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The Mysterious Mare Do Well
Season №:	2
Season episode №:	8
Overall episode №:	34
Original airdate:	November 26, 2011
Written by:	Merriwether Williams
Storyboard:	Sabrina Alberghetti & Nicole Wang
	See also
	transcript • gallery • allusions; animation errors • statistics • speculation
	Episode guide
Previous; May the Best Pet Win!	Next; Sweet and Elite

The Mysterious Mare Do Well is the eighth episode of the second season of My Little Pony Friendship is Magic and the thirty-fourth episode overall. The episode involves Rainbow Dash's rise to hero status through various cliché superhero rescues. Later on however, a mysterious mare called by the ponyfolk as Mare Do Well quickly takes her place as the new hero of Ponyville. The Verizon FiOS synopsis for this episode refers to Rainbow Dash using masculine pronouns. "Mare Do Well" is a play on the term "ne'er-do-well," a person who is completely lacking in merit.

Production and reuse of assetsEdit

In multiple shots, there are hats with Rainbow Dash's old concept cutie mark on the front. This is also seen over some ponies cutie marks, in a sticker form.

Of the six Earth pony construction workers saved by Mare Do Well, four use repurposed Pegasus designs from the episodes Sonic Rainboom and Feeling Pinkie Keen.

SummaryEdit

Official Rainbow Dash Fan ClubEdit

The episode begins with Scootaloo heading the Rainbow Dash fan club in the Cutie Mark Crusaders's treehouse (first seen in The Show Stoppers). She declares that Rainbow Dash should be declared the most awesome pony in Ponyville. Snails and Snips join in the discussion with their opinion of the best way to describe Rainbow Dash. A voice suggests Rainbow Dash is super-ultra-extreme-awesomazing, which the club agrees is right. The voice is revealed to be Rainbow Dash listening to the club outside.

Rainbow Dash saves the dayEdit

"Never fear, your friendly neighborhood Rainbow Dash is here!"

— Rainbow Dash

Rainbow Dash is then seen flying around and having a "dip in the clouds". Suddenly, she hears a filly shouting for help from a well. Rainbow Dash cuts short her cloud dip and saves the dirty filly from the well, and is met with large amounts of praise from other ponies, much to her surprise. Later, she sees a runaway baby carriage with a baby pony in it, and quickly saves the baby from plunging off a cliff. Again, she receives great amount of praise, and is then seen being photographed by paparazzi. Realizing the fame that comes with her heroism, she goes on to save a porch holding elderly ponies and dances to the crowds chants. She then gives a speech to the Rainbow Dash fan club in Sugarcube Corner. She brags about her new status as "hero" and the other main five are talking about her not being modest at all. Spike is in the corner writing her autobiography, when Twilight Sparkle comes to tell Rainbow Dash that an autobiography is written by who it's about. Rainbow Dash scoffs and says that "I don't have time to write when I'm saving lives".

Who is the best hero?Edit

"That's right! Ponyville has a new hero. A mysterious mare that has done well by our fair city today. I dub this new masked hero 'The Mysterious Mare Do Well'!"

— Mayor Mare

However, her pride soon begins to get in the way of her heroic deeds, and a mysterious mare in purple steps in. She begins to steal Rainbow Dash's thunder and becomes the new hero of Ponyville, dubbed "the Mysterious Mare Do Well" by the Mayor of the town. Rainbow Dash attempts to outshine Mare Do Well, but she can't, and her hatred and jealousy towards Mare Do Well grows. Rainbow Dash keeps failing, and Mare Do Well keeps stepping in to fix her mistakes. It appears that Mare Do Well has both wings and a horn, seems to know when things are going to happen, is super strong, super fast, and incredibly agile as well. Rainbow Dash realizes that she cannot compete with that. Even her friends seem to be under the spell of Mare Do Well's awesomeness.

Rainbow decides that she has to convince the ponies in Ponyville that she is still heroic and awesome. However when she finds that there isn't anyone who needs saving, she ends up doing menial tasks like opening a jar of peanut butter and mowing a lawn in hope that people may praise her, but instead the townsponies roll their eyes and shrug her off as lame, leaving her even unhappier than before.

Rainbow goes off to brood on a thundercloud, wondering why people don't like her anymore and why she's all alone. When she hears her name called by Scootaloo, Rainbow assumes she's apologizing for forgetting about her, but Scootaloo tells her she's just inviting her to a thank you parade for Mare Do Well. At first Rainbow refuses, saying she wants to be alone. But then she hatches a plan to unmask Mare Do Well, and decides to go.

Unmasking the Mysterious Mare Do WellEdit

At the parade, when Mare Do Well appears, Rainbow comes up onto the stage and tries to get her to take off her mask. Mare Do Well runs away, but Rainbow gives chase. Mare Do Well keeps appearing in different places, too fast for Rainbow Dash. After a bit of chasing, Rainbow pins her down and pulls off her mask to see none other than Pinkie Pie. Astonished, she begins stammering. Then two more Mare Do Wells appear and pull off their masks, revealing themselves to be Twilight Sparkle and Applejack. They explain that they wanted Rainbow Dash to stop boasting so much and come off her high horse. Applejack stopped the runaway bus with her powerful legs, Pinkie used her Pinkie Sense to avoid the falling obstacles at the building site, Twilight used her magic to fix the dam, Fluttershy did the flyby, and Rarity designed the costumes.

Rainbow Dash understands that she should act with grace and humility and not with selfish arrogance so as to avoid losing the appreciation of the townsponies as well as causing a rift of jealousy between herself and her friends. She also learns that, while it's okay to be proud of your accomplishments, you should never brag about them. The episode ends with her holding a quill to write a letter to Princess Celestia and giving the audience a wink.

Superhero themeEdit

The episode's lead storyboard artist, Sabrina Alberghetti, commented on how the crew incorporated "one [superhero] cliché after another" in a "fun tongue-in-cheek kind of way."^[2] Among them:

Rainbow Dash's catchphrase, "never fear, your friendly neighborhood Rainbow Dash is here!" is a play on both "your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man", and "There’s no need to fear, Underdog is here!"
The Mysterious Mare Do Well shares the same purple-and-black color scheme and wide-brim hat and black ribbon as Darkwing Duck. Alberghetti had worked on Darkwing Duck comics before, however she did not design the character.^[3]
The Mysterious Mare Do Well shares several elements with DC Comics' super-heroine The Spoiler, a supporting character of Batman. The Spoiler was the alter ego of Stephanie Brown, the daughter of a fame seeking, narcissistic super-villain named Cluemaster. Her costume was also a mauve body suite, with a purple mask. She became The Spoiler as a means of punishing her father by "spoiling" his every criminal plans.
Pinkie Pie's pinkie sense, which enables her to detect potential danger, parodies Spider-Man's ESP superpower, the spider sense.
The fanfare, accompanying music, and rally posters of the Mare Do Well strongly resemble the same from Batman: The Animated Series (reruns of which have aired on The Hub, the same channel as My Little Pony Friendship is Magic). Also, the girls all playing Mare-Do-Well are a nod to the animated movie Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman, in which the Batwoman persona ia a super alter-ego shared by three different women, each with different skill sets and fighting moves.

QuotesEdit

For more quotes, see the episode's transcript.

Rainbow Dash: Looks like my sky swim will have to wait!

Rainbow Dash: Never fear, your friendly neighborhood Rainbow Dash is here!

Twilight Sparkle: Call me silly, but this whole hero thing might be going to Rainbow Dash's head.

Pinkie Pie: You may be right, silly.

Rainbow Dash: Danger's my middle name. Rainbow 'Danger' Dash.

Rainbow Dash: Hey Applejack, how'd you like to be immortalized as my friend?

Applejack: Immorta--what?

Twilight Sparkle: Are you taking notes?

Spike: Yup! I've been hoof-picked by Rainbow Dash herself, to write her autobiography!

Twilight Sparkle: Umm, autobiographies are supposed to be written by the pony they are about.

Rainbow Dash: Maybe for your normal, run-of-the-mill ponies. But I'm far too busy saving lives to stop and write. That's why I hired Spike as my ghost writer.

Pinkie Pie: Ahhh! Spike's a ghost!

Rainbow Dash: Never fear, your friendly neighborhood Rainbow -

Bystander: Excuse me, do you think you could skip your catchphrase and just hurry up and save us?

Rainbow Dash: Ugh...fine.

Rainbow Dash: Oh, for the love of pete.

Spike: She's... great.

Rainbow Dash: I didn't say that.

Twilight Sparkle: Sounds like somepony's jealous.

Rainbow Dash: Who, me?

Spike: Rainbow Dash is jealous.

Rainbow Dash: Don't write that, Spike!

[others laughing]

Spike: Correction: Rainbow Dash is very jealous.

Rainbow Dash: Where is an out-of-control vehicle when you need one?!

Rainbow Dash: How would you describe what I just did? Would you say I was amazing?

Amethyst Star: Aren't you milking this a bit?

Applejack: I stopped the carriage bus with these babies. Bucky McGillicuddy and Kicks McGee.

Fluttershy: Ooh, ooh! And I did the flyby afterwards.

Rarity: I designed the costumes. Fabulous if I do say so myself!

Twilight Sparkle: Celebrating your accomplishments is natural. But...

Applejack: ...Rubbin' them in everypony's face is not.

Pinkie Pie: Yeah, the only thing that should be rubbed in anypony's face is chocolate cake.

GalleryEdit

The Mysterious Mare Do Well image gallery

ReferencesEdit

↑ Raven Molisee's deviantART journal (2012-02-23). Retrieved on 2012 February 23.
↑ Alberghetti comments on the The Mysterious Mare Do Well's "[superhero] clichés" on her deviantArt page. Retrieved on 2011 December 1.
↑ Alberghetti comments on "Darkwing Pony" on her deviantArt page. Retrieved on 2011 November 28.

v • e My Little Pony Friendship is Magic — episodes

Season one

Episode 1 Friendship is Magic, part 1	Episode 2 Friendship is Magic, part 2	Episode 3 The Ticket Master	Episode 4 Applebuck Season


Episode 5 Griffon the Brush Off	Episode 6 Boast Busters	Episode 7 Dragonshy	Episode 8 Look Before You Sleep


Episode 9 Bridle Gossip	Episode 10 Swarm of the Century	Episode 11 Winter Wrap Up	Episode 12 Call of the Cutie


Episode 13 Fall Weather Friends	Episode 14 Suited For Success	Episode 15 Feeling Pinkie Keen	Episode 16 Sonic Rainboom


Episode 17 Stare Master	Episode 18 The Show Stoppers	Episode 19 A Dog and Pony Show	Episode 20 Green Isn't Your Color


Episode 21 Over a Barrel	Episode 22 A Bird in the Hoof	Episode 23 The Cutie Mark Chronicles	Episode 24 Owl's Well That Ends Well


	Episode 25 Party of One	Episode 26 The Best Night Ever

Season two

Episode 1 The Return of Harmony Part 1	Episode 2 The Return of Harmony Part 2	Episode 3 Lesson Zero	Episode 4 Luna Eclipsed


Episode 5 Sisterhooves Social	Episode 6 The Cutie Pox	Episode 7 May the Best Pet Win!	Episode 8 The Mysterious Mare Do Well


Episode 9 Sweet and Elite	Episode 10 Secret of My Excess	Episode 11 Hearth's Warming Eve	Episode 12 Family Appreciation Day


Episode 13 Baby Cakes	Episode 14 The Last Roundup	Episode 15 The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000	Episode 16 Read It and Weep


Episode 17 Hearts and Hooves Day	Episode 18 A Friend in Deed	Episode 19 Putting Your Hoof Down	Episode 20 It's About Time


Episode 21 Dragon Quest	Episode 22 Hurricane Fluttershy	Episode 23 Ponyville Confidential	Episode 24 MMMystery on the Friendship Express


	Episode 25 A Canterlot Wedding - Part 1	Episode 26 A Canterlot Wedding - Part 2

Season three

Episode 1 The Crystal Empire - Part 1	Episode 2 The Crystal Empire - Part 2	Episode 3 Too Many Pinkie Pies	Episode 4 One Bad Apple


Episode 5 Magic Duel	Episode 6 Sleepless in Ponyville	Episode 7 Wonderbolts Academy	Episode 8 Apple Family Reunion


Episode 9 Spike at Your Service	Episode 10 Keep Calm and Flutter On	Episode 11 Just for Sidekicks	Episode 12 Games Ponies Play


Episode 13 Magical Mystery Cure