S01E04: Applebuck Season

[The Doctor]

Applebuck Season
Airdate: November 5, 2010
Writer: Amy Keating Rogers

Applejack attempts to harvest the apple crop in Sweet Apple Acres by herself because her brother, Big McIntosh, is injured. However, her stubbornness and sleep deprivation cause problems all over Ponyville.

[Fizzbuzz]

I find this episode particularly interesting as compared to A Health of Information, now that the latter episode has happened. See how Applejack and Fluttershy both badly overwork themselves; Applejack does it solely out of pride, whereas Fluttershy does it out of a mixture of compassion and guilt. I have to wonder, had the two episodes been swapped in regards to when in the series they happened, would Applejack's stubborn pride still have felt like a sufficient motivation even as late as S7?

The whole thing with Twilight picking an entire hill's worth of apples is also interesting now that we've seen the show's pitch bible. In that, Lauren Faust basically made unicorns out as the somewhat haughty scholars and leaders of Equestria, with earth ponies and pegasi being not much more than laborers of land and sky. That's a concept that largely vanished after the early days, which makes it especially weird when it pops up again in Not Asking for Trouble. Since that was May Chan's first episode, I wonder if she got that characterization of unicorns from the pitch bible and early episodes like this and thus used it there.

[Bremen]

I remember this episode being pretty big with the fandom. Things like videos of making the Baked Bads (with gummy worms) or debates about, yes, Unicorns as the master race. Those were the days when every sentence seemed to inspire its own fanon debates :p

That said... kind of hard to say much about it on a rewatch, since it's basically an establishing character episode for Applejack. We see that she's respected by most of Ponyville and seen as very reliable, and also a few other details.

Favorite scene: I actually like how it ends. Applejack honestly thought she could get it herself because she was confused, and is proud when she thinks she's done. On being shown that there's more than she can possibly do, she drops all the stubbornness and doesn't argue when Twilight offers to help. Because of course Applejack is honest, and sometimes being honest means refusing to lie to yourself. Bravo to the writers for writing it like that and not making her stubborn and refusing to accept reality.

[The Doctor]

Thank goodness they dropped the original plan to "headbutt trees" in favor of kicking them.

[Highbrow Dash]

Are cow stampedes a regular occurrence in Ponyville?

"Terrorized bushells of brand new bouncing baby bunnies"

This was nothing to write home about but AJ really shone in it. In a way.

[Perrydotto]

I'm definitely biased because this episode is what sold me on the show, because it's both funny, it's about my favorite horse, and it has a lesson that I found very personally relatable. Still holds up, still a nice watch.

[Diamondheart]

This episode knocked it out of the park and was the one that ended up convincing me that this show was worth sticking around for!

It also established that Twilight is a total cheater in the last scene.

[PonyHag714]

THE HORROR

You usually can't go wrong with an AJ episode, and this was no exception.

I'll add my thanks that they didn't go with the original idea of AJ hitting the trees with her head.

[Frith]

This was a great episode and still one of the best AJ episodes. It showed really well pros and cons of AJ's character and the lesson she learned was really good and relatable.