Thrond

I agree, and apparently found that stuff to be a much bigger issue than you did. I'm a fan of "Friendship Games" and "Rollercoaster of Friendship," with "Forgotten Friendship" being in a distant fourth place; I consider it kinda redundant.

But Sunset was so aggressively rude over something ultimately so petty that I couldn't sympathize with her, and it didn't help that the special was constantly underlining how wrong she is to lash out. Both characters only act in extremes here, and I found them both very annoying because of that; Sunset was right to be frustrated, but it doesn't seem like a good enough reason to treat Pinkie so badly. Maybe this would have been less of an issue if this special weren't so predictable and simple. I didn't really like Pinkie in a lot of this either. I found her apparently debilitating addiction to inedible churros pretty funny, but I also felt like it made her look incredibly stupid, which I was really annoyed by - essentially, my reaction to this special in a nutshell. But I couldn't really get behind Sunset's joy to be rid of her either, because it just seemed so petty and immature. Isn't Pinkie supposed to be her friend? I dislike this special in general. It would have been so much more interesting if they had done away with the time loop entirely and just had a shorter story about Sunset getting increasingly frustrated with Pinkie, and eventually the two of them learn to better accommodate each other. On paper I admire that they doubled down with this one, but the way they went about it feels like one of those Friendship is Magic episodes where someone does a bad thing for a bad reason and we all know it's bad from start to finish. It's disappointing that we won't get to see what a more nuanced story about Sunset's anger would look like. I can't be the only person who thinks that's the best Equestria Girls special.

I’m not a fan of that movie in general, honestly; both Sunset and Twilight bored me in it.

It should have ended with graduation, possibly involving Sunset and her friends parting ways but making sure they would stay in touch via social media and meetups. That seems like the most logical conclusion, and if they were going to mirror the ponies, they could also flash forward to a meetup when all of the girls are in university. Whether they all remain in town is something I'm unsure of. I would also have liked two dangling questions to be answered: where is Sunset's human counterpart? And does Sunset ever get homesick for Equestria? The show just kinda kept ignoring those. Thirdly, since the staff have apparently declared her bisexual, I would have liked to see her get a girlfriend. Maybe not Princess Twilight, like I would have said a couple years ago, but perhaps someone actually in the human world with her. I also like to think that in university Sunset would become a popular video game streamer on the side. That would be funny.

Favourites: Hard to pick just one from "Rainbow Rocks," though I guess both the kitchen scene and the part where she sings stand out. Her increasing anger at Flim and Flam in "Rollercoaster of Friendship." The "My Past is Not Today" song. Least favourites: Constantly being the voice of reason in "Legend of Everfree" - you're right that nobody likes a character without flaws. Ditching Pinkie in "Sunset's Backstage Pass," like what the heck. That limp excuse for a reunion with Celestia.

The Dazzlings are the only villains I really liked, because they were funny but also because the show didn't try to sympathize with them at the end. I did like Vignette Valencia, because I found her pretty funny, but she's definitely a shallow character, and I don't know why anyone still talks to her. Twilight's role in Friendship Games remains fascinating to me, but I'm not sure it quite comes together the way it needs to. I recall Gloriosa Daisy being inoffensive, but not exactly interesting either. Not a fan of the others at all - not even Wallflower Blush, who was never as sympathetic to me as the series wanted her to be.

This... gets better in the last two parts. There are some good Pinkie Pie moments throughout this, the song is catchy, and the security guard guy is just generally funny. That's true throughout the special, but the jokes just generally get better towards the end; before that, there's a lot of really annoying Pinkie Pie moments as well, and she has a weird breakdown that seems way too exaggerated. Those last two parts are more upbeat and charming, because they aren't focused on Sunset being selfish. But even there the story is simplistic and drawn-out, and I can't help but wonder why Pinkie's distractions were a problem if they had enough time to do all of those things and still catch Post Crush after all. I wouldn't really say I liked this, though. I kinda like that Sunset gets to look bad here, but they go way too far and make her completely unsympathetic. Her motivation is just so selfish that it frankly makes her kinda annoying, and the story is the most completely slapdash, boilerplate one yet. But at times the special seems to be trying to make that a serious big deal, as if I could possibly care about whether or not Sunset gets to see some band. I mean, yeah, missing a show sucks, but it's not exactly the end of the world. It's almost immediately obvious what she's going to learn, so watching this stretch that out for so long gets absolutely excruciating at times; at one point, she lashes out at Dash as if she doesn't know it's a time loop, and the special seems completely unaware how hackneyed that is. Plus I'm not entirely sure why she got caught in the time loop. Post Crush are yet another example of this show's villain problem; their motivation is also pretty selfish, so it's kinda hard to buy their sudden turnaround. It's frustrating to watch this show repeatedly fumble when the last Friendship is Magic season finally pulled itself together in this respect. The moral about "perfection" is good, but this doesn't feel like a good way to tell it. And it's nice to see the Dazzlings again, but their appearance is pure filler. This special doesn't seem like it has 45 minutes of story to begin with, and watching this strain to reach emotional high and low points as if this story is anything more than Sunset being immature is baffling. I'm not entirely sure why this exists.

Immortality has its perks, and making this a story about change - and how friendships change over time - was definitely the right way to pull this story off. If this is something Twilight has to do, then yeah, of course this change would cause other changes, even if those changes are to keep friends in touch. It still feels kinda weird to me to tell that story about a change that is not particularly urgent and is not something Twilight ever seemed to want, though. I can't help but wonder what would happen if she just said "no." And honestly I'm not sure why she couldn't have just established her capital in Ponyville.

Crusaders of the Lost Mark - I really do love this mess. There's so much wrong with it, but it's also just so operatic and poignant. I guess the reason this works for me whereas "Magical Mystery Cure" doesn't is because the CMC are being given a reward that makes sense, and Diamond Tiara isn't being rewarded with anything but empathy. Sue me, I have a soft spot for this show's efforts to find the goodness in everyone. A Friend in Deed - This episode is really charming and upbeat. It's peak Pinkie Pie, for better and for worse, but mostly for better, and it has one of the show's best songs. She Talks to Angel - I'm not entirely convinced by the resolution here, but it's admirably nuanced, and watching Fluttershy be a jerk - even if it's just Angel in Fluttershy's body - will always be hilarious to me. Maud Pie - I find this kinda one-note and awkward, and at times Maud's behaviour is so confusing that it just seems like she and the mane six aren't communicating properly. I feel Pinkie should have tried harder to make them understand each other. Buckball Season - Fluttershy being a great buckball player remains one of the more baffling ideas in the show to me, and I think this stretches everything out way too long, but it's got some relatively strong characterization for season 6 and even allows Applejack and Rainbow Dash to figure out the moral on their own, which the show never did as much as it should have. Yakity-Sax - This episode doesn't make any sense, but I think it's going for something relatively nuanced, and it has a downbeat tone I kinda enjoyed. Daring Done? - This episode is annoying. The Show Stoppers - See above.

Cadance always struck me as an appealing character so I’m bummed that she never got an episode to flesh her out a little. Ditto Limestone and Marble Pie, especially given the former’s loneliness and the latter’s heartbreak. You know, that might fit well with a Cadance episode...

Since we're listing, and now that I've seen every episode, my definitive bottom 10 looks something like this. Unranked. The Show Stoppers - CMC at their most annoying without much else going on The Mysterious Mare Do-Well - Seems weirdly spiteful towards Dash Games Ponies Play - All the jokes here whiff and the plot is painfully contrived Magical Mystery Cure - Whole lot of emotion for the dumbest change in the world Tanks for the Memories - Hibernation =/= death and saying so is foolish Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep? - Bad take on mental illness + lame callbacks What About Discord? - Not sure how this idea was supposed to be entertaining Hard to Say Anything - Not exactly comfortable laughing at Big Mac being a creep Non-Compete Clause - Yet more annoying bickering but with no charming moments Dragon Dropped - Does this episode want me to hate Rarity? Because it nearly succeeds Special mention to the Equestria Girls special Mirror Magic for just being completely useless.

Yeah I would not say that I'm a fan of that, especially given what he did just in the previous episode.

I don't really have an opinion on what generation 5 should be. I'm a fair-weather fan.

To be honest I'm still kinda relieved about that; I found the last few seasons frustrating despite their high points. Then again I'm still not sure I'll watch the next show.

I feel like if this crew were to build generation 5 from the ground up to be about politics and epic adventures and stuff, it would work pretty well; this episode shows they have the skill, regardless of how appropriate it was for Friendship is Magic.

WAIT LYRABON WEDDING IN THE NEWSPAPER AHHHHHHHHHH

I wonder if Rarity's married. She's always been the most romantic of the mane six.

I think this might be great. This actually put a lot of Twilight's coronation arc in perspective for me, because it's the only time that the show leaned into the idea that maybe Twilight doesn't want to rule Equestria. Unlike "The Summer Sun Setback" or even "The End of the End," I don't need to care about the Equestrian line of succession, because - like the premiere and "Between Dark and Dawn" - this is mostly about how Twilight reacts to becoming Celestia and Luna's successor, and watching her struggle with the idea of change is something I find much easier to relate to than watching her achieve the privilege of ruling the entire country. It reminds me a lot of "Twilight's Kingdom" in how it finds meaning in this questionable idea, and like the best My Little Pony episodes, this is just filled with cute and funny little moments. This is probably the exact right sentiment to end the show on, and I like that the coronation was a disaster and yet still brought the mane six together - if the beginning of the Sparkle Era rhymed with the founding of the country, this rhymes with the end of the first season, when the six came to truly realize how much their friendship meant. And while I kinda wish this show hadn't put most of the mane six in relationships - I always found it refreshing that the show's few romantic subplots were focused on secondary characters - making them a symbol of the mane six sticking together despite how much has changed makes it feel a lot better to me. My only complaint is that I think part of this puzzle is missing. I still wonder what would have happened if Twilight had just rejected the crown outright; part of why this episode works is because, unlike "Magical Mystery Cure," it doesn't present this change as a reward but simply as a change. It concludes her arc - and the others' too - not because it's something they were working towards, but because all they had learned meant they could handle it when their lives changed in such an unexpected way. But the fact remains that this was basically thrust upon Twilight without considering how she feels, and I think they should have had an episode somewhere where she just considers rejecting the offer outright. Like when she became a princess, this doesn't have any inherent meaning to her, so all the emotional resonance is in how she deals with change and makes the job her own - so why couldn't she just have said no? I don't know where you would have put that, especially because this episode is so well-paced and claims she never even thought about it until now. Maybe the "Summer Sun Setback" episode could have been replaced with something that justifies Twilight taking power when she probably doesn't even want to; even after the two-parter, the stakes are so low that "because she'd be good at it" doesn't feel like enough. That nagging question will probably always make this less satisfying than it could be, even though it basically does everything else right. Still... you win, My Little Pony. Good job. Additional thoughts: Excuse me, is that canon AppleDash? I really hope that's canon AppleDash. On the other hand, I really hope that's not canon FlutterCord. Those two revelations more or less cancel each other out in my mind. If they had answered the "why" question somewhere, FlutterCord would probably be my only issue with this. This episode really is kinda great.

On one hand, this doesn't feel like My Little Pony to me at all. But on the other, this is a really good fanfic, and it has some really smart echoes with earlier parts of the series. If you had to have a big epic battle as your sendoff, drawing back into the myth of Equestria's foundation is probably the right way to do it. More importantly, all of the epic adventure stuff is simply better than it ever has been in the show before. All of Equestria's ponies coming together to save the day kinda comes out of nowhere, but it's also incredibly exciting, not unlike similar scenes in The Lord of the Rings or Avengers: Endgame. The action animation is also leagues above what My Little Pony usually does, and a massive improvement over this same season's premiere; stuff like Rarity straining to conjure up a magical shield is honestly kinda awesome, and Starlight's confrontation with Chrysalis is just plain cool in a way we haven't really seen since the original Tirek battle. This also does a great job of making the villains genuinely threatening, and goes dark in ways that I found genuinely confusing given that this is a kids' show. Were they seriously going to rip Spike's wings off?! That has replaced Starlight's village as the most shockingly dark thing in this entire show, and I love that the villains have that menace while still being kinda silly and hilarious. We never quite got the comic relief villains I thought would be great in this show, but this is great as well. I'm not sure this is what I ever wanted from this show, but it's very well-executed; in its own way, this has the same clockwork precision as something like "Best Gift Ever." If we have to have this sort of thing, it might as well be this good. ...but parts of it feel kinda redundant. The whole strategy of dividing the pony tribes would have been more interesting had season 8 not already devoted a lot of time to racism, though to be fair this episode is a lot less about overcoming prejudice than parts of season 8 were. More importantly, Twilight's whole anxiety that all of her accomplishments were just because Discord helped is hard for me to be invested in. The moral about how sometimes things go wrong is so basic that it seems like something Twilight learns every single time she learns a friendship lesson, and I still don't quite care about Twilight becoming ruler of Equestria. Her greatest accomplishments come from how much she has grown in a person and in what a good friend she has become; all of the times she's saved Equestria are more impressive, but they don't have emotional weight to me, and I'm super annoyed by Twilight considering Flurry Heart to be Equestria's "last hope" because I truly could not care less about the Equestrian line of succession. On some level, it still feels like the writers have fundamentally misunderstood the point of the series, which is also how I feel about Celestia saying what "high hopes" she had for Twilight. On some level that still feels like saying Twilight's friendships were just a means to an end, though the next episode would do a great job countering that implication; I'll discuss the one thing I wish the show had done better there. Otherwise: splendid.