You know who's disappointed in you, Spike? You. And only you can make it right with you again. What would that take, Spike? – Twilight Sparkle

The time has finally come for the Equestria Games to begin. As their train nears the Crystal Empire, Rainbow Dash takes the opportunity to give the Ponyville athletes a final pep talk. She encourages them to go for the gold in all their events, before admitting that it might be a bridge too far for the Aerial Relay team of herself, Bulk Biceps and Fluttershy (along with Derpy as reserve). They’re up against the Wonderbolts, after all.

This scene highlights just how far Rainbow Dash has developed as a character. She shows a great deal of maturity, and is even willing to be vulnerable and forthright in front of others. This is a far cry from the Rainbow Dash who used to hide her concerns under a layer of bluff and bluster, even from her closest friends. Scootaloo is also impressive here, not only by showing that she can at least hover briefly at will, but also by encouraging Rainbow Dash in return. Well done, writers!

At the train station, Spike is happily doing his usual task of looking after everypony’s luggage, while the Crusaders look on. He tells the fillies that he has a system to calm himself whenever he’s under pressure: he counts to ten, and afterwards is calm enough to do the job right. No sooner has he finished explaining this than he is swept up into a chair by two Crystal Empire guards, and brought to Princesses Cadance and Twilight. The Guards are contrite about unceremoniously dumping him out the chair as they bow, making Spike even more confused at their words and behaviour.

His confusion is cleared up when he learns that, due to his heroics in the Season 3 premiere, he is considered a VID (Very Important Dragon) within the Crystal Empire, even having had a giant statue made in his likeness. Princess Cadance then asks him if he will do the honour of lighting the torch for the opening ceremony of the games. He readily agrees.

Under the less than indulgent eye of returning character Ms. Harshwhinny, Spike comes out to do his duty… only for the enormous crowd filling the stadium to trigger a sudden bout of stage fright. Even his handy trick of counting backfires, as it makes him even more aware of the tens of thousands of ponies watching. At least now we know how he counted all the grass at Sweet Apple Acres so fast. Even after getting the signal to light the torch from Ms. Harshwhinny, he finds the pressure to perform is causing, shall we say, "a reptile dysfunction"?

I’ve heard of having a “limp lizard”, but this is ridiculous…

Unable to breathe fire, and without a backup (really, not even one just in case?), Spike tries to use himself like a lighter, recycling a visual gag from Apple Family Reunion in Season 3. Nothing works, and the crowd is starting to get restless at the delay. Princess Cadance eventually asks a guard to go down and help Spike, but Twilight acts faster, using her magic to secretly ignite the torch for him.

A short time later, the Mane Six are congratulating the Crusaders on their flag waving routine, when Twilight joins them, and confesses her role in the torch lighting. They all agree the best thing to do is come clean to Spike. When he arrives, however, he is now convinced he has the ability to set things on fire with just his mind!

I’m not sure how I feel about this joke. Spike is many things, but he’s not usually so stupid as to conclude he has new mental fire-lighting abilities, rather than realizing the more likely cause of his success. After a very awkward conversation with some of his Crystal Pony fans, Twilight mercifully puts Spike’s misapprehension to bed. The truth that he really DID fail in front of thousands of spectators depresses the young dragon, and he wanders off disconsolately.

As the Aerial Relay takes place, Spike asks Ms. Harshwhinny if he can do something else for the Games. However, she doesn't know the whole story, and thinks he's just trying to gain even more popularity. She sarcastically comments that next he'll want to do a rock concert. At this, he gets an idea. An awful idea. The dragon got a wonderful, awful idea... After Cloudsdale's Wonderbolts narrowly beat out Ponyville for the gold, Spike volunteers to sing the Crystal Empire anthem, despite Shining Armor's best efforts to stop him. However, since Cloudsdale won, it's their anthem that is due to be played, one to which he doesn't know the words or even the tune.

What follows next is without a doubt the hardest sceneto watch in the entire show, including all four Seasons and associated spin-offs. Spike has to make up the words himself, and he does about as well as you would expect, repeating lines about "being fast", "having wonderful trees" and "I hope this song is over now..." ad nauseum.

Captain! The "dafuq am I listening to?" levels are off the scale!

Only Pinkie isn't gob smacked over how horrible this situation is, bopping her head in time with the horrible singing (later done again in Rainbow Rocks, with Pinkie and Sonata) She even screams out "Nailed it!" in the ensuing stunned silence at the song's end. Now, am I the only one who sees the simple solution here? All they had to do was give orders for the music to be played really loudly (it can be heard in the background anyway). Then Spike could just mouth any words he likes, and they could claim that the music "accidentally" drowned out his singing. Soblem prolved!

In the wake of the recent events, Spike decides to wait out the Games in his room, moping. The Crusaders try to persuade him to come out for the final day of the Games, but he refuses. Twilight, eventually having had enough, sternly orders him to come with her to view the final event: Ice Archery. Reluctantly and in disguise, he follows her, saying that she can't understand how he feels for having let everypony down. Twilight says she does understand, since she has let ponies down too. Spike still turns away...

Out on the field, one of the ice archers is paying a little too much attention to his Cloudsdale competitor. He trip and accidentally fires an arrow into a low hanging cloud, which ices up and begins to fall onto the panicking crowd. Since all unicorn and alicorn magic is now locked by a spell to prevent in-game cheating, things look bad... until Spike, using various pegasii as stepping stones, leaps into the air and uses his fire breath to melt the iceberg and save everyone. The crowd cheers, and the Mane Six and even all three Princesses thank Spike for his bravery. Despite this, he still feels like he isn't worthy, leading Twilight to the epiphany voiced above.

To give him back his confidence, Spike is tasked with lighting the fireworks in the closing ceremony of the Equestria Games, and delivers his final thoughts as he does so successfully... the person whose view of you is most important, is you. Bonus points for the fireworks exploding in purple and green... and even Ms Harshwhinny seems much kinder at the end.

Thoughts on the Episode

Once you get over the vicarious embarrassment of the anthem scene, you're left with another great Spike focused episode. Apart from that aforementioned scene, and the "I can light fires with my mind" joke, which thankfully is used to somewhat of good effect and then resolved before continuing with the plot, it's really just Spike struggling with a poor self-image, something we can all relate to at times. At the end of it all, he steps up and saves the day again, further cementing his status as saviour of the Crystal Empire... and let's face it, Precious Scales deserves it after all the crap he's been put through in previous episodes. And the ponies couldn't be happier for him. That's nice, isn't it?

The writing was pretty good throughout this episode, from the opening scene showing Rainbow "Developed" Dash, to the excitement of the Games and the final action scene. Just one thing bothers me... where did Spike get that umbrella?

There was a lot of good character jokes to be had here, and Pinkie was really on form, comedically missing the point in the fiasco that Spike creates, and "panicking" over the medal count. The Crusaders were also on form, with Scootaloo showing possible progress in her flying, and her surrogate sister relationship with Dash growing ever stronger. Speaking of Dash, her attempt to be nonchalant and overdoing it is perfectly in line with her character , as was Spike simply not noticing.

Some other nice touches were various cameos in the crowd, including Prince Blueblood, the Maretonia Rarity clone, Cherry Jubilee, Fancy Pants, Braeburn; the list goes on. There are plenty others, go see how many you can find, even in this one picture....

I particularly like the one pony who is definitely Bulk Bicep's mom. He always did strike me as a momma's boy...

There's also the griffins making a comeback!

Highlights and Quotes

Spike's reaction to giant statue of him with the Crystal Heart.
Spike: Hullo, gorgeous!

All the unicorns have to have their magic locked during the games. Rarity's reaction is priceless!
Rarity: Hmph! <struts off>

Ms Harshwhinny's reaction to Spike wanting to do MORE for the Games
Spike: Maybe there's something else I can do for the Games. Y'know, something really worthy of the Crystal Empire's admiration?
Ms. Harshwhinny: What are you talking about? You lit the torch for the whole thing!
Spike: Uh, well, actually, that wasn't really–
Ms. Harshwhinny: That wasn't worthy enough for you? Ugh, for pony's sake! Next thing you know, you'll be asking to put on a rock concert. *snorts to herself* Celebrities...

After Spike's disastrous singing of the Cloudsdale Anthem
Stunned silence...
Pinky (From the crowd): NAILED IT!

Pros: An episode that gave Spike the respect he deserves, while still making him suffer for his happy ending. Good character based humour. Concludes a major Season 4 story arc just in time for the finale. Related to the previous, many cameos. Visually spectacular.

Cons: Some really cringe-making humour. Spike's belief that he can light fires with just his mind (the burning feather from Owl's Well notwithstanding...) also contributes.

Final Rating
5 – Celestia Rank: A great episode. It will be re-watched frequently.
4 – Luna Rank: A good episode, but with one or two problems that prevent it from being great.
3 – Spike Rank: An average episode. Positives and negatives are balanced.
2 – Discord Rank: Worth watching once. After that, turn it to stone and put it in the garden.
1 – Nightmare Moon Rank: Send it to the moon!

Goddamn finally finished all the Season 4 reviews! It took a while, but sometimes the inspiration just refuses to strike. But it did, and it's done! In the next few entries, I'll look at an overall review of Season 4, exploring why it's possibly the best one yet, and also explore the many awesome songs and rank them, before turning my attentions to Seasons 2 and 3. There's also some other stuff I want to get going on writing, like some of my fanfiction, and even maybe some entries about shows that are not Friendship is Magic. Plus some Rainbow Rocks stuff, naturally! Looks like 2015 is going to a busy one for this fox!

In the meantime, don't shoot ice arrows at any clouds, and of course, stay sunny side up!