Gauntlet of Fire and story update · 4:25pm Apr 16th, 2016
Well that was rather interesting for a Spike episode...
Spoilers....
I never expected Spike to be so brave in the show, willing to risk his life to save Equestria from a new evil Dragon Lord taking the dragon throne and causing problems. He really has grown up a lot since the show began!
So much for my head cannon that there's some kind of treaty between the dragons and the ponies... 
Clearly, Princess Ember is being set up a love interest for our little Spike. I hope they actually follow up with her and have her appear in another episode. I don't like it when we get these one-shot characters. If they want Spike to hook up with her someday, she needs more depth than "I don't know much about friendship."
The episode was a little fluffy for my tastes, but I enjoyed it anyway. The highlight was Spike using his royal voice to command Garble and pretty much him putting his claw down on Garble's throat, figuratively speaking. I love seeing Spike get pissed off (hence my story here, lol) and telling others who have done him wrong where they can go. >=)
Speaking of story news, I haven't gotten very far on the next chapter of "Dragons Eat Diamonds, Don't They?". The main problem has been a really nasty sinus infection that has been causing fevers and significant downtime. I'm on some nifty antibiotics right now so I'm feeling better again. (Unfortunately, the doc still thinks I might need surgery. 
)
The other thing taking up my time has been doing my taxes. Now that I can actually get out of bed without shivering and do stuff again, they're pretty much complete. So work on the next chapter should pick up this weekend and all next week.
This was an amazing episode! So epic! And so dark again!
That it was shown how Garble tried to kill Spike to get rid of him as competitor and gain power is once more pushing the boundaries of the show's dark portrayals.
Now I wonder what's going to happen. Will the fandom finally man up and like a Spike episode for once?
Or will they scramble around and feverly search through the episode to find something that they can intentionally interpret as flaw, to justify hating it because it's a Spike episode?
Time will tell, but I'm wary, even though I saw a few already saying that it's a great episode.
3874298 I myself thought it could be a bit darker, mostly in hoping to see Spike truly get enraged, but having watched it 3 times now, it grows on me a little more with each viewing!
I still have to put "Equestria Games" and "Secret of my Excess" above this for my own ordering of Spike episodes, mainly because those two had a lot of "liquid pride"-level feels, but I like this episode better than "Dragon Quest."
The most touching moments in this episode were Rarity willing to put herself in danger to help Spike, and Spike willing to basically say good-bye to all his friends for a long time by becoming Dragon Lord. Knowing how much Spike fears getting abandoned, him leaving his friends to sit on the dragon throne to protect them from afar was the noblest thing he has done to date!
Even Twilight pointed that out to him that he'd be leaving them. It was kind of a distressing scene.