(Song Used: Lose Yourself - Eminem)
At last here we are at the Top 10, some of you may wish I had just done the Top 10 from the start. But I really wanted to go all out as well as recognize the many episodes that while weren’t good enough to get here, were still awesome. There is after all a lot more then 10 awesome episodes in this show, otherwise it wouldn’t be so big if only a few here and there were great. But as true with any Top 10, these are the episodes I consider the true cream of the crop one way or another.
Rainbow Dash wasn’t always my 2nd favorite pony. While my #1 will always be Twilight, nothing will change that for the foreseeable future. In my first year or so of being a fan of the show I had no 2nd favorite and viewed the rest of the Mane 6 as good as one another. Even now I can’t rank Rarity, Applejack, or Pinkie one over another for several reasons. But the first pony to really break out for me was Fluttershy. And that was mainly thanks to this episode. This is absolutely one of the best episodes the show has ever seen, I could even see some people get angry at me that this isn’t in the Top 5 even if all thing’s considered making it just in the Top 10 is still a pretty awesome spot. This is one of the few episodes that are very emotionally charged. There’s not many episodes like it in this show, but when it does happen you know you just watched something special. I like everything from the surprisingly mature look at Bullying and it’s effects even when the victim has grown up years since then, Fluttershy not suddenly being super good at flying despite the training montage, and ultimately the ending where Rainbow even gives up the thought of getting the record to get everything they can to get the bare minimum when some of the pegasi were too sick to participate.
It’s bar none the best Fluttershy episode in the series, and even though Cindy’s work for the show have been all over the place in this countdown whether good or bad. This is pretty much her magnum opus, all of her episodes after Hurricane Fluttershy are closer to the other side of the spectrum in this countdown but I’m not going to hold that against the episodes she really did well. I can’t recommend Hurricane Fluttershy enough
*Sweet, sweet schadenfreude
In this list, Trixie’s debut may have not faired so well considerably since Boast Busters is all the way back in the Bottom 12. However even if the original episode of a character wasn’t too impressive that doesn’t mean an episode that has a major return of that character can’t be on the opposite side of the spectrum. If you remember my blurb on Boast Busters I said it took until Magic Duel for Trixie to grow on me. While it seems odd that an episode where she’s a lot more cruel considerably would make me like her more. The context is with the Alicorn Amulet, you could say Trixie was bad for planning on getting the Amulet in the first place. But the apology at the end implies that was not her intention, unlike most of the antagonist/villian redemptions, we get the sense that the Amulet was more the culprit then Trixie was. If Trixie had somehow won the duel against Twilight without the Amulet she simply would of left and been satisfied that her pride had been restored. She didn’t intend on enslaving the entire town until that Amulet corrupted her mind. It also makes so much sense for this corrupted Trixie to be torturing Snips and Snails the most for their part in Boast Busters, because to be honest Snips and Snails were the reason for Trixie’s embarrassments more then Twilight was.
The episode was funny, it had pretty good magic duels (Note: Magic Duel’s don’t have to be straight up laser battles. Sometimes you just need to show your power and/or out smart your opponent instead of straight-up roughing your opponent up). I love how clever it is that Twilight uses Trixie’s own talent against her (Illusion Magic) to trick the corrupted Trixie into letting go of her Amulet. Some people point out that Trixie didn’t turn back immediately after she tore off the Amulet, but I think at that point the corruption in her mind was still there. It’s just like how the longer you wear the Amulet the more it corrupts you, it’s the vice versa for however long you have it on. This episode is why I would love to see another return of Trixie, the next time we see Trixie she should be on Twilight’s side for once. I think it’d be nice to see what Trixie does as somepony trying to be a little more friendly then she was. The way the “Apologetic Trixie” scene at the end implies, it could be very amusing.
It’s safe to say the wait for Season 4 was a tumultuous time for the fandom. Season 3 had ended with such controversial subjects to mull over like Twilight becoming an Alicorn, Discord being reformed, the general argument about the general quality of Season 3 compared to the previous seasons (Even if I feel the amount of episodes made that unfair), and it didn’t help that we had another source of Drama pop up during this break with the first Equestria Girls movie. I don’t think it’s hard to say being a Brony during this time was all that fun no matter where your stance was on Season 3. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were people who would of otherwise been fine with the changes we got and even Equestria Girls 1, but were alienated from the fandom due to how hostile people were no matter where you stood on any of the controversies.
But for those who managed to stick it out for the 281 days we went without a new episode after Magical Mystery Cure, Season 4 would finally arrive with this episode. And do you know what this episode did within the first 5 minutes? Address most concerns people had about Twilight being a Princess. Somewhat retconning that final flying scene that even I didn’t like, Twilight being unsure about the whole thing, her friends supporting her through and through, and more. I think while there were still concerns and definitely some still a little salty about the whole thing I think the Season 4 opener was huge in showing the show had not gone completely off the deep end like a lot had feared. Discord was even his entertaining jerk self again. Also while the Cutie Map in Season 5 went off kilter from the normal two-parter formula, you could say this episode did the same thing. There was no true villain (Even if you could stretch it by saying past Discord), and while the Elements were used again they are being given up rather then just used to stop the threat. So while the Elements do instantly get rid of the problem similar to the many endings of previous two-parters there is more of a catch to it this time, they’re putting the Elements back in the Tree of Harmony perhaps permanently.
You could say Rainbow Power that would come later in the season is just replacing the Elements with a different kind of Elements, though we don’t know for sure if that’s the case since Twilight’s Kingdom is the only time we see Rainbow Power being used (There was the dream in Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep? But that was it, just a dream). But still the elements themselves have been there since Season 1, so to have the Mane 6 give them up in order to save Equestria as well as Celestia and Luna instead of just using them again feels more poignant. This also means Discord can’t be turned back to stone easily if he were to fall back to his evil ways, in some ways you could see that as why Discord subtly helps Twilight out in the first place since Discord knew the seeds were his all along and he could of easily known that giving up the elements is the only thing that could destroy those vines. Which leads well into what the staff intended for Discord in Season 4 that if Discord truly is good now. Twilight’s Kingdom would eventually give us that answer, but Discord was a mystery once again thanks to this episode. I feel this episode should definitely get a lot of credit for transitioning from the concerns from Post-Season 3 to the new Season that would be full of Twists and Turns.
Ever since Season 1 we’ve been waiting to see if the CMC get their Cutie Marks. I still remember a lot of people thinking the CMC’s Cutie Marks was just going to be another of those things that would never be revealed before the show’s end. I didn’t share that pessimism but even I was thinking they’d probably save their Cutie Marks for when they know they’re in the final season. But here we are, they get their marks slightly past the middle of Season 5 and we’re only a few days from the beginning of at least one more Season and a Movie in 2017.
It helps that this did come legitimately as a surprise, most fans watching weren’t expecting the Cutie Marks at all actually even if in hindsight maybe it should of been a little obvious when the episode was being represented as a musical. Because this is very much what Magical Mystery Cure was for Twilight, what this episode was for the CMC. Cause you have many tributes to the CMC episodes of before, and even some background for Diamond Tiara to show why she’s been so mean before. Now I’m amongst the crowd that wants to see Diamond see do more good deeds before I start forgiving her for everything she did before. But it is still legitimately hard not to feel bad even for her that her Mom demands so much of her as that’s actually a very relatable thing for some. As not everybody grows up with good parents, I feel actually lucky that I have parents that care very much for me and vice versa.
Regarding the music in the episode, I don’t feel there’s a huge stand out like there was in the other two musicals in the series. But if I had to say which song was my favorite from the episode, it’d be Diamond’s “The Pony I Want To Be”. As you can also kinda guess by now both of the other Musicals are also higher in the list then this one since I haven’t gotten to either of them yet. As I feel regardless how huge it is that the CMC got their Cutie Marks, the episode’s execution does not feel as solid as the others but considering it’s #7 in the countdown that doesn’t mean it’s bad, just I felt the other two Musical episodes still executed it better. In fact, one of the other musicals is what’s in #6
I’ve said earlier in the list that Pinkie was very inconsistent throughout Season 4. However, between all of this there was a moment where Season 4 actually had a Pinkie episode far better then anything before and since in Pinkie Pride. Now when I can show what my ideal Pinkie characterization is I don’t have to point to the Smile song but say not to watch any more of Friend In Deed, I can just point to this episode now. This episode also had a special guest appearance from Weird Al. Who manages to be one of those great guest appearances where they don’t entirely overshadow everyone else. Cheese Sandwich plays off Pinkie very well, in some ways for the exception of when Cheese is singing it may have been hard to tell if Weird Al was voicing him if we didn’t know beforehand.
Many of the songs were pretty darn good throughout the episode, my favorite is Pinkie’s Lament the part of the song where Pinkie says “They love seeing me, the real Pinkie! Show them the time of their lives, like they’ve never known!” always manages to give me chills. Amy Keating Rogers might of been inconsistent when it comes to Pinkie herself as she wrote Friend in Deed as well as Filli Vanilli, but at least here she managed to write what I think is her magnum opus in the show even if some are probably thinking either Crusaders of the Lost Mark and/or Mane Attraction is that.
If nothing else though, it certainly is a magnum opus for Pinkie at least. No episode captures the positivity and crazy fun Pinkie is as a character consistently throughout the entire episode like this one. If it weren’t for the fact that so far Pinkie Pride hasn’t been too important in the long run compared to what is in the Top 5, it certainly would be in there. But I wouldn’t say #6 is a bad spot at all for this episode. BTW, Weird Al has expressed interest in returning in the future. So maybe we’ll see Cheese Sandwich again. This BTW is the highest non-Twilight or Mane 6 episode in the list. So considering Pinkie isn’t even my 3rd favorite, you know that’s a compliment to just how great Pinkie Pride is.
