Roots of All Evil Parts 1 and 2 Review (Spoiler Alert!) · 3:28pm Nov 24th, 2023
You know what's coming.
So here we are at last, the final battle and the end of Make Your Mark. With Opaline now fully established and built up as the end game threat, how did this two part finale fare? Was it at least a decent send off for what's unfortunately turned out to be a mistake on Hasbro's part? Well, let's find out.
Part 1 begins with the ponies returning to Maretime Bay to find the other ponies in a state of panic. And seeing the dragons only makes thing worse. Sprout even gets so afraid he jumps over the railing and into the bay.
Fortunately, Sunny and the others quickly reassure the frightened ponies that the dragons are friendly and on their side. They soon learn that the tree in Maretime Bay has been attacking with vines, stealing cutie marks. They quickly deduce it's the work of Opaline, and suspect that now she's coming for the crystals. Indeed, that's what Opaline tries to do, only to find that a protection spell is still blocking her out. I guess this is a belated handwave of why she never tried to infitrate the Brighthouse herself at any point, though even she acts surprised by this discovery. Interestingly, it is during this time that Misty decides to reveal to Opaline that she defected.
Ultimately, Opaline retreats and Spike leads the dragons to rescue their captured comrades. Meanwhile, Zipp points out that based on her research, being near the together trees is dangerous because that's how ponies lose their cutie marks. Indeed, the tree Misty planted in Zephyr Heights is already doing just that. Meanwhile, Spike and the other dragons reach Opaline's lair (and they take Sparky with them), only to find out that Opaline was expecting them.
Sure enough, Opaline has a forcefield set up, and brainwashes the dragons into serving her. Then, with their dragon fire magic powering her, she assembles a necklace as she prepares to steal the cutie marks of Sunny and her friends. She also exposits about how she planted a unity tree long ago, only for it to wither because she never actually made friends. And she legitimately believes that she was a friend to Misty despite how cruely she treated her from the moment Misty showed up in Opaline's lair as a filly.
Thus ends Part 1, and Part 2 doesn't begin with a recap. Instead, we cut to Sunny panicking in the Brighthouse as she and Misty have both argued that it's their fault Opaline is so powerful: Misty because she worked for Opaline and stole Sparky, and Sunny because she brough the crystals together, thus drawing Opaline out in the first place. The rest of the gang, however, split up to defend Maretime Bay, Zephyr Heights, and Bridlewood. And Misty ultimately decides to do something too. Opaline first comes to Maretime Bay and attacks Hitch. At first, it looks like his squad pulls a sacrifice play to knock Opaline back into the portal, but she emerges unharmed. Hitch tries to stop her by using the earth pony magic to summon plants. But of course, plants are not very effective against fire. Maybe if he had water powers he'd be alright.
So Hitch loses and has his cutie mark stolen, causing one of the rainbow pillars of light to fade as Sunny looks on in helplessness. Next, Opaline goes to Zephyr Heights and targets Zipp and Pipp. Pipp manages to stall for time by offering to put on a concert, and ropes Zipp into helping her. Hey, it's better than other distraction efforts.
This leads into the song "Time to Come Together", as Pipp is not so secretly encouraging everypony not to give up. When the song ends, Zipp unleashes an attack on Opaline that nearly works. But Opaline escapes the trap, and steals Zipp and Pipp's cutie marks. Then she is confronted by Misty, who also ends up having her cutie mark stolen. Only Bridlewood is left. And Izzy puts up a valiant defense, only for her too to be defeated and lose her cutie mark. It's only once this happens that Sunny finally decides to stop standing around and do something. That something involves going to Opaline's lair to confront her head on.
Meanwhile, Pipp realizes Zipp's deductions are all wrong. The ponies draw their power from the unity trees, rather than the trees drawing power from the ponies. So Pipp encourages everypony to go to the unity trees and stand together. While this is going on, Sunny confronts Opaline, who taunts Sunny with the claim that they're not so different. Sunny of course denies this, but Opaline points out how Sunny sought knowledge and that knowledge is power. Hey, it's a better explanation than Cozy Glow believing friendship literally translates into power without us ever getting to know how she came to believe that. And it's nice to have Sunny actually be remorseful and regretful for a change, rather than shrugging off the consequences of her actions or just ignoring them. Anyway, the power of everypony uniting allows Sunny to stand up to Opaline. And meanwhile, Sparky is able to get Spike to snap out of his hynoptic trance. As Opaline's lair begins to collapse, the cutie marks are restored, and Sunny and the dragons are teleported away by Spike. Opaline then loses her cutie mark and chases after it, only to be trapped inside her unity tree as it finally sprouts and blossoms.
Spike makes sure to credit Sparky for his role, then says it's up to Sparky to decide where he'll stay. And Sparky chooses to stay with Hitch. Meanwhile, Opaline's lair is transformed into something much more beautiful as the ponies stand there and admire it.
And that's the story, so what do I think of the episodes? Well, they're kind of rushed, not gonna lie. They pack as much as they can in, but the biggest issue might be that the dragons end up being useless in the grand scheme of things. You could just have Sunny be teleported out by magic, we didn't need Spike to do that. On the subject of Sunny, she is very passive for most of the two parter, just standing around and talking while others do much of the work. When she finally does take action, it's great, but the final battle with Opaline feels a bit lacking. And Opaline's defeat and Disney death feel a bit sudden, as if they realized they were out of time and had to wrap everything up. Still, it does feel like a grand finale and final battle in terms of scale. And seeing everypony else of significance take a stand is very nice. So ultimately, I give both episodes a borderline B+/A-.
But wait, we're not quite done with Chapter 6 yet, we have one last special to cover in the form of "Starlight Secrets": A Christmas special that doesn't actually feature Starlight Glimmer at all. So come back tomorrow to see the review of that.
Nice review. I will say that Opaline's defeat in TYT was more dramatic since the vines actually reached out and grabbed her.
That was a great and funny call back to the movie where a pony jumped into the bay during the panic when Izzy first showed up. I enjoyed Sprout's appearances in this two-parter since we got to see him and Misty interact for the first time and he even joined in on the final song in the climax. Hopefully he appears in TYT since this likely is the end of the road for Make Your Mark for now.
Ironically, how Opaline was defeated reminded me more of how Hexxus from “Ferngully: The Last Rainforest” was taken down. Hexxus was trapped in a tree long before the film’s beginning, then found himself in the same situation twice at the climax, only for good this time.
They really did Spike dirty by having him fall victim to Opaline
Its just disappointing that my fear just came true like that.
Okay, so remember how you said in the last review that G5 Spike sounds like a pitch-shifted Brian Drummond? Well turns out it's not him, as Spike is actually voiced by Martin Roach.
Considering you gave The Ending of the End a B- in your re-review, that would technically mean you think Make Your Mark had a better endgame than Friendship is Magic.
5756511 Yes. "The Ending of the End" is weighed down much more by the Grogar twist, the windigos being little more than window dressing, and the CMC not getting a moment to shine.
5756492
I agree.
Plus, what was the point behind Spike’s return if the only reason he’s there is simply to provide G4-baiting? And if he wasn’t gonna give any meaningful contribution to begin with?
5756542 I agree too. Spike and the dragons felt very underwhelming. All that Spike accomplished from a narrative standpoint was getting Sunny out after she defeated Opaline. But that could've been accomplished by a magical force.
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5756542
Man, I am just so sadden inside he got screwed like this.
Especially since he would have personal beef with Opaline since she pretty much ruined everything
Spike just can't seem to win
He may be Dragon Lord and got to show up, but he got rendered useless, humiliated and shafted and have such a not good design and just happen to not remember anything because he slept so long.
Always one step forward but steps back for him.