Shamrock95's MLP Awards!

They think it’s all over... it is now!

Yes indeed—after nine years, nine seasons, 221 episodes, a theatrically-released movie and petabytes upon petabytes of NSFW fanart, Friendship is Magic has finally bowed out, and G4 of MLP along with it. And what a ride it’s been, eh? Seems like just yesterday I was watching the show for the first time on a cold evening in December 2012. Seven bloody years.

I was originally considering doing a retrospective of sorts when this time inevitably came, going over the show season by season and talking about their relative merits and drawbacks. But honestly, I've always been a more episodic kind of guy. So instead, welcome to Shamrock95's MLP Awards, where I will be awarding various medals of honour and dishonour to episodes as I see fit.

Quick disclaimer: this will not cover any episodes from season 9, for the simple reason that I stopped watching the show midway through season 8. I got as far as The Washouts, then the real world started getting in the way a bit, and I just... stopped. Sorry.

So... spotlights on, red carpet rolled out, let's get started!

The Medals of Honour

The "One That Started It All" Award

Well, the first episode I watched is kind of a big deal, isn't it? It got me into the show in the first place! I think that deserves an award.

And the award goes to...

...The Mysterious Mare Do Well! (Original air date: 26th November 2011)

Bit of an odd first episode, huh? I'll be honest: my thought process for starting to watch FiM went something like this.

1. See the amount of praise the show is getting online.
2. Figure that if it's getting this much praise, it must be doing something right.
3. Watch the first episode I can find on YouTube that hasn't been given a copyright strike yet.

If you haven't seen the episode, I'll give you the basics: after being hailed a hero for various heroic acts throughout Ponyville, Rainbow Dash is getting a bit too big for her horseshoes. That is, until a masked hero by the name of the Mysterious Mare Do Well comes to town and steals her thunder practically over the course of an afternoon. It turns out that Mare Do Well was actually Twilight and the others, looking to teach her a lesson in humility... by pretty much humiliating her at every turn.

So yeah. The episode where Rainbow Dash's friends are arguably the most brutal they've ever been towards her to try and bring her ego down a peg... bit of an odd duck for a first episode. You probably couldn't blame me for being turned off by the characters' behaviour, but fortunately, I was more taken by the animation, lovely world design and excellent voice acting. I watched a couple more episodes, and that was that.

The Arc Welder Award

This award right here is for the most satisfying conclusion the show has had to a story arc. There have been a few throughout the show, but only one gets the award. Life sucks like that.

And the award goes to...

...Crusaders of the Lost Mark! (Original air date: 10th October 2015)

The episode where the Cutie Mark Crusaders finally, finally, FINALLY get their cutie marks. My reaction to this turn of events was equal measures of delight and relief. I'll be blunt—by this point, the "Crusaders trying to get their cutie marks" arc had been driven so far into the ground, it was halfway to the Earth's core. I had to suppress a groan every time this arc came up, doubly so if it was the focus of an episode. I was beginning to wonder if this was just the status quo now. Charlie Brown will never kick a football, the Trix rabbit will never get his cereal, and the Crusaders will never get their cutie marks.

But oh, how wrong I was! Not only did the Crusaders get their cutie marks, they did so in one of the show's best episodes, a musical episode in which the trio work on burying the hatchet with long-time bully and nemesis Diamond Tiara. Turns out that poor Diamond doesn't have the best home life, with an overly-demanding and abusive mother who's getting far too involved in the elections for class president. The Crusaders learn to put themselves in another's shoes, and in the process, FINALLY get their goddamn marks. Thank God.

The Best Improvement Award

Every writer has their duds, in any form of media. Some are worse about them than others, and some produce nothing but duds. And then, there are the ones who improve... and improve in a big way.

And the award goes to...

...Bats! (Original air date: 28th December 2013)

At first glance, Merriwether Williams would seem like the typical mediocre childrens' show writer. The episodes she'd written before this one, "The Mysterious Mare Do Well" and "Putting Your Hoof Down," were controversial at best. So when I saw that she was writing this episode, I went in with appropriately cautious low expectations.

But this episode proved to actually be... if not brilliant, then certainly a lot of fun. It has a catchy song, a pretty funny setup and story, and the adorable awesomeness that is Flutterbat. Good stuff, Ms. Williams.

The "...What? Bloody What?" Award

For the episode that left me thinking, "I don't quite know what you've done here, but I am very glad that you did it."

And the award goes to...

...Slice of Life! (Original air date: 13th June 2015)

For the show's big 100-episode milestone, the writers decided to create a love letter to us, the periphery demographic! The episode focuses on the background characters—Derpy, Vinyl Scratch, and all the others we've seen in so much fanfic and fanart—going to a wedding. It starts off simply enough... until Bon Bon is revealed to be a secret agent. And then the episode takes a turn at 12th and Crazy faster than when Ocelot's arm possessed him in Metal Gear Solid 2.

We get a Doctor Who expy trying to get his magical love fireworks to work. We get a cellist and a DJ riding a sound stage to the wedding venue, literally jumping the shark in the process. We get an alligator's internal monologue on the very nature of life and existence.

This episode is nuts. In all the right ways.

The Best One Award

My favourite episode. 'Nuff said.

And the award goes to...

...Twilight's Kingdom! (Original air date: 10th May 2014)

The stakes have never been higher than in this episode. In a nutshell, Satan himself is about to destroy the world, and Twilight has to stop him. What we get from that is everything a season finale should be—44 minutes of tension, emotion, an utterly amazing fight scene, and Twilight finally accepting and ascending to her role as Princess of Friendship. This is my favourite episode, for any year you care to mention.

Well, that's the good over and done with. Now onto the bad...

The Medals of Dishonour

The "We're Seriously Still Doing This?" Award

On paper, FiM is a show about character development, with the characters getting a little wiser with each episode and each passing aesop. Occasionally, however, the writers would inexplicably fall back on a lesson that a character had already learned, perhaps even several times over. This award is for the most egregious example of this.

And the award goes to...

...Scare Master! (Original air date: 31st October 2015)

In this episode, it's Nightmare Night once again, and timid little Fluttershy must learn to face her fears on this scariest of nights. She learns to master her fear of the holiday, and goes from being a trembling wreck at the mere idea of it (to the point of being freaked out by party food of all things) to ending up giving her friends the scare of their lives! By the end, Fluttershy has learned that the holiday is nothing to be feared, and learns a little something about courage in the process.

A fine season two episode, to be sure... except it came out in season five. Fluttershy had learned about assertiveness by then in season two's "Putting Your Hoof Down." And as for learning not to be scared and about courage, look no further than Fluttershy's season one episode, "Stare Master" (the names are one letter apart, for Christ's sake!). I really don't know what the point of this episode was, and can't fathom one other than, "Well, we need some kind of Halloween-related plot, and Fluttershy hasn't done a whole lot this season..."

The Abhorrently Articulated Aesop Award

When your show revolves around teaching lessons to kids, it's rather important that you make sure those lessons are taught well. You don't want kids to come away with crossed signals from a botched execution. FiM managed this well for the most part, save for our winner of this award.

And the award goes to...

...One Bad Apple! (Original air date: 24th November 2012)

How about them bullies, eh? Yes, bullying is the subject of this episode. More specifically, the bullying the Cutie Mark Crusaders suffer at the hands of Apple Bloom's cousin and fellow blank flank, Babs Seed. After being tormented by her throughout the episode, the Crusaders are finally driven to revenge. But oh no! It turns out Babs was being bullied back home in Manehattan, too! And because of her lack of a cutie mark, no less! The lesson: bullying is wrong, but fighting back makes you just as bad. The best thing to do is to tell an adult.

Except... Applejack sees the Crusaders being bullied by Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon shortly after telling them this lesson. And she does nothing except stand there and look angry about it. And what punishment does Babs end up getting after her bullying comes to light? Sweet Foxtrot Alpha. She's given a hug and sent on her way back home, the best of friends with the Crusaders. And no, her chasing off Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon doesn't count as redemption. Not so much crossed signals as the entire network going down, here.

The Wall Banger Award

A moment in a work that makes you bang your head against a wall and go: "STUPID! STUPID!! STUPID!!!"

—TV Tropes's laconic description for Wall Banger, before it got deleted

I know it says "moment," but this award is for an entire episode that gave me this reaction. An episode that left me wondering just how many stupid pills every character involved had downed prior to the episode's events. And, by extension, my least favourite episode of the entire show.

And the award goes to...

...Shadow Play! (Original air date: 28th October 2017)

The season seven finale was an episode that I couldn't actually get through in one sitting. After the first display of idiocy the episode showed, I had to stop and come back to it some time later, after a fair amount of convincing from others that it got better.

The story here is that Twilight and co. discover the journal of the legendary sorcerer extraordinaire Starswirl the Bearded, and learn that he and the Pillars of Equestria—think the prototypes of the Mane Six—have been sealed in Limbo for a thousand years, having sacrificed themselves to seal away a great evil alongside them, the Pony of Shadows. But good news, everyone—there's a way to bring them back! So, clever and analytical Twilight's going to figure out how to bring them back without also breaking the seal on the Pony of Shadows, ri-

Nope! Let 'em all out, shadow monsters and all! It's the only way! Never mind that there's no great evil we need their help with vanquishing or something. Never mind that the Pillars aren't going anywhere. Never mind that we have all the time in the world to figure out how to do this properly. We're doing it now, because... well, because the map told us to.

So I stopped watching around the time Twilight first pitched her plan to the others, and expressed my displeasure over the web, as one does. I was assured that it all came together in the end, and was convinced to give it another shot. So I did.

And to the people who told me it gets better? You're bloody liars. This episode doesn't have one idiot, oh no. It has three.

So the Pillars are brought back to the present day, the Pony of Shadows in tow. As they work on a way to fix Twilight's screw-up, it's revealed that the Pony of Shadows is someone the Pillars once knew—Stygian, their tactical coordinator/cat herder. Stygian felt that his nose was being pushed out of shape, with the Pillars getting all the glory while he stayed stuck in obscurity in the background. So he set about rectifying this by attempting to become a great warrior, by borrowing the Pillars' magical personal effects without permission and trying to duplicate them. The Pillars caught him in the act, quite rightly assumed he was stealing them, and Starswirl jumped straight to banishing him without so much as asking for an explanation. The anger Stygian felt over this twisted him into the monstrous Pony of Shadows.

So... we have Stygian, who didn't think to just ask the Pillars for a bit of recognition, or at least ask if he could borrow their things for a bit; Starswirl, who jumped straight to kicking Stygian to the kerb without at least hearing his case first; and Twilight, who was too blinded by her Starswirl fangirl side to bother putting up any kind of failsafe when releasing them. In other words, the entire episode could have been avoided if at least one of no less than three characters had slowed down and used their brains for a second! This episode is... just frustrating.

But I've ranted quite enough. Those were Shamrock95's MLP Awards! Any episodes you'd have given the awards to instead of the ones I listed? Let me know below.