Ganondox

Devin Townsend as some crazy pony.

The issue I see with this reasoning is that Rainbow Dash's job is more similar to cheerleading than it is to a competitive sport.

I think this episode was the perfect way to resolve Spike's crush. He just gets over it on his own, but the dynamics are flipped so Rarity becomes the jealous one without being creepy. We then seen Spike form a much less problematic friendship with Gabby, and if there is any romance it's based on understanding each other rather than just attraction, and we see Rarity's friendship with Spike evolve into a non-toxic form.

The odd thing is that in an early episode we saw Fluttershy feeding fish to otters.

The description of the episode is extremely misleading. It’s the same theme as Royal Problem, but this time it’s Angel and Fluttershy and the entire bodies were switched, not just the cutie marks. I was pleasantly surprised, this episode ended up being a lot of fun. Angel is a lovable jerk, and the line about Discord cracked me up. Poor Fluttershy though.

Huh, I'm guessing it's the same thing as the Italian release for the last half where subbed was an option on the streaming service. Well, I guess I'll use this next week to catch up with China in time for whatever Australia does.

It's an important episode for sure, though I would only call it good, not great. One thing I noticed is that this episode has a lot of callbacks to previous episodes in the season: Sparkle's Seven, Frenemies, Between Dark and Dawn, and A Trivial Pursuit. Main issue I have with the episode is just the whole character growth thing was forced too hard, they should have done it gradually rather than just suddenly have Twilight get over it here and the lampshading is excessive, but that's how the show works. The odd thing is that back in the earlier seasons there actually was signs that she was gradually getting over it (breathing techniques), but apparently they forgot about all of that and just decided Twilighting was too fun. Still, Twilight keeping her cool in a very freakout worthy situation is an important moment now that they had it, for the first time Twilight actually feels ready to rule. I do like how they used it to shift the bad decision making to the mane 5 and have them learn their lesson, poor Applejack was already right like usual but no one listens to here. The other thing is just that the actual events on the mane 6 side weren't particularly interesting, it just felt like take two at the sideplot in Between Dark and Dawn. My main source of entertainment was following the villain trio, always good to see them again. Nice to see that they've continued operating as a functional unit, and seem to still like each other.

Thanks. So does this mean Episode 22 is already out?

I know China has been ahead of the US for awhile, but I just heard Australia going to get to the finale before the US, and that is more potent to me because I’m assuming it’s English language while the Chinese is not. Does anyone know what the schedule is and how far it’s currently at? Spoilers are going to be an absolute minefield, and I want to stay ahead of it.

This was a fun episode. The rules of the game were pretty asinine from a game design standpoint (given a new team could be formed at any time, Twilight could have held out the first round with a mutually chosen partner and they could have joined together, avoiding the whole selection problem), but they did make for some pretty entertaining events, especially when combined with the character dynamics. The rule book fills like it was put together ad-hoc in response to specific complaints given while playing the game in the past, which may have been alluded to when Twilight requested to make a new rule specifically to bar Maud and Mudbriar. I really liked just getting a silly episode that worked with the character, and I appreciated how they didn't reveal a winner at the end because it really doesn't matter.

Why is there two buckball episodes this season? They should have spread them out more. Better yet, they should have just not done this episode at all, because it's the last season, and there is much ideas they could have explored rather than wasting an episode on this. Not only is it by far the worst buckball episode, but it's completely pointless. It's mildly entertaining, but it's not anything anyone wanted. I liked the design of the dancer ponies and their jump was pretty cool, but there is too many annoying valley girl stereotypes as it is. While a bit exaggerated, I don't find her reaction out of character for being assigned to do something she has zero interest in (one thing I do like is how they portrayed it as Rainbow Dash thinking she was being helpful with her minimal effort), but as other people have pointed out, it makes zero sense that she doesn't understand the function of a cheer leading squad as there is some many episodes with Dash and cheering, and that the pick makes sense in that The Wonderbolts and Cheerleading are both based around choreographed routines. The real issue I had was with the climax and how Rainbow Dash made her decision. She didn't appear to be affected by hurting the student six in the slightest, she didn't appear to labor at all over what she should do in response to her failure, it looked like she was just doing another scheme like earlier, and then her apology really didn't come across as very sincere. It just wasn't executed very well. All that struggle wasn't even for an interesting moral, it's basically the same general idea as Maud Pie's moral, only that one has real weight for why they needed to be invested rather than it just being contrived. All that build up didn't even lead up to a good cheer routine, though I appreciate that Yona got her pyramid at the end. Finally, if anyone was out of character, it was Twilight. She wouldn't risk anything on Batman gambit just to teach a lesson. Celestia would, but not Twilight, Princess of Friendship or not.

I actually liked this on more than Pinkie Pride, which was more a collection of songs than a coherent story. Weird Al can do serious roles well, he just keeps getting type casted. The actual gags in the episode were underwhelming, but Pinkie just being Pinkie was very funny, definitely one of her better characterizations. I also liked the Sans Smile guy, glad they didn't make him a villain.

And my point still stands that it wouldn’t have any impact on the budget as they still need to color everything.

It wasn’t actually in grayscale, the colors were just desaturated. That’s what made the episode visually impressive, and I think it would have taken as much time to produce as full color would.

I was iffy at first, I guess something about the animation style was throwing me off, but I ended up really liking it before long. The one thing that is keeping me from calling it great is that once the conflict is introduced the episode stays at a relaxed pace throughout, which causes it to just kinda fizzle out rather than having a real climax or anything. There isn't necessarily anything wrong with this and I think it fits with the moral of the episode, but it's not something most viewers find particularly entertaining. The issue has nothing to do with dragging things out due to a longer writing, if anything it would actually take MORE run time to fix the problem as the actual issue is a lack of events that build up tension. They did use all the time efficently, it was just devoted to building up characters rather than building up the conflict. There was just no stakes, it just an exploration where the problem was solved incrementally. It reminded me a lot of certain adventure games like Kings Quest in that regard, except there was no final challenge to cap it off when the different threads recombine, just a celebration. That being said, I was surprised to learn who wrote this, as this is by far the best thing she's written, overall I really enjoyed it. I guess that one thing that marked her as writing it was I disagreed with some of her characterization interpretations for the existing characters, which is common with her.

I really don't have much to say about this episode. Conceptually, this episode is an important milestone, especially for Twilight. In terms of content, we got two complete but not particularly interesting plots that were pretty much completely disconnected from each other. The sole driving force of this episode were the interactions between the sisters, which was at times hilarious and touching at others, but it's become expected at this point. For me personally, what I liked the most was seeing Fancy Pants have a real role.

I found this to be a very strong conclusion to the CMC arc, and in the context of the show I didn't find the ending to be unrealistic. Afterall, Scootaloo was already living without her parents for years, it's not the same as most instances were kids are forced to move because of their parent's job. The most confusing thing there was not that they all made it work in the end, but why the Aunts didn't move earlier! That whole arrangement was kinda screwy. However, I am in the party that believes it would have been better if Scootaloo did move away in the end. I knew they would never actually do it, but they could have, it's the final season so they don't need to maintain status quo! While her parent's had rushed everything and really should have told Scootaloo about their plans earlier, they did make some really good points despite being the antagonists in the episode, and we could have gotten a good moral about the CMC enduring despite being separated geographically. Instead, we are given a completely unrelatable conclusion to an otherwise relatable conflict (I personally have been transplanted due to a job change much further than Scootaloo would have been, being able to visit once a month is almost laughably fortunate). As some other people have pointed out, the moral for this episode may actually be harmful, as it justifies tantrums, which is a shame because in the context of the episode it actually worked, it just doesn't generalize well. Then there was the part where Scootaloo said her parents were forcing her to choose between her friends and family, but they weren't: they never gave her a choice, and Scootaloo never had to make a choice because she decided instantly that she would rather stay in Ponyville. She never even considered the possibility that they could make things work with her moving, and they could have. People do. There was a lot I liked about this episode, but I'm really disappointed that they didn't take the risk. One thing I got to mention since no one else did is that this episode implied it's because her aunts don't actually live in Ponyville so they were limited in how supportive they could be, but yeah, your explanation is better.

This was a good episode. First, we get more Trixie sass, but for once she's actually in the right. The conflict is complicated, but Starlight Glimmer shouldn't make promises she shouldn't keep. This episode was so funny, there was so many jokes that had me laughing. They really weren't great jokes by themselves, but they just worked so well in context. Maud in particular was absolutely killing it. Mudbrair was used effectively here, he's still learning to control his tendencies but he also comes across as genuinely caring and it's making a bit more sense why Maud likes him. Finally, this episode had a genuinely complex conflict, and I found they found a satisfactory resolution to it. Definitely one of my favorite's this season, though I don't know if it beats out Frenemies. Funny how it's the episodes that focus on side character's that I liked more.