S06:E24 - Top Bolt

[FizzyGreen 909]

Yes. Actually i thought it was a 4/5 for me but no. It really is a 5/5.

 

I watched it at the CMC Clubhouse, it was nice there

But actually, over there i voted 4/5 

 

Anyways, yes. This is what i consider a "perfect episode" *cough* of course, i mean a really good one where i cannot say that i found anything "bad" or "not so good" even in the slightest.

The only thing i hated was Skies ego. 

 

But no, Spitfire was pretty awesome and funny and overall awesome.

The episode started off in a way i somehow love. <3 Like casual "Yeah, RD has been doing something till now off screen." I dunno it makes everything seem more alive.

Flight Theory, and i love theory

Side characters got a little screen time (like i dunno, what was her name? Angel?)

Vapor super cute character, visually and from her personality. She has been characterized throughout the episode. Loved that <3

OMG... the writers did so much shipping references in this episode ooh ho ho hoo <3

They were both REALLY cute together 

And it all didn't feel rushed 

btw i think i can safely assume that this is not "only" friendship between them. Friendship, too, but a reallly strong one. Not love though.

 

 

Even though you COULD say it's all Vapors fault, that is pretty much true. But the reason, i don't care about it, is because she learned from it. 

Me and my best friend had that kind of friendship problem. Well, not exactly.

But he was a pretty big jerk and he always brought me down and made me feel bad about myself. But buckin' if i let someone with insecurities and a fake ego bring me down, by not saying anything and making him think he can do whatever he wants, then that is also kind of my fault, if there comes no input from me.

If a ball is about to hit you, you can decide whether to deflect it and stand tall or take the hit and fall to the ground.

[weesh 690]

You're all gonna be surprised by this but I despised Vapor Trails way more than Sky Stinger in this episode. Someone being egotistical is annoying yes but there is NOTHING worse than an enabler. It's like parenting. It's not the child's fault they have a ridiculous ego and behave poorly it is the parent's fault for not raising their children right. The same principle applies to Vapor enabling Sky skills as a flyer. Sky's behavior was excusable to be honest. When someone is blinded by so much winning they can get pretty arrogant when they don't realize they've been doped by their partner. But for the partner to just sit back and watch their best friend continue to boast without a second thought. To not once think that maybe I should confess. Ignorance is bliss to the receiver and annoying to the viewer, BUT permissive modeling is toxic to the mind of the reciever and leads into lies that will indefinitely ruin a relationship forever.

 

Philosophically, I very much agree with you.

But there is a big difference between vapor and the stereotypical enabler, who cannot be dissuaded. 

Vapor, when confronted, could eventually be convinced to come clean, and to fix the broken relationship and find a healthy way to relate to her friend.

I'd have found this episode very painful if she had dug in her heals, and had had not grown.

However, the willingness of the show to portray something very wrong, but then fix it, is satisfying and interesting to me.  

 

Similarly, I found the hazing of rainbow dash at the academy very hard to watch, but if they had addressed and fixed it, i'd have been fine with it.  

[Thaliel 116]

Loved Vapor, she has a great design and likeable character

[PonyMage 228]

 

 

 

 

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!!!   

I knew there was something "off" about her. I assumed it was because she was played by a well-known guest star VA which she was modeled after. This is cool to hear.

That aside I loved this episode and both of the new characters, especially Vapor. Also they really nailed what it's like to have over attentive parents, even if it's just because you're the youngest child, not single.

[Allen 1,387]

I call it "Mission Success!" for both Princess Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash for completing their cutie map mission! They helped Vapor Trail and Sky Stinger how to get into Wonderbolt Academy is by practicing what Wonderbolts do, I say "practice gets better"!  Also, at the ending part, Rainbow Dash just faint out, and Princess Twilight Sparkle laughs is more like a funny part!   So, this is an "awesome" episode! 

[Chuckles4lyfe 441]

Great, Great, Great, Great, Great episode!!!!! I absolutely love the T-Sparks & Dashinator pair up (great nicknames Dashie ). We haven't seen it since S4's Testing Testing 1,2,3 (my all time favorite episode btw  :-P). I guess you can say I have a slight bias going into Top Bolt  . They just have great chemistry and bounce off of each other so well. No wonder why people ship them so much (I myself am not included in that group, no siree  ).

 

Now that I got my dose of TwiDash off my chest, let's dive into why this episode is a 9.5/10:

• Great showing for the Wonderbolts. We get to see them in a positive light unlike their last appearance, and it was so refreshing. Seeing Spitfire go back and forth between sergeant and normal speaking voice was a joy to my ears. It was also great to see continuity callbacks to Wonderbolts Academy. 
• Vapor Trail was the best new character in the episode. She was just so adorable (her sneeze was also the cutest sound to ever come out of a characters mouth since the famous Fluttershy squee ).  
• The only thing holding Top Bolt back from a perfect 10 is Sky Stinger. I felt his cockiness was played up too much for my liking. I would have liked him to resolve his problem earlier in the episode, but that is just a minor nitpick in an otherwise outstanding outing for Lewis & Songco.

Overall, a very enjoyable episode that deserves all of the praise that it gets. The penultimate episode before the finale sure did not disappoint. Here's to more Twi-Dash pair ups in future episodes    .

[OtakuBrony 349]

Howdy all!

 

Loved this episode with Twilight & Dashie

Not since Testing Testing 123 the 2 were hilarious as a team.

 

Lewis & Songco did a superb job writing.

 

Liked Rhona Rees as Vapor Trail

While Emmett Hall did pretty good as Sky Stinger.

 

Alexis Heule was funny as Angel Wings.

 

Hope the writers bring back VP & SS in a future episode in Season 7.

(Same with AW)

 

See ya!

[Truffles 2,033]

I'm travelling so I missed the actual broadcast even though I saw the leaked version. If it shows up online without getting yanked after a few minutes, I'll have more to say. Otherwise I won't be doing any detailed comments until I return home and can see it on my DVR.

 

What I will say for now is the episode gets bonus points for actually showing Starlight (and Spike as well) exist at the castle in an episode where they don't have a speaking role, instead of leaving them sequestered away for no apparent reason. I wish more episodes would do this - with all of the main characters.

Edited October 16, 2016 by Truffles

[takai 1,060]

Another good episode this week. Vapor was cute, and honestly I liked Sky's backstory. It was genuinely believable and not cheesy, like some other characters whose back stories have been pretty bad.

 

I don't think I'm the only one who thought Spitfire's voice sounded a little different. Please replicate the original actor as best you can, because she was great.

 

The story behind Angel Wings is really great. It looks like the young girl will forever be apart of MLP, which I think is a wonderful thing. Her character was pretty cute!

 

Pretty fun episode, especially Twilight's smile.

[Wind Chaser 4,768]

It's alright. Rainbow Dash and Twilight were decent and it's fine to see Rainbow Dash putting her Wonderbolt role to good use. The new characters, however, were underwhelming to me. Vapor Trail was strong in skill but weak in will. Sky Stinger is Zephyr Breeze II; another character who compensates for an overwhelming fear with an insufferably anti-social and egotistical attitude that makes 75% of ponies within a 5-mile radius want to promptly deck him. I'll give them props for doing another Make-a-Wish pony as well.

 

A fitting way to cap Season 6's regular episodes. I don't hate this episode, but the good and bad in it offset. It pretty much sums up what I think of the bulk of this season.

 

Edited October 16, 2016 by Wind Chaser

[Luminance 2,186]

Weird seeing Twilight flying so much in this episode after not being shown to fly for the most of the season.

 

Otherwise good map pairing, good new characters, good moral and a good episode.

[weesh 690]

Weird seeing Twilight flying so much in this episode after not being shown to fly for the most of the season.

 

Otherwise good map pairing, good new characters, good moral and a good episode.

 

it wasn't tricky though...it was mostly utility flying since she was at the wonderbolt academy...but yeah, her flying is far less chaotic...she's getting better.

[CaptainDoubloon 856]

I enjoyed today's episode. I don't have a particular favorite moment but it was nice to see Twilight getting nerdy about teaching.

[Storm 199]

The shippers are going to have a field day with this episode.

I confirm this I was shipping very hard

[VengefulStrudel 1,486]

Yay, a Twidash episode! I forgot how much I like this pairing. Their chemistry in the class scene pretty much sums it up for me, I love the dynamic between this duo.

 

Really enjoyed this one! Kind of surprised that I did, Wonderbolt episodes haven't exactly been my favorites so far. Looking forward to rewatching it in the future one day.

 

Also, Spitfire sure loves to yell~

[weesh 690]

 Spitfire sure loves to yell~

 

it seems a little like she likes being mean, more than she likes trying to improve others.

[Ganondorf8 11,301]

I was quite impressed with this episode! I really enjoyed the writing and the overall story- as I thought it was paced well. I am a big fan of Vapor Trail's design and I will be watching this one again in the future for sure.

 

Her personality reminded me a little bit of Fluttershy--particularly the part where she sneezes softly--in that she comes off as a little shy and not wanting to talk all that much, but she quickly stood out on her own as being a pony who was conflicted over how she was being an enabler of sorts with Sky Stinger.

[Justin_Case001 4,888]

Once again, like last week, it wasn't bad, but it wasn't the episode I was hoping for, either.

 

Ever since Dashie's grand becoming-a-bolt episode was so badly tarnished, I've been hoping for some kind of restitution.  I mean, not to get off track here, but I think there's a solid case for Newbie Dash being one of the series' worst.  What made it so hard to stomach was that it wasn't a throw away episode that we could chuck and forget.  It was a monumental milestone that I wasn't sure we'd ever get, and it was completely sullied.  We badly needed Rainbow being a bolt in a good episode.  We needed it, and Rainbow deserved it.  I guess what I was hoping for with Top Bolt was to see Rainbow performing and flying as a Wonderbolt, y'know, really coming into her own, performing in an aerial show and not blowing it, you know, that sort of thing.  I guess what I really wanted was Newbie Dash Take II.

 

But what we got really wasn't bad at all.  I always hate the damn cutie map and its forced summons, but I really liked the Twilight-Rainbow paring.  I don't recall having too much of them as costars, and they were great.  I found myself thinking about how Rainbow and Twilight didn't really seem like legitimate one-on-one friends early on in the show, and Rainbow mostly took to picking on Twilight for being a nerd.  Oh sure, they had their group dynamic, but I felt like Rainbow perhaps didn't truly respect Twilight all that much in season 1.  They've grown a lot, and although Rainbow can still tease Twilight, I was happy to see them having a great one-on-one friendship.  I feel like of all the possible parings, Rainbow and Twi might have the least in common, and be the least likely to spend time together, which is why I really loved the interaction between them today.  Of course, it would have been better without that stupid map, but oh well.  At least Rainbow was super excited about spending time at the castle catching up on DD with Twi.

 

The story was good, Sky and Vapor were good characters, and the characterization was very good.  It was fun to see Rainbow being a big shot around the newbies (though I'm really glad that they didn't overshadow the story by having her act arrogant or anything).  Twilight was especially adorable throughout the whole episode.  Even Spitfire was good today.  It wasn't what I was hoping for, but you know what?--It was well written, the characters weren't out of character, Twi and RD were pretty mature, and Spitfire wasn't an incompetent, immature jackass.  I'm pretty happy.

 

And the best part?  T-SPARKS.  Omg, I'm never calling her anything else, ever again.  T-Sparks, that is just hilarious and brilliant.  I love it.  I absolutely love it.

[Tarnation 142]

All the newest Wonderbolt trainees have the best designs

[TheWhiteBowser 187]

it seems a little like she likes being mean, more than she likes trying to improve others.

Now I wouldn't go as far as to say that. If you've ever met a drill instructor or even a head coach you'd know that they only behave the way they do because 1. It relieves stress 2. It improves their students to deal with harder more-life threatening situations.

I've never found Spitfire to be intolerable in the past 2 seasons. Granted seasons 1-4 it seemed like the show just didn't know how to write the wonderbolts. But in the past 2 seasons the wonderbolts have really improved as likable characters. Plus you have to understand it's technically the military. And Spitfire is NOTHING compared to a REAL drill sergant. Give her some slack.

[weesh 690]

.... It improves their students to deal with harder more-life threatening situations....Plus you have to understand it's technically the military....

 

huh.

if I could be convinced that the wonderbolts were a military organization, I'd do a 180 and be ok with it.

 

but at this time, all the military stuff seems to be window dressing.  what life threatening things are the wonderbolts expected to deal with?

[TheWhiteBowser 187]

 

 

but at this time, all the military stuff seems to be window dressing.  what life threatening things are the wonderbolts expected to deal with?

Huh... That's... Not a bad point... o_o

[GrimGrimoire 4,973]

huh.

if I could be convinced that the wonderbolts were a military organization, I'd do a 180 and be ok with it.

 

but at this time, all the military stuff seems to be window dressing.  what life threatening things are the wonderbolts expected to deal with?

 

Not sure if they could ever be called military or anything of the sort, (they are shown in episodes to be mobilized to react to dangerous situations but that is a whole other discussion)  but they DO deal with dangerous situations. All the acrobatics and stunt flying they do takes practice and extreme concentration and coordination. Both their own well being and those watching them could be on the line if you have somepony not paying attention, not taking it all seriously, or show boating instead of sticking to the routine. Groups in similar situations here go through just as rough an instructor/coach if not more in some cases.

[Jonny Music 3,408]

I thought this episode was great. Those expressions on Twi's and RD's faces tho! The type of cartoonish look that I really like to see sometimes.

[Redhatbrony 59]

I have finished my review right now.

I love the shipping material, it's really cute.

And oh we get finally a nice poll to use mathematic and Spitfire to make a hinch for the flightspeed of pegasi.

Enjoy my review.

https://youtu.be/4NBQNWLrvp8