@Opalescence
It most likely referred to King’s novel “Under the Dome”.

What Stephen King Character?

I don’t think that we’re done with arrogant Trixie just that easily folks.

>heavy handed moralizing
 
 
Except that is not really “heavy handed” moralizing.
 
Also,what’s with the source link? and why Gwen Tennyson became a hipster?

What bothers me is that since Trixie is redeemed in this episode, she is not a recurring villain. Basically because she “became good” in her second episode.
 
So, there is no true recurring villains so far, there should be an episode where a minor villain causes trouble and at the end, is never redeemed.
 
People who watch this episode should realise that not every evil pony will be redeemed. Hell, they might not have a tragic backstory (Babs Seed) or magic trinket (Trixie) to make them evil. They were either born cruel or came to the conclusion they wanted to do wrong. A perfect episode, in my opinion.

Yeah, What Hoers said.

I don’t think the episode really had a message sides “using your friends to help”. It wasn’t encouraging cheating as Twilight did, that was only to trick Trixie into pulling the amulet off. It was more of just an action episode. Not all of the episodes need a presented message.

Hoers said it better.

*TV show
 
*Tell AN adult

@Justy
 
People are assholes sometimes, and some people actually have reasons for it.
 
And it wasn’t “defending yourself is bullying” it’s a eye for an eye gets you nowhere and sometimes can make things worse.

It could very well happen that someone being bullied could make them more likely to be a bully. There’s also the whole idea of groupthink. If a group of people shun another group then you can project any animus onto them and feel safe/above others.
 
There was no possible way to encompass a situation as varied, difficult, and quite frankly serious as bullying from every possible angle. Furthermore, what were they supposed to show on their kids show as a resolution? Babs beating the shit out of DT and SS? Maybe Babs goes on a school shooting?
 
No, as a TV it has to preach the fairly safe and conventional wisdom of “tell and adult” and “bullies are still people.”
 
I thought it handled it somewhat alright given the obvious difficulties and limitations.

It was pretty heavy.  
“Being an asshole is perfectly fine if you apologize.”  
“Bullies are actually misunderstood, nobody is really a jerk… unless they’re Tiara or Spoon.”  
“Defending yourself from bullies is bullying.”

@Psychopomf
 
2 parter was fine once after realizing Sombra was Sauron.

@Yorec
 
Agreed.
 
It was less of a heavy hand and more a quick slap you can be barely sure you felt.
 
I also liked the Two Parter… but that could have been due to me crying tears of orgasmic ecstasy at Ponies FINALLY having new episodes.

Don’t be a bully is now heavy handed moralizing?
 
Sometimes I cry on the inside.

I agree.

>heavy handed moralizing
 
not really. As far as “very special episodes” go One Bad Apple was very tame in it’s aesop delivery.

Yeah, I think this was the best episode of season 3 so far.