Your bottom Season 5 episodes

[Rocky 68]

Princess Spike was an episode where I asked myself, "You know what, writers? If this is the type of effort you're going to put forth in Spike episodes, why give him episodes at all? Just give him more main support roles. He's at least good at that." 

 

As a lot of people pointed out, this was a scenario where Spike was set up to fail from the beginning. 

[Clarity 3,094]

1. The Cutie Re-mark—By far my most disliked finale thanks to its being more like badly written fanfiction than something that was actually professionally produced. Starlight's backstory and redemption were weak, and the episode in general seems to go all over the place with hardly any regard for plot. Furthermore, Twilight's friends seem to be—once again—shoehorned to the side while Twilight does all the work. I thought the show's title was Friendship is Magic? 

 

2. Slice of Life—It's nice of the staff to give the fans what they wanted, but the fanservice was absolutely overblown. To the point where, once again, it had no sense of a plotline. It seemed intent on pleasing the fandom to the point where good writing was completely thrown out of the window. 

 

3. Make New Friends but Keep Discord—Discord's behavior was clingy enough to border on creepy, and his treatment of people like Spike and the mailpony felt incredibly off. The plot itself wasn't that interesting to me, either.

 

I haven't watched Princess Spike, and thank goodness, judging from the reactions of people... What About Discord, on the other hand, was actually one of my favorite episodes in Season 5. The season in general, though, felt oddly flat to me. It didn't have a concrete storyline, its episodes are dull, and it was concluded with a poorly-written two-parter. 

Edited December 27, 2015 by Clarity

[Wind Chaser 4,767]

1 - "Princess Spike" - No surprise here, it is unchallenged as the worst episode of S5 for me. The entire episode is biased against Spike as a character and fails to reprimand the same selfish behaviors coming from the delegates. Spike takes the unequivocal blame for a problem that others contributed in setting up, and the episode ends with what amounts to a giant F-you to this character's fans when it ends on a joke at his expense. While the other episodes on this list at least had good intentions, this was the only one to completely blow it. Spike's inconsistent characterization was one of the many bad trends that pervaded Season 4. Unfortunately, it seems to have been the only one to have extended into Season 5.

 

2 - "Brotherhooves Social" - We're set up with good intentions; Big Mac finally getting a focus episode (after one was rejected in Season 1) where he tries to bond with Apple Bloom. And he does learn a good lesson in the end. However, the main part of this episode was a single joke that gets old fast, as well as a few statements on gender that were really controversial to say the least.

 

3 - "Tanks for the Memories" - To be honest, this one's more Hasbro's fault than the writers. They proved that they understand the stages of grief and can write an episode about it. However, the fact that a supposedly mature character tears up half the country because she doesn't know about hibernation is really hard to make sense of. I blame this on Hasbro's notoriously squeamish attitude towards dealing with serious subjects. With the way other "issue" episodes turned out, I want to say that I don't blame them, but this episode would have actually been better had it been about an actual death, in which case I say, "trust your writers (for anything but Spike)".

 

4 - "Appleoosa's Most Wanted" - I'll give this episode props for trying to make Trouble Shoes sympathetic, however the "dangerous outlaw" angle seemed more like a gimmick to take advantage of the episode's Western theme. Others have pointed out the problem with the cutie mark in this episode and explained it much better than I have. The biggest flaw is the rushed and wholly insincere finale of the episode. This character truly deserved better than that.

 

5 - "Party Pooped" - To put it short, the Yaks deserved no respect. They were immature caricatures that could have been portrayed in the same role, but in a more believable and less heavy-handed fashion. In addition, this episode could be seen as a sort of slight to critics, but mainly aimed at those who have unrealistic expectations of this show. It's not really that bad, but I have to fill out the list. A good sign that Season 5 is doing way better than Season 4.

[PinkiePie97 913]

The only 2 I didn't really like were Princess Spike and What About Discord. I guess Neal Dusedau's writing style just doesn't work for me.

[Bogrick Grey Mane 2,594]

After watching season 5 all the way through for about the 10th time it is getting increasingly harder to watch 'Slice of Life'.

The whole thing just seems to me to be completely out of character with the season 5 story line. It's almost as if it was a last minute thought to try and plug a few holes in plot lines and character back stories.

I got the feeling that the producers and directors just told the animation team to go and have some fun for the 100th episode.

 

And that 1 inserted frame of them wearing pony heads sort of confirms my suspicions.

And for the few who may not have seen it, here it is

 

 

 

 

[GeekySonic 1,150]

The only episodes I didn't particularly enjoy were Princess Spike, Appleoosa's Most wanted (I think I spelled that wrong), and the Hoofields vs. McColts (I can't be bothered to spell, today). Aside from those, I loved absolutely everything about season 5, and it is by far my favorite.

[Castle Bleck 19,197]

Wasn't too fond of Party Pooped or What About Discord?.

 

Prince Rutherford and co. were just constantly unpleasant (except for maybe at the very end), and not even Discord was able to stop the latter episode from just being 2/3 boring (but at least the intro and the ending were still good).

Edited December 29, 2015 by A.V.

[Stellafera 3,836]

Appaloosa's Most Wanted had the cutie mark crusaders reveal that it's totally fine if your only talent in life is having other people laugh at you... wait, what? Just a depressing episode to me.
 
But I enjoyed this season overall. I'm even of the somewhat unpopular opinion that What About Discord was a great episode with a solid, solid moral (only problem I had was Twilight being a little too Season 2). 
 
There's only one other episode that I really detested. Some were mediocre or had lots of problems with execution of a good concept like Castle Sweet Castle or Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep, but there was only one other episode that truly annoyed me. 
 
One...
 
terrible...
 
episode...
 

I didn't really need another Rainbow Falls but thanks for asking Ms. Lewis and Songco

 

What a terrible misuse of a great pun. The opening was... fine even though Fluttershy's book club seems faintly out of character, but once we got to the bland, bland plot there was no going back. The Hooffields are so pissed that they... are giving the McColts free food by way of cannon launch? It might be unintentional but they're actually helping them! And where the heck are they getting this food? They must not exactly be struggling. And the McColts are on the defense the entire time! What the heck kind of blood feud is this? 

 

The trojan cake also came across as uncreative.

 

Okay, so Twilight's gonna be in the wrong, so how does Fluttershy show that a more intuitive, empathetic approach could win out over Twilight's by-the-book methods? 

 

...

 

She doesn't. She does nothing. She does nothing of value. The entire plot is solved because Fluttershy can speak with animals. Twilight was fricking right; the problem was INSTANTLY solved by figuring out the source of the dispute! Did anybody even learn anything? Why is Twilight's cutie mark flashing? At least Rainbow Dash's friendship influenced Gilda to turn a new leaf! Twilight didn't do anything! 

 

Oh, and this feud is solved now because... it hurt the animals? Why does anybody care about the dang animals! What about the omnipresent food that they keep wasting or the McColts' cutoff from trade? No, everyone sees the light now because

 

I wished I just watched this clip and wasted less time

 

I just watched the back half of this season with DashForever with no fandom reactions influencing my view, so needless to say I was quite taken aback when people disliked What About Discord more than The Hooffields and the McColts. Not to say that that's an invalid viewpoint, just that it's one that never struck me when I was watching the two.

 

To me, even if I were against What About Discord's characterization, it at least has a moral internally consistent with itself. My family's always been full of inside jokes and stuff, so to me, the Mane 5 + Discord are just having some fun with Twilight. Discord's the only one who really pushed it, which makes sense for his character. The others felt kinda bad about how it annoyed Twilight and even played along to try to show the scene of the joke to her despite thinking it was kinda ridiculous.

 

Hooffields and the McColts had a very obvious and cliche moral that it seemed to be building up to, but it delivered it in a really strange and to me incomprehensible way anyhow. That's why it's definitely my least favorite of the season. 

Edited January 1, 2016 by Stellafera

[KatonRyu 1,026]

I'll stick to a top three since there weren't many episodes I didn't like, and even the ones I list here were still enjoyable:

 

3: The Hooffields and McColts. I honestly think Fluttershy's role in the episode wasn't necessary, Twilight could have resolved everything if she'd seen the obvious solution sooner. The 'friendship' aspect was just a bit too forced IMO.

 

2. What About Discord? Twilight should by now know better than to recreate fun in a scientific way. Discord, despite his way of doing things, should've known better than to do this as well.

 

1. Princess Spike. Honestly, Spike is strongest as a supporting character. He's an assistant, and he's suited for that job, but every episode that focuses on him seems to fall apart. This episode was in my opinion the weakest episode by far because the entire plot could easily have been prevented.

[EQ_Theta 427]

Only liked about 1/3rd of season 5. I guess if I had to break down the bottom 5 of the season:

5. The Hooffields and McColts: I'd be honest here, all of the map episodes are weak but this one takes the cake. Uninteresting, oversimplified, and vaguely related resolution to a problem that only needed Twilight to solve, and yet she still looks and sounds like an idiot doing that. 

4. The Cutie Remark: The alternate timelines/futures concept sounded interesting but this served more as a backdrop to showcase how pathetic Starlight is as a villain given her motivations. She wants to remove all individuality because she didn't do anything to mend her friendship with Sunburst so she sets up a town to remove cutie marks. When her plan for that fell apart, she'd destroy the world to simply get revenge on Twilight. It sounds too much like bad fan fiction. And Twilight saying all friendships are important and not just her friendships with the rest of the mane 6 is contradictory to what happened in the episode. It doesn't add up. 

3. Party Pooped: The show has some problems working with jokes that start funny and using that same joke over and over again until it becomes stale. This one had Prince Rutherford smash everything he dislikes to the point where I'd be happy if he smashed Ponyville to bits after the third strike and end the episode right there. It was too repetitive.

 

2. What About Discord?: Discord wasn't funny, everyone else was horribly out of character. I get that the inside joke thing is meant to get Twilight riled up with jealousy but when the rest of the mane 6 start acting like horrible friends... that's where they cross the line. Twilight is the worst offender of that OOC problem since the last thing I'd expect from her was to act immature.  

1. Princess Spike: I'd end up sounding like a broken record by repeating what everyone else has already said about this episode. In short, Spike is given the idiot ball yet again and the whole episode's plot wouldn't happen if he learned his lesson back in the previous seasons.   

Edited January 12, 2016 by EQ_Theta

[gamecubeguy214 2,511]

My least favorite episode would probably be the Hoofields and McColts. Episodes with those kinds of characters really bore the h*** out oh me.

Edited January 11, 2016 by gamecubeguy214

[PiratePony 8,473]

I only have a bottom two. The rest I either fairly enjoyed or love to death. Castle Sweet Castle I've seen about 7 times. 

 

2) What About Discord. What a disapointment. I wanted to love this one, as I am a huge Discord fan, being a fan of his since he pretended to be John DeLancie on Star Trek TNG. It just fell...just short of what could have been awesome. What @@EQ_Theta, mentioned, the friends just...didn't act like friends. Plus the main issue of "your friends can have other friends" was brought up a few episodes before, with Discord as the short end of the stick. 

 

1) Hoofields & McColts. I couldn't stand it. I was amped up because of the pun of a real feud. I've loved Applejack's episodes in the past, and I love countriness (don't tell Rare)...but it fell felt. It didn't feel like a Friendship Is Magic episode to me for whatever reason. Andrea's performance was lacking it seems...she just sounded off. Maybe she didn't like the script either.

 

Honorable mention: I didn't like Tree Hugger at all. (gasp).  

 

Second honorable mention: Slice of Life. Granted, I'm new to the fandom, having started watching the show in April. Without years of context, it didn't make a load of sense. My wife refers to it as "that weird 100th episode." Ironically, my daughter loved it and every time Derpy appears in FIW or EG, she goes "Muffin!" high pitched like in Slice of Life.

 

I like it more since the first time I've watched it, however. And everyone who argues that this isn't a family program and is only a kid's show...you don't see Mickey Mouse have existential crises on Disney Junior. 

 

(sorry mistakenly mentioned wrong member before. Sorry for the false notice.)

Edited January 11, 2016 by PiratePony

[Yarishia 144]

At the moment my bottom S5 episode is "Slice of Life" but this may change when I finish watching a season (I stoped on "Scare Master" episode when it has leaked).

[FlutterDash4072 189]

Wow, I'm surprised this many people hated Slice of Life. I expected to be alone in hating that one.

 

Also, both of the Discord episodes sucked to be honest. As a fan of Discord, that was really disappointing. Of course Princess Spike was pretty terrible, and the season took a nosedive from episodes 19 - 23.

 

Season 5 had a great start and Amending Fences is easily one of the best MLP episodes yet, but overall 5 just wasn't as good as 4.

 

So for now, I'd rank the seasons 4 > 2 > 5 > 1 > 3

Edited January 12, 2016 by FlutterDash4072

[PacificGreen 1,163]

Princess Spike: Despite my new favorite background pony(ies) coming from this episode, it was extremely poorly executed and relied too much on Idiot Plot and the ponies being, as one user called it, a "hive mind for royalty". Kinda feel sorry for the new writer, but yeah, a massively weak moral and ponies not thinking enough for themselves really brought this episode down.

 

Hooffields and McColts: Maybe I've just seen this plot over and over again (including a similar LPS episode), but the whole conflict felt rather clichéd.

 

Party Pooped: The yaks' behavior and the moral coming off as "don't try to show your appreciation for another culture by partaking in their traditions, otherwise you might offend them" brought this one down for me, but like THaTMcC, it wasn't a terrible episode.

 

The rest, for me at least, are either good or are just "not bad but they had some weak points or just don't have a lot of rewatch value to me", like Castle Sweet Castle and The One Where Pinkie Pie Knows. This season in general had a lot of awesome moments and episodes mixed in with some "eh".

[Megas 27,136]

Whelp, might as well

 

5) Made in Manehattan

4) Hoofields and McColts

3) Appleoosa's Most Wanted - All three of them are some of the most boring episodes I've ever seen in the show, some that I'll probably never watch again, and if they disappeared I doubt I'd missed them

2) Cutie Remark - Singlehandedly rekt Starlight Glimmer for me, she from an interesting villain different from what we're used to, to a pathetic shmuck with a laughably bad backstory and the worst "redemption" within recent memory

1) Princess Spike - I don't think I need to elaborate

 

You're lucky I never saw you in it's entirety Slice of Life, other wise you'd probably be on the list

Edited January 12, 2016 by Megas75

[Zantetsuken 364]

5. Princess Spike (Score 6.5/10)
This episode made me cringe. I hate when MLP dose this, but seeing spike take advantage of his 'new role' the way he did was just stupid and cringey as hell to watch.

4. Three's a Crowd What About Discord (Score 6.4/10)

Last time Discord forced a lesson on Twilight for the sake of forcing a lesson on her and filler, it sucked. This time when discord tried to force a lesson on twilight for sake of forcing a lesson on her and filler, it sucked a little less, but still sucked.

3. Appaloosa's Most Wanted (Score 6.0/10)

I just really dislike this episode but I'm not sure why. I boiled it down to the CMC basically knowing way more about cutie marks than they should of, and I didn't like troubleshoes either.

2. Bloom and Gloom (Score 5.2/10)
I wish Josh Haber would write more episodes like the cutie remark but on the other side you have his first episode of the season, Bloom and Gloom. Bloom and Gloom was just a pointless filler episode that I didn't like. I have pretty much the same issue with this episode that I had with Josh's very first episode, Castle Mane-ia, even though Castle Mane-ia was far worse.

1. The one where Pinkie Pie Knows (Score 4.8/10)
More like the one where the writer completely gave up on the title. This episode is complete trash and I am surprised that G.M. Berrow had this as her first episode THIS TRASH! You wanna talk about the low point of season 5? Ok! How about we have an episode where Pinkie Pie, you know Pinkie Pie THE ONE WHO'S LIFE REVOLVES AROUND PLANNING PARTIES AND SURPRISE PARTIES. How about we have an episode where we write Pinkie Pie out of character for a full 22 minutes struggling to keep a secret even though sometimes keeping secrets is PART OF HER JOB. Why, because the plot demands it! A surprise that we are told what it is before the theme even plays making the episode LESS WATCHABLE. I mean seriously how do you fuck up on this scale?! 

Despite these episodes season 5 was my favorite season of MLP and I hope Season 6 turns out even better. 

Edited January 12, 2016 by Zantetsuken

[Riganthor 484]

princess spike and the discord episodes where just no fun this season but that said there where more episodes i liked this season then previous season.

[Twireadbok 142]

Wow, whats with all the hate for Princess Spike? It was ok, not great, but not terrible either. 

 

For me their are two episodes that I will never watch again from this season, and they are:

 

1. Tanks for the Memories - the best thing about this episode is the title, (Green Day is cool), every thing else about is shit. The plot is dumb and Rainbow's characterization is butchered in order to make the plot work. 

 

2. Hooffields and McColts - Cliche, forgettable and predictable. And I was disappointed that there wasn't a romantic subplot like there is supposed to be in this kind of story, but that's unrelated to how boring the episode was. 

 

I'm totally cool with all the other episodes, I like some more than others yes, but these are the only two I can comfortably say I dislike. 

Edited February 29, 2016 by Twireadbok

[PacificGreen 1,163]

Wow, whats with all the hate for Princess Spike? It was ok, not good, but not terrible either. 

 

I've been reading others' opinions on Princess Spike, and it basically boils down to a poorly-executed moral, too many contrivances, the characters (to put it blunty) acting pretty stupid, too many plot holes (like where were the other princesses?), and it being another "Spike screws everything up" episode. I can say that I agree with most of this. Almost every other episode, I can find something redeeming about it, but for this one, pretty much the only redeeming factor I found was the new background ponies.

 

I'm okay with Tanks for the Memories- not the worst, but far from being one of my favorites- and, while I will agree that H&M (Hooffields and McColts, not the Swedish clothing store) was a little cliche, it was nice to see another map episode and hillbilly characters.

[cuteycindyhoney 13,284]

I flat out didn't like "Party Pooped". I think Twilight should have advised Princess Celestia to sever all diplomatic ties to those Yak jerks!

[Dark Qiviut 22,192]

1. Princess Spike: The second-worst-written episode in all of FIM (only Rainbow Falls is worse, and it ain't close). Overall, the sixth-worst FIM episode, only behind Rainbow Falls, The Crystal Empire, Dragon Quest, Bridle Gossip, and One Bad Apple.
2. Appleoosa's Most Wanted: So many things went wrong. The CMC were out of character. Appleoosa was incredibly mean-spirited; they not only shunned Troubleshoes, but also created the rumor of him being a wanted criminal in the first place. The comedy was terrible; seriously, you treat the falling pyramid as life-or-death, and then you try to treat it as humor? Lastly, Troubleshoes wants to be taken seriously, but the climax plays him off as a joke.
3. What About Discord?: The entire conflict would've been resolved if the ReMane Five didn't act like a Lesson Zero ripoff. Twilight had every right to feel frustrated and suspicious. Then for Discord to turn it all around and make her exclusion intentional was completely out of character of him given the circumstances of his development. A lot of pop culture references exist, but they stop being funny and instead become cringeworthy.
4. Tanks for the Memeories: One word: frustrating. Frustrated over Dash's terrible characterization, behavior, and ability to get away with no written punishment. Frustrated over the episode exploits the five stages of grief and the theme of death over a situation where a death allegory shouldn't be applied. Frustrated with how one line early in the episode ("Our first winter together") disregarded past events and broke the plot.
5. The Hooffields and McColts: The whole episode trivializes the past of both the Hatfields and McCoys. The start of the feud sounds trivial in context, but many lives were lost from it. Instead, the parody plays it off squarely out of humor. Treat the parody with some level of respect. Secondly, both sides are rural southern stereotypes in look, personalities, logic, and intelligence. Like What About Discord, a great moral was lost by how poorly written it was.

This list is outdated. Time for an update.

1. Princess Spike: Hasn't changed. Still singlehandedly the worst-written S5 episode and second-worst-written overall behind Rainbow Falls.
2. Appleoosa's Most Wanted: Hasn't changed here, either.
3. What About Discord?: Still hasn't changed. Gained extra dislike for it for the reasons explained, especially Discord's out-of-character jerk move at the end.
4. Brotherhooves Social: Tanks for the Memories is no longer there anymore. Do I still feel the episode should rot? Hell, yeah! But when you think about it, is it that bad objectively? No.

    

   Now Brotherhooves Social is BS, especially in its handling of the "Man in a Dress" trope. There are other flaws, including how pointless the whole angle was (ruining the last scene consequentially), Apple Bloom's characterization early, and the very mean-spirited atmosphere in the Social. But the big flaw is the execution of Big Mac's disguise and unfortunate implications behind it.

    

   The "man in a dress" trope centers a lot on how a man who wears a dress or in any form of drag is played for us to laugh at him. Often, media will use this trope to bash transwomen or men who feel comfortable wearing "female-centric" clothes, like skirts, dresses, and heels. To use this trope as a joke reinforces gender roles, including the idea that men should never wear these clothes (especially dresses, which were once commonly worn by men and boys until sometime in the 20th Century).

    

   Why is this trope harmful to transwomen? Transpeople struggle to be looked at as people like you and I for so many reasons. One of them is how gender roles are forced upon them; for transwomen especially, even though they identify as female, transphobes speak about and to them with the male pronoun. This blatant transphobia shoves transwomen, transmen, and nonbinary people like genderqueer, agender, bigender, and genderfluid deeper into the closet by shoving gender roles down their gullets. Transgender people want to express the way they want it, but society forces them to struggle. Now add the fact that many transpeople depend on reassignment surgery to actually save their lives. Gender identity and gender expression can determine life or death. Transpeople in general are very sensitive to the trope for a reason.

    

   In a co-review with the rest of the MBS show, Silver-Quill suggests that this episode feels a lot more like a parody of gender stereotypes. He makes a good point, because a lot of jokes seem to stem from making fun of our expectations of masculinity and femininity. But that message is lost for several reasons.

    

   a. Several times, Big Mac's cover was blown through stereotypes. To cover his low, quiet, booming voice, BM uses a high-pitched falsetto, lady-centric poses/phrases like tight lips and "powder your nose," flicking the back of his overly exaggerated wig, and "feminine" poses. But they were revealed by how bad his disguise was, including the reveal of his Adam's Apple during "Sisterhood."

    

   b. "But don't think me and Scootaloo are gonna take it easy on you just 'cause you're a stallion." Do you think it's okay for anyone to tell a girl this sexist line, "Don't think I'll take it easy on you 'cause you're a girl?" No. If it ain't okay for one side, it ain't okay for the other, period.

    

   c. So many jokes stem from the fact that Big Mac was a stallion in drag. His overexaggerated disguise was a joke to make the audience cringe and laugh. His falsetto voice is to make a cringe-backed joke. How his Adam's Apple exposes his disguise is a blatant grossout joke. While everyone wasn't fooled, one elderly stallion was, and that was treated as a joke.

    

   Do you see why a lot of people might take offense to it? The two biggest flaws in the "man-in-a-dress" jokes are they rely plenty on cringe comedy (which is very difficult to execute because the audience needs to be less grossed out than the characters) and often fall prey to transphobic stereotypes. This isn't like SJWs/soccer moms who want Derpy's name, voice, eyes, and overall character censored in The Last Roundup and for the rest of FIM. Genuine unfortunate implications exist. So many of these jokes have been used by other programs to bash transpeople.

    

   Now, were Polsky and the rest of DHX trying to actually attack anyone? No.

    

   But intention doesn't equal results. This show has a reputation to overlook unfortunate implications in their actions and dialogue before. If this was a parody to poke fun at misandric and misogynistic stereotypes, it doesn't feel like one.

5. The Hooffields and McColts: Again, hasn't changed. And it has perhaps some of the worst dialogue last season.

[Metemponychosis 1,238]

So... Opinions... Personal and self-absorbed opinions up next... If it wasn't for the simple fact that we're still getting great episodes, I'd question the writers' collective ability to do anything with the show anymore. (or at least my ability to like it...)

 

- Appleloosa's Most Wanted - I don't like Trouble Shoes and this episode has a very mean tone I don't like. I didn't think it was funny. Just mean spirited with the message it was trying to show. It almost felt like a bully trying to justify himself.

 

- Make New Friends But Keep Discord - The episode is cluttered with unnecessary crap when all it really needed was Fluttershy, Tree hugger and Discord drinking tea. Let's be honest. This episode existed only to provide to the Discord fan base. Celestia, as usual, gets caught in the crossfire. (it wouldn't be me if I didn't complain about this...)

 

- Princess Spike - It exists.

 

- Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep - It came too late in the series, in a time where I'm tired of seeing Luna's face AND the whole "oh poor me" routine. ... Grow the F up, Luna!

 

- Brotherhooves Social - It was an excuse for the last three minutes, with a weird, confused twist, that really wasn't a twist.

 

- The One Where Pinkie Pie Knows - This episode springs a surprise in the beginning, and them does nothing more than repeat a tired joke over and over.

 

- What About Discord - BORING. DISCORD. EPISODE. These words should never be allowed in the same sentence. Discord's only reason to exist in the show right now is to entertain... You're doing something wrong if he isn't.

 

- The Hooffields and the McColts - The backstory doesn't give them reason to fight because it fails to provide actual need for them to fight: there was enough space and what they wanted to do wasn't necessarily exclusive between them. The whole episode is a botched attempt at... Ripping off an actual story?? Who greenlit this shit?

 

- The Cutie Re-Mark - A mess of "cool stuff" that tries to do too much with too little time and manages to not do any of them right. It was lazy, pandering, underwhelming and obnoxious.

[Unlikeable Pony 2,698]

Appaloosa's Most Wanted had the cutie mark crusaders reveal that it's totally fine if your only talent in life is having other people laugh at you... wait, what? Just a depressing episode to me.

 

But I enjoyed this season overall. I'm even of the somewhat unpopular opinion that What About Discord was a great episode with a solid, solid moral (only problem I had was Twilight being a little too Season 2). 

 

There's only one other episode that I really detested. Some were mediocre or had lots of problems with execution of a good concept like Castle Sweet Castle or Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep, but there was only one other episode that truly annoyed me. 

 

One...

 

terrible...

 

episode...

 

I didn't really need another Rainbow Falls but thanks for asking Ms. Lewis and Songco

 

What a terrible misuse of a great pun. The opening was... fine even though Fluttershy's book club seems faintly out of character, but once we got to the bland, bland plot there was no going back. The Hooffields are so pissed that they... are giving the McColts free food by way of cannon launch? It might be unintentional but they're actually helping them! And where the heck are they getting this food? They must not exactly be struggling. And the McColts are on the defense the entire time! What the heck kind of blood feud is this? 

 

The trojan cake also came across as uncreative.

 

Okay, so Twilight's gonna be in the wrong, so how does Fluttershy show that a more intuitive, empathetic approach could win out over Twilight's by-the-book methods? 

 

...

 

She doesn't. She does nothing. She does nothing of value. The entire plot is solved because Fluttershy can speak with animals. Twilight was fricking right; the problem was INSTANTLY solved by figuring out the source of the dispute! Did anybody even learn anything? Why is Twilight's cutie mark flashing? At least Rainbow Dash's friendship influenced Gilda to turn a new leaf! Twilight didn't do anything! 

 

Oh, and this feud is solved now because... it hurt the animals? Why does anybody care about the dang animals! What about the omnipresent food that they keep wasting or the McColts' cutoff from trade? No, everyone sees the light now because

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVOuMZ7ieBA

I wished I just watched this clip and wasted less time

 

I just watched the back half of this season with DashForever with no fandom reactions influencing my view, so needless to say I was quite taken aback when people disliked What About Discord more than The Hooffields and the McColts. Not to say that that's an invalid viewpoint, just that it's one that never struck me when I was watching the two.

 

To me, even if I were against What About Discord's characterization, it at least has a moral internally consistent with itself. My family's always been full of inside jokes and stuff, so to me, the Mane 5 + Discord are just having some fun with Twilight. Discord's the only one who really pushed it, which makes sense for his character. The others felt kinda bad about how it annoyed Twilight and even played along to try to show the scene of the joke to her despite thinking it was kinda ridiculous.

 

Hooffields and the McColts had a very obvious and cliche moral that it seemed to be building up to, but it delivered it in a really strange and to me incomprehensible way anyhow. That's why it's definitely my least favorite of the season. 

 

 

 

This is going to sound like i'm horribly biased against twilight, but I honestly kind of blame the episode's problem on it being a twilight friendship problem. She's so god mode hax at this point that its hard for the writers to use her in an episode with a problem that's believable for her.

 

You pointed out that the problem was solved by getting to the root of what caused the problem like twilight originally said, but that Fluttershy solved it by speaking to animals. Which is kind of true; the writers had to find a way for twilight to be unable to solve the problem solo while having a role for fluttershy, and talking to animals about about the only thing they could think of.

 

 

 

Look at the other 2 map episodes: The characters SPECIFICALLY point out that twilight would just godmode fix the problem if she were there, outright admitting the issue of having twilight at her current level of power for problems. She could have fixed up the stage in a snap with her magic and she could probably have gotten that idol too via teleportation or a number of her spells.

 

Its just kind of hard for them to write a compelling problem for twilight at this point without having it be a God level issue.

[duidamasterXD 9,626]

All this hate for Tanks for the Memories and What About Discord tho

 

For my least faves, in no particular order:

 

Appleoosa's Most Wanted, for being incredibly depressing and having little in the way of redeeming features.

 

Princess Spike, because it was pretty clear where the episode was headed after only a few minutes. This isn't necessarily a bad thing in and of itself, but waiting twenty minutes for everything to blow up in Spike's face wasn't terribly fun.

 

Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep. This episode should've been depressing, and it sort of was, but all the memes and randomness in the second half of the episode threw the tone way out of whack. Not opposed to pandering and silliness in general, but there's a time and a place for it. The climax of an episode dealing with self-loathing/self-harm is... not the time or place.

 

Canterlot Boutique, which isn't even a bad episode. It just felt like a less-good remake of Suited for Success.

 

The Hooffields and the McColts, for the same reasons Stellafera wrote about above.

 

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For me, blandness is the cardinal sin an episode can commit. There're other highly flawed episodes (Brotherhooves Social, Make New Friends But Keep Discord, Tanks for the Memories, probably others) that I didn't mention, because they had some kind of redeeming feature that ultimately made me glad I watched em. I'm willing to overlook any number of flaws so long as my verdict at the end of the episode isn't "I want those twenty minutes of my life back."