FEELING PINKIE KEEN
Written by Dave Polsky
Produced by Sarah Wall
Story editing by Rob Renzetti
Supervising direction by Jayson Thiessen
Co-directed by James Wootton
Transcribed by Alan Back (ajback@yahoo.com)
Prologue
(Opening shot: fade in to an overhead shot of Ponyville during the day. The camera, set somewhat above the town square pavilion, zooms in on the area beyond it, where two tiny figures can be seen on a hill between some houses. A dissolve to a close-up reveals them to be Twilight Sparkle and Spike. The baby dragon has a rock balanced on his head, some leaves around his neck, and a twig in his hand like a cane; the unicorn aims her glowing horn at him, strain showing on her face. A quick poof turns the leaves into a black tuxedo jacket and ruffled white shirt with a red bow tie, and a second one leaves him holding a gold-headed walking stick instead of a twig. He looks back over his shoulder with slight trepidation.)
Twilight: Eyes over here, Spike!
Spike: Uh, sorry. (She goes back to it.)
Twilight: For this to work, it’s crucial we keep our concentration totally on the—
(Close-up of him during this line; the rock bobs up off his head and changes into a glossy top hat. He is promptly distracted by Pinkie Pie’s voice, coming from the vicinity he glanced toward.)
Pinkie: (from o.s.) Ooh!
(The brand-new headwear promptly resumes its rock-like qualities and drops squarely on Spike’s noggin, smashing him down o.s. By the time he hits the ground, his tux and stick have turned back as well.)
Twilight: (annoyed) Spike! This magic needs our full attention to make it happen! (Something is heard zooming around o.s.) There’s no other way!
Spike: I can’t help it! (gesturing her to him) Look!
(The something is the hyperactive pink pony, who sticks her head—covered by an umbrella hat—out from behind a tree and dashes into some bushes. Next she ducks underneath a porch, risks a peek, and zips away to a rock. As Twilight and Spike look on, totally bewildered, she lifts it up off herself and darts away, letting it slam back down. Twilight sighs impatiently.)
Twilight: Never mind her. She’s just being Pinkie Pie.
Spike: (scratching his head) Super-extra-Pinkie Pie today.
(Pinkie’s next move is to tiptoe across the green space between two houses; before she gets clear, though, she stops stock-still and her tail begins to twitch. She eyes it as if it were a rattlesnake about to strike.)
Pinkie: Huh…twitchy twitch-a-twitch-a-twitch. (It settles down; Twilight and Spike approach.)
Twilight: Pinkie Pie, what in the wide wide world of Equestria are you up to?
Pinkie: Oh, it’s my tail! (putting it in Twilight’s face) It’s my tail!
(Close-up of the latter, who has to raise her head and push the magenta fluff down with a hoof.)
Pinkie: (from o.s.) It’s a-twitch-a-twitchin’! (turning around to face her) And you know what that means! (Long pause.)
Twilight: Actually, Pinkie, I haven’t the slightest idea.
Pinkie: (dropping into a huddle) The twitchin’ means my Pinkie Sense is telling me that stuff’s gonna start falling! You two better duck for cover! (Twilight and Spike trade a smile.)
Twilight: Oh, Pinkie, it’s not gonna rain. Why, there’s barely even a cloud in the—
(She never gets to finish that thought due to the frog that sails into view and lands squarely on her face. It gives her a loud, cheerful ribbit as Pinkie stands up.)
Pinkie: He just said “nice catch” in Frog.
(It repeats itself while she smiles and the catcher grimaces mightily. Snap to black.)
OPENING THEME
Act One
(Opening shot: fade in to the three plus the new arrival, which is still plastered across Twilight’s face. They look upward at the sound of the next words.)
Fluttershy: (from o.s.) Oh, I’m so, so sorry.
(Cut to her, hovering some distance up. She is toting saddlebags full of frogs, carrying a basket on one foreleg, hauling a cartload, and letting one extra ride on her head.)
Fluttershy: You okay, Twilight Sparkle? I just couldn’t stand to see the pond getting so overpopulated, what with the frogs all hopping into each other and all— (Ground level; she continues o.s. Twilight’s frog climbs down her mane.) —so I decided to fly as many as I can on over to Froggy Bottom Bog.
Twilight: (levelly) Of course you did. (Fluttershy gets the basket handle in her teeth.)
Fluttershy: Bye-bye!
(Off she goes with her croaking cargo. The dropped frog is now hanging onto Twilight’s cheek.)
Pinkie: Um, Twilight? You got a little something on your face there.
Twilight: (sarcastically) Oh, really? Did your Pinkie Sense tell you that too?
Pinkie: Nah. I could just see it.
(She trots off, singing to herself; the frog takes its leave of Twilight, launching itself with enough force to set her whole head vibrating for a moment.)
Twilight: Come on, Spike. (walking off; he follows) Let’s continue our practice session where there’s a little less commotion. (He jumps on her back.)
Spike: Wow! That was amazing! Pinkie Pie predicted something would fall, and it did!
Twilight: Oh, come on. She said something would fall, and a frog just happened to fall right around the same time. A coincidence. Nothing else to it.
(Pinkie rockets into view from behind and hops frantically in place with her tail vibrating, then stands on her forelegs.)
Pinkie: My tail, my tail! Twitch-a-twitch! (Close-up of it; she continues o.s.) Twitch-a-twitch! (Cut to Twilight and Spike; he looks fearfully around.) Something else is gonna fall!
(Cut to frame all three; the umbrella-hatted pony collapses onto her haunches as Twilight walks away, carrying Spike.)
Twilight: Oh, Pinkie, please. (Close-up.) Nothing else is gonna faaaAAAAAA—
(This time, she gets cut off by suddenly dropping o.s., leaving Spike hanging in midair. A thud and grunt mark her landing, followed by Spike’s fall to end up with just his head in view. In a longer shot, she has fallen into a ditch and landed on her back, knocking herself silly; he has landed at its edge.)
Spike: Oh, no! Twilight fell! (Pinkie walks up; he addresses her.) Is it…safe to go help her?
Pinkie: It’s okay. (swishing her tail) My tail’s stopped twitching.
(With a toss of her head, she relieves herself of the umbrella hat and trots away singing. Spike regards her and the dropped headgear, then peeks into the ditch with a laugh. Twilight is growling quietly and working her way back up to vertical.)
Spike: That was amazing!
Twilight: Oh, please.
Applejack: (from o.s.) Uh, Twilight? (Cut to her, now at the ditch’s edge.) Why are you hangin’ out in a ditch?
Spike: Because Pinkie Pie predicted it! (Surprise from Applejack; Twilight peeks up.)
Twilight: Honestly, Spike, she did not. Two coincidences in a row like this may be unlikely, but it’s still easier to believe than twitchy tails that predict the future. (She swishes her own at the proper moment to make the point.)
(Applejack manages to voice an unnerved gasp and neigh at the same time.)
Applejack: Twitchy tail? (rearing up) Pinkie Sense?
(She dashes away and takes cover beneath a nearby produce cart, pulling her hat down tighter with a scared moan before Spike crosses to her.)
Spike: Don’t worry, it’s safe. The prediction already came true. (Twilight climbs out.)
Twilight: Oh, wait. Don’t tell me you believe in this stuff too. (Applejack emerges.)
Applejack: I know it doesn’t make much sense, but those of us who have been in Ponyville a while have learned over time that if Pinkie’s a-twitchin’, you better listen.
(Right on cue, she shows up; this time, though, her ears are doing the mambo.)
Pinkie: My ears are flopping, my ears are flopping! (Spike recoils in terror with a cry.)
Spike: What does that mean?
Pinkie: (to Twilight) I’ll start a bath for you.
Twilight: Huh? (laughing; Spike and Applejack back up) A bath? This thing keeps on getting more ridiculous by the minute!
(The fact that she actually finished this bit of criticism does not stop another calamity from befalling her—in this case, being splattered with mud thrown up by a passing hay wagon. She sinks to her haunches with an infuriated groan.)
(Dissolve to a full, sudsy bathtub in which the befouled unicorn’s head can be seen above the bubbles. She blows some of them away as Pinkie emerges from behind its curtain, a bottle of bubble bath soap balanced on her head. The candy/sweets print on the curtain, and the candy-cane striping of its rod, give this room away as being in Sugarcube Corner.)
Pinkie: So basically, it works like this. (She sets the bottle down by the sink.) I get different little niggly feelings and they mean different things. (demonstrating) Like 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.
Twilight: Is your knee pinchy now?
Pinkie: (working a foreleg around) No, but my shoulder’s achy. That means there’s an alligator in the tub. (plunging head into suds) Look!
(It takes her an instant to come up with a small one that has impossibly blue-violet eyes. The sight of this creature freaks Twilight out so badly that she jumps out of the tub with a cry and balances all four hooves on its far edge.)
Twilight: How come your knee didn’t get pinchy? (as Pinkie sets the alligator down) That isn’t just scary, it’s downright dangerous! (Cut to Pinkie.)
Pinkie: No, it’s not, silly! This is my pet alligator Gummy. (Open mouth, exposing toothless gums.) He’s got no teeth! (He nips her foreleg.) See?
(Neither this nip, nor the ones that follow to her mane and tail, has any ill effects, and she even giggles as he plies his gums on her.)
Twilight: (from o.s.) Okay, okay. (Cut to frame both ponies.) I get it.
(Dissolve to outside the front door of Sugarcube Corner, from which the two ponies are headed away. Evidently the bathroom is on an upper floor of the building. Twilight is clean and dry.)
Twilight: Well, I still don’t believe all this “special power” stuff. It’s just a bunch of mumbo-jumbo.
Pinkie: What’s not to believe? You do magic. (Twilight stops, surprised; she goes on.) What’s the difference?
Twilight: Huge!
(She gallops to catch up, finding Pinkie stopped at a well near a cart selling cleaning products. A crate sits on the ground between the two.)
Twilight: For one thing…
(Pushing the items on the crate off to one corner, she climbs atop it—literally getting on a soapbox—and clears her throat.)
Twilight: …magic is something you study and practice. It only happens when you decide to do it, and it’s meant to make something specific, that you choose to happen, happen! (Cut to Pinkie; she continues o.s.) With you, uh…it makes no sense at all!
Pinkie: That’s so not true, Twilight. (brightening; zoom out to frame Twilight) Sometimes it’s a bunch of random things happening to my body at random times that supposedly predict the future. I call ’em “combos.”
Twilight: (jumping down, walking o.s.) “Combos”? (Pinkie hops after her toward the library.)
Pinkie: Sure! You know, like ear flop, then knee twitch, then eye flutter?
(She shows off each movement in the sequence as she names it.)
Pinkie: That means the sky is about to be graced with a beautiful rainbow.
Twilight: Yeah. Sure. (She heads for the door.)
Pinkie: Uh-oh. I feel a combo coming on. (It goes off, step by step.) Ear flop…eye flutter…knee twitch!
(The bookworm unicorn just throws a skeptical glance back from the library doorstep. She then gets the entire door thrown at her—more precisely, slammed into her face by Spike, who backs out with a stack of books. When it swings shut, she is seen to be squashed flat across its woodwork, from which she slides down with a pained moan to wind up in a heap on the doorstep.)
Twilight: (moaning woozily) You said that combo meant “beautiful rainbow.”
Pinkie: Oh, no, no, no, no, no. (acting out) You’re thinking of an ear flop, then knee twitch, then eye flutter. This was an ear flop, then eye flutter, then knee twitch. That usually means “look out for opening doors.” You okay? (Twilight gets up.)
Twilight: (frustrated) I don’t believe this! (Pinkie gets in her face.)
Pinkie: You don’t believe because you don’t understand. (She backs off.)
Twilight: Hmmm…
(Dissolve to a close-up of a bubbling flask in a rack, then pan/tilt down to frame a roomful of laboratory equipment. Stairs lead down into this area, whose root-covered ceiling gives it away as being underground. The color of the walls and floor is the same as that in the library, suggesting that the lab may be in its basement. Pinkie stands on her hind legs behind a console, resting her forelegs on it and wearing a helmet covered with diodes. Near her is a strip chart recorder that has been hooked up to the console; Twilight grips one last wire in her teeth and plugs it into the helmet. As the diodes wink to life, she throws a burst of telekinesis at two clamps on the console, causing them to flip shut on Pinkie’s forelegs and hold her in place.)
Twilight: Okay. Now when you get another twitch— (The recorder starts cranking out graphs and chuffing steam.) —we’ll have all kinds of scientific information.
Pinkie: (cheerfully) Okey-dokey-lokey!
(Her expression rearranges itself into stoic composure as she stands there and Twilight watches both her and the chart. Nothing happens for several seconds, except for the periodic puffs of steam coming off the recorder.)
Twilight: Any twitches yet?
Pinkie: (cheerfully) Nopey-dopey!
(Nothing persists in happening for several more seconds, with the side effect of making Twilight slightly impatient.)
Twilight: Now? Anything? (Pinkie concentrates for a moment.)
Pinkie: Wait! Hold on! (Zoom in on her.) Uh, no.
Twilight: Are you kidding me? After a whole day of nonstop twitching, now that I’ve got you all hooked up, you’re not getting a single one?
Pinkie: I don’t control it. They just come and go.
Twilight: That makes no sense!
Pinkie: Sometimes you just have to believe in things, even when you can’t figure ’em out. (Twilight gets in her face.)
Twilight: I will not believe in anything I cannot explain.
Pinkie: Wait! Hold on…I’m feeling something…
Twilight: Oh my gosh! (looking at chart) What? What is it?
(The answer: a loud grumble from Pinkie’s gut.)
Pinkie: It’s my tummy! That usually means I’m hungry. Let’s eat! (Loud groan from Twilight.)
Twilight: You know what?
(The exasperated scientist yanks the wires out with her teeth, shutting down the entire rig, and spits them away.)
Twilight: Just forget it! I don’t need to know if this is real or not. I don’t need to understand it. I don’t even care!
(She walks off, and Pinkie pulls her forelegs out of the clamps and flips the helmet off her head.)
Pinkie: Okey-dokey-lokey!
(She hops past Twilight and up the stairs leading out of the lab. Tilt up quickly to the closed exit door; as they approach it, she goes rigid with a little gasp and backs away.)
Pinkie: Uh-oh.
(A combo hits her—ear flop, eye flutter, knee twitch—that causes her to gasp loudly and jitter backward. Twilight, at the door, has just enough time for one glance at her before it is flung open, smashing her for the second time in two minutes. Spike is on the other side; he addresses himself to Pinkie, who hops merrily along the path.)
Spike: Pinkie, have you seen Twilight?
Pinkie: (hopping through door) Uh-huh.
(He does not find the unicorn until the door swings shut, with her again pounded flat on the boards.)
Spike: Twilight? What are you doing back there?
Twilight: (groaning, with effort) Did you two plan this?
Spike: Plan what? (She pops loose and thuds down with a louder groan.)
Twilight: This is ridiculous! This can’t be happening! This makes no sense! (determinedly) I have to figure this out.
(Snap to black.)
Act Two
(Opening shot: fade in to a scrolling view of afternoon sky. A frog croaks as it is lifted into view atop Fluttershy’s head in close-up; it smiles and points ahead, and the camera cuts to frame the flying pegasus and her passengers. In a still-longer shot, she descends toward a broad stretch of swampland—this must be Froggy Bottom Bog, the destination she mentioned in Act One.)
(Wipe to the fountain in the park outside Ponyville proper. Pinkie hops along, giggling to herself, and stops to smell a flower.)
Pinkie: Mmmm!
(As she resumes her cheerful travels, a bush rises clear of the ground and begins to follow her, moving under the power of four violet legs. Once it settles down, a pair of binoculars pokes out of the leaves; cut to Twilight’s perspective through them, focusing and zooming in on Pinkie, then back to her. She has donned a pith helmet and stuck a pencil in her teeth, and she quickly ducks behind the bush. The binoculars and a notepad both rest on the ground, and she levitates the pencil to write, taking a cautious peek over the shrubbery as she does so.)
Spike: (from o.s.) Twilight?
(She leaps straight up with a frightened scream and thuds down by the bush; Spike, now standing nearby, gets yanked back there in a hurry with a yell of his own.)
Twilight: Honestly, Spike, don’t you know better than to sneak up on ponies?
Spike: Oh, sorry, but… (She peeks up.) …um, well, isn’t that what you’re doing?
(He looks over the bush as well; she gasps and tackles him to the ground.)
*** All lines marked with an asterisk are delivered in hushed tones. ***
* Twilight: No… (peeking through bush) …I’m doing scientific research. I’m observing Pinkie Pie, scientific name Pinkius pieicus, in its natural habitat. (Spike peeks through.)
* Spike: Pinkius who-icus? (Both duck down; cut to inside the bush.)
* Twilight: There’s something fishy going on with the whole twitchy prediction thing, and I’m getting to the bottom of it. So, shhh!
(He acknowledges with a finger to his lips. Outside the bush again; she puts her head up and spots Pinkie at a distance, hopping along.)
* Twilight: Come on! (She ducks back in and lifts the bush.) Pinkius pieicus is on the move!
(The little dragon’s legs are too short to touch the ground, so he treads air while she moves the greenery. Dissolve to the schoolhouse playground, where the goofy pink pony is rolling about on the grass and humming to herself, and zoom out as Twilight peeks up to scope the scene with binoculars. Her perspective, focusing in; Pinkie stands, scrunches up her face, and scratches her nose.)
* Twilight: Hmmm… (Behind the bush; she is framed from shoulders down as Spike takes notes.) …itchy nose.
(Back to the view of Pinkie, who suddenly gasps wide-eyed; zoom out and re-focus just in time to frame her zipping across the playground and huddling beneath an oversized horseshoe. Head-on view of Twilight, who lowers her binoculars.)
* Twilight: Aha! That makes no sense! (Cut to Spike; she continues o.s.) See? (leaning down to him) She’s hiding like something’s about to fall from the sky, but a twitchy tail means something’s gonna fall from the sky, not an itchy nose.
(Spike looks nervously overhead during this line, and Pinkie does the same a moment later, the camera tilting up toward the schoolhouse roof. A sizable swarm of bees flies out from behind a treetop and streaks toward ground level; back to Twilight and Spike—only one of whom is paying attention.)
* Twilight: This proves— (Spike gasps.) —perhaps conclusively, that— (He bails out with a yell; she looks up.) Spike! Where are you going? I’m trying to teach you the value of scientific obser—
(She gets no farther, as the swarm descends on the bush with enough ferocity to make it jump in place as Twilight gets stung again and again.)
Twilight: Ow! Ouch! Ow! Ooh!
(Dissolve to an extreme close-up of her raised binoculars and zoom out. Now wearing a plethora of Band-Aids as well as her pith helmet, she has moved operations to Sweet Apple Acres and is watching from behind a stack of hay bales next to the barn.)
* Spike: (from o.s.) What’s she doing now?
(On the end of this, cut to her perspective of Pinkie, who is smelling flowers in the orchard.)
* Twilight: Smelling a flower. (Cut to him on the ground beside her, taking notes.)
* Spike: Holy guacamole! I wonder what that means!
* Twilight: (lowering binocs) Probably that the flower smells good. (raising them) Wait! I’m getting something! Ear flop…eye flutter…knee twitch.
Spike: Hold on. (running off; she lowers binocs) You told me that’s the combo that says “watch out for opening doors”!
(Looking behind herself, Twilight takes note of a door whose top half is open and laughs dismissively. A camera shift reveals that he has taken cover behind a second stack of bales several yards in front of this one.)
Twilight: You really, really believe this stuff, don’t you? (She turns to the door.) Here. Let me show you there’s nothing to be afraid of.
(She props one foreleg on the edge of the closed lower half and smirks across the way.)
Twilight: You see? (trotting away; a ground-mounted hatch flips open) I promise you there’s nothing to fear from that—
(Not minding her step, she reaches the opening and drops out of sight, her helmet dangling in midair for a second before following her down. A close-up on the next line reveals a staircase leading into the depths, and a series of thuds marks her progress to the bottom.)
Twilight: Whooaa! (now out of view) Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! (Final thud.)
Applejack: (from below) Twilight! You came to visit my new apple cellar! (Spike peeks down.) How nice!…Twi? You okay?…Uh, Twi?
(Dissolve to a profile close-up of a thoroughly exasperated unicorn and zoom out. The helmet and bandages are gone, but she is now sitting in a wheelchair with casts on both forelegs, which are propped on the back of a park bench. The binoculars are gripped in these, and traction wires are attached to the limbs, running up and o.s. Spike, standing next to her, squints ahead and then looks her way. In a longer shot, the wires are shown to run over a couple of pulleys attached to a framework above Twilight’s head and connected to a lever on the chair back.)
Spike: Here. Let me help you.
(A few pumps on the lever reel in the wires, lifting her forelegs to bring the binocs to eye level.)
* Twilight: Okay. Take this down. (Her perspective of Pinkie, with a…) Twitchy tail. (Cut to Spike.)
* Spike: Twitchy tail…
(He gasps and goes into a full-scale panic, throwing the notepad away and letting go of the lever.)
Spike: TWITCHY TAIL!! (Twilight’s forelegs fall and she drops her binoculars.)
* Twilight: Hush, Spike! We can’t let Pinkie know we’re here, remember?
Spike: Something’s gonna fall! Something’s gonna fall! Run for your lives! (He does so, whooping crazily.)
* Twilight: Ugh! Spike, honestly. You’re overreact—
(The prediction comes true, four times in five seconds; a flowerpot, anvil, hay wagon, and piano all crash squarely down on her head. Tilt quickly up from the pile of dust and rubble to a delivery truck floating in midair and pulled by two pegasi. At the tailgate, the foreman—khaki stallion, grizzled white mane/tail, crate cutie mark, cap, five o’clock shadow—glares at two others, while yet another crew member carries a box away. The two grin sheepishly at the apparent lapse of concentration that did all this damage; one of them gasps as well. She is the recurring background character Derpy Hooves: gray coat, light blond mane/tail, crossed amber eyes, cutie mark of several bubbles.)
(Wipe to Pinkie in the park, humming and licking at a spot on a front hoof, and zoom out as Applejack walks up with a basket of apples on her back.)
Pinkie: Hey, Applejack! Whatcha doin’?
Applejack: Takin’ more apples to my new apple cellar. How ’bout you, Pinkie? What you doin’?
Pinkie: Oh, letting Twilight secretly follow me all day without me knowing.
(Cut to a longer shot and zoom out as Twilight hobbles over to the pair. She looks very much the worse for wear after that four-way combo, and the casts are still on her forelegs.)
Twilight: You mean you knew all along?! Why didn’t you tell me?
Pinkie: (giggling) Silly, that would have spoiled the secret.
(Her huge smile is met by a series of contorted, lopsided grimaces and a groan as Spike pokes his head out from behind Twilight’s tail.)
Spike: (fearfully) Tail still twitching? (Pinkie looks at her own.)
Pinkie: All done. Clear skies from here on in, as far as I can tell.
(But now she pulls a new trick: her entire body jitters briefly. Spike ducks behind Twilight again as Applejack lets her basket fall.)
Spike: Oh, no! What does that one mean?
Pinkie: Don’t know. Never gotten any like it before. (Cut to Twilight and Spike; she continues o.s.) But whatever that shudder’s about, it’s a doozy! Something you never expect to happen is gonna happen!
(Another, longer shudder wracks her as all three watch.)
Pinkie: And it’s gonna happen… (Zoom in.) …at Froggy Bottom Bog! (Applejack gasps.)
Applejack: That’s where Fluttershy’s headed! (Spike peeks from behind Twilight.)
Spike: Oh, no! Is it about her?
Pinkie: Uh…I’m not sure.
Applejack: We’d better go and make sure she’s okay. (She gallops off.)
Twilight: Calm down, everypony. (Pinkie follows; Spike does the same as she continues.) All we know right now is that Pinkie Pie just got a case of the shivers. That’s all.
(She finally realizes that she has lost her audience, much to her discontent. The other two ponies, meanwhile, are making good time; Spike is slowly falling behind, but Twilight pulls up and slips her head underneath to flip him onto her back. She has completely recovered from her various injuries now.)
Spike: Hey! I thought you didn’t believe in this stuff!
Twilight: I don’t. I just want to be there to see the look on Pinkie’s face when we find out nothing’s wrong.
Pinkie: Okey-dokey.
(Applejack leads them along the road toward the overgrown quagmire. Cut to a close-up of Fluttershy’s cart, now on the ground; she flips open the front, allowing the frogs inside to hop out. In a longer shot, she watches as they make their way into the water. The camera then cuts to behind her at a distance and zooms out slowly; something very large, brown, and scaly cruises through the sluggishly bubbling water back here, submerging with a splash.)
(Wipe to the three ponies charging through the outskirts of the bog area; Spike is off Twilight’s back and running under his own steam. Pinkie stops short, struck by another shudder.)
Twilight: (stopping, sardonically) Cold? Need a jacket or something? (Pinkie starts ahead; now all are walking.)
Pinkie: No, thanks. I’m fine. (She gets another one.)
Spike: (to Applejack) So, what do you think happened to Fluttershy?
Applejack: I hope nothin’.
Spike: I know, but…what do you think happened?
Applejack: I’m tryin’ not to think about it.
Spike: (resolutely) Me too. (fearfully) But… (Cut to a worried Applejack; he continues o.s.) …I’m thinking about it anyway. Like… (The whole group.) …what if…she exploded?
Applejack: (skeptically) Just exploded, for no reason?
Spike: Yeah, like, boom! (All stop.)
Pinkie: Whoa!
Spike: I know!
Pinkie: What if…what if she exploded, and then… (jumping up) …and then exploded again?
Spike: Can you do that? Can you explode twice?
Applejack: (testily, starting ahead) Of course not. (Spike follows; close-up.)
Spike: But what if…she exploded…and exploded again…and then—
(He stops, pulled back by something. On the next line, cut to a longer shot; Twilight has his tail under her hoof.)
Twilight: Will you two stop! (She lets go; Pinkie skids up.) She’s fine, I’m sure of it. (All move ahead.)
Applejack: I hope you’re right, for Fluttershy’s sake.
(They stop again, and Applejack and Pinkie peek through the trees to find the heart of the bog before them.)
Applejack: Look! There’s Froggy Bottom Bog!
(Zoom in on the wetland as a dragonfly buzzes lazily over it, then cut to Applejack, Pinkie, and Spike moving to the edge of it.)
Applejack: (calling out) Fluttershy! (Pan to frame Twilight, bringing up the rear.)
Pinkie: Fluttershy!
(Twilight climbs a sloping tree, Applejack scopes the scene from a small neck of solid ground, and Pinkie lifts the edge of a lily pad to peek beneath. A frog promptly jumps onto it, knocking it flat and eliciting a surprised gasp; next Spike leaps onto the magenta mane to drive its owner’s face into the muck. A longer shot of the area frames Fluttershy—standing a few feet out on a rock and emptying her basket of frogs.)
Spike: Fluttershy! (jumping over, hugging her) You’re okay!
(She is more than a bit surprised by this greeting. Zoom out to frame Twilight and Applejack watching from shore.)
Fluttershy: Of course.
Applejack: Whoo…what a relief. (Cut to frame Fluttershy, Pinkie, and Spike.)
Pinkie: I’m so glad everything’s all right.
Twilight: (from o.s., smugly) Sorry. (Pan to her and Applejack.) I know it’s not nice to gloat, but… (Zoom out to frame all five.) …AHA!
(Spike is so surprised that he falls into the water, Fluttershy and Pinkie aim slightly vexed looks her way, and she does not notice the large, brown, scaly whatever-it-is swim by as she continues.)
Twilight: I told you there was nothing to worry about, and I was right. (Green mist starts to rise.) Pinkie Pie said whatever she was shuddering about was a— (Cough; Applejack walks away.) —doozy, and— (Cough.) —and the only— (Cough.) —doozy here is how right I am.
(Overhead view of the five. Spike is now out of the water, and he, Fluttershy, and Pinkie are staring at a vertical stretch of the brown thing as it slowly rises from the water, throwing the green mist as it does so. Twilight has her back to it and does not notice; Applejack, near her, catches a look at it.)
Applejack: Um… (Hard swallow.) …Twilight? (She crosses to the other three.)
Twilight: Pinkie’s made a lot of predictions today, but— (Close-up; cough.) —ugh, what is that smell?
(Longer shot; there are actually three vertical things standing up from the mire, hemming the group in, and a guttural growl drifts down over them.)
Twilight: But what we’ve shown here is that there’s no point in believing— (Cough.) —in anything you can’t see for yourself.
(On the end of this, cut to the moaning, terrified quartet that has been looking this threat straight on the entire time.)
Spike: (pointing) W-W-Well, then, s-s-see what’s b-b-behind you, Twilight!
(Back to the scientifically minded unicorn, who finally turns and looks up to see the expanse of scaly brown hide that now fills the screen behind her. The growl has intensified by a few dozen decibels, and a long overhead shot reveals that there are now four of these pillars standing up from the bog.)
Twilight: I see it…
(Tilt up to frame a snakelike head at the top end of each—these are actually necks.)
Twilight: (from o.s.) …but I don’t believe it!
(Three of the four heads roar in unison; the fourth—second from left—joins in a moment later. Snap to black.)
Act Three
(Opening shot: fade in to a long shot of the four monstrous heads and necks towering over the hapless quintet.)
Pinkie: Is that a hydra?
Applejack: Who cares? RUN!!
(The group bails out save Pinkie, who finds herself on the receiving end of the creature’s hungry stares and starts to back up.)
Twilight: Pinkie! Come on!
(One head lashes down, but gets only a mouthful of mud thanks to Twilight’s last-second lunge to tow Pinkie away by the tail. She is flung ahead of Fluttershy, who in turn passes one of the frogs she brought to the bog as it flees.)
Fluttershy: Oh, I’m so sorry.
(Another head focuses on Twilight, throwing a good scare into her, and the hydra’s entire lizard-like body emerges from the ooze. A strike at her comes up just short; ditto the next one, which targets Applejack as she hops from root to root. Fluttershy barely gets away from a chomp that catches the rock she was standing on. The second head from the left, the only one to stay out of the action, laughs at the other three—angry, with a mouthful of tree, and dazed.)
(Four screaming ponies book it while Spike scrambles along a low-hanging vine; cut to an earth outcropping as the ponies race up and stop in front of it. Twilight takes a swift look around.)
Twilight: (galloping to one side) Everypony up that hill!
Spike: (from o.s.) HEEELLLP!!
(He has become bogged down in the morass and only digs himself in farther when he tries to swim away from the approaching hydra. Twilight charges back.)
Twilight: Coming, Spike! Hang on!
(Racing into the mud, she scoops him up on her head and makes tracks an instant before the reptilian jaws slam shut. As the other three ponies sprint uphill and she catches up, the four heads give chase but snap back o.s. suddenly. A cut to ground level reveals that one of the hydra’s feet is mired in glop; it pulls loose after a moment and resumes the pursuit.)
Twilight: I think we’re gonna make it! (Cut to Spike, who points ahead.)
Spike: But Pinkie’s still shuddering!
(She is indeed, but stops abruptly and ends up standing still as Fluttershy gallops by.)
Pinkie: Oh, looky there. It’s stopped!
(Only for a moment, though.)
Pinkie: (voice vibrating) Ohhh! Theeere iiit iiis agaaaiiinnn!
(Spike arrives on the end of this to push her up the slope, and Twilight follows him while glancing back down the way. Cut to a cliff, where Applejack has stopped and voices a gasp; the other three ponies put their heads over the edge, and a long shot reveals the next stretch of the path. Half a dozen tall, narrow stone pillars, separated by large gaps, stand between them and the cliff on the opposite side of this canyon. A tremor from the beast’s footstep brings a frightened gasp from the group; quick pan to the massive carapace as the stumpy legs begin to climb the hill. Twilight cries out before putting together any coherent words.)
Twilight: He’ll be up here in no time! Quick! One at a time! (racing toward edge) Cross!
(When Spike zips up to the edge, his momentum brings him within an ace of going over it. He yells, gets himself safely back, and turns to Twilight as Pinkie’s shudders resume.)
Spike: Uh, do you know any spells for turning a hydra into a mouse?
Twilight: No!
Spike: How about a squirrel?
Twilight: No!
Spike: How about—
Twilight: No small rodents of any kind! (Cut to Fluttershy.)
Spike: (from o.s.) That’s too bad.
Fluttershy: A hop, skip, and a… (She leaps toward the first pillar.) …jump!
(And hits it dead center, bounding away for good measure—she has remembered Pinkie’s advice from “Dragonshy.” Spike is next to go, thrown by Twilight; he lands on the flat and watches as the equine jackhammer skitters up, then jumps ahead. She goes over the edge, taking one pop-eyed look at the air below her hooves, but remains suspended in midair long enough for Applejack to get a mouthful of tail and yank her back.)
Twilight: He’s too close! (She lowers her head and paws the ground.) I’ll distract him. You two go! (Pan to Applejack and Pinkie; she continues o.s.) Now!
(The farmhand pushes off from the brink, hauling Pinkie along.)
Twilight: Ohhh…what would a brave pony like Rainbow Dash do?
(An idea causes her eyes to widen and her ears to perk up as a fierce expression settles on her face. A moment later she is in full gallop down the slope.)
Twilight: CHAAARRRGE!!
(All four of the hydra’s head whip down toward her, but she holds her course. After a few seconds, the heads stop and the second from left voices a puzzled grunt, looking back toward ground level. The fierce and/or foolhardy unicorn races directly beneath the underbelly and keeps running, three heads peeking down and snaking through the legs after her. As the entire body starts to overbalance, the puzzled head—which has stayed out of it—gapes after the others, just in time for the hydra to flip itself forward up the hill and land on its back.)
(Twilight skids to a stop, cut to the far side of the chasm, where the rest of the group has made it across. Pinkie is shuddering again.)
Pinkie: T-T-T-Twilight!
(The hydra begins to peel itself up and takes note of Twilight rushing past uphill with a puzzled little whimper. A giant brown foot slamming to the turf and a feral growl terrify her all over again; she jumps back to avoid being eaten alive when the cliff’s edge gets smashed away. The first of the stepping-stone pillars winds up at a crazy angle after the hit, and as Twilight gets turf under her hooves, she sees it topple over and knock out the next three like dominoes. Her four friends gasp, she does likewise, and the head that went in for the strike woozily regards the fresh lump on its crown before roaring in unmitigated fury.)
(Twilight cowers for a moment, then gets upright and eyes the now-impassable gap before her when the camera zooms out.)
Pinkie: (shuddering briefly) T-T-T-Twilight! You have to jump!
Twilight: I’ll never make it!
Pinkie: You’ll be fine!
Twilight: I will not!
(The hydra adds a bellow that turns into a quadraphonic yell.)
Pinkie: (shuddering) It’s your ooonly hooope!
(The trapped pony takes one more look over the precipice, the camera cutting briefly to her perspective of the rocks and slime far below, and the hydra closes in.)
Pinkie: You have to take a leap of faith!
(After one very last quick glance, Twilight swallows hard enough to send a brick down her gullet if she were chewing on one, backs up a few steps, and gallops ahead while one head descends. It bashes the clifftop loose just as she poises herself, and she is forced to jump clear while it starts to tumble away.)
Twilight: No!
(Cut to her perspective, sailing toward the first unbroken pillar, then to a long shot of her trajectory across the divide. A series of dissolves marks it out—but she comes up well short of the flat and begins a hoof-flailing plummet. Eight eyes pop and four jaws hang slack; cut to her perspective of the rapidly approaching bog. A large bubble has begun to grow at the surface.)
Twilight: Oh, no! (Back to her.) NOOOOOO!!
(She lands spreadeagle on the bubble, which hurls her upward and then bursts…)
Twilight: Whooooaaaa!
(…causing her to land on the first intact pillar, from which she bounces to the second and then into a rock face on the far side. She winds up sitting against it on her haunches, with all the sense knocked out of her, as the others eye her worriedly. Just as rapidly, she shakes herself back to normal and gives the gang a big squeaky grin, getting a round of cheers and leaving the hydra to pout by itself across the way. Pinkie lays a king-size hug on her.)
Pinkie: I knew you could do it, Twilight!
Twilight: I don’t know how it happened. Coincidence… (Cut to a grinning Spike; she continues o.s.) …dumb luck, or what. (Back to her.) But you said there’d be a doozy here at Froggy Bottom Bog, and I’d say we just had ourselves one heck of a doozy. (Pan to Pinkie; she continues o.s.) I mean, that hydra…
(She cuts herself off when the pink prognosticator’s face goes slack and the rest of her starts jittering all over again.)
Twilight: Pinkie? (She stops.)
Pinkie: That wasn’t it.
Twilight: Huh? (Start again.)
Spike: What wasn’t what? (Stop.)
Applejack: What are you talkin’ about, Pink?
Pinkie: The hydra wasn’t the doozy.
(Quick pan across the gap; it stomps away, one head blowing a raspberry. Pinkie’s tremors kick in again.)
Pinkie: I’m still getting the shudders! (Her quaking moan stops when they do.) You see? There it is again! Whatever the doozy was at Froggy Bottom Bog… (Zoom in on Twilight, putting her o.s.) …my Pinkie Sense says it still hasn’t happened.
Twilight: Huh? But I— (with sudden fury) —what?!? (composed, but slowly losing it again) The hydra wasn’t the doozy? How could it not be the doozy? What could be doozy-er than that?!
Pinkie: Dunno, but it just wasn’t it.
(The terminally frustrated violet unicorn scrunches her face in a silent growl and gives voice to it as the camera slowly zooms in to an extreme close-up. Her mental teakettle sings in an insanely high register for an unbearable moment—and then she completely loses it with an unhinged snarl and a huge vertical leap. Her entire body goes bone-white, her eyes blaze red, and her mane and tail go up in flames, giving her an uncanny resemblance to the Pokémon character Rapidash.)
(Applejack, Pinkie, and Spike recoil before the glare, which lasts nearly four seconds before it burns itself out. Twilight is left hanging, with soot all over her normally-colored body and her mane and tail a half-burned shambles, and sighs wearily.)
Twilight: I give up.
(She drops to the ledge, all the burn marks instantly vanishing when Spike crosses to her.)
Spike: Give what up, Twi? (Pinkie starts shuddering.)
Twilight: (weakly) The fight…I can’t fight it anymore. I don’t understand how, why, or what. (Cut to Pinkie; she continues o.s.) But Pinkie Sense somehow…makes sense. (The whole group.) I don’t see how it does, but it just does! Just because I don’t understand, doesn’t mean it’s not true.
Pinkie: Y-Y-You mean you b-b-believe?
Twilight: Yep. I guess I do.
(The tremors intensify, then give way to a quick succession of cartoonish contortions that stretch the pink body in ways it was surely never meant to go. When they stop, Pinkie is left standing perfectly normal and motionless.)
Pinkie: Oh! (She looks herself over and gasps.) That was it! That’s the doozy! (Twilight and Spike gape at her; Spike shakes his head clear.)
Twilight: What? (crossing to her) What is?
Pinkie: You believing! I never expected that to happen! That was the doozy! (laughing) Oh, and oh, what a doozy of a doozy it was!
(She trots off along the cliff, singing to herself leaving three ponies and one dragon to stare incredulously after her. Fade to black.)
(Fade in to the exterior of the library and zoom in slowly. Twilight and Pinkie are heard laughing inside as Spike runs toward the door. Cut to just inside it; he opens and peeks in.)
Twilight: (from o.s.) Oh, good, Spike. You’re here. Take a letter.
(He steps into the reading room and toward a quill and scroll set up on a stand.)
Spike: With pleasure, Twilight. (Pick them up, ready to write.)
Twilight: (from o.s., dictating) “Dear Princess Celestia…”
(Instead of jotting the words, he looks ahead with a suddenly puzzled stare.)
Twilight: (from o.s.) “I’m happy to report that…”
(Cut to a ground-level shot, just behind her with head off the top of the screen.)
Twilight: (sternly) Spike. What have I been saying about focus?
(She taps a hoof against the floor to emphasize the point.)
Spike: I know, but I…well…
(A head-on view of her discloses the reason for his distraction: she has donned an umbrella hat identical to the one Pinkie wore at the start of this episode.)
Twilight: (smiling) What’s wrong, Spike? Never thought you’d see me with an umbrella hat on?
Spike: Not really, no.
Twilight: (looking to side; Pinkie’s mane/hat barely in view) Pinkie’s tail’s a-twitchin’. (Pan to her, vibrating tail and all, putting her o.s.) What else can I do?
(The two ponies share a laugh and Spike joins in after a moment, continuing well after the others have gone silent and the tail has quit. Close-up of him; a gentle nudge from Twilight’s hoof helps him focus on the problem at hand, and he begins to write.)
Twilight: (from o.s., dictating) “I am happy to report that I now realize there are wonderful things in this world you just can’t explain, but that doesn’t necessarily make them any less true.”
(Cut to her on the second half of this and zoom in, then back to the little stenographer.)
Twilight: (from o.s.) “It just means you have to choose to believe in them.” (She turns to Pinkie.) “And sometimes, it takes a friend to show you the way.”
Pinkie: (touching Twilight’s nose) Honk! (Cut to Spike.)
Spike: (writing) “Honk.”
Twilight: (from o.s.) “Always your faithful student, Twilight Sparkle.”
(Outside, she and Pinkie trot happily out—but the latter stops short when her tail goes off.)
Pinkie: There it goes again!
Twilight: I wonder what’s gonna drop out of the sky this time.
Pinkie: (walking off) You never know.
(Tilt up to a window near the balcony. Spike opens it and leans out with the scroll, ready to put flame to it and send it on its way. However, he holds his breath at the whistling sound of something coming down way too fast, and in short order Princess Celestia herself thumps down onto the balcony railing. The force of her landing nearly breaks the entire platform loose from the tree.)
Spike: Twitchy tail?
(Taking the scroll in her mouth, she lifts off at a much more comfortable rate of speed. He gapes up after her, flabbergasted that Pinkie’s last prediction has come true in such an extreme way.)
Spike: Holy guacamole!
(Snap to black.)