Four's a Crowd

"Four's a Crowd" is the twenty-fourth episode of the Disney Junior series Sofia the First that aired on February 14, 2014. It is the final episode of the first season.

Plot
Clover is in the cabbage patch and is about to help himself to a little lunch when suddenly a flying coach comes in much to Sofia’s delight. She tells him that she and Amber are going to decorate it and ride it in the Flylight Pageant. On the night of the summer solstice, flying coaches with princesses from every kingdom come together and soar across the twilight sky like a magical parade near the stars. Sofia recalls the times when she and her friends used to watch the pageant together, eating gooseberry pie and drinking cherry cider. Now that Sofia is a princess herself, she gets to be part of pageant. However, that means she won’t get to watch it with Jade and Ruby like she used to, so Clover suggests that she invite them to ride with her as her special guests.

Sofia flies to the village and finds Jade and Ruby. She tells them about the pageant and asks if they like to help decorate the coach and ride with her which they happily accept. However Amber isn't aware of Sofia’s plans and when she tells her about it she at first disagrees with Jade and Ruby being part of the pageant and helping out. But that soon changes when they come up with a perfect idea for the coach: Decorate it as a tree and dress up like birds.

They soon begin work on decorating the coach in flowers, ribbons and glitter. Through a song, the four of them voice how much fun they're having together. Sofia is happy that Amber, Jade and Ruby are getting along great because she had feared that (like in The Big Sleepover) Amber would be nasty to them.

As Sofia is decorating one side of the coach she hears her big sister and friends giggling on the other side. When she goes over to see what they're doing she finds them wearing fairy wings, pretending to be enchanted fairies in the garden. Sofia makes wings of her own so she can join in only to later find them now wearing crowns and pretending to be queens. Before Sofia can even try to join in the three of them move on to putting glitter on the coach. Sofia is hurt that her friends didn't include her in their fun but chooses to keep her feelings to herself and tries to be happy for them. When Sofia meets up with Clover he can tell that something is bothering her. She confides her feelings to him and he tells her about his friends Stu and Cheeks and how they left him out by sneaking into the Royal Cabbage Patch without him. Because of Clover's story, Sofia is now jealous of Amber, but because she doesn't want to hurt her big sister's feelings she decides to try and be happy that Ruby and Jade are friends with her.

They go to see Madame Collette and ask her to make their costumes. Sofia picks out orange for Ruby and blue for Jade since those are their favorite colors but Amber swiches out those colors for red for Ruby and green for Jade which the pair declare their new favorite colors, much to Sofia's dismay causing her jealousy to intensify. However she still chooses not to admit her jealousy and decides that she just needs to spend some time alone with Ruby and Jade without Amber. Knowing Amber is not a morning person, she goes to her mother and asks her if she can invite Jade and Ruby over for breakfast extra early. When Miranda asks why, Sofia tries to shrug it off as nothing but Miranda, as usual, sees through her daughter's excuses and manages to get the truth out of her. She tries to tell Sofia that she has nothing to worry about and that just because Rudy and Jade are now friends with Amber doesn't mean they will stop being friends with her. Despite telling her an old expression known as "the more the merrier", Sofia still insists on inviting them over which Miranda agrees on letting her do, pleased that Sofia's trying to handle her jealousy in a mature and responsible manner.

Ruby and Jade arrive the next day, the day of the Flylight Pageant. Sofia is looking forward to spending some time alone with them but, to her shock, Amber arrives because she was too excited about the pageant to sleep in as usual. The four of them go to change into the costumes Madame Collette made for them. While Sofia changes into her costume she hears Ruby and Jade teaching Amber their hand clap, the special thing she and her friends created, which pushes Sofia over the edge because it confirms her fear: Ruby and Jade don't want to be her friends anymore which is why they're leaving her out.

Sofia talks to Clover and he helps her come up with a new idea. Sofia decides to serve Jade and Ruby some gooseberry pie and cherry cider to remind them of all the fun times they had together so they'll want to be her friends again. Sofia puts a ton of gooseberry pie and cherry cider onto a serving trolley but she rushes so much that she loses control, causing the trolley to crash into the coach and ruin it. With the coach ruined, the flight in the pageant seems unlikely much to everyone's disappointment. Amber angrily turns to her little sister demanding an explanation and after a while of reluctance to admit the truth, Sofia, with a gentle push from Amber, finally confesses her jealousy to the trio: Because she was seeing Jade and Ruby having so much fun with Amber and she was being ignored, she thought they didn't want to be her friends anymore and intended to leave her out of the Flylight Pagent. Ruby and Jade just smile and assure her they will always be friends, even when they make a new friend they would never leave her out. Amber also assures her sister that she had nothing to worry about and understands how she feels because she too felt the same way when Sofia first came to the castle and Sofia finally feels better.

With Sofia finally at peace with herself, the four of them manage to fix the coach by dressing it up like a real tree and then head to the Flylight Pageant. During the Pageant the quartet create a new special hand clap.

Songs

 * Royal Fun

Cast

 * Ariel Winter as Sofia
 * Diamond White as Ruby
 * Isabella Acres as Jade
 * Darcy Rose Byrnes as Princess Amber
 * Wayne Brady as Clover
 * Jennifer Hale as Madame Collette
 * Sara Ramirez as Queen Miranda

Hand Clap
In this episode Sofia, Ruby and Jade show they have a special friendship hand clap. It is kind of like patty-cake but with three instead of two and together sing with a rhyme. When Amber learns how to do it the hand clap later includes four.

{|border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="10" align="center" width="100%"
 * valign="top" width="50%"|

First Version
Like three birdies in a nest Three friends are the very best Like three berries on a vine Three friends always make it fine

One, Two, Three It’s how we’re meant to be
 * valign="top" width="50%"|

Second Version
Like four birdies in a nest Four friends are the very best Like four berries on a vine Four friends always make it fine

One, Two, Three, Four Now we have one more
 * }

Trivia

 * Ruby's mother Helen Hanshaw makes a second but brief appearance in this episode. The first was in "The Buttercups."
 * This is the first time Sofia shows jealousy, though it is more emotional and less petty than Amber's. She also deals with it somewhat better than Amber because she is kindhearted and more mature than Amber.
 * The song "Royal Fun" is two minutes long in the soundtrack, but only forty-three seconds of the ending is performed in the episode.
 * Princesses Hildegard and Arsinoe appear in this episode but Coco Grayson and Sarah Mitchell recorded no lines for them.
 * Ruby and Jade liked orange and blue respectively, but then like red and green respectively when choosing the colors for their costume dresses; oddly enough Ruby and Jade's names matches their new favorite color. Sofia, however, did not have a new color advised for her to wear by Amber, though it likely would have been white or blue.
 * Jade, Ruby and Amber dress up like fairies and pretend they talk like ringing bells, a reference to Tinker Bell and the other Disney Fairies.
 * This is the last episode to introduce a new character in the first season.
 * This is Jade and Ruby's last appearance in the first season.