Once again, it's time for me to get back into the old routine. Only this time, we have a season premier that's not a two-part episode. (Previously, the only time we did not see a season bookended by two-parters was the finale of season 1, so that's really significant.)
(spoilers)
For the first episode, there's a celebration at Twilight's castle where Starlight, Trixie, Discord, and Thorax are awarded what is apparently the Equestrian version of the Medal of Honor for defeating Chrysalis and saving Equestria. But when Discord gets a little nosy around Twilight regarding what's next for her student Starlight, she ends up panicking from lacking such a plan and secretly decides seek advice from her own mentor, Princess Celestia.
We got to see some interesting things in this episode, such as Twilight's "fantasy projection" spell to share her thoughts with others. But perhaps what was especially exciting to see was that Celestia is in fact a lot more like Twilight than we had ever imagined! She had known Twilight hadn't been making any friends while studying in Canterlot, and had personally visited Ponyville before determining that it would be a great place for Twilight to learn about friendship. However, Celestia was surprisingly reluctant about sending Twilight away, and ended up holding off on her decision until practically the last possible moment.
I have to say, the Season 7 premier episode is by far the closest we've ever come to that Celesia-focused episode that the fans had be hoping for for years.
For the second episode, we see a continuation of Starlight's friendship with Trixie, while the Main 6 head out on a friendship bonding experience (specifically Twilight's idea, which involves working together to escape from a locked room full of puzzles).
However, it seems that Trixie's arrogant and shameless attitude starts getting on Starlight's nerves, and it gets especially bad when Trixie's very first attempt at teleportation ends up sending the friendship map table away to some location that Trixie quickly forgets (how convenient). Starlight deals with her anger by using a spell to literally vent her anger into a red fog and storing it inside a bottle. But as the day goes on and they can't find the table throughout Ponyville, an accident breaks the bottle and the anger is released through innocent bystanders directly at Trixie.
Starlight eventually confesses her anger towards Trixie, allowing her to reabsorb her anger cloud and freeing the innocent ponies. They soon find the friendship map table at the spa where they had first met and bring it back to the castle just before the Main 6 return. Although Starlight doesn't share any details, Twilight is still proud of her for learning a friendship lesson all on her own.
(end spoilers)
