Ohai everypony! Night Shine here, and as usual, I'm going to take a look at what made the newest episode awesome.

1) Applejack character development.

I've felt for a while, and I'm sure that i'm not the only one, that Applejack has an extremely business-oriented mind....a little too business-oriented. Kind of like Twilight is way too organized for her own good, AJ often thinks of things in terms of output product rather than having a fun time--this is displayed in many episodes; the only ones i can think of off of the top of my head are Winter Wrap Up, Best Night Ever and Applebuck Season. Anyway, whenever a character in a show with slice-of-life style episodes has flaws, fleshing these out and developing them always makes for a good story and good character development. Also this is good because I've heard that a lot of fans have complained about a lack of AJ development episodes.

2) Applejack sings!

This is almost self-explanatory, and so many other bronies have discussed this that nearly everything I could say would be redundant. Every other Mane 6 character has had her own personal song (in many occassions, multiple times), and now AJ has hers. Still, I also wanted to point out that I loved the style of this song in that it's a good ol' Wild West hoedown, something that the show hasn't really done before that fits Applejack perfectly.

3) Returning side characters.

Many episodes, such as Boast Busters, Griffon the Brush Off, A Friend In Deed, etc, have side characters whose interaction with one or multiple of the Mane 6 is the focus of the episode. Most of the time these characters are never seen or heard from again, even though we as the audience are attached to said characters because they were developed well in their respective episode. However, when one of these characters that we all miss does return, it is freaking epic. If one could say that Magic Duel was awesome because Trixie returned, one could in theory say that Apple Family Reunion is doubly awesome because Babs Seed and Braeburn returned (as far as characters we know well). Although they both got nowhere near as much screen time as Trixie, it's still amazing just to even see them again.

So, those are my thoughts. What are your thoughts on my thoughts? :3