to reveal that the items were dropped by Derpy and her friend, who are hovering next to a movers' truck. Derpy was present in the scene prior to becoming popular with the internet fanbase, and the show's director, Jayson Thiessen, called for a revision of the shot so that Derpy's eyes will be crossed.

Twilight later confronts Pinkie Pie and finds she was aware of her presence the whole time. Suddenly, Pinkie's entire body begins shaking. Spike asks what this means, but Pinkie answers that she doesn't know and she's never gotten it before, but that whatever it is, it's a "doozy", something completely unexpected, and that it's going to happen at Froggy Bottom Bog. Applejack, Pinkie Pie, and Spike rush to the bog to make sure Fluttershy, who was headed there earlier, is okay. Twilight dismisses the prediction yet again, but tags along anyway because she wants to be there to see the look on Pinkie's face when they find out nothing's wrong. The scene wipes to Fluttershy at Froggy Bottom Bog with ominous music and an unidentified creature moving in the waters behind Fluttershy while she sets the frogs loose.

Froggy Bottom Bogg
Pinkie keeps getting her twitches and Twilight makes sarcastic remarks towards her. Spike thinks up of bad things that could happen to Fluttershy, but Twilight assures him that she's fine. They reach the bog and soon find Fluttershy safe and sound. Twilight gloats about how right she was that there was no "doozy" and goes on about how there's no point in believing anything you can't see for yourself. Without her noticing, a huge creature creeps around the ponies, and Spike calls Twilight's attention to it. She looks behind her at a gigantic four-headed hydra which growls and roars.

The chase
The ponies and Spike run and the hydra pursues them. Twice Twilight goes back, to pull Pinkie Pie along and to rescue Spike from sinking in the bog. They run up a hill but get trapped at the edge of a cliff, with stepping-stone pillars leading to the other side. Fluttershy is the first pony to cross the chasm. Despite being a Pegasus she doesn't fly, however she recites to herself "a hop, skip, and a jump" from the song Pinkie Pie taught her in Dragonshy. Pinkie Pie has a Pinkie Sense episode and shakes herself over the edge of the cliff, though she hangs in mid-air and gets pulled back by Applejack, who carries her across by the tail.

Twilight decides to charge at the hydra head-on, or in this case right under it. Before she has a chance to cross herself, the hydra lunges at her but misses, driving one of its heads into the edge of the cliff and knocking over one of the stepping-stone pillars, which in turn knocks the next one and the next, so only two are left. Pinkie Pie tries to convince Twilight to "take a leap of faith." The hydra lunges again and breaks off the ground Twilight was standing on. Twilight jumps but misses the pillar, and lands on a bog bubble that bounces her across the chasm and over to her friends.

The doozy
Just as Twilight congratulates Pinkie for predicting the doozy, Pinkie has another spell of shudders, and she tells Twilight that the hydra wasn't the doozy. When Twilight hears the hydra wasn't the doozy, Twilight literally bursts into flames in anger. She says she gives up, and that she's willing to believe the Pinkie Sense is true even though she doesn't understand it. Pinkie goes through some strange twitches which suddenly stop, and she tells Twilight that that was the doozy, Twilight's willingness to believe.

Epilogue
Wearing an umbrella hat with Pinkie Pie, Twilight gives Spike a friendship report for Princess Celestia. After the episode aired, Lauren Faust expressed that she wishes she "could [go] back and clarify it further", since the message of the episode was misinterpreted by some viewers. Spike writes the letter with his usual feather and parchment, but the inkwell he uses has the same label as the disappearing ink seen in Griffon the Brush Off. As the episode ends, Pinkie's tail twitches once more, and Spike takes Twilight's report out to the balcony. Before he can send it, though, Princess Celestia falls out of the sky and takes the scroll from him with a smile then lifts off again.

Quotes

 * Applejack: Those of us who've been in Ponyville a while have learned over time that if Pinkie's a-twitchin', you'd better listen.


 * 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!


 * Applejack: Twilight! You came to visit my new apple cellar, how nice! Twi, you okay?...Uh, Twi?


 * 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.


 * Spike: Like, what if, she exploded?
 * Applejack: Just exploded? For no reason?
 * Spike: Yeah, like, boom!
 * Pinkie Pie: Woah!
 * Spike: I know.
 * 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: I can't make it!


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


 * Pinkie Pie: Honk (honk sound)!