History Recap / MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS8E16FriendshipUniversity

* AnAesop: It's important to stand up for what you believe is true.

* EveryoneHasStandards: A blink-and-you'll-miss. After Neighsay leaves comment due to "contagious ill manners of the creatures at Twilight's school", Starswirl can be seen frowning.

* SmugSnake: Flim and Flam, as usual. They mock Twilight and her school, and gleefully atemping blackmail her. But when the tables are turned, they quickly descend to pleading with Twilight not to expose them, and meekly agreeing with Starswirl's order to close the University and refund their students.

There, they quickly discover the school is run by Flim and Flam, and even more astoundingly, they are about to be accredited by none other than Chancellor Neighsay, who has been impressed with their lesson plans. Twilight and Rarity remain highly dubious, but when Flim and Flam show them that Starswirl has enrolled there, Neighsay gives them their accreditation without any further question. Failing to convince Starswirl of Flim and Flam's ConArtist nature, Twilight and Rarity decide to disguise themselves to investigate the school further. Rarity, dressing in street clothes and going by the name Plainity, easily becomes Flam's star student, but finds nothing wrong in the material they are teaching. Twilight, unfortunately, has a paper-thin disguise. She manages to sneak into the brothers' office to study their coursework, but further finds nothing wrong with their lessons. Just then, Flim and Flam arrive, and having seen through her disguise, snap a picture and threaten to blackmail her and her school if she doesn't stop investigating.

Meeting with Rarity later, Twilight learns that Flim and Flam do not actually charge tuition, but force students to pay a hefty fee for the coursework material needed for classes. Caring little if her reputation is harmed, Twilight follows Flim and Flam to their office, where they go into a secret room with all of their earnings from the school. Flim and Flam discuss to themselves how long to continue the con, raising enough funds to expand their Las Pegasus resort. When Twilight confronts them, the brothers admit to their fraud, having gotten a copy of Twilight's original lesson plans for the school. Then Rarity shows up, revealing that she's heard everything--and so has Starswirl, who's been with her all along. Now that Twilight has leverage of her own, Film and Flam agree to pay back all of the ponies and shut down the school. Starswirl apologizes to Twilight and says that should he need lessons in the future, he will definitely go to Twilight's school.

* {{Blackmail}}: Flim and Flam threaten to release a picture of Twilight sneaking into their office to the public if Twilight doesn't stop investigating. Twilight gets them back when she discovers their plans to use the money from the university to expand their resort, threatening to reveal the information even if they ruin her reputation in turn.

* LaserGuidedKarma: After using {{Blackmail}} to threaten Twilight to stop investigating their school, Flim and Flam are themselves blackmailed into revealing the truth about their scam.

* PlotMandatedFriendshipFailure: Of the DisappointedInYou variety. The Flim Flam brothers are blackmailing Twilight with a deceptive photo that could ruin her reputation. To make a point of how convincing the photo is, the brothers show it to Starswirl, who is easily convinced his friendship mentor would ever stoop to such jealousy. He sadly leaves, but not before he poignantly remarks "That's not the Twilight I know."

* SmugSnake: Flim and Flam, as usual. They mock Twilight and her school, and gleefully blackmail her. But when the tables are turned, they quickly descend to pleading with Twilight not to expose them, and meekly agreeing with Starswirl's order to close the University and refund their students.

* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking: Twilight tells Starswirl that Flim & Flam are untrustworthy because they tried to steal the Apple family's farm, sold fake health tonic, [[AcceptableTargets and run a resort in Las Pegasus.]]

* {{Foreshadowing}}: The way the brothers use Twilight's presence during their song hints at their bid to use Starswirl's "celebrity" status to get themselves ahead.

Twilight reads to Rarity some of the postcards she's gotten from Star Swirl the Bearded during his travels around Equestria to learn about friendship. Cozy Glow arrives, announcing a delivery of sewing machines for Rarity as well as a bunch of flyers they got. Twilight is shocked to see that they are for a new Friendship University in Las Pegasus, claiming to be able to teach students in half the time of other schools. Seeing that their students are considering transferring, Twilight and Rarity make a trip to investigate the school.

There, they quickly discover the school is run by Flim and Flam, and even more astoundingly, they are about to be accredited by none other than Chancellor Neighsay, who has been impressed with their lesson plans. Twilight and Rarity remain highly dubious, but when Flim and Flam show them that Star Swirl has enrolled there, Neighsay gives them their accreditation without any further question. Failing to convince Star Swirl of Flim and Flam's ConArtist nature, Twilight and Rarity decide to disguise themselves to investigate the school further. Rarity, dressing in street clothes and going by the name Plainity, easily becomes Flam's star student, but finds nothing wrong in the material they are teaching. Twilight, unfortunately, has a paper-thin disguise. She manages to sneak into the brothers' office to study their coursework, but further finds nothing wrong with their lessons. Just then, Flim and Flam arrive, and having seen through her disguise, snap a picture and threaten to blackmail her and her school if she doesn't stop investigating.

Meeting with Rarity later, Twilight learns that Flim and Flam do not actually charge tuition, but force students to pay a hefty fee for the coursework material needed for classes. Caring little if her reputation is harmed, Twilight follows Flim and Flam to their office, where they go into a secret room with all of their earnings from the school. Flim and Flam discuss to themselves how long to continue the con, raising enough funds to expand their Las Pegasus resort. When Twilight confronts them, the brothers admit to their fraud, having gotten a copy of Twilight's original lesson plans for the school. Then Rarity shows up, revealing that she's heard everything--and so has Star Swirl, who's been with her all along. Now that Twilight has leverage of her own, Film and Flam agree to pay back all of the ponies and shut down the school. Star Swirl apologizes to Twilight and says that should he need lessons in the future, he will definitely go to Twilight's school.

* AppealToAuthority: Neighsay and the Flim-Flam Brothers exploit Star Swirl's naïveté and influence to get ponies to enroll in their school.

* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking: Twilight tells Star Swirl that Flim & Flam are untrustworthy because they tried to steal the Apple family's farm, sold fake health tonic, [[AcceptableTargets and run a resort in Las Pegasus.]]

* {{Bookends}}: The episode begins and ends with Twilight reading a postcard from Star Swirl in her office and with Cozy Glow opening the door and having a tower of crates with Rarity's sewing machines behind her.

** Star Swirl returns after his last appearance in [[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS7E25ShadowPlayPart1 the Season 7]] [[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS7E26ShadowPlayPart2 finale]].

** Star Swirl mentions that he spent a thousand years thinking the worst of a "bad" pony before Twilight taught him to look for the best in that pony.
* TheCameo: Tree Hugger, who hadn't been seen since "On Your Marks", reappears as a buddy to Star Swirl.
* ChekhovsGunman: It would have been rather pointless to spend the entire ColdOpen on Star Swirl's postcards to Twilight if he wasn't going to be a pivotal character in the story.

** One of the locations Star Swirl visits on his travels is [[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS6E22PPOVPonyPointOfView Seaward Shoals]].

* EngineeredPublicConfession: In this variation, the "public" consists of one pony, Star Swirl. Since Flim and Flam are using him to attract students to their school, they decide to end their scam rather than have him expose the truth. It doesn't hurt that Star Swirl specifically tells them to shut the school and return the students' money.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: The way the brothers use Twilight's presence during their song hints at their bid to use Star Swirl's "celebrity" status to get themselves ahead.

* KnowWhenToFoldEm: The Flim-Flam Brothers think better of trying to get away with their ill-gotten goods when their scam is revealed to Star Swirl.

* PlotMandatedFriendshipFailure: Of the DisappointedInYou variety. The Flim Flam brothers are blackmailing Twilight with a deceptive photo that could ruin her reputation. To make a point of how convincing the photo is, the brothers show it to Star Swirl, who is easily convinced his friendship mentor would ever stoop to such jealousy. He sadly leaves, but not before he poignantly remarks "That's not the Twilight I know."
* ShoutOut: The pony painting with Star Swirl in the opening has a crazy mustache and bizarre artistic style similar to Creator/SalvadorDali. He was already seen in "On Your Marks", when Tree Hugger was modeling.
* SmugSnake: Flim and Flam, as usual. They mock Twilight and her school, and gleefully blackmail her. But when the tables are turned, they quickly descend to pleading with Twilight not to expose them, and meekly agreeing with Star Swirl's order to close the University and refund their students.

* WalkingTheEarth: Star Swirl has been wandering Equestria learning about friendship, and continues to do so after Flim and Flam are exposed as con artists.

* RealityEnsues:
** Twilight wears a PaperThinDisguise. Her enemies don't buy it for a second.
** When Rarity reveals her true identity, Flim and Flam have no idea who she is, since they've only met once before (and quite a while back, at that).

* LazyAlias: Not only are the disguises that Rarity made pretty lazily put together, the names she comes up with for her and Twilight are not very clever either. Rarity is Plainity, and Twilight is Eyepath.

* AnAesop: It’s important to stand up for what you believe is true.

* RedHerring: Cozy Glow is implied to be the one who stole Twilight's lesson plans and gave them to Flim and Flam. But [[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS8E25SchoolRazePart1 later]] [[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS8E26SchoolRazePart2 episodes]] don't back this up.

** Rarity just puts on some ordinary-looking clothes with a baseball cap, changes her hair and voice slightly, and calls herself "Plainity", which does seemingly fool the Flim-Flam brothers -- until she drops the disguise and it becomes clear that the brothers don't even remember who Rarity is in the first place.

* BribingYourWayToVictory: InUniverse. Like an AllegedlyFreeGame, Friendship University has free tuition, but you need to buy worksheets if you want to get anywhere in the curriculum.