OK, welcome back everypony to another addition of "Batbrony Reviews." So after last week's bit of amazing that was the 100th episode, unsurprisingly I don't have quite as much to say about this new episode as I did last week. That's not to say I didn't enjoy, there were quite a few elements that I liked about it, it just didn't come anywhere close to the levels of awesome that "Slice of Life" did. Without further ado, let's take a look at "Princess Spike."

So first of all, let's talk about Spike himself, starting by getting something off my chest. As with most Spike episodes since I wanna say Season 3, we yet again have a lot of bronies complaining about so-called "Spike abuse," the notion that Spike is a special sort of punching bag for the writers in any episode that he stars in. Let me just come out and say that while I understand some bits of this notion, overall I think it's overblown. The writers have shown plenty of times in the past and this season that Spike can be and is written well plenty of times. If he ever does come across as an idiot in starring roles, let's keep two things in mind: (1) he's still a baby dragon, and we have no idea how quickly or slowly dragons normally age, much less one being raised among ponies like Spike, and (2) the main characters of episodes are almost always at the root of the problems caused in those episodes! I don't ever hear anybody complain about Applejack being written like an idiot in "Applebuck Season," people just accept that that's an extension of her stubborn personality getting the best of her, and that's fair because it's true. But for some reason some people seem to want Spike to be Mary Sued anytime he's in a starring role, and I don't get it. I think it goes back to "Spike At Your Service" and how mad people were and remain that Spike was so incompetent at basic tasks (a point that I get, "Spike At Your Service" is a pretty problematic episode), but the fair points that people raise about that episode have warped into this twisted notion that Spike is always going to get this treatment now. That's just not true, and certainly not here. Spike got in over his head quite reasonably so because he prioritized one task ahead of the others (a task involving his mother/sister figure Twilight, the closest pony in his life, mind you), got a little power-crazy as well because he was feeling inadequate alongside four pony princesses (understandable given that he's still very much an outsider for most of pony society), and didn't think through the long term consequences of some of the things that he did (understandable given that he's both an adolescent and not used to organizing or running an event as large as a nationwide gathering of ponies in one of Equestria's largest cities). Yeah, he bucked up, he bucked up hard, but the fact that he bucked up should hardly be surprising, and not because Spike's stupid or unfairly written as being stupid, but because that makes sense for his character in this particular situation. So there, that's that. As far as I'm concerned, Spike is not written nearly as badly as some of the fandom remains convinced that he is, and I thought he was fine here, aside from how maddening some of his decisions got, but I would've had the same reaction to those if any of the Mane 6 were doing what he did as well.

What fell, new sorcery is this?

Now that that's out of the way, let's talk about what else I liked. Twilight was super adorable (Sleepy Twilight is officially most adorable Twilight for me now ), and Cadance had a surprisingly very good showing here. Definitely her best appearance in a slice of life episode, even more so than "Three's a Crowd" just because she didn't really do much in that one besides tag along with Twilight. But here, we got to see some of her own brand of wisdom and how Cadance works as a princess, I liked that. Seeing Luna and Celestia two weeks in a row was super surprising as well (not to mention hearing from Luna too), though I would've liked to see just a bit more of them besides the opening scene, mostly because their absence raised many questions, namely, where the buck did they get off to after the opening scene? Ah well, probably were playing video games or something.

I've got my eye on you, Mime Pony.

#don'ttrustmimes

But my favorite aspect by far of this episode was its setting and supporting cast. I love slice of life episodes that take place in Canterlot and give us the chance to see more of that city, it's definitely one of my favorite settings in the show to this day. Not to mention we got to see a lot of very cool ponies from all over Equestria. Fancy Pants, a pony with a chainsaw that may have been Canadian but I prefer to think of him as a Wisconsin cheesehead (since I love Wisconsin ), the Manehattan delegate that was very much the New Yorker, the Winnyapolis (or Winneapolis) delegate who was the most obvious Minnesota/Fargo reference ever (and stop saying she was Canadian, people who are saying that, she wasn't ), that adorable nerdy pony that Spike met with, the return of Fluffy Clouds, polo-playing ponies, a mime-pony, what I can only describe as Richard Simmons-pony, an awesome griffin with the cat portion of its body being a tiger's (SERIOUSLY, THAT IS SO COOL!!!!!!!! ), plenty of Canterlot ponies, and many, many more. Sure not a lot happened in this episode, and the lesson Spike was gonna learn was fairly obvious from the start, but it was a pure Equestria episode that was completely comfortable in its setting even though it was introducing a very much new event to both the show and the audience. I love any slice of life episode like that, so yeah, for what it was, this episode was solid in my book. Nothing more, nothing less, just as good as it needed to be. See ya'll next week everypony!

Yah, sure ya bet'cha, us Midwestern ponies are pretty friendly around these parts, don'cha know?