Holy mother of Hell and Tatarus DHX what happened!? You know I'll admit I was very wary going into the episode when I saw the description because it looked like one of those episodes like "Feeling Pinkie Keen" where Twilight Sparkle makes a complete ass out of herself. You see whenever there's an episode that has a description that makes one or more the main characters out to be the bad guy it doesn't turn out to be a good episode. We saw this time and time again with episodes like "Bridle Gossip", "Feeling Pinkie Keen", "the Mysterious Mare Do Well" "Bats" and "Princess Spike". My suspicion only increased when it was revealed that Twilight was going to try and stop Starlight from being friends with Trixie, one of the most mistreated characters in the show's history. Yes, I'm aware that she tried to take over Ponyville in Magic Duel but you have to remember that things wouldn't have gotten to that point if the Mane 6 and other characters hadn't openly ragged on Trixie for doing her job, destroyed her home and humiliated her. Episodes like "Boast Busters" have only solidified my belief that, while I'm still fond of it, once you take off the Nostalgia Goggles and look at Season 1, it is the worst season out of all six, even with my admittedly lax standards.

Anyway when I actually watched the episode, I thought it could have been a really good one! Most of the episode was solid but then DHX really dropped the ball on the climax. *SPOILER ALERT* Trixie had a plan to pull off a trick one of her idols, Hoofdini, pulled off, where she jumps into a hungry manticore's mouth and appears to get swallowed by it but then suddenly appears in a nearby box, revealing she wasn't eaten at all. Problem is, she didn't know how to pull it off. Starlight then offers to help her out by using teleportation magic to get her out of the Manticore's gullet and into the box. Before they start the show Twilight storms up to the three and argument happens and Starlight has a falling out with Trixie to which the latter character and Twilight feel bad about.

After that we get a clumsy mess of a climax. Trixie is depressed, publicly says to her audience before she performs that she messed up royal and is going to start the Manticore trick on her own, something she has admitted she doesn't know how to pull of! Starlight, instead of stopping her and going "WHAT IN TARTARUS ARE YOU DOING!? YOU'LL GET YOURSELF KILLED!!!" just sits their and watches and Twilight approaches her and has a heart to heart with her apologizes and tells her to be friends with Trixie again all while said character is prepping in front of audience to do a dangerous stunt she doesn't know how to pull of and doing nothing!! Starlight then asks "What if she's only just using me?" practically admitting that she's going to do nothing to stop her friend from getting herself killed in a stunt she knows Trixie can't pull off WHILE SAID CHARACTER IS OPENLY APOLOGIZING!! Twilight reassures her that Trixie genuinely wants to be Starlight's friend and only then does Starlight use her magic to stop her friend from getting killed, talks to Trixie, accepts her apology and they proceed with the show and while Twilight watches...completely ditching Celestia at a dinner with Derpy, DJ P0N3 and Cranky the Ass that was supposed to be a dinner between her, Twilight, Starlight and Trixie.

Now let's talk about the unfortunate implications they left in this episode. Now I know there a quite a few that made the claim that the scene implied that Trixie was suicidal and was intentionally trying to kill herself with the Manticore trick. While I can see how one can very easily come to this conclusion, I don't think suicidal Trixies was what the writers were going for, but the alternative isn't that good either. Based on her Trixie's dialogue during the performance, the fact that she's performing in front of an audience and the sheer fear she felt heading towards the manticore, I think what the writers were trying to get across was that she felt the show must go on, personal problems or not, and that she'll try on her own anyway and figure it out while she's performing. This unfortunately makes Trixie look like a reckless idiot!!

This is not how the climax should have went and I can easily see how it could have been good. If they had Twilight apologize to Starlight before the show, then have Starlight talk to Trixie with the latter apologizing and THEN have Starlight and Trixie decide to go through with the trick in that order, the episode would have been fine as the episode was solid before that point! Instead DHX rushed it and decided to do all that at once and that led to a clumsy mess with unfortunate implications, probably to keep the episode within a 22 minute time frame.

You know, I'll fully admit that I have lax standards and like episodes that the fandom could consider bad but even I have my limits! And I do hate to see an episode that's spoiled by the ending. This is my problem with the DHX, they handle stories that are too big to handle within a 22 minute time frame and the episode looks rushed because of it. I appreciate that they genuinely want to tell really good stories but if the topic is too big to manage then they shouldn't be making it.