(Song Used: The Way - Fastball)

By the end of this part we will have reached the halfway point of this list! The first 56 episodes will have been covered with another 56 to go. We’re finally rising up the ranks where we’ll be getting close to the really good stuff

(BTW I am aware that Season 6 is starting sooner then we thought. When we get to the week of the 21st of March. There will be two parts going up on the Monday (#30-#26, #25-#21), Tuesday (#20-#16, #15-11), and Thursday (#10-#6, #5-#1). So that the countdown ends only a few days before Season 6 begins)

When you get a new home, whether it was because you had to sell it so you could move somewhere else or it gets burnt down to the ground and/or destroyed through unforeseen circumstances (Which the latter is what Twilight had to deal with) it can be hard adjusting to your new house since most of the time you’ve been in your old house a while. Even if overall the new house is so much bigger and pretty much objectively a better place to live in, you can sometimes just miss the simplicity of your previous house. It takes time to changes in your life like this and that’s what Twilight goes through herself. I don’t think it’s one of the most exciting episodes of the series, but it is a pretty sweet one as the rest of the Mane 6 try to help Twilight get used to her Castle. The problem is they don’t do the smart thing right away of thinking what Twilight would want to make things feel like home and instead bring things they think makes something feel like a home which is different for everybody. Rainbow beings trophies and sports memorabilia, Applejack brings in hay and dirt, Rarity tries to freshen up the place with stylish decor, Fluttershy brings in some animal friends, and Pinkie just hides surprise party cannons everywhere. 

It’s still kind of a sweet gesture cause it’s like having a little bit of her friends in her home somewhere but again that doesn’t mean Twilight would take the house as hers. And thankfully the solution they came up with was not just to fill up the place with books as if that’s the only thing they think could make her happy. Because as funny as it we tend to call Twilight bookhorse, it shouldn’t be her only defining characteristic to the point that it’s so easy to cheer her up by just giving her a book. Instead, they go to the remains of Twilight’s old tree home, dig up the roots of the tree, and repurpose it as a chandelier, adorning it with gems with photos of memories in the past (I think someone noticed that the number of jewels matched how many episodes of the show had at some point so it’s probably each gem had a moment from each previous episode in the show represented which would be yet another great touch) 

While the episode was far from perfect, I do feel the end of the episode at the very least is the perfect send-off and tribute to the Golden Oaks Library. Whether you prefer Twilight’s new castle or Golden Oaks, we lost a very iconic location in the show. And we shouldn’t fault those who miss the place being a part of the show. At the very least those people who do miss it can relate to Twilight in this very episode. It makes the appearance of the castle feel that much less of a marketing ploy (Even if admittedly it still kinda is), with the destruction of the library just being an unforeseen circumstance in-universe that Twilight could not have done anything about. Most of the episode isn’t too special, but it definitely has a very sweet ending to make up for it and certainly brings some closure to a rather surprising destruction of one of the most iconic locations in the show

This is the episode that ended off the Equestria Games arc. One that began with one episode (Technically 2 if you count Just for Sidekicks since that episode runs at the same time chronologically) and with a few other Season 4 episodes all building up to this moment. The Crystal Empire was going to host the Ponified Olympics. While not everybody in the fandom is big into sports, it was certainly making us wonder how this was going to all pay off in the end. We got Cadence excited to be able to host the games, Scootaloo and the CMC carrying the flag for Ponyville, Rainbow flying with Fluttershy and Bulk Biceps in a race against the Wonderbolts (Even if at the expense of it reminding us of the episode that set it up…). What was going to happen? Would there be interesting new characters and situations for the Mane 6 to confront? We had to be thinking something big was going to go down with all this if we’ve had a good 3 or 4 episodes building it up since Season 3. Eventually we finally get an episode called the Equestria Games that no doubt made us believe we’d finally see what this was going to end it all in. And what do we get? 

A Spike episode… yeah… Granted, it’s actually a pretty good Spike episode when you think about it. Heck on this list it’s 3rd amongst Spike episodes and certainly a step above or even a huge margin over previous Spike episodes. But still yeah, you can kinda feel why so many felt disappointed. We hardly see much of the Equestria Games itself despite the title, instead we get mostly just Spike awkwardly going through the opening ceremony type stuff like lighting the traditional Olympic fire and botching the Cloudsdale anthem. Only at the very end do we get some kind of game-related intrigue with these arrows that can freeze stuff hit a huge cloud that starts then falling down, in which Spike manages to save the day using his fire to melt it. Though again like I said if you ignore the build up to the games, and just allow to watch it as the Spike episode it is. It’s an actually pretty decent episode in it’s own right. But I would not fault anybody for thinking it was a disappointment if they were hoping to get something interesting out of the Equestria Games. 

The only Equestria Games related episode that feels like it has any importance as a result is Flight to the Finish because of it implying and addressing Scootaloo’s disability to fly that has been referenced a few times since then. But Games Ponies Play, and Rainbow Falls hardly mattered (While you’d think I’d be happy about that. It’s actually one of those cases where I’m both happy and upset about it even more. On one hand good, Rainbow Falls didn’t really matter too much as nothing really big came out of the race between the Wonderbolts and Rainbow’s team meaning it’s not going to linger much beyond Season 4. But on the other hand, the new question becomes then why did Rainbow Falls have to happen in the first place. I even think there was a different Season 4 episode where they could of had Rainbow’s key instead that would of been a lot better. I’ll get to that when we get to the episode I’m talking about). 

So in conclusion, if you’re a big Spike fan you can still enjoy this as one of the better Spike episodes. But anyone looking for Equestria Games in the episode titled Equestria Games, won’t find much.  

The final episode of the trilogy of Dreamwalker Luna + CMC episodes. While I wouldn’t say it’s quite as fantastic as the other two in said trilogy. It’s still a fun go-around and may have been an early clue that Season 5 was finally going to be the end of CMC’s search for her cutie mark search. Cause now she’s really thinking about the consequences of what getting her Cutie Mark might be. Whether that she’ll get something she won’t enjoy that much (Twittermite hunting), get kicked out of the CMC, or if it’s not an Apple Cutie mark… disowned by her family. And as with the other dream episodes, Luna gets involved to assist Applebloom throughout. Helping her to understand that she’s far from the only one worried about all this. Eventally she just gets a good night’s sleep and sings along with Applejack’s short and sweet lullaby that it won’t change her no matter what she gets.

I feel this is a somewhat underrated episode in the series. Yeah the Yaks are kinda annoying and a bit of a tired gag about mid-way through, but one thing I certainly praise this episode is for Pinkie. If there’s one thing I think Season 5 had over Season 4, it’s Pinkie’s overall portrayal throughout the season. It felt a lot more consistent and really treating her as a character rather then just comic relief then perhaps any previous season before. There was not one moment I felt they were treating Pinkie like an idiot, a dog, nor do I remember feeling angry at Pinkie. Pinkie by all means is supposed to be the character making gags nearly everytime she speaks onscreen but she should also be somewhat more then that and be her actual own character that’s important. 

I think the reveal of Pinkie’s basement where she keeps a record track of nearly every pony she knows to know what their favorite or least favorite things are so she knows what to bring or not to bring in future parties just shows how dedicated she is to making sure she puts a smile on every pony she sets up a party for. It even portrays her as one of the more brilliant and prepared ponies, something we’d expect more from Twilight. Not Pinkie. Which makes it all the more interesting. It’s possible that the basement has revealed an entirely new layer to Pinkie’s character we didn’t know before and I think that’s cool. This episode also has some of the best faces and character humor, Twilight being afraid of Quesadillas was funny little gag that certainly could of not made more sense in context in a different type of episode. Cause it shows that Pinkie pays attention to what characters avoid. Now those who overly obsess over a certain grimdark fanfic may go like “Pinkie has a secret basement… with files for nearly everypony in Ponyville?! OH GOD! SHE MAY EVEN CALL UP NUMBERS LIKE IN THE FIC!”. Which by now may as well be a more tired joke then anything the Yaks do in this episode. Also Pinkie traveling and temporarily being a part of the Ponified version of The Beatles is pretty much just for fun and wacky moments and really isn’t meant to be thought about. So anybody complaining that she couldn’t of done all that in the time she was given needs to understand Pinkie plays by different rules. It’s not supposed to make sense, it’s just another one of those Wacky things Pinkie’s able to do even in such short notice that we just sit back and laugh. It’s part of the charm of being a character that runs on Looney Tunes and/or Tex Avery logic, we don’t question how Droopy is able to catch up with the Wolf in his cartoons.  

The Yaks still kinda make this episode eh at times, but I feel it does enough for Pinkie to get here at the very least

The episode that began Season 5. Certainly seems a little while since this episode aired. Introducing us to Starlight which would prove pivotal later on and having certainly some things that broke the mold of previous openers and two-parters before. This time the villain isn’t some superpowered evil, the same villain isn’t defeated by some magical artifact, nor is the villain totally defeated at the end, and the Mane 6 are technically not the only ones that help bring her down. It certainly change things up, I honestly think this episode has the potential to get higher on the list. But it all depends on how Starlight and if anything more about the Village in the episode ends up being elaborated on in the future. Because as it is now, there’s a bit of a Hearth’s Warming Eve syndrome where it’s on the fence until something ever follows up on it more. Because despite Starlight reappearing to take her revenge in the Finale we really aren’t shown much more on the village that Starlight used to try to get ponies to follow her philosophy on Cutie Marks. 

The episode can still get credit though for not following the typical direction a two-parter in the direction a two-parter goes. If you’re tired of the the formula that most two-parters follow in the show this is certainly the two-parter for you as it goes out of it’s way to avert the many tropes previous ones have had. The episode also has some new characters that fast became new ponies many took a liking to. Party Favor, Night Glider, Sugar Belle, and more quickly became characters to create stuff for. One of my favorite scenes in the two-parter is actually pictured in the Banner where Sugar Belle goes up and just Smiles next to the Mane 6, I don’t know why but it just makes me laugh overtime. Maybe because it’s like Sugar is showing genuine enthusiasm in greeting the Mane 6 and wanting to take their order when everything up to that point still had the feeling of fake enthusiasm with the creepy smiles, establishing her character in a real funny way. One little annoyance I had was Fluttershy having to be the pony to think the town’s stepford smiling act was all for real. But I suppose that worked for the best as it made her the best spy upon the 2nd part of the episode. Still it bugged me Fluttershy was being a little too trustworthy at the beginning. 

But otherwise this is one episode that may get the nod for bring promoted later on depending how Season 6 goes but I think where it is now (The very halfway point of this list by the way! One half of 112 is 56) is a good spot.