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PoisonClaw's Top 10 Part 3: Least Favorite


PoisonClaw

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Finally, we have the ten episodes I don't much care for. Surprisingly, this was much easier to write than the first two, I guess it's just easier to put into words why you don't like something than it is to say why you like it.

 


10. Lesson Zero

 


Twilight is prone to freaking out, that’s a fact. However, I have a hard time believing that even Twilight would lose her mind to this degree. Even before the sanity slippage even begins, most of Twilight’s antics take her OCD and cranks it up to eleven. Would Twilight have a list to double check her list? Possibly. Would Twilight throw a mini fit over a few drops of frosting extra on a single cupcake out a batch, to the point she goes nuts from that alone? Nope.

 

Don’t even get me started when she starts making those face. Funny for some, unsettling for me. The only shining grace about this episode is Celestia’s appearance near the end and the genius resolution at the end with allowing the others to write letters to Celestia now.

 


9. Swarm of the Century

 


This was the episode that began the theme of “Pinkie Pie has poor communication skills”. Despite the fact that Pinkie claims to have tried to tell everyone about how to stop the parasprites, she not only did no such thing, but had no less than three opportunities where she could have. When Fluttershy first showed up with the parasprite, Pinkie could have tried to warn the others about the critter, since she clearly knows all about it. But nope! She instead decides to just wander off looking for instruments with no further explanation as to why.

 

Next, when the pests start multiplying and Rarity is doing her best to deal with the swarm, Pinkie again could have told Rarity that she has a fool proof solution on getting rid of the parasprites. But instead she wants her to ignore the bugs and randomly run off to help find instruments, again with no further explanation. Seeing as Rarity has bigger problems at the moment, she of course brushes Pinkie off for wasting her time.

 

And finally, when Twilight and the others are driving the parasprites back into the Everfree Forest, Pinkie once more just runs up and, with no explanation (is anyone noticing a pattern here?), asks them all to drop what they’re doing and assist her in, what they see as, an utterly meaningless task while they have a crisis on their hooves. Had Pinkie at any point actually tried to explain herself but only ended up being ignored for being, well, Pinkie, then I wouldn’t have an issue, but since she didn’t and then lies about trying to do just that, I do have a problem.

 


8. Show Stoppers

 


CMC episodes aren’t known for being some of the best, and I initially had Cutie Pox in this spot. But then I remembered that that episode involved Zecora, so that pushes it just a little bit higher than Show Stopper. Even by this early on, the fact that the CMC are oblivious to their true talents had already been done before (and would continue be done over and over again), and the cringe worthy performance was possibly even worse than I expected it to be.

 


7. Simple Ways

 


I swear, Rarity is one of my favorite characters, but I just knew this episode was going to be bad from the synopsis alone. Seeing Rarity trying to invoke “country” possibly even exceeds “Show Stoppers” in being cringe worthy, not to mention it makes her come off as offensively shallow considering she’s invoking a stereotype and ridiculing Applejack and her family all to impress a guy who wants nothing to do with her.

 


6. Inspiration Manifestation

 


Remember when Spike was dependable and actually intelligent? Well, forget all that, because here he’s treated like a totally oblivious moron who can’t see danger without a neon sign proclaiming “This is bad!” If that weren’t enough, Rarity’s continued insanity starts to slip into Lesson Zero level of unsettling after a while, finally ended in a resolution that was clearly spelled out within the first few minutes.

 


5. Daring Don’t

 


“Don’t” is right, as in “don’t” watch this episode. Trying to establish Daring Do as an actual living character, and that her series of adventure novels are in actuality an auto-biography about her adventures was a stupid idea. So much so that this is one of the few episodes that falls into Fanon Discontinuity, wherein fans try to pretend or believe that the worst or outlandish parts of a story never happened.

 

Which is exactly how I like to believe it.

 


4. Rainbow Falls

 


How do you top an episode that most would like to believe didn’t exist? How about casting a recurring character in the role of a jerkish “villain” despite the fact that they literally have no solid reason to be such a jerk? Such is the case with Spitfire and Fleetfoot.

 

Fleetfoot I could maybe buy since this is her first appearance, but the way Spitfire acts conflicts with everything we seen and been told about her up until this point. The Wonderbolts are supposed to be a team that stand by each other, but the minute Soarin in injured, his “teammates” abandon him for a better replacement without so much as a second thought (they don’t even visit him the hospital!) and try and tempt Rainbow Dash to abandon her team because said team are a bunch of losers and the Wonderbolts are infinitely better than them.

 

Yes, the supposed team of loyal Pegasi are trying to convince Dash, the bearer of the Element of Loyalty, into being disloyal towards her friends. Not only is that a stupid plan, but you could have literally had anyone else in the role here and it would have made more sense without messing with a character’s already established history.

 


3. Make New Friends, But Keep Discord

 


Once more I was trying to stay away from Season 5 episodes, but good lord did I not like this episode. And while I know this will make me very unpopular considering many are claiming it to be the best episode of the season so far (which I’ve heard the same thing said about Kamen Rider Kabuto and I despise that particular series with a raging passion), I instead can’t help but think back to a time when Discord was at all threatening and, you know, actually served a purpose. Now he’s just an outlet to cram in as many pop-cult references and shout-out as he can into an episode.

 

Strip this episode of said references and it still isn’t very good, instead focusing mostly on an annoying hippy stereotype that grates on my nerves every time she’s on screen. Who said “You know what this episode needs? A stoner perpetually baked out of her mind!” What’s even worse about this is Treehugger is voiced by Nicole Oliver a.k.a Cheerilee and Princess Celestia, and I just can’t imagine her voicing such an awful character.

 

Speaking of Princess Celestia, much like Lesson Zero she’s the sole redeeming point of this entire episode. Seeing her cut loose and have a good time makes me so happy after her appearances have gotten fewer and farther apart, not to mention I love the dress she was wearing.

 


2. Spike at your Service

 


Like Inspiration Manifestation, Spike in this episode is treated as a klutzy doofus who is utterly incapable of performing even the simplest of tasks without making a mess of things, especially at tasks we’ve seen him accomplish with ease previously! To further Spike’s idiocy, we have his “Dragon Code”, which is nothing more than a paper-thin excuse that goes without explanation and only serves to prevent the plot from just collapsing in on itself within the first five minutes. Throw in the out of place CGI Timberwolves, and you’ve got a recipe for a bad episode.

 


1. Mysterious Mare-Do Well

 


What a shocker that this would find itself as number one. I could write an entire essay slowly picking apart the many, many failing points of this episode, but the short version basically amounts to the fact that this is possibly the most mean-spirited I have ever seen the Mane 6 portrayed outside of bad fanfiction. Their entire plan to humiliate Dash’s overly exaggerated pride was in and of itself out of character, lacked in anything resembling basic logic and to top it all off the ultimate farce of a moral is possibly one of the most broken aesops I have ever seen.

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