My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic - Season 8 Episode 11: "The Molt Down" (SPOILERS) · 4:02pm May 26th, 2018
In which Spike starts getting hair in funny places.
So here we have season 8's first Spike episode. Anyone else nervous?
Oh god, he's fawning over Rarity again. Oh, and we got a mention of Peewee for the first time since season 2!
Spike has a dragon zit, and he's embarrassed for ponies to see it. It gets worse the next day, when his entire FACE is covered in them.
Even Spike's ZITS are obsessed with Rarity. YIKES. 
As if the dragon zits aren't bad enough, Spike starts randomly belching fire, which prompts Twilight to invite him to be Anywhere But Here for a while.
Some familiar tourists ponies show up in the tour group that Spike tricks himself into leaving. Spike trying to keep a low profile just leads to extensive awkwardness, especially when Spike loses control of his volume, either croaking softly or shouting loudly. His condition attracts the attention of Smolder, who goes looking for him after an awkward episode in the school library. Smolder explains "the molt" to Spike--which is, as you may have guessed, dragon puberty.
And apparently, dragon puberty is a massive pain in the ass. No wonder Garble and his goon squad are such raging assholes.
Smolder's got the "smug sexy window lean" pose down pat.
So anyway, we learn a lot about dragon puberty here, including a biological effect where a molting dragon's stench inspires other creatures to kick them out and attracts predators.
Meanwhile, Rarity's suffering from acute deafness induced by working with phoenix feathers, and visits Zecora--while Spike is hiding out there. When Spike pulls a fade and run to duck Rarity, he's scented out by a roc. The roc chases Spike through the Everfree Forest. It eventually grabs Spike, Zecora, and Rarity, whose phoenix-induced deafness led her to being completely unaware of the predatory bird.
Seriously, how are ponies not constantly preyed upon by rocs? They're FREAKING ENORMOUS!
Twilight happens along, gets the gist of the situation, and goes on the offensive, trying to shoot the roc down with her magic. Meanwhile, Spike's itching intensifies--and his entire body is covered in a crust of stone! When it shatters...
SPIKE HAS WINGS!!
Now fully molted, Spike flies off to help his friends--after a few false starts.
So...Spike is now officially a teenage dragon. Also, here we have a rare example of a GOOD Spike episode. I'll give it a 9/10.
Twilight: "You should go somewhere less flammable."
Me: "What is less flammable than a castle made of crystal?"
This is one of the best episodes of the season AND the series.
And easily Spike's best episode.
Fixed it.
Season 3, but I can't blame you for forgetting "Just for Sidekicks."
But yeah, fantastic Spike episode. Also, Smolder had a reason to exist independent of the rest of the Student Six. Always nice to see them get some individual development.
Remember when dragon growth was primarily affected by greed?
Pepperidge Farm remembers.
Also,
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An empire made of crystal!
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Smolder: "Greed induced bigness. Completely different."
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You sure about that?
derpicdn.net/img/2016/3/27/1118221/full.jpg
I imagine half the writers on this site are a little annoyed that they guessed wrong on the whole "will spike get wings?" thing.
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To be fair, they only had a little bit of knowledge to go on regarding that.
According to Smolder that's just "greed-induced bigness"
But anyways, this was an awesome episode! And the best Spike episode since Gauntlet of Fire!
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Yeah, because that totally explains the deeper voice and all the other obvious signs that was treated like puberty at the time.
Wonder what Ember was like going through dragon puberty?
Have to disagree with you, Moth. Spike's been a solid character since "Gauntlet of Fire." He may be one of the most solid MLP:FiM characters in the past few seasons.
Here's some observations I made:
Whether you're human, pony or dragon, we all pop our pimples.
"I'm having trouble controlling THE VOLUME OF MY VOICE!"
Until Smolder found Spike in the broom closet, I wanted to yell at him, "Hey, dummy! You know several dragons, so why not ask one of them what's happening to you? For that matter, why isn't anypony thinking this?"
Remember way back in Season 1 when Philomena gave Fluttershy a feather? She even tucked it behind Fluttershy's ear. In light of today's eppy, Philomena's a huge jerk. Also, why isn't Celestia stone cold deaf by now?
I was a little surprised Spike didn't jump to the conclusion he was now a princess, based on experience. I expected at least some mention of Twilight's ascension.
Spike picked up flying a lot faster that Twilight did. Spike is best natural flyer.
I'm glad Spike's continuing to grow and change.
Sparity and Spinkie moments in this episode:
MY BOY GOT HIS WINGS!!!
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But we've had very few Spike-centered episodes recently, and historically, Spike-focus episodes are the series' weak point. I'm relieved to see this is not the case this time, but you have to look back on the entire history of Spike episodes and acknowledge that Spike episodes are kind of a minefield.
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The whole post-Season 5 set of Spike episodes. That's when the past stable of writers definitively departed and the new stable started coming in.
4869835 The day I stop laughing at Pepperidge Farm remembers, they need to put me in the ground.
the whole molt thing explains to me personaly why the dragonlands are extremely poor
Did anyone else get the feeling that Rarity was faking her illness?
There were definitely a couple bits where I thought she started talking in her normal voice then quickly switched to shouting, or responded to things she shouldn't have been able to hear.
This is one of the best episode of this season and as of now the best Spike episode ever.
We got to see Peewee back, even if briefly, and I think this is also an episode where Zecora had the most screen time and dialogue.
Spike now sprouting wings sets a new mile stone in the his growth and the show. One to be proud of as much as the CMC when they got their Cutie Mark.
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Eeyup, it just made Spike look so badass.
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Still plenty of flammable stuff inside, unless, of course Twilight, or Discord, casts a fireproofing spell on everything.
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A dragon can either grow naturally, or turn greedy and grow that way. Different ways.
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Probably best we never find out.
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It's hard to find any other good Spike episodes than "Gauntlet of Fire", The times they are a changeling", and, definitely today's ep, "Molt Down" that really give him that boost he needs to make him a mainstay and a main character in MLP; he really is awesome, and deserves more good episodes like these. You'd think dragons would need to learn to fly, but it really does come naturally. Maybe Dashie could still teach him a few moves.
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Good one.
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I'm with you a hundred percent.
Seeing Peewee again was a nice surprise. Seeing Spike growing up a little by growing his wings and being a natural badass at flying was also a welcome treat to see; I can imagine Dashie wanting to teach him. And you'd think dragons would need someone to teach them to fly. I'm really happy that this episode put a definitive answer to one of the questions that's been nagging at the back on my head, and practically everybody else's heads, forever about Spike; he can fly. Now that this is answered, I really would like to see episode 24, which is also gonna be a Spike episode, just to see what happens; there's a big part of me that wants Spike to be happy because he may have found his "father", but at the same time, I don't wanna see him get hurt. I guess time will tell what happens.
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A NIGHTMARE.
You know I'm actualy surprised that there aren't MORE Scootaloo reacts to Spike flying then the 2 i've seen so far. I thought we'd be drowsing in them .
Also Spikes fire breath has much better offensive capabilities than just sending letters to Celestia. You'd think that Twilight would have studied up on dragons after raising one for so many years. She should have been aware of the molt.
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As explained in the episodes "Dragon Quest" and "Gauntlet of Fire", ponies don't actually know much about dragons. The molt is evidently one of those things ponies don't know.
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That sounds dangerously irresponsible to take care of something you don't know that much about. Kinda think of it the relationship between Twilight and Spike is kinda fucked up. Spike was basically born into a life of servitude to his pony masters. I mean damn we're going to need to address where Celestia got the egg.