Crusaders of the Lost Mark (Spoilers Be Here) · 5:31pm Oct 10th, 2015

Usually don't bother doing a blog post about episodes because I don't have much to say, but given the storyline significance of the episode and the fact it is the 5th anniversary I guess it makes sense.

In case the title didn't clue you in then warning, spoilers ahead.

I'm not going to insult your intelligence by recapping the whole episode, you've either watched it, are going to or have no interest (in which case why would you be here O.o?). So I'll just cut down to simple things that I thought about it and let you see for yourself.

- Diamond Tiara's redemption is the most half-arsed the show has ever done. This is a character who has shown utterly zero redeeming traits across five seasons, has mocked disabled characters (through allegory of the show of course) and made the CMC's lives living hell for what is essentially open prejudice... and we're just going to go with the "evil parents" excuse. Not only is that exceptionally lazy it doesn't even make sense considering what we've seen of Filthy Rich previously; it's pretty clear the writers wanted to redeem Diamond Tiara but had no idea how to do it so they just made the second parent the most cliche evil parent (seriously, I've seen evil parents in adverts more complex) they could and ignored the fact they have a living reason why this story doesn't work already established.

- That said, the singing was very good throughout this episode. In a lot of ways this was like Magical Mystery Cure beyond just being a musical, the music and songs were far better than the overall story being told in a lot of ways and all of the voice cast clearly brought it.

- The CMC wanting to help Diamond Tiara is nice in theory but seeing someone getting chewed out by their parents is really enough to make them instantly forget the fact she insulted them constantly, actively tries to ruin their lives and tormented Scootaloo about her disability (possibly?)? This is your story here. If we show them the origin comic where Tirek's father was a prick are they suddenly going to petition Twilight to release him?

- Cheerilee, I like you as a character but by god, there's a thing called detention, use it.

- Speaking as a Brit, Pipsqueak's accent is bloody awful.

- The CMC get their cutie marks... and I can't even pretend to care. In one way it makes perfect sense considering the friendship message of the show as a whole, on the other as I said this entire basis of Diamond Tiara being suddenly a sad villain is out of nowhere and actively contradicts her previous character, so I can't exactly say I'm feeling like they accomplished anything (if anything this is the same thing as when Trixie reappeared, suggesting that because a villain suffered in someway they deserve to be forgiven for everything. Yeah Sauron would like a word guys...)

- The CMC's designs I'll let sit for a bit. In this episode I didn't care for them but we'll see, odds are I might warm up to them like I did to Twilight having wings or Sunset Shimmer's redesign.

- Really glad to see they remembered the sister dynamic at least. I wish we had more CMC episodes focused on that instead of their wacky adventures, which maybe this will allow us.

Overall this was... well, very middle of the road. The story was contrived and honestly was worrying implications regarding how you should regard bullies but the music was very good, the voice acting conveyed the story nicely despite the lack of real establishment and build for it and the ending is still a feel good moment even if it's very forced.

Just gonna be blunt though, if you're expecting a grand celebration of the show's anniversary or some epic storyline closure like Magical Mystery Cure, look elsewhere; this is certainly closer to ending with a whimper than a bang for the CMC's storyline thus far.

If you want to see the bully redeemed storyline better, I recommend you to the Gravity Falls episodes "The Golf War" and "Northwest Mansion Noir". It's basically this storyline with more room to breath and more entertaining antagonistic forces.

Score: 5.5/10