Make New Friends but Keep Discord
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| "Make New Friends but Keep Discord" | |
|---|---|
| My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic episode | |
| Episode no. | Season 5 Episode 7 |
| Directed by | Jim Miller |
| Written by | Natasha Levinger |
| Original air date | May 16, 2015 |
| Running time | 22 minutes |
| My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic |
|---|
 |
"Make New Friends but Keep Discord" is the seventh episode of the fifth season of the animated television series My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. The episode was written by Natasha Levinger and directed by Jim Miller. It originally aired on Discovery Family on May 16, 2015. In this episode, Discord becomes jealous when Fluttershy brings her friend Tree Hugger to the Grand Galloping Gala instead of him.[1]
Plot
[edit]Discord becomes visibly upset during his regular tea time with Fluttershy when she mentions her new friend Tree Hugger and reveals that she is taking Tree Hugger to the Grand Galloping Gala instead of him. Unable to find another pony willing to accompany him to the Gala, Discord receives a late invitation and decides to bring the Smooze, a green slime creature with an appetite for shiny objects, as his guest to make Fluttershy jealous. At the Gala, Discord attempts to irritate Tree Hugger with rude interruptions, but her mellow, hippie-like demeanor renders his efforts ineffective while the neglected Smooze grows to enormous size by devouring jewels from guests' clothing and accessories throughout the ballroom.
When the massive Smooze escapes confinement and covers the Gala floor in slime, Tree Hugger successfully calms the creature with gentle vocalizations while Twilight and Princess Celestia's magic proves useless against it. Furious, Discord opens a portal to banish Tree Hugger to another dimension, but Fluttershy angrily intervenes and explain that friendships aren't exclusive: having different friends for different activities does not mean abandoning existing relationships. Discord apologizes to both Tree Hugger and the Smooze for his selfish behavior and learns to appreciate having multiple friends for different purposes. The Gala continues, and Princess Celestia reveals that she deliberately invited Discord to liven up the event.
Broadcast and reception
[edit]Ratings
[edit]According to the Nielsen household ratings, the episode was watched by approximately 0.1 percent of American households and had 307,000 viewers.[2]
Critical reception
[edit]Sherilyn Connelly, the author of Ponyville Confidential, gave the episode a "B" rating[3] and wrote that the episode "[went] to some emotional places."[4] Connelly also compared the character of the Smooze introduced in the episode to that of a sentient purple goo also named the Smooze from the 1986 film My Little Pony: The Movie, and while she described the Friendship Is Magic character as more genial, she wrote that it could not be expected of a single writer to get every single detail right.[5] Daniel Alvarez of Unleash The Fanboy gave the episode a rating of 6 out of 10 and called it "surprisingly average," criticizing Discord as being written off-character with cringe-worthy dialogue rather than his usual entertainment value. He praised Tree Hugger's concept and Nicole Oliver's voice acting but felt the character was ruined by being written as a parody, ultimately calling this "the worst Discord episode."[6]
Kieran Hair, writing in WhatCulture, criticized the episode's moral lesson, arguing that it teaches children that "two-faced friends are normal, and it's wrong to be upset by them." Hair contended that Fluttershy deserves punishment more than Discord, noting that she makes a deliberately two-faced remark when she tells Tree Hugger that she's funnier than anyone else Fluttershy knows, something she had said to Discord "verbatim mere days earlier." He argued that Discord's feelings are justified since he simply wants to celebrate their friendship in public, and criticized Fluttershy for failing to see Discord's point of view while never making a sincere apology for her behavior.[7]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ Snider, Brandon T. (2017). The Elements of Harmony Volume II: My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: The Official Guidebook Volume II. New York: Little, Brown and Company. pp. 140–141. ISBN 978-0-316-43197-2.
- ^ Pucci, Douglas (2015-05-19). "Saturday Final Nationals: Fox Sports 1 Earns Adults 18-49 Victory with NASCAR All-Star Race". TV Media Insights. Cross MediaWorks. Archived from the original on May 23, 2015. Retrieved 2015-05-19.
- ^ Connelly, Sherilyn (2017). Ponyville Confidential: The History and Culture of My Little Pony, 1981–2016. McFarland. p. 83. ISBN 9781476662091.
- ^ Connelly (2017), p. 187
- ^ Connelly (2017), p. 69
- ^ Alvarez, Daniel (2015-05-17). "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic "Make New Friends But Keep Discord" Review". Unleash The Fanboy. Archived from the original on 2015-05-24. Retrieved 2025-07-09.
- ^ Hair, Kieran (2019-03-23). "13 Horrible Life Lessons My Little Pony Tries To Teach Our Kids". WhatCulture. Retrieved 2025-07-09.
