So it is that we come to what was both the final Spike episode and the final Rarity episode. After nine seasons of inconsistent on and off teasing, you'd think that their last episode together would want to clarify once and for all the possibility of their relationship. Well, that's what was originally planned here. Originally, Spike would get over his crush on Rarity and that would be the focus of this episode. But for some reason, Josh Haber (who wrote this episode) decided against that in

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With "The Best Gift Ever" counted as an official episode of the show (despite being double the length of one), it was at this point that the show crossed the 200 episode marker, a milestone few other shows could claim and one that officially cemented it as the longest running of all shows Hasbro ever made. The story for this episode is actually pretty unique and interesting. In late 2017, Josh Haber and Nicole Dubac got the voice actors for all of the mane six and for Spike to sit down and

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So it was that Season 8 would introduce a new celebrity character in the form of famous musician/comedian Rachel Bloom, and would feature a map mission that would actually have two mane six members instead of anyone else. Most people can't stop gushing over this episode and what it introduced, and what's most surprising is that this episode was written by a one off writer named Gregory Bosignore who had previously done work for various plays. There may be a reason for that, though, considering

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What little we did see of the School of Friendship in the episodes immediately prior to this one didn't bode well for it, it seemed to serve more as a plot restrictor since characters wouldn't be able to do things due to their need to teach. And yet the student/young six were not getting any focus at all. If not for what was being leaked far in advance, most people would've probably suspected Season 8 was going to be just like Season 7 and have no sense of direction at all for the longest time.

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22 in production order but 21st to air, making it the last one to come out before the big movie in 2017. Ironically, this episode was focused entirely on the CMC, none of the mane six or even Spike or Starlight would appear, making this the only other episode all season where that was the case (Starlight would get to share "To Change a Changeling" with Trixie). May Chan, previously responsible for the less than stellar "Not Asking for Trouble" and a veteran of shows like Avatar: The Last

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Well, maybe the Cutie Mark Crusaders could get Season 6 off the ground when the main characters seemed incapable of truly doing so. I mean after all, the CMC had gone from being the undisputed weak links of the show in Season 1 and early Season 2 with their repetitive "Gotta get our cutie marks" plots to some of the most mature stuff we'd seen in children's media in a long time (the dangers of gossip and tabloid journalism, dealing with a potential disability, where jealousy can truly lead and

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With the show having outlasted even the original G1 Transformers as the longest lasting Hasbro animated property and crossing the 100th episode threshold, something truly special was called for. Especially since in the 2010's making it to even half as many episodes was never a guarantee no matter how good your work was. But Hasbro was going all in on, promoting the heck out of this episode and tapping M. A. Larson to write it as his first solo episode since "Magical Mystery Cure" (which by now

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Season 4's second half really needed some good episodes under its belt if it didn't want to drag down the entire season with just two truly impressive episodes. Rarity was the next to get a focus episode in a season where she'd already notched two rather interesting ones, including her long overdue return to the spotlight in "Rarity Takes Manehattan". However, Corey Powell was writing this episode and she had been associated with "Rainbow Falls". Perhaps because of that, Meghan McCarthy was

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By now Season 4 was starting to show signs of running out of steam. "Pinkie Apple Pie" was good but a noticeably low key episode, "Rainbow Falls" was a disaster riddled with plot holes and decisions lacking explanation and "Three's A Crowd" seemed to cram three different episodes into one overcrowded mess. Even "Rarity Takes Manehattan" and "Bats!" were only being talked about for one thing, and how much you loved or hated the episodes seemed to depend on that (Coco Pommel for the former and

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Oh boy, this episode. Even to this day it's still hotly contested with some regarding it as one of the worst episodes (if not the worst) of the entire show (it was one of only two episodes to get negative points when Mr.Enter was just a pony reviewer and one of only two he gave an Animated Atrocity scorecard to during that time) while others seem to regard it more fondly (or at least don't seem to hate it as much). This episode's production history is interesting, Charlotte Fullerton is

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With the first half of Season 2 now concluded things seemed to be picking up for the show. The Brony fandom was already well established and new episodes were sparking speculation and re-watch threads within hours of them airing. Plus, the show was finally getting a home media release to give it wider attention. And to kick off the second half with style, Amy Keating Rogers was tapped for this episode. But then again, Amy's most recent outing had been the wasteful "The Cutie Pox" and before

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So we're closing out the first half of Season 1 with what by all accounts is a classic, even by the show's standards given how much they seemed to love trying to call back to this in later seasons. It's also an episode that I think almost singlehandedly launched the ship of AppleDash, which alongside FlutterMac used to be all over the place in the fandom's early days. Amy Keating Rogers wrote this episode, so we should be in for a good time, right? Well, let's find out.

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