Now THIS was a good episode. I was waiting for at least an episode of this level to come up in Season 6. It’s already my new favorite of the Season thus far. Strange how the Spike episodes seems to be the best ones for me at least.

First things first though, I’m glad Starlight finally made an appearance in an episode she wasn’t entirely relevant to. I was getting worried that she’d literally only appear when the episode needs her. In which if that were the case we wouldn’t see her again until Episode 21. Granted I don’t think this episode alone to fix the problem of her lack of screentime as if she isn’t there for any of the next 3 episodes then I don’t’ think it’s a stretch to bring back such complaints. But for now at least these complaints can be silenced.

Also good to know they continued the tradition of turning “Sunshine Sunshine Ladybugs Awake” into their secret handshake to make sure that’s Twilight from Cadence. That’s always been a cute thing between the two.

I could tell from the one preview and Thorax’s introduction scene that he was going to be a pretty lovable dork of a character. Sure it may be odd to have the one changeling that seems to have avoided becoming a loyal minion to Chrysalis (Though there is the one from Slice of Life, BTW if you’re thinking that Changeling was Thorax. It can’t be. That changeling and Thorax have a different color black as well as a slightly different ear design. Though while the changeling we see in Ep 100 doesn’t shapeshift, Thorax’s shapeshift magic was blue as opposed to Green like all previous cases we’ve seen Changelings shapeshift.

Now if there’s one part of the episode I kinda take issue with and perhaps bogs it down a little. It’s how jerkish the guards and Shining Armor are. Especially in the first scene Spike tries to tell that he found the changeling and it isn’t evil. Now in Shining’s case it’s understandable given the events of Canterlot Wedding. That said the line of “There is no such thing as a nice changeling” may get Shining some flack. And may even make people scream unfortunate implications on this one. But just wait till’ later in this thoughts when I get back to this.

A minor point, but Twilight getting all adorable about the Pen Pal quill set was very cute ^^

Throughout the whole scene of Thorax being “Crystal Hoof” I was kinda expecting the real “Crystal Hoof” to show up and blow his cover and even say that’s not his name. But since that didn’t happen, I wonder if this means Changelings are capable of turning into Ponies that don’t actually exist? (In other words OC Ponies in universe, heh) Given now we know they’re not limited to just Ponies now that we’ve seen Thorax become a rock and a baby dragon that might be a possibility.

Speaking of the rock thing though a bit funny that Spike thinking the rock was a changeling earlier came back and turned out to be a thing they could do. It is a bit sad overall though that Spike loses a bit of nerve to defend him the first time but that was in a bit of a frenzy of things going on. And the paranoia certainly would of been hard to fight off at that moment.

Now briefly before we get to the final crucial scene of the episode, the reason we’ve been needing Starlight to appear is to have some of her reaction to stuff she wasn’t there for. Obviously Starlight was still in that village most likely at the time the Changeling Invasion happened. We could of used more of that throughout more episodes this season. I may still be lukewarm to Starlight as a character, but i understand she’s supposed to be a pretty important player this Season and she hasn’t felt that way for a majority of it.

But now we get to the ending, and I have to say it. Spike’s song was really good. Full kudos to Cathy on this one, I didn’t even think Spike could carry a song on his own. But here we are, sure I wouldn’t say it’s best of the series worthy but it’s certainly among the pretty good songs. Now some people may throw flack at this episode with saying it only took one song to turn things around. But hey, you’re reading the thoughts of someone who still has Magical Mystery Cure in their Top 5 episodes of the show.

But the song itself isn’t the only reason I love the ending, as it may very well be what made this episode my new favorite of the season. Twilight’s the first to step forward to back Spike up. I almost had the urge to clap a lot just from that alone. It should make sense that of all the Ponies at that moment to trust Spike’s judgement first then that would be Twilight, and once Twilight stepped up then so would Shining Armor and Cadence, and from there the rest of the Crystal Empire. Maybe it could of been spread out a bit further. As heck I was thinking maybe at the moment Spike took Thorax (Disgused as “Crystal Hoof”) to see Twilight he was going to have them go into a private room to tell Twilight that he’s made friends with the changeling. But perhaps then the point of the episode would of ended sooner, as unless they were going to make convincing Shining Armor and Cadence as well as the rest of the empire take 10 minutes even with Twilight on board which might of brought the opposite problem of dragging out the conclusion and probably would of involved some uncharacteristic mistrust between Shining and Twilight given how close siblings they’re supposed to be. I won’t turn it against you if any of you guys thought that was rather rushed, but I think it did the job it planned to do. Some people might raise their eyebrows that they trust the changeling enough to let Flurry Heart near him, but to be honest even if somehow Thorax had been an evil changeling bent on kidnapping Flurry Heart he would of been stupid to try that with not just Guards and Shining Armor in the room but two powerful Alicorns who would be an Angry Auntie and Mother combo that would do everything in their power to get Flurry back.

Now one last thing, I think perhaps the biggest complaint some fans might throw at this episode, there could be some unfortunate implication regarding the Guards and Shining’s feelings toward Changelings. Especially given current events that stuff like Donald Trump has made headlines on that this episode might have some racist overtones. When I don’t think this is the case at all. I akin it more to a toned down version of two nations at war. They think Thorax is a Spy, when really he’s a deserter from the enemy country’s army and/or a war refugee that doesn’t feel safe and/or agree with the direction their country is taking and thinking if he can find a way to make friends with those of the other side he could possibly be in a better situation even if he knows it will be difficult to ever gain the trust because it would be difficult for them to trust them. No doubt because of the way current events are in people’s mind that it might be judged that way anyway. But I will stand that I think that’s the wrong way of interpreting this episode.

But yes there you have it, this was a really good episode and as I said my new favorite of the season. Spike episodes have proven to be on a roll this time around more so then a majority of the pony episodes this time around even. And we can’t often say that even with some of Spike’s better episodes in the past. Good job on this episode to everyone involved.

Though next week we may not be entirely done with awesome Spike episode-mania as Spike will be involved in next week’s Discord episode along with Big Mac. I have a feeling this will be a fun one. It’s good to feel excited again ^^