Magical Mystery Cure

Twilight Sparkle awakens one morning to find that her friends' cutie marks and duties around Ponyville have swapped: Rarity's creativity in doing Rainbow Dash's weather control causes havoc around town; Rainbow is unable to tame Fluttershy's animals, who run wild around her cottage; Fluttershy's attempts to throw Pinkie Pie's parties disappoint the residents of Ponyville, who become grumpy and tetchy; Pinkie has difficulties working on Applejack's farm, where her apple trees are now bare and blackened; and Applejack's dressmaking skills are awful, forcing her to close Rarity's boutique. Twilight's friends are unaware of the change, believing that they are following their true destinies despite them being unskilled with their tasks.

Twilight remembers that Princess Celestia had earlier sent her the notebook of unicorn wizard Star Swirl the Bearded, believing that Twilight has the skill to make sense of the incomplete spell on the last page. However, when Twilight first read the spell, it inadvertently switched around the Elements of Harmony, affecting their respective bearers. Realizing that she is responsible for her friends' condition, and with no counter-spell to fix it, Twilight cries in her bedroom, blaming herself for her friends' misery and Ponyville's resulting desolation.

However, inspired by Spike's compassion, Twilight realizes that if she shows her friends their true destinies and reminds them of what they mean to each other, she may be able to reverse the spell. One by one, she shows each of her friends what their true calling is, encouraging them to help each other fix things. Each friend regains her original cutie mark with the help of her respective Element, and Ponyville is quickly restored to normal. Twilight realizes that friendship is a factor Star Swirl never accounted for, and is able to complete the spell. Upon doing so, the Elements worn by her friends activate on their own, engulfing Twilight in a bright light and causing her to disappear.

Twilight awakens in an ethereal place where she is greeted by Princess Celestia, who congratulates her and declares that Twilight is ready for a new stage in her life. Twilight undergoes a transformation and returns to Ponyville as a winged unicorn known as an alicorn. Her friends are amazed and happily welcome her change, while Celestia announces that Twilight is no longer her student, but a princess who has demonstrated leadership and other positive attributes during her stay in Ponyville. Twilight becomes concerned that she has no idea what to do now as she is no longer Celestia's student, but Celestia promises that they will all help each other to learn. Twilight is officially crowned in a grand celebration in Canterlot, and she thanks her friends for being there to help her.

On the topic of Twilight's ascension to becoming a princess, writer Meghan McCarthy explained that Twilight had been embarking on a journey since the first episode of the series that would eventually lead to this outcome. McCarthy explained that the title of princess in Equestria has to be earned by sharing their gifts with others, and that "every little girl wants to be a princess, and not everybody can get to be a princess—but you can live up to the ideals that should come along with being a princess." McCarthy noted that, despite Twilight's new role and the new challenges she will face, her personality will remain the same.[2] McCarthy considers the episode as the first part of a story arc that would continue with the two-part season four premiere episode "Princess Twilight Sparkle", which premiered on November 23, 2013.[3]

When asked of what was stopping Twilight from casting the spell, Larson responded that the script "didn't include Starswirl's [sic] unfinished spell" and that "it was heavily altered from his final script."[4]

On February 9, 2013, The Hub held a "Coronation Concert" in Los Angeles to promote the episode, hosted by Miss America 2013 winner Mallory Hagan. Despite stating that she was more of a Strawberry Shortcake fan growing up, Hagan felt honored to participate in the event since she supported the series' aim to teach lessons about friendship and acceptance, considering it "a great way to show little girls that they can be empowered by trying to reach their goals." The premiere of "Magical Mystery Cure" on The Hub was also preceded by a marathon of previous Friendship is Magic episodes.[6]

Hasbro also released new merchandise later in the year featuring Twilight Sparkle's new princess form.[2]

"Magical Mystery Cure" premiered on The Hub on February 16, 2013. The premiere had the highest ratings on all demographics and outperformed its key competitors, such as Disney XD and Cartoon Network. The show also earned year-to-year time period delivery gains among Kids 2-11 (+111%), Girls 2-11 (+80%), Kids 6-11 (+187%), Girls 6-11 (+177%), Adults 18-49 (+139%), Women 18-49 (+216%), Adults 25-54 (+116%) and Women 25-54 (+184%).[7]

Ed Liu of ToonZone (now Anime Superhero) considered the episode felt "rushed and perfunctory", having nearly two separate stories that would have been told better across two separate episodes, and considered that the large number of songs was a contributing factor towards this.[8] While Liu did not consider it a poor episode of the series, he felt the show had done better with emotional conclusions in previous seasons.[8] Daniel Alvarez of Unleash the Fanboy also acknowledged that the musical format took away time from the story element, but otherwise considered it a "very grand episode".[9] The episode, and its composers, Daniel Ingram and Steffan Andrews, received the 2013 Leo Award for "Best Musical Score in an Animated Program or Series".[1]

The revelation that Twilight Sparkle would become an alicorn was announced several weeks before the episode's premiere, though this had been rumored months before based on photos of upcoming toy lines from Hasbro.[10] The "brony" fanbase—which encompasses older viewers who had grown to appreciate the series—had mixed reviews to this announcement, with a significant fraction considering it a "jump the shark" moment for the show.[11] Shaun Scotellaro of the fan site Equestria Daily considered this a normal reaction to any changes to the show by the fans, but considered that because many of the older fans connect with Twilight Sparkle as a bookish nerdy character, changes such as this would be dramatic.[11] McCarthy and others on the production team have further countered these complaints, with McCarthy stating that "What we didn’t want to do was change who [Twilight] is as a character, because she’s certainly someone that everyone’s proud to know and love",[2] while Tara Strong, the voice actress for Twilight, claimed that the episode is "a birth of a new era for Twilight, but not the end of what makes the show so wonderful".[5]

The season 3 finale is part of the "Princess Twilight Sparkle" Region 1 DVD by Shout! Factory which was made available in stores on April 30, 2013.[12] Along with the season finale, the DVD also includes the episodes "Games Ponies Play" (Season 3, Episode 12), "Magic Duel" (Season 3, Episode 5), "MMMystery on the Friendship Express" (Season 2, Episode 24), and "Lesson Zero" (Season 2, Episode 3). It has also been released as part of the complete Season 3 DVD set.[13]

• "Magical Mystery Cure" at IMDb