My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic - Season 6 Episode 24: "Top Bolt" (SPOILERS) · 1:03pm Oct 15th, 2016
Hard to believe that with the UK leaking episodes early, this is effectively the last new pony we'll have until season 7 next year. 
Wrote this review on Monday morning after the Tinypop leak. I intended to post it after the US Discovery Family premiere, but for various reasons, I kinda need to post it early. If you haven't seen the episode yet, just...wait until after you do to read this. 
After Spring Training at Wonderbolts HQ, Rainbow Dash is looking forward to a fun week back in Ponyville with her friends. The other Wonderbolts are slightly annoyed by her happy natter about the fun things she has planned while they're going to be busy with a new round of Academy trials, but Rainbow points out that yelling at recruits is one of Spitfire's favorite things to do.
Rainbow is on her way back to Ponyville when her butt rings. It's a tweet from the Map! She hurries back to Twilight's castle to find out she and Twilight have a friendship mission...
...at Wonderbolts HQ, which she just left.
When they arrive at the Academy, Twilight almost immediately gets sidetracked by LEARNING!! and ropes them both into guest instructor duty on the pretense that it'll help them figure out who they're supposed to be helping with a friendship problem.
Twilight and Rainbow make an...interesting teaching pair, what with Twilight's adorkableness on full burn and Rainbow starting things off by joking that the class can call them "T-Sparks and the Dashinator".
It doesn't take long for the ponies with a friendship problem to identify themselves for the audience: an arrogant jerkass of a stallion named Sky Stinger and his timid wingpony mare Vapor Trail. Sky Stinger makes an awful first impression. Vapor Trail seems scared of the prospect of a solo evaluation.
After class, Sky Stinger comes to Twilight and Rainbow to tell them, emphatically and repeatedly, that he's worried about Vapor Trail because she isn't exactly a great flier.
When Sky Stinger and Vapor Trail are doing a freestyle routine, Twilight is impressed by Sky's performance, but Rainbow Dash immediately catches something fishy going on: Vapor Trail is using her own wings to give Sky Stinger a boost. Once she points this out, Twilight sees it too, and they realize that Sky Stinger is only an awesome flier because Vapor Trail is sacrificing her own performance to make him look good--and the only reason nopony notices is because of Sky's arrogant showboating.
Thinking they've diagnosed the problem, Twilight and Rainbow disagree on how to handle it. Twilight wants to tell them what they've observed so they can help them out, while Rainbow wants to help quietly without talking the problem over with Sky and Vapor so they don't shake their confidence.
In the locker rooms after the freestyle, Twilight and Rainbow confront Vapor Trail, and Rainbow reluctantly agrees to go along with Twilight's plan. Vapor tries to evade their questions, but ultimately relents and tells them what's going on: they're childhood friends, and when they were little kids, Sky Stinger had a ton of siblings who were all showier fliers and generally better than him at everything, so he was never able to get any attention from his parents and his siblings all kinda picked on him. Meanwhile, Vapor Trail, an only child, was aggravated by the helicopter parenting she was receiving from her own parents. She started helping him to build up his confidence and help him get attention and recognition he wasn't getting, but as the years went on and he gained confidence and attention and recognition, Vapor just kept secretly helping him, never telling him the truth.
Twilight and Rainbow point out that Vapor's years of secretly boosting Sky are about to hurt both of them badly, because Vapor has to be able to concentrate on her own performance and Sky needs to be able to actually perform well on his own, or everything is going to come crashing down and neither of them will get into the Academy. Twilight wants to tell Sky the truth, but Vapor tells her that if she does, Sky will be crushed and lose all confidence in himself. Twilight decides that in order to help Sky get good enough to fly on his own without telling him the truth, they need to go with Rainbow's plan next.
Twilight trains Sky Stinger while Rainbow trains Vapor Trail. Vapor Trail improves markedly while flying with Rainbow, while Sky blows off Twilight's lessons and pretty much fails consistently when put through the basics. After a montage of this, Sky demands to switch training partners so he can work on stunts with Rainbow. Vapor tries to encourage him to keep training with Twilight, but his arrogant bragging gets so out of control that finally Vapor loses her patience and blurts out the truth. Sky snorts and dismisses it as ridiculous--but then realizes it's true when he can't even pull a vertical takeoff on his own. He gets angry when he realizes that everypony but him knew the truth, then takes out his anger on Vapor, who gets angry at him for taking it out on her. They go their separate ways, their friendship seemingly destroyed, and Twilight and Rainbow are left wondering how they managed to screw this up so badly.
The next day, Rainbow and Twilight are blaming each other for this whole mess, while Vapor and Sky are still mad at each other, Sky has completely lost his confidence, and Spitfire is just PISSED at how Sky Stinger suddenly sucks ass. Twilight comes up with a plan to help Sky get his confidence back while at the same time getting Vapor to realize she shouldn't be afraid to stand out and show everypony what she's made of. By getting the two of them to make up and work together, Twilight and Rainbow help Sky and Vapor help each other to be the awesome flying team they always appeared to be--only this time, they're both genuinely amazing because they overcame their weaknesses together.
With the friendship problem solved, Rainbow and Twilight head back to Ponyville, where Rainbow is looking forward to finally getting started on her week of fun downtime. But they've barely made it to the castle when Rainbow Dash is called back to Wonderbolts HQ for an emergency meeting.
"I was JUST THERE!"
All around decent episode, not great, but decent. 8/10. There is a STRONG subtext to this episode of domestic abuse and a morality play about a battered woman empowering herself, and originally that's exactly how I saw this episode playing out, but after thinking about it, I'm not entirely sure that's how the writers meant this story to look. I think it's really just an unfortunate turd the script laid on the way to the car.
Wat?
4256696 Well I don't know what else to call the Map's bootie call!
4256698
Nah, you know what it is? I thought you also had the "Cloud To Butt" word filter extension installed, which changes "Cloud" to "Butt" and "The Cloud" to "My Butt".
It makes the internet 20℅ funnier. Buttsdale, ponies named Butt Kicker, Buttwisp, etc. "The Pegasus ponies walk on butts".
For me, this is easily the best of the map episodes (not counting Cutie Map or Cutie Re-Mark).
The comedy in this one was especially hilarious.
10/10, Best sneeze
A good episode, but Sky Stinger comes across as the kind of guy who really shouldn't get his happy ending. Intentional or not he exploited his friend's good nature to get ahead and only acted concerned about her in front of others to avoid looking bad. He's the kind of passive aggressive abuser that guilt trips their victim into staying while never actually changing to become a better person.
This was a good episode. I liked that my two favorite members of the mane 6 got a map mission together. Angel Wings was cute, but too bad she wasn't used much.
Great episode today and it was also a TwiDash episode, so even better.
Nice comedy aspect and reference to Testing, testing, 1 2 3.
I didn't really see that domestic abuse and battered woman empowering herself, but more about a woman self sacrificing herself to make her (love?) interest shine.
Cutie Map: "You have one new message."
RD: "What?!"
I liked this week's ep; I thought it had some good parts. Gotta love how RD just wants to relax, but there's always an emergency at the academy. I thought Vapor Trail and Sky Stinger were cute together, despite Sky having an ego. The montage was pretty cool. Yelling at ponies being Spitfire's favorite thing to do was funny.
4256937 I'm pretty sure it's love interest, but due to the nature of the show, they're trying to be subtle about it. TRYING being the key word.
4256817 Hear, hear.
4256705
Great, now that's what I've started calling her.
4257508
YES_YEEES.wav
Download Cloud to Butt extension. Do it now. MLP will never be the same for you.
4257511
How do I download it?
4257516
Okay, welcome to Buttland, but first, what browser do you use, and are you on a computer? It only works on a desktop computer. I'll then link you to the appropriate version and show you how to install it.
This was a pretty good episode. It's just a shame that Lightining Dust wasn't in it.
Then again, in the flashback, when we saw Sky's family, there was a little baby filly with an aqua marine coat and an orange mane. Could that have been Lightining Dust as a baby?
In any case, I hope that they'll bring her back next season.
4257730 I thought the exact same thing when I saw that. It would definitely explain her attitude and attension seeking views. She was raised in a enviroment that lent to those ideals. She probably idolized Stinger growing up, but just managed to beat him to entering the academy first. Though it is questionable since it seems she is the same age as Dash. Then again Zepyher Breeze looked older than Fluttershy despite being the younger brother. Lighting has also appeared on the posters in the locerrooms in this episode and in "Newbie Dash".
Was it just me or in the flashback we see a baby Lightning Dust playing in the sandbox?
"T-Sparks and the Dashinator" would make a good name for a grunge-rock band.
And that's the only take away I have from this.