Now it's back to FiM, and back to Season 7. Season 7 finally seemed to find its footing at the very end of its first half, with the back to back successes of "Discordant Harmony" and "The Perfect Pear". The same could not be said for Equestria Girls, which debuted three specials meant to be combined into a full length movie, but only one of which ("Movie Magic") was any good. Still, Hasbro bit the bullet and finally greenlighted a spin-off series in the looset sense of the word, a five minute

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After ten episodes, Season 7 still had only one or two episodes that were not hotly contested. Even the long awaited royal sisters episode "A Royal Problem" was hotly debated, with some really liking it, others despising it, and others still regarding it as a mixed bag. Meanwhile, the early airings on Treehouse T.V. in Canada kept on rolling, at least through the first half. But the U.S. was going to take an abrupt halt in the airings right at the beginning of summer, with this being the last

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Usually, by this point a season would've given us at least some idea of what was in store and what they were going to focus on. But Season 7 was up to eight episodes at this point and there was no sense of direction, the closest that could be said was family since that was the focus of two episodes centered on different Crusaders. We also had Twilight being freed from being Starlight's teacher, allowing Twilight and Starlight both to explore new boundaries. But this episode was coming on the

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Fun fact about this episode, it aired in the U.S. about a week after Mother's Day and about a month before Father's Day. Of coruse, by now much of the fandom's attention was on early episode airings coming out of Treehouse T.V. in Canada, and on what was announced for further down the road. Interestingly, this episode marked the debut of a new writer in the form of Josh Hamilton, whose previous writing credits included both Avatar cartoons (The Last Airbender and The Legend of

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Season 7 finally found some consistency (and good consistency at that) right at the end of its first half with the back to back successes of "Discordant Harmony" and "The Perfect Pear", the latter of which became everyone's new favorite episode. It also cemented Season 7 as a season of fanservice. Think about it, we had: A Princess Celestia episode, Starlight and Trixie hanging out, Twilight foalsitting her niece, Maud Pie returning and getting a day in the limelight, finally acknowledging the

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So it was that Twilight was now freed up from having to be Starlight's teacher, which meant her character could hopefully get back on track after Season 6 seemed to exaggerate her flaws more than was necessary. And for the sake of fanservice, this first episode to focus on her as an individual in over a season would involve a concept so many fanfics had been written about: Twilight foalsitting her niece, Flurry Heart. However, much like "Castle, Sweet Castle" we had two new writers making their

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So now we have the other half of Season 7's "premiere", an episode that was written by Joanna Lewis and Kristine Songco and starred Starlight Glimmer, but aside from that there is nothing that would link it to the previous episode. "Celestial Advice" had certainly been different, but for the most part it had just felt like it was shilling Starlight Glimmer and offered up nothing new, no season of direction for Season 7. This episode would offer up something potentially more exciting, though in

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A lot of people had become quite disappointed with the table map when it started sending ponies to places as familiar as Manehattan and Canterlot. And even its return for Season 6 hadn't been so stellar since Rarity's portrayal and a strawman critic overshadowed what few new elements there were. So with all that going on, the idea of a map mission to someplace entirely brand new was quite enjoyable. However, the writing team was something of a concern: Kevin Burke and Chris "Doc" Wyatt, again

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One last key episode before the finale, and it was for the mane six member who'd already been paired up four times with others (Fluttershy in "Bats!", Pinkie Pie in "Pinkie Apple Pie", Rarity in "Simple Ways" and Apple Bloom in "Somepony to Watch Over Me"). Josh Haber, coming off his performances on both "Castle Mane-Ia" and "Simple Ways" was picked to write this episode. Season 4's second half only had two true successes that could rival those of the first half, so was Haber up to the task of

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