In every episode of MLP featuring the Mane 6, we should expect the Mane 6 to enter a state of conflict. While Equestria & Ponyville at large may be at peace, there is no reason why the same should hold true for every pair of two characters at any given time; it’s just not statistically likely that everypony always has a perfect relationship with every other pony. Thus, there must be a conflict (that’s why we have a show after all), and assuming the protagonists remain friends, this conflict must be resolved.

However, this argument says nothing about how each conflict is resolved, so throughout the show’s episodes, we encounter many ways the writers choose to do so. There’s the classic blast ‘em with friendship method, usually followed by the villain reformation in five sentences or less, but in less action oriented episodes, the conflict is usually resolved with either the admittance of some mistake or the clarification of an earlier miscommunication. In fact, pretty much the entirety of Season 6 falls into one of these two categorizations with “No Second Prances,” “The Saddle Row Review,” “Flutter Brutter,” and “The Times They are a Changeling” all being examples of some character messing up, and “The Crystalling,” “Newbie Dash,” “Spice up Your Life,” and “The Fault in Our Cutie Marks” all being examples of miscommunication.

Knowing this, it’s remarkably easy to initially watch P.P.O.V with the expectation that once again, the episode will be resolved with some pony admitting fault. This outcome seems especially probably when all three of the ponies involved refuse to admit any fault at the beginning, each blaming another for the capsize of their ship. Each pony’s story offers a different interpretation of events, which leads the audience to believe that the ship’s sinking is probably the result of multiple causality, in which all three are about equal to blame for the ship’s capsize.

However, Twilight reveals at the end of the episode that the actual cause of wreck was a tri-horn bunyip, and its sudden appearance at the scene of the crime establishes that no pony was actually at fault. This is rather comical as blaming the disaster on a mythical sea creature would normally appear to be a farfetched excuse, yet it is the truth of the matter here. Functionally, the bunyip serves as quick but effective way of scapegoating all blame off of our protagonists, changing the course of the episode’s plot to arrive at a different resolution.

This is an interesting narrative choice, because Applejack, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie probably would have gotten back together as friends without the bunyip, so why bother throwing one in? The bunyip acts as a deus ex machina of sorts, arriving at the last possible second to save the protagonists from having to admit their own fault. Because of its existence, Twilight doesn’t actually need to reconcile her friends, and an opportunity to demonstrate the give-and-take of healthy friendships is wasted. The bunyip, like all instances of deus ex machina, can feel contrived; the only reason it exists is to interrupt that one scene and “save the day,” although as pointed out earlier, there is no reason for why the day needs to be saved.

However, in contrary to the above, I think the bunyip’s inclusion makes the episode better, not because it’s necessary, but because its inclusion throws the audience for a loop. What I’ve described in the prior paragraph is what we expect from the show after so many episodes: a friendship problem solved when a neutral third party (in this case, Twilight) shows the others the error of their ways. In essence, it’s another resolution by admittance of fault, and it’s very predictable. By contrast, no expects a bunyip to be under the boat, and its revelation causes the resolution to be driven by the discovery of previously unknowable knowledge. At worst, such a resolution might seem a bit odd, yet its oddness reflects how the real world also can act in strange ways at times. At best, this resolution can be seen as self-aware and meta; the writers know we are expecting nothing more than a pep talk from Twilight, so instead they skip over it and throw in a bunyip to take its place. For this reason, I find the resolution of this episode to be clever and not illogical.

Even so, there’s more to this episode’s resolution than just the bunyip because once the cause of the wreckage is known, it still remains up to Pinkie, AJ, and Rarity to amend their friendship; the blame has been discarded, but the disconnect remains. From this point of view, the bunyip functions as a way of transforming the conflict from fault-finding to miscommunication, the other major category of conflicts. Here the bunyip is less of a game changer as Twilight still needs to help her friends reconnect, but even so, the bunyip still provides that unpredictable twist. This gives the episode the best of both scenarios; a little of the expected Twilight being the Princess of Friendship and a little of the unexpected, “I forgot we were in Equestria and there are magical monsters everywhere.”