Good morning everypony, and welcome back to another edition of "Batbrony Reviews," the penultimate edition of Season 6!!! Just like last week, we were once again treated to an absolutely delightful episode, albeit far less surprising than last week's was. It was a high flying adventure this morning set at the Wonderbolt Academy, so without further ado let's dive in, this is "Top Bolt"!!!

So let's get this out of the way to start things off: I didn't like Sky Stinger. I know some people are shipping him like crazy already with Vapor Trail, and not for entirely bad reasons, but frankly I found him insufferable. This is purely a personal opinion, mind you, I'm not saying you're wrong if you liked him. Really I think it comes down to two things: (1) I found his voice to be grating and annoying in its natural-cocky mode he seemed to slip into every time he spoke, and (2) I've played sports and have known some people like him in real life, which made him all the more insufferable. I think the final factor that made me not come around to him is that less time was devoted to him fixing things than it was to Vapor Trail. Vapor Trail started improving what she needed to fix in her own life for at least half of the episode, if not more, whereas Sky had at best the last third, probably more like the last fourth, to get better. Is that entirely fair of me since it was just a matter of episode pacing? No, not entirely, but the fact remains that we spent far less time seeing Sky in a better light than we did Vapor, and in the end I just didn't really come around to him that much. He's not as bad as Zephyr Breeze was, no way, but he was still plenty annoying all in all.

Besides Sky, however, I really loved everything else about this episode. I love pegasi, I love the Wonderbolt Academy, and I love the pairing of Twilight and Rainbow Dash. Those two, when they're really on their A-game, make for a very fun and entertaining pair, and I love seeing them work together because they have very different ways of approaching problems, as was nicely highlighted in this episode. Twilight's very methodical and much more bookish, whereas Rainbow Dash acts much more based on her instincts, which we saw very much in this episode given the setting where she was very much in her element. As with Fluttershy and Applejack as well as Pinkie Pie and Rarity earlier this season, while these two had their disagreements in the course of solving this friendship problem, they ultimately overcame them and utilized their strengths to the best of their ability in helping out both Vapor Trail and Sky Stinger. Good pep talks, good learning experiences, very mature behavior from both of them all around, which is especially commendable for Rainbow Dash considering what she was like when the show started (Sky was definitely a call back to that, no doubt, very similarly to how Lightning Dust was in Season 3). Overall, I thought that they both had a very solid episode and were just the right amount of wise, entertaining, and adorable.

The stand out character of this episode was without a doubt Vapor Trail. Oh goodness, I liked this character A LOT. She was adorable (both in her behavior, design, and even voice), she had a very compelling character arc, and all around was just very likable. Like I said before, she definitely had more time devoted to her character arc and development than Sky did, and it definitely paid off for the better in her case. They both certainly had sympathetic backgrounds, heck, Sky's might have been even sadder (although I thought their depiction of the dysfunctionality of a multiple-sibling family was a bit simplistic and exaggerated, it seemed to me more so like maybe their problem was their economic situation more than anything else), but Vapor got the lion's share of time to change and ultimately it made for the more compelling character arc of the two. Her problem was one of self-value, heck, there's even lessons there for victims of domestic abuse who give too much care to their partners (I'm not saying Sky was abusive, he clearly cared about her, just that the parallels were there). She definitely didn't care enough about her own needs, and in the process she actually hurt both herself and Sky as well as a result. So before she could really be there for him, she had to learn how to care about what she wanted for herself as well, besides being around Sky. Given her devotion to him, I can certainly see why people are already shipping those two in earnest, but like I said, this devotion is far more complicated than it appears at first glance since it was at the center of what she needed to fix about herself. If fanfics subsequently come out starring these two, I hope that writers identify this and are able to handle their relationship with the care that it deserves, because it's far more nuanced than people might think at first glance. It was a pleasure getting to see her grow and learn to care about her own needs and wants as the episode went on, in fact, it was my favorite part of the episode, and like I said before I found THAT conflict to be far more compelling in its execution than Sky's own growth and development was. So all in all she was a delightful character to get to know and I would love to see more of her in the future (even if it means we'd see more of Sky as well).

I like this pony, she knows her stuff.

Also, I seriously can't get enough of that Twilight face

Oh no, my heart! THAT IS JUST TOO SWEET!!! I thought that might be a fan playing her, but I had no idea those were the circumstances of her getting that role! ALL THE FEELS!!!

As far as laughs go, this episode wasn't nearly as fun as least week's was, but it was still very funny. The classroom scene was a riot, but honestly my favorite source of humor in this episode was Spitfire. It was a blast getting to see her shooting the breeze with RD as a fellow Wonderbolt, not just a superior, throughout the episode, and the running gag about her loving her job as the Academy instructor was hilarious. Some of the Wonderbolt recruits were pretty funny as well, especially that fan-girl pegasus, and Twilight and RD definitely had their moments throughout. But I think it wasn't quite as funny as last week's episode because there was something undeniably sad about Vapor holding herself back to boost Sky's own ego and Sky being so unaware for so much of the episode that he wasn't the hot-stuff he thought he was. Definitely made for an interesting friendship problem, just not as funny of an episode.

Man there was a lot of blowing in this episode... wait... BLOWING HORNS AND WHISTLES, BLOWING HORNS AND WHISTLES, YOU KNOW WHAT I MEANT!!!

Overall, this was a solid penultimate episode for the season, and that is not to be taken for granted. My least favorite episode to this day is "MMMMystery on the Friendship Express," and that sullied the otherwise amazing season that was Season 2, coming right at the end right before the season finale. So really, even though this was hardly the best episode we've had this season, I'm just glad that it was good. It's been a great season of MLP everypony, but as with every season, it must come to an end, and next week we close out Season 6. I'm glad to say I have NOT watched the finale despite the early leak, so I'll be going into it fresh next week and cannot wait to do so! Until next time everypony, this is Batbrony signing off. I'm off!!! *cue dramatic exit*