After The Cutie Re-Mark concluded season five and began a near-four-month-long hiatus, season six opened with The Crystalling. Sticking to the show’s tradition, it’s a two-parter, and Part 1’s synopsis is as follows:

The Mane Six attend the Crystalling of Cadence and Shining Armor’s new baby at the Crystal Empire; Twilight gets the chance to present Starlight with her first friendship lesson.

Even though my standards have been extremely high, my expectations were fairly in the middle thanks to the official previews. Thankfully, the previews didn’t properly gauge its quality, and it came out much better than I thought.

The best part of this episode happens to be Starlight. Re-Mark never stated it, but the ending hinted a possible change to the status quo: Starlight joining the Mane cast, thereby forming the Mane Eight (the other being Spike). This two-parter doesn’t waste any time introducing Starlight to a very intimate conflict, and the audience sees us her undergo a wide range of emotions, especially nervousness. By making her nervous at points in The Crystalling, the audience knows that DHX (mainly Haber, the writer here) isn’t whitewashing her redemption. There’s a process to her post-redemption; this is merely one step.

If you watched the previews, one of them showed the Mane Six being introduced to the baby without Spike. The episode gives a very clear reason why he’s absent. Needless to say, The Crystalling is easily his best role since Lesson Zero (or EQG, if you count the spinoff, too).

No episode is without its flaws, and there are a few. One of the show’s bigger weaknesses is the need to pump out as much exposition as possible early. Because of this, the dialogue felt a little mechanical here and there. But once it was over, the dialogue became much smoother. Secondly, there’s one scene in which the citizens of The Crystal Empire had their brains replaced with Idiot Balls. As for the baby, you’re either going to like her for being cute and innocent or dislike her for being annoying.

But none of it detracts from the overall quality of this two-parter. Is it better than The Cutie Map or The Return of Harmony? No. But it’s nowhere near the average quality of the pilot or Princess Twilight Sparkle and the horrid Crystal Empire. It’s very coherent and juggles the A and B plots nicely without splicing any important details. Of all the two-parters, it’s possibly the best paced. A good start to Season 6!