My Little Pony - Friendship Is Magic: Episode 125 - Party Of One

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Dear Princess Celestia,

    Pinkie Pie is crazy!  Yesterday she made us go to a birthday party for her pet alligator, which we all did because we’re her friends, but today she wanted us to go to the after party for the party we just went to.  I have my studies and my friends do all have jobs, although Pinkie Pie never seems to go to hers.  After today, I don’t have to wonder why she gets so much time off.

    Throwing an after party wasn’t the problem, though.  Today was Pinkie Pie’s birthday, and my friends and I had a big surprise party planned for her.  Thanks to that after party idea of hers, we all had to sneak around town to get it ready.  She even came to Applejack’s barn where we were going to hold it, but fortunately Applejack was able to keep her from seeing inside.  So we finally finished everything up, and Rainbow Dash went to go get Pinkie Pie.  Like a half hour later, Rainbow Dash finally came back, dragging Pinkie by her tail.  We all shouted “surprise!” when she entered the barn, but she only looked angry.  Pinkie yelled at us about how she thought we were having a party to kick her out of our group.  I had no idea what she was talking about, but it became obvious to me that she had forgotten her own birthday.  I mean, who does that?  I had to show her the cake we got for her before she even remembered.  Then she suddenly turned all happy and friendly again, but still wouldn’t let the idea of an after party go.  We all had to promise that we’d go tomorrow, and after what happened today, I don’t think any of us would dare miss it.

    I spoke to Rainbow Dash later about it, and she said that when she went to Pinkie Pie’s house, Pinkie was apparently having a “party” of her own.  This party had inanimate guests that included a bag of flour and three stones piled up with a hat on.  These stones threatened Rainbow Dash, and the two almost got into a fight before she realized it wasn’t real.  It was just Pinkie Pie shaking all the “guests” and doing the voices.

    Even though she seemed better, I’m really worried about Pinkie Pie.  She’s showing signs of being paranoid and delusional, and now I’m afraid of what’s going to happen the next time one of us can’t make her next party.  Do you know the name of a good therapist in town or possibly in Canterlot?  Because it’s obvious Pinkie Pie needs professional help.  I’m only hoping she doesn’t need to be institutionalized.  After what happened today, I’m not really sure what to think.

    For this week’s friendship lesson, I learned that it’s sometimes necessary for friends to help other friends even if they don’t realize they need it, or want it.  This isn’t just for their own good, but for ours as well.  What if this one incident got even more out of control, and she did something like turn into a crazed cannibal serial killer?  Watching the way Pinkie Pie acted today at her birthday party, I’m not sure I feel all that safe around her anymore.  Oh, and my paper is probably going to be late this week.  I can’t believe I’m about to write this, but apparently I have a very important party to go to.  Like my life depends upon it important.

Your faithful student,

Twilight Sparkle

* * *

Party Of One is considered the Pinkie Pie episode par excellence, but only because the others have been so terrible.  This opinion ignores that the episode is profoundly flawed, although it is not with­out its memorable moments.  Unquestionably, Party Of One is remembered for Pinkie Pie temporarily losing her sanity, and it’s true that these scenes rank among the best in the series.  The events that led to them happening are quite problematic though, as the disbelief we’re asked to suspend is much too high.

This doesn’t include Pinkie Pie’s cartoon physics, which are consistently shown throughout the series and don’t apply to anyone else.  Pinkie has no trouble materializing anywhere at any time, and likewise can summon cos­tumes and other props on a whim.  These are surely god-like powers, but no one seems to notice anything strange about them.  Rainbow Dash should know the impossibility of hiding from Pinkie Pie after Griffon The Brush-Off, but she's no match for the tele­porting marvel even when she thinks she’s safe.  How Pinkie Pie came upon these powers is never ex­plained, but as this is a cartoon and they are consistent, I don’t have a prob­lem with them.

Where there is a problem though is believing that Pinkie Pie forgot her own birthday.  This lapse is even more egregious when we learn her pet’s birthday is the day before.  While ponies may not technically be human, they're still anthropomorphic mammals whose brains work through connections.  That means as soon as anyone says the word “birthday” (like for instance, at Gummy’s birthday party the night before), it’s going to shoot right into Pinkie Pie’s head that her birth­day is tomorrow.  This is assuming she had forgotten it in the first place, which barring a neurological disease is an impossibility.  My specific month and day always stick out to me, even though they’re meaningless to every­one else who doesn’t share it.  Considering Pinkie Pie is young and shows no signs of Alzheimer’s or the dreaded sitcom amnesia, it is not possible to believe she forgot her birthday.

This might not be a big setback if it was just a throwaway joke, but the en­tire plot depends on her forgetting her birthday.  If my friends and fam­ily were sneaking around on my birthday and making excuses not to see me, it wouldn’t take me long to figure out what was going on.  But the episode would be quite boring if Pinkie Pie made the same realization and just happily waited until her party started (and not forgetting to act surprised when it did).  So instead, Pinkie Pie makes the logical deduction that the friends she was partying with the night before suddenly all hate her and no longer wish to be her friends.  She has her own party with fake friends, then freaks out at her real ones while totally ignoring the “surprise party” = “birthday” connection most of us have (they’re not thrown for any other oc­casion).  Pinkie Pie doesn’t remember it’s her birthday until she sees the words written out on the cake.

But yet, the scenes of her going crazy are quite memorable.  Amazingly, the dreaded Cupcakes fanfic came out before this episode, but Party Of One confirms that the gory plot was theoretically possible.  Pinkie Pie’s straight hair was first shown in The Cutie Mark Chronicles, although this ep­isode made the style synonymous with her loss of sanity rather than a sad childhood.  Dealing with los­ing her friends is more than the most extroverted pony can handle.  The scene of the party with Pinkie's “friends” is a tour de force for voice ac­tor Andrea Libman, who must quickly invent a number of never-to-be-heard-from-again voices.  These characters are quite good and funny, making it believable that Rainbow Dash might actually pick a fight with one of them.  Equally interesting is how Pinkie uses them to convince herself to turn on her friends, when of course she’s already thought about this.

Still, there’s no way things ever should have gotten that far even given the pre­mise of the series.  Assuming Pinkie Pie didn’t make the connection every human on Earth would have (excepting those with brain damage or the afore­mentioned afflictions of course), it’s extremely hard to believe none of her friends would have told her “happy birthday”, especially since she saw all of them in quick succession.  Having seen my family on an Easter that fell the day before one of my birthdays, I was still told “happy birth­day” many times despite it not technically being true until the next day.  Hmm, Pinkie Pie was also at a party the day before her birthday, but not one of her friends told her “happy birthday”?  Especially when they were all “busy” the next day?  At the very least, they would have said “happy birthday” to her on the actual day since it would be expected for them to acknowledge it.  Unless part of their plan was seriously “let’s hope Pinkie Pie forgets her birthday”, which is too ridiculous to be believed.

Other than this large oversight, the characterization in Party Of One is pretty good, especially with the rare look into Pinkie Pie’s inner psyche to understand just how important her friends are to her.  Seeing how she would react to losing her friends was a good idea that provided an iconic moment for the series, but how it got there left a lot to be desired.  The problem was that McCarthy wanted to have a twist to explain why the other ponies would be sneaking around behind Pinkie Pie’s back without actually hurting their friendship by the end.  Logically, the mane six didn’t want to party the next day because it would have been too much and they have other responsibilities, so perhaps the lesson should have been you can’t just party all day every day.  This would have been more realistic, but would have deprived us of the great crazy scenes and produced a less interesting episode.

Unfortunately, it can’t be forgiven that the entire plot depends upon Pinkie Pie forgetting her own birthday.  Between that and the early bland party scenes, there just isn’t enough to elevate Party Of One over its flaws no matter how enjoyable cer­tain scenes are to watch.  Given all that happened, I’m surprised Twilight’s letter was as calm and understanding as it was.  My take has the advantage of not only being more realistic, but more interesting as well.  I have to ad­mit I might have bumped the rating had she reacted like that, but the po­tential mental illness Pinkie Pie displays really shouldn’t be glossed over.  Certainly Megan McCarthy wasn’t trying to justify Cupcakes with this poorly-structured script, but aside from the aforementioned good scenes, there’s little else that can be taken from the episode.