It begins with the Mane Six fighting Princess Luna, who transforms into Nightmare Moon again thanks to some purple being called a Tantabus. After a call-back from the Season 4 finale, the Tantabus escapes, and the Mane Six defeat Nightmare Moon. This is all revealed to be a dream shared by not just the Mane Six, but Luna as well.
Luna reveals that the Tantabus is a creation from her dreams. The more powerful it gets, the more likely that it will escape into the real world and make all of Equestria into a living nightmare. Luna then proceeds to hunt down the Tantabus in the dreams of each of the Mane Six, a la Inception. This is where the episode immediately begins to shine as we see each dream that Luna explores, leading to some pretty hilarious moments:
Rarity, being a fashionista, dreams about dresses floating about, which kind of reminds me of Disney's The Sword in the Stone. The Tantabus corrupts the dream by turning the dresses against her.
Pinkie Pie goes place to place and stops when she sees cakes that come to life to attack her. Just when Luna was about to apprehend the Tantabus, Pinkie switches to another place. The last thing that happens is when she offers Ponyville giant ice cream. This becomes very important later on.
Fluttershy dreams about being a pet for once, with a giant Angel Bunny brushing her hair. It's only then that Angel turns into a demon rabbit, but honestly, there really isn't much of a difference when it comes to Angel.
Applejack dreams about growing a giant apple, just like in the episode "Bats!" only for it to be pruned by the Tantabus.
Rainbow Dash dreams about fighting Changelings. This quickly reminds me of the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "Sleepy Time" when Luna misinterprets this as a nightmare. Nope, the real nightmare for Rainbow Dash is a bunch of cute flowers singing... in the same melody as "I Love You" from Barney & Friends. That is one of two moments in the episode that left me in stitches.
Twilight dreams about books. Not just any book; magic books that fly. Moving on.
Every pony wakes up with Luna failing to apprehend the Tantabus. It goes from bad to worse when she mentions that it will enter other ponies' dreams if the Mane Six think about them. That's where Pinkie's dream comes in because she dreamed about sharing a giant ice cream cone with the townspeople. To Pinkie I say "Nice job breaking it."
Twilight then comes up with the idea for Luna to have everyone in Ponyville share the same dream, leading to a pretty good climax. The dream world is where the animators got creative in making the strangest visuals for the show, like flying muffins, Lyra and Bon Bon sharing the same body like CatDog, and everyone's favorite: Princess Big Mac, complete with a Sailor Moon-type transformation.
That moment also left me in stitches. The Mane Six take part in fighting the Tantabus as well the monsters it is creating, with more call backs to previous episodes like Flutterbat from "Bats!" and Heroic Spike from "A Dog and Pony Show." The townspeople also join in, showing off a lot more creativity from the animators.
Twilight convinces Luna that she has come a long way since then, and forgiving herself is the key to defeating it. It's a nice moment that develops Luna's character more and that last shot of her sleeping on some island is a nice way to end it. The way that shot zooms out assures that she is finally at peace with herself.
Given the gap between this and the next episode coming up, it's a great midpoint for the season. The best thing about this episode is the whole dream concept. The animators put a lot of thought and creativity in the dream sequences, and also putting in some nice call-backs to previous episodes. It also delivers on its comedy, adding to the strangeness of dreams overall.
Luna is given a little more to do after several episodes of just her dealing with each of the Cutie Mark Crusaders' nightmares. There is some depth to her character as she reveals that she created the Tantabus to punish herself for her past actions. I do wish for more episodes like this to explore more of Luna's character and this was a good start.
It was such an enjoyable episode, and I don't really have any complaints at all. This episode gets a...
5/5
I apologize for the two month gap between this and my "Amending Fences" review. I just didn't feel motivated into doing so. My perfectionism also stood in the way since I want them to be as good as I want them to be. I have also been working on drafts for my next video game review series which I should finish in November or December. Hopefully this won't occur often when I review the second half of this season.
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