Read It and Weep

Read It and Weep is the sixteenth episode of the second season of My Little Pony Friendship is Magic and the forty-second episode overall. While Rainbow Dash is stuck in the hospital with an injured wing, she discovers the joy of reading, but hides it from her friends due to her former penchant of mocking it as an "egghead" pursuit.

Development
The episode was storyboarded by Raven M, Molisee and Dave Weibe. Molisee stated that the working title for the episode was "Reading Rainbow", which is the name of the classic PBS children's educational television series. Writer Cindy Morrow said that the episode had other suggested working titles besides "Reading Rainbow", such as "A Dash of Fiction", "Speed Reader", "A Need for Read", "Book Before You Leap" and "Every Trick in the Book". She also referred to the episode as "Read'em and Weep".

Crash landing
The episode begins with Rarity and Pinkie Pie looking into the sky as jet-engine sounds play. They are joined by Twilight Sparkle, asking them what they are looking at in the sky. Pinkie tells her that they're watching Rainbow Dash, who briefly appears in a shot performing an aerial corkscrew. The frame returns to the three ponies on the ground who watch in admiration, with Pinkie Pie going as far as to twist her neck around twice to keep track of Rainbow Dash's flight. Soon enough, the ponies become worried and watch Dash plummet to the ground, followed by the sound of a crash and wood crackling. The scene fades out with Pinkie Pie saying, "So much for dazzling..." and low piano notes.

Waking up
The scene opens from Rainbow Dash's blurred point of view, with a "blinking eyelid" overlay. Her five friends are around her inquiring about her well-being, "Is she going to be okay?", "Oh, I'm so worried", and "Is her face going to stay like that?" from Applejack, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie, respectively. The shot cuts to Dash making a goofy face, then widens to show her finding that her wing is bandaged.

A doctor tells Twilight that Rainbow Dash is going to be fine, and that she will be in the hospital for a few days minimum. Dash says she's got to get out and she's going to "climb the walls", so Pinkie Pie asks the doctor if the crash gave her "super duper spider powers", but the doctor dryly answers "no", and says Dash needs to stay in bed for a few days. Dash emphatically gripes "...few days? Might as well be a few months, or a few years." Her friends find positive things to point out: Fluttershy tells her that "it's not so bad"; Applejack adds that she bets the chow is "hoof-licking good"; Rarity says the hospital gowns "match the curtains"; and Pinkie Pie pulls away the curtain and points out Dash's roommate, who is almost completely bandaged and immobile except for his eyes. Dash frowns and turns away, covering herself in her blanket.

Reading is for eggheads
Twilight Sparkle notices a nurse walking by the door pushing a cart of books, and brings one over to Dash. Dash skeptically takes the book and reads its title, Daring Do and the Quest for the Sapphire Stone, which Twilight informs her is the first in the series. Rainbow Dash rudely tosses the book away, saying, "I'm a world-class athlete; reading's for eggheads like you, Twilight," giving Twilight an annoyed look and then harshly deeming that reading is "uncool". Her friends chuckle at her view of reading, saying that everyone enjoys reading from time to time. The nurse walks in and tells the ponies that they'll have to come back tomorrow. Before leaving, Twilight, seemingly taking what Rainbow had said in stride, tells Rainbow Dash that Daring Do is a lot like her since she is "adventurous; fierce; and undeniably, unquestionably unstoppable."

Boredom montage
The scene cross-fades into a shot of a ticking clock showing it's one o'clock, then transitions along several of Dash's time-passing attempts: she bounces a ball off the wall (reminiscent of a scene from the film The Great Escape); gets a glass stuck on her snout; plays with the on/off button of the lamp on her bedside; and tells jokes to her roommate, who remains silent and immobile. The scene fades to Dash staring with a groggy look at the clock, which is just turning to one minute past one. She sighs in frustration and bangs her head on the backboard, then looks at the book on her nightstand. After a couple more reluctant peeks at the book, she picks it up and starts reading. The musical cue that plays when she looks at the book and starts reading is very similar to the one that plays in a similar scene in the film The NeverEnding Story.

Daring Do and the Quest for the Sapphire Stone
Dash starts reading the book aloud, which describes how Daring Do makes her way through the tropical jungle after crash-landing and injuring her wing, becoming grounded for "a few days. A few days, it might as well be a few months, or a few years." The scene fades to the events in the book, where Daring Do a brown-coated, grey-maned pony with the same style as Rainbow Dash herself, finds herself surrounded by a tiger, a black panther, a lynx, a cheetah, and a white housecat. Daring Do makes a run from the wild cats, using a vine to swing across a chasm. Dash's narration returns and she reads that Daring Do finds herself at an ancient temple that she has been seeking. The scene cuts to Rainbow Dash, who comes to grips that she loves the book and that she is now an "egghead."

Hiding the truth
Another passage of the book is illustrated before a knock on the door interrupts Rainbow Dash. She quickly hides the book under her blanket before Twilight Sparkle and Fluttershy enter with a Battleship-style game, which Dash purposely loses and quickly puts away. When they leave, she whips her book out of her blanket and continues reading.

Daring Do makes her way through more obstacles and comes to the Sapphire Stone. The sunlight shining into the chamber is a reference to the map room scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark, where the sunlight shines on a crystal at the center of the room. Daring Do surveys the Sapphire Stone and prepares to snatch it, trying not to trigger any hidden trap mechanisms, but eventually just picks it up with her teeth with a bored expression on her face and places it under her hat. The pedestal of the Sapphire Stone unleashes a cylindrical block which triggers the temple to collapse. The room starts to collapse and the floor crumbles, while lava starts rising from below it and pillars collapse one by one. Daring Do manages to jump onto the collapsing pillars and out of the chamber through a skylight in the ceiling, but a gust of air from the chamber blasts her clear into the jungle, where she falls right at the feet of Ahuizotl, a strange creature who is also after the Sapphire Stone. The creature cheerfully says "hellooo, Rainbow Dash" with Pinkie Pie's voice, and the scene swipes from the story back to the hospital room before the character can be introduced.

Pinkie Pie, Applejack, and Rarity walk into the room and inquire for Dash's well being. A nurse walks in with Dash's dinner, which Dash eats messily, and her friends awkwardly bid goodbye and leave the room in disgust. Dash spits out the food and picks up the book again.

Ahuizotl captures Daring Do again and ties her to a stone table in another booby-trapped room, then sets off the traps and leaves. The walls start closing in, spikes extend from from sockets on the walls, spiders crawl over the spikes, cobras issue from the mouth of an ornament on the wall, and quicksand starts pouring into the room. Rainbow Dash's doctor's voice interrupts the story, and the scene cuts back to the hospital, where Rainbow Dash is discharged before she can finish the book.

Getting the book back
Rather hastily, they put Rainbow Dash in a wheelchair and wheel her outside. She despairs that she will no longer be able to find out what happens to Daring Do, since the book is in the hospital. Rainbow Dash tries to get back into the hospital, because she doesn't feel that she could get Twilight's copy after calling her an "egghead". Rainbow Dash re-enters the hospital, complaining that her wing is hurting. The doctor doesn't fall for the ruse, so Rainbow Dash decides to enter the hospital at night to retrieve the book.

Unfortunately, a new patient is occupying her bed, but she finds the book underneath. She crawls under to continue reading the book, but wakes up the patient, who accuses her of stealing his slippers. She gets caught by hospital staff, who chase her out of the hospital and through Ponyville. In the process of escaping from the hospital, her wing cramps mid-flight, and she crashes into the book trolley and loses the book. One of the books knocked off trolley has the same cover as Supernaturals, which featured in Bridle Gossip.

Rainbow Dash gets found out
Dash, her pursuers, and her friends who were woken up from the noise make their way to Golden Oak Library, where Dash is met with a lot of confusion from hospital staff and her friends. One of the pursuers is actually a patient, and she's been making the barking and growling noises during the chase scene; an orderly accompanies her back to the hospital. Dash explains that she was an "egghead", and sorrowfully explains that she liked the book Twilight gave her, and she tried stealing it from the hospital so she could finish reading it. While the title of the book is first stated as Daring Do and the Quest for the Sapphire Stone, Twilight calls it Daring Do and the Quest for the Sapphire Statue, and goes uncorrected. Dash's friends tell her she didn't need to start making a ruckus, or as Pinkie puts it, a fracas, just to get a book.

Twilight lets Rainbow Dash borrow her copy of the book, taking it from a bookshelf with more Daring Do books. Outside of Quest for the Sapphire Statue, two other different covers are featured on the books, with the rest having the same cover as Quest only mirrored. Rainbow apologizes to Twilight for what happened earlier, to which Twilight explains that reading is something everyone can enjoy if they give it a try, and the lesson Rainbow Dash learned is to not reject something until she tries it.

The scene cuts back to the Daring Do story. Overcome by the quicksand, Daring Do ricochets her hat off of her hoof, hitting the lever that set off the traps to its former position. The walls and the quicksand recede, a door opens leading to the jungle. The scene cuts to Ahuizotl petting the white house-cat, a cinematic element made famous by the character Ernst Stavro Blofeld of the James Bond series. Ahuizotl exults his victory, but Daring Do snatches the Sapphire Statue right out of his hand by swinging from a vine. Rainbow Dash finishes reading the book in her bedroom, and delightedly picks up another book, Daring Do and the Griffon's Goblet.

Quotes

 * Twilight Sparkle: Hey Rarity, hey Pinkie Pie. What are you looking at?
 * Pinkie Pie: Rainbow Dash! Isn't she the most daring devil? I mean, devilish darer? I mean-
 * Rarity: She's dazzling!
 * Pinkie Pie: Ooh yeah that's a good word. She's dazzling!
 * Pinkie Pie, Rarity and Twilight Sparkle: [gasp]
 * Twilight Sparkle: Oh no, oh no, oh no!
 * Pinkie Pie: Ayayayayay!
 * [crunch]
 * Pinkie Pie, Rarity and Twilight Sparkle: Oooh.
 * Pinkie Pie: So much for dazzling.


 * Applejack: Is she gonna be okay?
 * Fluttershy: Oh, I'm so worried!
 * Pinkie Pie: Is her face gonna stay that way?


 * Rainbow Dash: You guys have gotta get me out of here, I'm gonna climb the walls!
 * Pinkie Pie: Ooh, just like a spider! [to the doctor] Did the crash somehow give her super-duper spider powers?


 * Rainbow Dash: No thanks! I so don't read; I'm a world-class athlete. Reading's for eggheads like you Twilight, no offense. But I am not reading. It's undeniably, unquestionably, uncool.


 * Pinkie Pie: Yeah! I love reading, and my head isn't even close to the shape of an egg! It's more the shape of an apple, or maybe an orange, but a big orange, more like a grapefruit really...


 * Rainbow Dash: ...to get to the other side! Get it? Nevermind...


 * Rainbow Dash: I hate to admit it to myself, and would really hate to admit it to my friends, but... I love this story! I... I... I love reading! I'm an egghead.


 * Ahuizotl [with Pinkie Pie's voice]: Hello, Rainbow Dash!


 * Daring Do: You won't get away with this, Ahuizotl!
 * Ahuizotl: But I already have.


 * Doctor: [chuckles] I think I know what the trouble is. A severe case of lazy-itis.


 * Patient #1: Someone's trying to steal my slippers!
 * Rainbow Dash: I'm not trying to steal your slippers, I'm trying to steal this book!


 * Pinkie Pie: Hey, nopony invited me!


 * Patient #2: [barking]
 * Doctor: Hey, get back to the hospital!


 * Twilight Sparkle: Wow! I knew the book was good, but I didn't know it could drive a pony to petty theft!
 * Rainbow Dash: Good? Try awesomely amazing. That book is undeniably, unquestionably, un-putdownable!


 * Applejack: There's no reason to go around causin' a ruckus-
 * Pinkie Pie: Fracas!
 * Applejack: ...causin' a fracas just because you like to read.


 * Twilight Sparkle: Rainbow Dash, just because you're athletic doesn't mean you aren't smart!
 * Spike: Yeah, just look at me! [kisses his bicep]