Season 4 has been an overall good journey, filled with many enjoyable episodes including some truly inspired ones, though not without some major bumps and potholes along the way. Here I will attempt, in the fashion of many a great reviewer, to rank each episode and attempt to defend its merits or demerits. I'll admit that this list is perhaps a month overdue due to my reluctance to post opinions about the finale despite its overall quality, which were too conflicted for me to rank.

But here we are. Enjoy, and feel free to argue about any of these.

Love

1. Filli Vanilli—Say what you will about Pinkie Pie being an asshole, she was. And yet I still found her “visions” of stage fear funny and compelling, and one can argue that it at least contributed to the theme by demonstrating that there will always be manifestations of your fears in whatever path one takes. And like Fluttershy eventually deciding to become open about her musical skills, I too will not let it deter me too much from loving this episode. The songs in this episode are just awesome, and it was totally a moment of inspiration (though admittedly a fairly common trope) to merge the two main songs into one to make a strong cap to the themes of this episode. And of course, who can’t at least appreciate a callback to Poison Joke or Big Macintosh actually having a significant role in this episode?

2. Pinkie Apple Pie—This episode is a charmer the way the best of Disney/Pixar is. The dynamic between the Apple Family, both within themselves and with Pinkie Pie, is superb, and we get ourselves an old, tired theme made new with a good deal of whimsy and fun. The ambiguity of Pinkie’s status as an Apple only helps to heighten the effect the theme of that irreducible and firm love that comes in a family relationship, and Pinkie’s role as a “perfect fool” by being too engrossed in this love to be affected by the other Apple’s petty arguments also makes this a truly inspired work by Natasha Levinger. I also can’t help but think of the “Ship of Theseus” reference that the plot implies as the Apple family’s wagon changes and eventually gets destroyed along with their apparent relationships along the journey. Some of the acting and dialogue was a bit too “rash” for my taste, but it’s just taste.

3. For Whom the Sweetie Belle Toils—Easily Dave Polsky’s finest episode, not just this season, but of all time. The nightmare sequence, especially Rarity’s downfall, is a thing of beauty and inspiration, and the rest of the episode has much candy for both the eye and brain to feast upon, especially its humor of good wit and the welcome presence of Luna, whose role takes on an even greater significance as she more personally connects with Sweetie Belle’s problems than she did with Scootaloo in “Sleepless in Ponyville”. Rarity is in supreme form this episode, her worries, skill, and generosity shining throughout. I used to only put this in my "near love" pile, since Polsky falls into a critical “tell, don’t show” trap early on by simply stating that Sweetie Belle had worked hard on her play—had we been show Sweetie Belle actually fretting over a detail that she didn’t already pass its responsibility to Rarity, her situation would be at least a bit more sympathetic by a further expression of her credibility. But it is definitely an inspired effort nonetheless, and a true standout of the season that greatly deserves its praise.

Near Love

4. Maud Pie—I like it when shows like this take risks like this, and for the most part, this episode succeeded, though not without some bumps along the way. It seemed to be a bit of a stretch to have the Remane 5 finally warm up to Maud because she loves Pinkie Pie as they do, as it never seemed to address the basic problem of why they weren’t enthusiastic about her in the first place. I think it can be assumed, however, that they also thought it was best to connect with Maud through the rock candy and not the other way around, brought about by the love, realizing that it was also best to actually take interest in Maud’s interests rather than to expect the other to be interested in yours. But I liked Maud herself in sort of an ironic way, and I commend this episode for making her drabness and one-track mind interesting, and it just had a good heart to it.

Like

5. Rarity Takes Manehattan—This was the first truly good episode that Dave Polsky ever wrote—not only do we get to see Rarity’s Element finally tested or explored in a meaningful way, but I can’t help but enjoy the not-quite anti-capitalist subtext underneath Rarity’s exploitation of her friends in helping her make the dresses and her believing the cruel world of “everypony for herself” as an impenetrable reality. And who can’t feel for her as she realizes her Pyrrhic victory in not seeing her friends show up? Great as it was, the episode seemed to be riddled with logical lapses (for example, if Rarity believed that her friends had already gone back to Ponyville, how could she have thought to get tickets for Hinny of the Hills for them the very same day?), but fortunately they can be overcome by this episode’s heart and soul.

6. Testing, Testing, 1, 2, 3—Were I judging from the third act alone, this would easily be my favorite episode of the season. The Wonderbolts history-in-flight scene is a sequence of pure beauty and unity, and cleverly, in the best tradition of MLP:FiM, demonstrates the usefulness of all ways of studying by incorporating them all, without denigration of them. Yet the episode got off to a very rocky start with some awkward acting and dialogue and by the time Twilight and RD were arguing, and even a while afterwards, the episode seemed to drag. It also irked me a bit that all the others knew Wonderbolts history with virtually no explanation or self-aware lampshading. This episode can easily rise up in my rankings tomorrow though.

7. Twilight’s Kingdom—I actually have a lot of problems with the two-parter finale, a lot. It actually puzzles me that the episodes have gotten the laudations it did considering how (1) it took the easy way in by having directly telling the significance of all the special journal entries and (2) the only way to explain the action of the plot coherently is if Discord and Celestia had actually set up the whole thing to provide another test for Twilight to deserve her kingdom. The most cursory analysis, then, reveals a rather sketchy and poorly thought out plot. And yet I still consider it a very worthy work, actually using Discord as more than a troll and exhibiting his dilemmas in both helping and betraying Equestria, not to mention the significant world-building that demonstrates the magic inherent in all ponies, long speculated but now confirmed, which serves to both build up the contrast between selfish tyranny and egalitarian friendship in the course of transfer of power. I just love to wax philosophical about this episode, and for that reason I still rank it as high as I do.

8. Bats!—This episode was just a fun little romp with one of the series’ best songs in both melody and artistic conception. It had a tendency, however, to abuse its artistic license in ecology and to give short shrift to AJ’s side of the argument, in such a way that the arguments on both sides are very weak. At least it ends up with its heart in the right place, stressing long-term thinking with a safely pony-centric view against personal pressure brought about by Fluttershy’s transformation. Plus, I can’t help but enjoy the B-movie feel of it all, and the great camerawork and artistry done on the Flutterbat hunt.

9. Simple Ways—I’m not sure why I rank this episode as high as I do, as I found Rarity’s obsession over Trenderhoof too over-the-top even for her and I felt that the actual festival was put too much in the background to the (incomplete) love triangle plot. Perhaps I have become too desensitized to the “love makes you crazy” trope from all my knowledge and appreciation of opera to just find it amusing every time and not care whether it is really in character for her or a mark of idiocy. While it started off weakly, it quickly developed into a fun-nay ride with better than average dialogue and good Rarijack dynamics.

10. Inspiration Manifestation—Leave it to Meghan McCarthy to give us another one of her classic descents into madness in this modified “Midas Touch” episode. Spike, too, was a gem here despite his foolishness and immaturity in not telling Rarity that she’s making things worse, if only for his good intentions and reasonable fears given his previous relationship with Rarity. Owlicious has a good role here too as conscience, whose “tut-tuts” only become wittier as the episode progresses. In addition, the episode was just plain funny, and I, as an aspiring patent attorney, can’t help but nerdgasm over this episode airing on World Intellectual Property Day. It’s not unreasonable to believe that this was purposeful. Rarity, however, was more of a fool here than Spike, since she should have at least been more attentive to the puppeteer’s specifications beforehand, and Spike’s indecision went on for longer than was really necessary. Originally I considered this episode in my “love” pile but on further review I’ve decided that it doesn’t deserve to be called “inspired”. What would have made this episode truly inspired is if Spike was part and parcel to the spell (that is, having a role in casting or maintaining the spell) rather than just being the delivery boy so that the relationship between him and Rarity could be better reinforced and better support the intended moral.

11. Princess Twilight Sparkle—There are several episodes that I prefer more of a “meta” analysis than a “literal” one, and this two-parter is one of them and easily invited it. While Twilight’s friends convincing her to stay behind seemed extremely strange, it is at least explained by not only their wrestling with Twilight’s new status but also our fandom’s own as well, addressing the fears of inequality at least satisfactorily enough to keep us optimistic for the new season. The “alicorn magic milk” was a bit contrived but at least was interesting to see and fosters interesting headcanons on how the Princesses store memories. Discord provided this episode with a good deal of wit that goes beyond randomness, although the critical lack of information when the six needed it seemed quite disturbing. Oh well, he’s not quite a saint yet. Plus, the visuals and music were simply splendid; so much that I originally considered this episode a “masterpiece”. As one can see, my view is much more qualified now.

12. Somepony to Watch Over Me—Don’t fool yourselves, Applejack was completely out of character this episode, even for me, who only really considers it a problem when it’s also a storytelling flaw—although there are perfectly good explanations that fans have offered into why she acted the way she did, it still was inadequately developed in the episode itself, nor are these fan explanations necessarily implied within. I must also admit that the moral/ending was a bit botched as it seemed to imply that doing dangerous things is a sign of maturity, but this is somewhat offset by AJ still being upset at her decision, so at least that is not completely endorsed. Better wording might have helped. That being said, we do have a number of very witty moments in this episode and a touch of heart that keeps this episode in my “like” pile, but only barely.

Near Like

13. Twilight Time—This was technically a good episode with a straightforward logical progression and some very good aspects, including the development of the CMC’s development of their talents in a more controlled way than their usual crusading, and of course the reappearance of Diamond Tiara’s more cleverly manipulative side we have not seen since “Ponyville Confidential”. Yet this wasn’t the sort of episode that demanded such a serious tone, and it seems to lack the energy that is prevalent to many MLP:FiM episodes and quite bored me. I also felt that Twilight Sparkle was too “perfect” here, forgiving the CMC too easily and too much “in control” (despite this actually being a positive development in her character, it doesn’t make her particularly interesting), although her wham line condemning the tagalongs was simply golden.

Neutral/Meh

14. Pinkie Pride—Please don’t hurt me, but I actually want to hate this episode. Even if we grant that this is a better musical than “Magical Mystery Cure”, that aspect alone did absolutely nothing for me. I personally found the songs very annoying and cliché without any real inspiration or melody. There was something fundamentally wrong about Twilight being complacent in allowing what should have obviously been suspicious behavior (that is, challenging the new guy that isn’t really a threat to a goof-off) well after the initial hype should have worn off. I also got a sense that Pinkie was not in prime form here as a party planner, thus making the comparison a little unfair given that poorly drawn banner at the beginning. But I can’t condemn this episode to Tartartus. Cheese Sandwich was an extremely well-done and charismatic, if over-the-top, one-off character, and the episode itself had an adequate (if with somewhat too predictable and badly delivered dialogue and devices at times) development. Finally, it exudes an aura of greatness that seems to defy describing, so it at least deserves some of the raving it has gotten.

15. Leap of Faith—At first, I didn’t really care too much for this episode, as its dialogue and plot was unusually predictable, even for this show, and it seemed to lack any real humor to speak of. These days, I have learned to find the funny parts, although it is still considerably less than usual. While the Flim-Flam Brothers seemed to step down a peg from their “honest but too haughty and manipulative” business persona to straight-out con men, this can at least be analogized, if a bit weakly, to Trixie’s own desperation and takeover of Ponyville in “Magic Duel”. On more positive notes, AJ’s dilemma is very nicely demonstrated, and Silver Shill provides a great challenge to AJ’s element, I would say even more than Flim and Flam themselves.

16. Equestria Games—This episode, at the end of the day, had only its visuals, whatever it actually did show of the Games, and the moral going for it, which are enough for me to rank it as high as I do. Other than that, this is a quickly forgettable episode. I don’t care all that much that the episode didn’t actually focus on the Games and thus didn’t live up to its hype, but even if I did it would be the least of my problems with this surprisingly weak episode from the same person who had previously given us “For Whom the Sweetie Belle Toils”, “Rarity Takes Manehattan”, and “Twilight Time”. (Then again, he also did “Daring Don’t”.) The episode did a lot of collateral damage to get where it did, from not adequately analyzing Spike’s actual stress in not lighting the torch, Twilight not apparently suffering consequences for doing it for him, the unnecessarily long bad rendition of the Cloudsdale Anthem that should have ended in the middle with Spike being drummed off the field in disgrace, and the climax that virtually handed Spike the Most Convenient Way to prove himself worthy of his esteem. I really did expect a better performance out of this one.

17. Trade Ya—Although it is nice to see Twilight actually doing something as a princess this episode and Rainbow Dash’s and Fluttershy’s search for trading items and subsequent “inadvertent” indentured servitude fairly appealing (though Fluttershy was too passive here and thus out of character given her previous character development), this episode was a bit of a dud. The humor mostly fell flat for me, but its biggest sin was not doing anything to connect each of the subplots together in a meaningful way except for a blatant sermon by Rainbow Dash explaining the intended theme of the episode. On top of that, Rarity and Applejack’s friendship “fallout” was plain petty on one level and badly developed on another, stopping even before the climax could be reached and only resolved when we no longer care about it. Twilight and Pinkie’s “fallout” was somewhat better, but Pinkie was sort of annoying here and too aggressive, and Twilight pulled a “sour grapes” in not trading her books, as it completely ignored the original purpose of her trying to get rid of them in the first place (is she going to try to get rid of all the new books later?).

18. It Ain’t Easy Being Breezies—I don’t know if Levinger thought that reverting to a more G3 style would positively augment the introduction of the Breezies, but if it was, it was a poor decision. Seabreeze, of course, made the episode watchable with his insistence on going home over the desires of his cohort, as well as both him and Fluttershy actually learning how to be compassionate and show tough love at the same time, which makes the moral unusually complex. I won’t go into all of this episode’s faults, but the dialogue, scripting, and acting at times was especially poor, and there really was little point in the transformation scene except to fill up time with a too blatant awareness that the episode had to end soon. I do think that the revival of ponies actually taking an active part in keeping the environment stable has been overlooked in this episode as this season has been overall lacking in such references, even if the mechanics of it itself seem to raise a lot of serious and critical questions regarding its plausibility.

Near Dislike

19. Power Ponies—Superhero episodes are usually a turn-off for me, although for this episode I have to give it credit for it only being in an alternate reality and for the Mane 6 being genuinely shocked over their transfer into the comic book world and the humorous sequence of them getting used to their powers. It also benefited from a very good and witty cold open. Nonetheless, the theme itself is executed as humdrum as Spike’s character itself, with far too much repetition of the “worthless” name calling and self-pity, and of course, the rather predictable way in which Spike proves that he isn’t, further hammered by the obviousness in how the Mane-iac was going to fail in her efforts by not capturing Humdrum!Spike. The dragging pace of this episode and the rather generic developmental structure further made it a very humdrum episode. It is episodes like these where we can’t help but think “Gee, this really is a Saturday morning cartoon show.”

Dislike

20. Castle Mane-ia—I have never been a fan of Scooby-Doo, and perhaps that already biased me against this episode. For a series well regarded for its generally superb development and presentation of conflicts, it was more than offsetting to sit through the Mane 6 exploring the Everfree castle and falling into its traps waiting for an actual plot to arise, especially when Twilight’s research gave us promise of perhaps some secret of the castle that they would have to discover or overcome, which barely figured in as nothing was actually done about the traps. (I’m actually surprised that Twilight never actually got into any traps herself—she seemed to be there mostly for contrast with the others—funny in a way but hardly significant in the end.) The ending, however, bugged me the most. The delivery of the moral was just plain poor—monotone voices, excessive repetition, and a sense that it was more directed to the audience than something the ponies actually see as significant for themselves. Its execution almost reminded me of the “Simpson Family hidden camera” scene in “Burns’ Heir” where Mr. Burns tries to convince Bart that his real family doesn’t love him anymore, with its obviously bad acting and convenient directness.

21. Three’s a Crowd—This episode suffered from a juvenile plot with even more juvenile characters. Cadence and Twilight gave Discord too much benefit of the doubt when they know full well Discord’s reputation as a troll. And like in “Trade Ya”, the moral was delivered through sour grapes—“Eh, the Crystal Empire’s too boring anyway”—nullifying the point of Cadence’s and Twilight’s time together, as one would think that if Cadence wanted to do something more exciting than seeing the Starswirl exhibit, she would at least mention it to Twilight. If nothing else, Cadence’s about-face seemed to be poorly developed. A lot of minor points bugged me here: the song was terribly sung and had a boring melody, and Discord’s humor was mostly reduced to randomness that no longer becomes interesting as the episode progresses, and I was disappointed that we didn’t actually learn more about Starswirl the Bearded through this, and also missed an great opportunity to directly address the common “Discord is Starswirl” headcanon.

22. Flight to the Finish—A largely forgettable episode with a forgettable song, this at least should get some credit for addressing Scootaloo’s apparent inability to fly. Other than that, this episode dragged on forever, not actually developing its conflict until well into the second half of it. It also bugged me that few of the other entries into the flag-bearing competition were actually shown, and that of Diamond Tiara’s and Silver Spoon’s was especially lacking, as showing it would have at least given them a bit more motivation to psychologically sabotage the CMC’s efforts rather than just as designated bullies. Rainbow Dash was also extremely annoying in her enthusiasm for the competition, although we are supposed to dislike Mrs. Harshwhinny’s insistence on professionalism. At least she was genuinely supportive of the CMC, and especially Scootaloo, throughout.

Near Hate

23. Rainbow Falls—While I do think that this episode gets too much hate, its poor rating by the community is very much deserved. Rainbow Dash’s conflict, while reasonable, didn’t have the circumstances surrounding it to make it convincing, especially his Ponyville teammates’ apparent inability to improve themselves during the course of the training. (Their sudden incompetence in flying is also fairly disturbing.) If anything, a better conflict would have been for RD to replace his own members of the team in order to hedge his chances against Cloudsdale—it would have been a far more interesting conflict of loyalties. Spitfire became a certified jerk in this episode for keeping Soarin’'s recovery of her wing from RD for no real reason, and her tempting of RD itself was just plain questionable. Various plotholes abounded here as well, such as the apparent inconsistency in how teams qualify for the Games, Rarity’s fashion was horrible, and most of the Mane 6 had absolutely no reason to be there. Its biggest killer, though, was RD’s blatantly obvious faking of his injury which only Twilight Sparkle apparently had enough brain cells to see through. When idiot plots become this obvious, especially to force a moral, an episode clearly has something wrong with it.

Hate

24. Daring Don’t—Dear Celestia this episode was an insult—I could write books on how bad this episode was. Making A.K. Yearling and Daring Do the same pony just called into question too much of the world we had already built up to this point, even within the episode itself. We either have her publishers being complacent in constantly putting her life in danger, or she exploited a fan into getting in her book even when she can’t guarantee that anypony would be so engrossed in the series to force her to actually finish her book. (If nothing else, it just reeks of a forced plot.) Rainbow Dash was a total creep for no good reason stalking her idol, and yet she gets rewarded with the highest honors at the end because Yearling has a perverted idea on how to get a story going. Plus, plot holes abound that make me think Polsky and his editors wrote this episode drunk, and to top it all off, the episode seemed to stereotype fandoms such as ours as all obsessed. I find it amazing that anyone can actually like this episode, but I will admit that some of the action scenes were fairly cool.