My Review of MLP: FIM season 8 episode 8 The Parent Map · 8:20pm Aug 19th, 2023

Grading Scale:

A (fantastic episode)
A- (an excellent episode with at least one flaw)
B+ (a great episode with a couple of flaws)
B (a good episode which still could have been better)
B- (a good episode with numerous flaws but still rewatchable)
C+ (a decent episode)
C (eh... it’s not terrible but not good either)
C- (it’s not worth rewatching although it does have good elements)
D+ (a bad episode with a few good things in it)
D (a really bad episode with wasted potential)
D- (a terrible episode with badly written characters and butchered moral)
F (horrible and unwatchable)

Greetings, everyone! This is Mr. J back with another MLP episode review for today! This afternoon, I will be reviewing the eighth episode of the season entitled: "The Parent Map". Now this episode is the only episode of season 8 that offered interesting minor insight into Starlight and Sunburst's characters that should have been explored more throughout the rest of the series. Aside from the fact that it was a decent exploration into a new place within Equastria, 80% of the episode was nothing more than a cringe-induced roller-coaster ride.

The episode begins with Sunburst casually reading his book while the mailpony delivers a letter to him. The former mindlessly tosses it on a pile of letters as he still reads the book. Then his cutie starts glowing which catches his attention. Knowing what it meant, he jumps in excitement and heads back to Ponyville to meet with Twilight and Spike.

He meets Starlight in the map room where its revealed the map is calling her too. Wondering why she isn't excited to go on a friendship mission, he sees exactly where the map is sending them: Sire's Hollow. Thus, he finally shares her unenthusiastic attitude.

Later on, they share why they are not happy going back to their old hometown: they both suffer from parental issues. Starlight's dad treats her like a little kid whereas Sunburst's mom patronizes her son about creating new plans for his future. So as soon as they arrive at town, they instantly recognize what's wrong with it. Half the town has changed its buildings and customs whereas the other half is used as a historical exhibit. That's where they meet Firelight and Stellar Flare.

Okay, I need to say something about this. The way Firelight infantilizes his own daughter is just...downright creepy and wrong. And all the pet names he gives her makes the situation even worse. Now for Stellar Flare, I get it; some mothers can be annoyingly overbearing with their methods, and I can understand why Sunburst felt so annoyed with her. Firelight however is a lot worse due to his compulsive treatment of Starlight; dude, do you seriously miss your deceased wife so much? Is that how you treated her? Somebody needs to get this guy a new mare.

So their parents have a fight between themselves at first until Sunburst and Starlight solves their issue, thinking that was the friendship problem. So they soon become friends--an annoying team of parents who make it worst for their grown-up kids. Everywhere they go, their parents follow them and bombard them with trivial stuff.

Therefore, Starlight and Sunburst attempt to get away from their parents and solve the friendship problem as soon as possible. But because their parents kept giving them unwanted attention and patronizing them, their children snap and call them out on their behavior. The parents are hurt by this and walk away in sorrow. At that moment, Starlight and Sunburst realize that their relationship with their parents is the friendship problem.

So there is a lesson both parents and children need to learn. Parents need to understand that their kids won't stay kids forever, and they have to accept the fact that their son/daughter has grown up and has to make choices for him/herself. Treating your grown-up son or daughter like an infant is both wrong and creepy, and Firelight actually made me wonder if there's a real father who acts like this. Throw his ass in jail and throw away the key.

Kids also need to learn that ignoring your familial issues isn't the solution, and it requires actually talking to your parents to properly express how you feel, what's going on, and so forth--like how mature adults should behave. The more you ignore them, the worse it gets. So, in a nutshell, this episode is season 7 episode 7 "Parental Glideance" done right because these parents actually learned from their mistakes and started treating their children (mostly) better whereas Rainbow's parents learned nothing and continued being idiotic, obnoxious morons.

So both families reconcile and apologize, fulfilling the friendship mission. So, overall, I found it to be a decent episode with solid animation and voice acting. I just wish that their parents made more appearances in the show where we could have gotten more backstory behind their kids--maybe showing us what happened to Starlight's mom and Sunburst's dad. But then again, we could always use fanfiction to answer these questions ourselves. But still, make sure Firelight doesn't stand one inch towards a filly, and we're good to go. Thus, I give it a C+.

Peace!