Starlight Glimmer is eagerly waiting at the Ponyville train station for a visit from her good friend in the Crystal Empire, Sunburst. Upon his arrival, he excitedly mentions that Ponyville is a great hot spot for antiquing and he takes Starlight to an antique store. Starlight feigns interest in Sunburst's passion but struggles to get as excited for it as him. While there, the pair run into Twilight Sparkle, who also loves visiting the store but is often by herself. Now with a companion, Sunburst and Twilight troll the aisles giddily but Starlight is only able to grin and bear it.
Upon returning to Twilight's castle, Sunburst and Twilight begin rummaging through their finds, finding even more in common (such as their love for the old Ponish language). Seeing that Starlight isn't as enthralled by such things as they are, Twilight and Sunburst suggest they do something Starlight wants to, to which she pulls out a copy of the board game Dragon Pit, a game that she and Sunburst played in their youth. While they find the game enjoyable, Sunburst can't get over how much in common he has with the Princess of Friendship and gushes about her to Starlight before going to bed.
The following morning, Starlight wakes up Sunburst bright and early to take him over to Sweet Apple Acres. Starlight bucks one of the trees to knock down some apples for them to share but in doing so, she drops an apple onto Trixie's head, who was snoozing behind the tree. Ever the opportunist, Trixie invites the two to watch her demonstrate a new trick. Unfortunately she gets herself stuck in the process, requiring she be freed by Starlight. Sunburst explains he prefers close-up magic and the two begin excitedly swapping tricks, with Starlight standing off to the side and finding the interaction perplexing.
Next Starlight takes Sunburst over to the magical mirror pool. However the sound of somepony chipping away at the rock cavern diverts Sunburst's attention and he ventures off to find Maud Pie, who's examining the rock formations within the walls of the cavern. Sunburst impresses Maud by sharing a similar level of knowledge of geology and they quickly bond over it. Starlight, however, feels left out and returns to Twilight's castle. Attempting to help Starlight get past her frustration with her lack of commonality with her friend, Twilight suggests she explore their shared love of magic.
Starlight meets Sunburst in the map room of the castle and is drawing up a spell, which she gives Sunburst to read. She activates the spell, which takes Sunburst and Starlight back to their childhood home and turns them back into young ponies, so they can play Dragon Pit just as they did when they were children. However Sunburst puts his hoof down, saying he isn't interested in reliving things exactly as they were when they were young, and Starlight tearfully undoes the spell. Starlight runs off, dejected she can't find any common ground with her friend.
Sunburst doesn't want his friendship with Starlight to fall apart over this and seeks out her friends to figure out what common ground they still share. Meanwhile, Twilight reminds Starlight that a friendship won't be ruined over a loss of common ground as long as they don't let it happen. To prove this, Twilight takes Starlight into the library, where Sunburst has built a life-size version of Dragon Pit, with headpieces for the ponies to wear acting as game pieces. Maud created a large die out of a lightweight pumice rock while Trixie provides some special effects for the volcano. Starlight cheers up and adds the one thing the game is missing: a trap door for when the marble traps one of the players.
Starlight sees off her friend at the train station, happy that they haven't lost their friendship with the diminishing commonality between them. Starlight, Maud, Trixie, Twilight, and Sunburst all share a group hug before Sunburst boards the train back to the Crystal Empire. Starlight reminds Sunburst to let her know what was in the blind buy barrel he bought from the antique shop and he assures her she'll be the first to know. Once the train is on its way, Sunburst opens the barrel and takes out a book, but doesn't notice the black-colored book underneath...
Tropes:
- An Aesop: Commonality is good for a friendship, but it's not the only component. Spending time with each other can still be meaningful and fun even if you can't always find that common ground.
- Aesop Amnesia: Starlight had already learned the aesop of this episode in "Every Little Thing She Does" when learning to enjoy spending time with her new friends. Granted it's harder to do the same with an old friend if you're expecting him to have the same interests as when he was a colt. Plus the issue in the earlier episode was also about Starlight worrying whether she would be good at any of the activities or fit in. Here it was the fear of Sunburst and her growing apart, combined with jealousy over how he seemed to get along more with her friends than with her.
- Artistic License – Geology: While Sunburst's description of the rock he and Maud uncovered does make sense by itself (gneiss, phyllite and slate are part of single gradient of increasingly metamorphically altered rocks and can certainly be mistaken for each other, and they all have horizontal and regular planar fabric created by pressure "flattening" their component crystals), the actual rock he's pointing at is a mass of purple crystal with no striations beyond looping, criss-crossing lines. Even without knowing what the rocks in question look like (grey, brown or black and very prominently striped), it's fairly obvious that there's none of the "consistent planar fabric" he's talking about.
- Bait-and-Switch: At first, it seems as if Sunburst wasn't on the train, with Starlight finding it empty after the rest of the passengers disembark. After a moment of a crestfallen Starlight thinking Sunburst wasn't able to make it, she hears his voice, and turns to see him behind her.
- Bigger on the Inside: Annoyed at how long it's taking to look through everything, Starlight thinks the antique shop "looked a lot smaller on the outside", which is the exact same sentiment she had about Twilight's castle.
- Cliffhanger: The black-colored book is a direct lead-in to "Shadow Play - Part 1", the first time an episode outside of the two-parter has had any direct connection to the plot of a premiere or finale.
- Call-Back: Starlight shows Sunburst the Mirror Pool from "Too Many Pinkie Pies", recounting the events of that episode in the process.
- The Cameo: Blink-and-you'll-miss-her, but Miss Peachbottom can be seen at the train station in the final scene, apparently going for another trip to the Crystal Empire.
- The Comically Serious: Maud gets another opportunity to show off her talent for dry humor.Sunburst: [regarding himself and Starlight] We did everything together. But now I'm wondering if we've spent so much time apart that we don't connect over anything anymore. And if we can't connect over anything, then maybe we're not even friends!
Maud: Well, at least it's not serious. [Beat] That was a joke. - Continuity Nod:
- Starlight struggles to carry Sunburst's luggage, just as she did in issue #6 of Legends of Magic.
- The Mighty Helm (featured in the legend of Rockhoof from "Campfire Tales") are mentioned in the antiques store, with Twilight and Sunburst finding a map they made by hoof.
- Starlight remarks that the antiques store "looked a lot smaller on the outside", just as she did regarding Twilight's castle in "The Crystalling - Part 1"
- Sunburst showing awkwardness over being "naked" in front of Starlight is similar to Rarity objecting to Spike seeing the Mane Six while they're getting "changed" during "The Best Night Ever" and Fluttershy covering herself up when Rainbow pulls off her bed sheets in "The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000".
- Starlight kicks down some apples from a tree, just as she did in "The Cutie Re-Mark - Part 2".
- Trixie transmogrifies an apple into a tea cup, like she did eagerly to a lot of other objects in "All Bottled Up".
- It's subtle, but the first trick Trixie tries to show Starlight and Sunburst is to tie herself up in chains and try to escape. Considering it was implied that Hoofdini was fond of escape tricks in a flashback, much like his human counterpart, odds are it's another trick of his that she's trying to emulate.
- Starlight (possibly, it could be an illusion spell) uses an age spell like what was mentioned (but performed without a scroll) in "Magic Duel" so she and Sunburst can relive their childhood.
- A Day in the Limelight: This is the first time that Sunburst is part of the main focus of an episode.
- Endearingly Dorky: Twilight's Squee over getting trapped in Dragon Pit is adorable. Sunburst even says as much.
- Epic Fail: Trixie tries to perform an escape trick where she locks herself in chains and escapes in seconds, but gets caught for real and needs help. Sunburst says he knows how the trick works but has never been able to find the weak chainlink to do it. There is a montage later of Trixie and Sunburst showing each other their own tricks, and the secrets of how they do it. In one trick Sunburst fails to draw the card Trixie picked from the deck several times and Trixie accidentally reveals she has a ball under all three cups in the old "ball under a cup" trick. Not to mention the cups all have different colors and patterns, so finding the one with the ball under it isn't exactly what you'd call a gamble.
- Foreshadowing:
- Maud foreshadows the episode's aesop when she remarks to Sunburst that she and Starlight don't actually have all that much in common, they mostly just enjoy each other's company.
- After Sunburst takes a book out of the barrel at the end of the episode, he fails to notice another book that is colored black. This book has a mysterious symbol on the cover...
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: When Maud is polishing rocks with the Mirror Pool's water, Boulder appears at the end of the scene sitting in a puddle of water next to an identical clone of itself.
- Grail in the Garbage: Sunburst buys a sealed barrel of uninspected antiques, hoping there will be something valuable or at least interesting in there. At the end of the episode, he opens the barrel — and the camera ominously zooms in on a book with a black cover, implying it's something important indeed.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Starlight starts getting jealous of how everyone but her seems to be getting along with Sunburst.
- Group Hug: Toward the end of the episode, as farewell to Sunburst, Twilight, Starlight and Trixie gives him a hug. And then, Trixie drags Maud Pie in the hug too.
- Head Desk: Starlight Glimmer slams her face against the table while Sunburst and Twilight are gushing over the antiques they've bought after a lengthy stay at the shop, during which Starlight had been bored out of her skull.
- Hidden Depths: Throughout the course of the episode, Sunburst shows a passion for antiques, proves to be fluent in "Old Ponish" (alongside Twilight), demonstrates a knack for stage magic, and has a keen knowledge in geology.
- Human Chess: At the end, Starlight and her friends play a massively scaled-up version of Dragon Pit, with each of them dressed up as their own game piece.
- Informed Ability: Sunburst's description of the rock he and Maud uncovered is meant to show how he's very knowledgeable about geology, and his actual monologue taken alone does make sense taken by itself... but the rock he's pointing at is a mass of purple crystal with no striations beyond looping, criss-crossing lines, and looks nothing like what he's talking about.
- Innocently Insensitive: Sunburst repeatedly rambles on about how wonderful Twilight, Trixie and Maud are — in front of Starlight, whom he fails to notice is silently fuming.
- Innocuously Important Episode: Just another Slice of Life episode... that directly sets up the season finale.
- Invisible Subtle Difference: At the antique shop, Sunburst picks up two identical-looking bricks and show them to Starlight.Sunburst: Wow! What a difference between the hoof-molded bricks and the extruded ones, right?
Starlight: Uh-huh... Ha-ha... - Lots of Luggage: As seen at the station, Sunburst can put Rarity to shame with the amount of luggage he's carrying with him. Of course, those are probably mostly full of books.
- Lower-Deck Episode: Aside from Twilight, the Mane Six don't figure in this episode at all; the focus is on Starlight, her old friend Sunburst, and her new friends Twilight, Trixie, and Maud.
- Mythology Gag: The blind buy barrel is the in-universe equivalent of an MLP Blind Bag which contains one or more figurines that cannot be identified until the bag is purchased and opened.
- Not So Stoic: Maud's eyes widen slightly when Sunburst first shows off his knowledge in geology.
- Old Flame Fizzle: Starlight and Sunburst are excited about spending time together, but quickly find out that they have grown apart and no longer share many common interests. Sunburst immediately finding common interests with Starlight's new friends only exacerbates this.
- Saw a Woman in Half: Trixie has a variation on this routine where she climbs into the box and saws herself in half. She practices it during a conversation with Sunburst, with obviously fake legs hanging from the other side of the box.
- Sequel Hook: The book that Sunburst pulls out of his antique mystery barrel at the end of the episode.
- Shout-Out: Dragon Pit is based on the board game Fireball Island
, which did the similar mechanic of a marble "fireball" rolling down tracks to knock over players' pieces. - Shown Their Work: Sunburst mentions geological pressure being uniform to create gemstones, as well as figuring there was another way out of the Mirror Pool Cave because of calcite deposits.
- Special Effect Failure: In-Universe. When Trixie climbs into the box for her Saw a Woman in Half trick, the legs sticking out the other end are clearly from a stuffed dummy. One even falls off afterwards.
- Squee: Despite sarcastically chiding Sunburst for flipping the board over when he played Dragon Pit with Starlight as foals, Twilight finds herself doing it with a joyous squeal the first time the trap door activates. Apparently it's a reflex reaction for some excited unicorns (Sunburst remarks he has more control over his horn now).
- Stepford Smiler: Starlight is bored out of her skull in the antiques shop, and a bit upset that Sunburst seems to be getting along better with Twilight than with her. But she keeps insisting that she's having a great time, even when Sunburst voices his suspicion that she is faking and tries to reassure her that she doesn't need to pretend.
- Strong as They Need to Be: Starlight's struggles with moving Sunburst's suitcase through telekinesis, despite her later removing the large boulder blocking the mirror pool without trouble. Could be justified by the suitcase being heavier than she expected, and thus she didn't put as much power into it when attempting to lift it.
- Wingdinglish: Seen on the newspaper Trixie rips and reassembles during her magic trick.
- You Answered Your Own Question: Invoked with Starlight at the train station.Starlight Glimmer: Excuse me. When does the noon train from the Crystal Empire arrive?
Ticket Vendor: Uh... noon?
