The Mysterious Mare Do Well

The Mysterious Mare Do Well is the eighth episode of the second season of My Little Pony Friendship is Magic, and the thirty-fourth episode overall. The episode shows Rainbow Dash's rise to hero status through various cliché superhero rescues. Rainbow Dash's friends grow tired of her boasting, and soon the Mysterious Mare Do Well appears in Ponyville, performing heroic acts that outshine Rainbow Dash. Eventually Rainbow Dash tries to unmask the mysterious mare, and finds that all of her friends were using the same disguise, taking on the heroic identity at different occasions.

Summary
The episode begins with Scootaloo heading the Rainbow Dash fan club in the Cutie Mark Crusaders's treehouse. She declares that Rainbow Dash should be declared the most awesome pony in Ponyville. Snails and Snips join in the discussion with their opinion of the best way to describe Rainbow Dash. A voice suggests Rainbow Dash is super-ultra-extreme-awesomazing which the club agree is right. The voice is revealed to be Rainbow Dash listening to the club outside.

Rainbow Dash is then seen flying around and having a "dip in the clouds". Suddenly, she hears a filly shouting for help from a well. Rainbow Dash cuts short her cloud dip and saves the filly from the well, and is met with large amounts of praise from other ponies. She then sees a runaway baby carriage with a baby pony in it, and quickly saves the baby from plunging off a cliff. Again, she receives great amount of praise, and is then seen being photographed by paparazzi. She then gives a speech to the Rainbow Dash fan club in Sugarcube Corner. She brags about her new status as "hero" and the other main 5 are talking about her not being modest at all. Spike is in the corner writing her autobiography, when Twilight comes to tell Rainbow Dash that an autobiography is written by who it's about. Rainbow Dash scoffs and says that "I don't have time to write when I'm saving lives".

However, her pride soon begins to get in the way of her heroic deeds, and a mysterious mare in purple steps in. She begins to steal Rainbow Dash's thunder and becomes the new hero of Ponyville, dubbed "the Mysterious Mare Do Well" by the mayor of the town. Rainbow Dash attempts to outshine Mare Do Well, but she can't, and her hatred and jealousy towards Mare Do Well grows. Rainbow Dash keeps failing, and Mare Do Well keeps stepping in to fix her mistakes. It appears that Mare Do Well has wings, a horn, is super strong, super fast, and incredibly agile as well. Rainbow Dash realises that she cannot compete with that. Even her friends seem to be under the spell of Mare Do Well's awesomeness.

Rainbow decides that she has to convince the ponies in Ponyville that she is still heroic and awesome. However when she finds that there isn't anyone who needs saving, she ends up doing menial tasks like opening a jar of peanut butter and mowing a lawn in hope that people may praise her, but instead the townsponies roll their eyes and shrug her off as lame, leaving her even unhappier than before.

Rainbow goes off to brood on a thundercloud, wondering why people don't like her anymore and why she's all alone. When she hears her name called by Scootaloo, Rainbow assumes she's apologizing for forgetting about her, but Scootaloo tells her she's just inviting her to a thank you parade for Mare Do Well. At first Rainbow refuses, saying she wants to be alone. But then she hatches a plan to unmask Mare Do Well, and decides to go.

At the parade, when Mare Do Well appears, Rainbow comes up onto the stage and tries to get her to take off her mask. Mare Do Well runs away, but Rainbow gives chase. Mare Do Well keeps appearing in different places, too fast for Rainbow Dash. After a bit of chasing, Rainbow pins her down and pulls off her mask to see none other than Pinkie Pie. Astonished, she begins stammering. Then two more Mare Do Wells appear and pull off their masks, revealing themselves to be Twilight and Applejack. They explain that they wanted Rainbow Dash to stop boasting so much and come off her high horse. Applejack stopped the runaway bus with her powerful legs, Pinkie used her Pinkie Sense to avoid the falling obstacles at the building site, Twilight used her magic to fix the dam, Fluttershy did the flyby at the dam, and Rarity designed the costumes. Rainbow Dash understands that she should act with grace and humility and not with selfish arrogance so as to avoid losing the appreciation of the townsponies as well as causing a rift of jealousy between herself and her friends. The episode ends with her holding a quill to write a letter to Princess Celestia and giving the audience a wink.

Superhero theme
The episode's lead storyboard artist, Sabrina Alberghetti, commented on how the crew incorporated "one [superhero] cliché after another" in a "fun tongue-in-cheek kind of way." Among them:
 * Rainbow Dash's catchphrase, "never fear, your friendly neighborhood Rainbow Dash is here!" is a play on both "your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man" and Underdog's catchphrase "There’s no need to fear, Underdog is here!"
 * The Mysterious Mare Do Well shares the same purple-and-black color scheme and wide-brim hat and black ribbon as Darkwing Duck. Alberghetti had worked on Darkwing Duck comics before, however she did not design the character.
 * The fanfare, accompanying music, and rally posters of the Mare Do Well strongly resemble the same from Batman: The Animated Series.

Quotes

 * Rainbow Dash: Never fear, your friendly neighborhood Rainbow Dash is here!


 * Rainbow Dash: Danger's my middle name. Rainbow 'Danger' Dash.


 * Twilight Sparkle: Call me silly, but this whole hero thing might be going to Rainbow Dash's head.
 * Pinkie Pie: You may be right, silly.


 * Twilight Sparkle: Are you taking notes?
 * Spike: Yup! I've been hoof-picked by Rainbow Dash herself, to write her autobiography!
 * Twilight Sparkle: Umm, autobiographies are supposed to be written by the pony they are about.
 * Rainbow Dash: Maybe for your normal, run-of-the-mill ponies. But I'm far too busy saving lives to stop and write. That's why I hired Spike as my ghost writer.
 * Pinkie Pie: [yelps] Spike's a ghost!


 * Rainbow Dash: Never fear, your friendly neighborhood Rainbow -
 * Bystander : Excuse me, do you think you could skip your catchphrase and just hurry up and save us?
 * Rainbow Dash: Ugh...fine.


 * Spike: [Writes while speaking] Rainbow Dash is jealous.
 * Rainbow Dash: Don't write that Spike!
 * Spike: Correction; Rainbow Dash is very jealous.


 * Rainbow Dash: Oh, for the love of pete.


 * Rainbow Dash: Where is an out-of-control vehicle when you need one?!


 * Rainbow Dash: How would you describe what I just did? Would you say I was amazing?
 * Amethyst Star: Aren't you milking this a bit?


 * Applejack: I stopped the carriage bus with these babies; Bucky McGillicuddy and Kicks McGee.


 * Mayor: That's right! Ponyville has a new hero. A mysterious mare that has done well by our fair city today. I dub this new masked hero 'The Mysterious Mare Do Well'!

Gallery

 * The Mysterious Mare Do Well image gallery

Trivia

 * "Mare Do Well" is a play on the term "ne'er do well," a person who is completely lacking in merit.
 * This episode is Merriwether Williams' debut as a writer for the series.
 * The Verizon FiOS synopsis for this episode refers to Rainbow Dash using masculine pronouns.
 * In multiple shots, there are hats with Rainbow Dash's old concept cutie mark on the front. This is also seen over some ponies cutie marks, in a sticker form.
 * In the end of the episode, all of Mare Do Well's appearances are explained: Apple Jack saved the out-of-control carriage, Pinkie Pie saved the construction workers with her "Pinkie Sense," Twilight Sparkle fixed the dam, Fluttershy did the fly-by after this, and Rarity designed the outfits. However, no explanation is given to the first appearance of Mare Do Well- when she saved Cherry Berry in the hot air balloon.But, she could done that one or Rarity.