MLP Season 8 Rewatch Thoughts

Uh so I actually finished my rewatch of the whole series a long time ago and was just lazy writing my thoughts on a couple episodes which delayed the whole posting so uhhhhhhh woops hopefully the Season 9 review is out in much less time. Anyways.

Season 8 is definitely the worst season of the show, and not by a small margin either. The second half is so much worse than any other streak in the show, and has several of the series’ worst episodes. But despite that, it still has plenty of really strong episodes, making it a mixed, but overall enjoyable season.

School Daze - Enjoyed the introduction to the Student Six and Thorax turning into a non-literal stick, but the idea of a school to teach a concept like friendship is a bit eh. I’m also a bit mixed on Twilight turning the classes into boring lectures at first. On one hand, it sorta makes sense that a bookish pony like her would lean towards that, but you’d think she’d be smart enough to know that friendship can’t be taught in such a traditional manner, even if there was EEA pressure. And Neighsay being xenophobic kinda felt like it was done to make everything he said seem invalid even though he raised some decent points. 7/10

The Maud Couple - Great lesson and Mudbriar isn’t half as bad as people make him out to be. 8/10

Fake It Til You Make It - I need more Goth Fluttershy. 8.5/10

Grannies Gone Wild - 8/10

Surf And/Or Turf - Love the atmosphere and music. The interracial conflict was really cool too. 8.5/10

Horse Play - Celestia’s really fun in this episode and I love the resolution scene/moral. And Fluttershy is just on a role with these cosplays. 9/10

The Parent Map - Liked seeing more Starlight and Sunset, but I’m not a big fan of the parents or townsponies or their designs (essence pony was probably the most memorable, but still not the best side character relative to the rest of the show). And while the resolution isn’t as bad as say, Parental Glideance, since it at least acknowledges that the parents needed to fix their behaviour, it wasn’t the best move to put pressure on the kids to have to fix the situation for getting rightfully upset. 5/10

Non-Compete Clause - No one really likes this episode, but honestly, while it’s fairly dull, it’s nowhere near as bad as some people say, at least compared to the episodes that actually deserve the hate. There are some fun moments, and it doesn’t do anything offensively bad. 6/10

The Break Up Breakdown - The miscommunication storyline is overused, but the episode makes up for that with truly winning comedy (Spike’s long winded excuse being right and the whole Skeletor thing are so funny) and Discordness. Also I love SugarMac. 9/10

Molt Down - SPIKE’S GOT WINGS! 8.5/10

Marks for Effort - Cozy Glow hard carries, but the lesson is mixed. 7/10

The Mean 6 - So nice to see the Mean 5 again, and Mean Twilight is just the cherry on top. Chrysalis losing it is also really fun. 8.5/10

Rollercoaster of Friendship - So unapologetically gay and I love it. 8/10

A Matter of Principals - Discord, Discord, Discord. Why were you a jerk for almost no reason? Starlight, why were you confused about what Discord wanted when he spelled it out at the start of the episode? How was an episode about Discord not fun? 2.5/10

The Hearth’s Warming Club - Learning about the other race’s traditions was really cool and the Gallus development was so sweet. 9/10

Friendship University - It was really cool seeing Starswirl again, and Plainity is a goat. But the core conflict was a little iffy. Flim and Flam do have a terrible track record, so it’s logical for Twilight to at least be somewhat suspicious, but she didn’t even give them a chance to prove themselves. 7/10

The End In Friend - Had some cute Raridash moments, but the conflict felt pretty forced and the adventure wasn’t as fun as it could’ve been. 6.5/10

Yakity-Sax - Yeeeeeah honestly, this is probably my least favourite episode in the whole show. It could’ve been worse, but the humour is pretty hit or miss, it’s cringy at times (and I really prefer not to use that word if I don’t have to), and the moral about doing whatever you want with no regard for others is just terrible. Pinkie didn’t have to stop playing, but there were other possible solutions, like telling her to play somewhere she wouldn’t disturb others, or at least take lessons. It’s also pretty weird that she’d just lose all meaning in her life from not being able to play when it’s a consistent part of her character that making others happy/throwing parties is the meaning of her life, but that’s more of a nitpick. Just a real big miss (and somehow the writers for this episode made Discordant Harmony too???). 2/10

Road to Friendship - Starlight trading away Trixie’s wagon was too far, but most of the episode is really cute and shiptastic. 8/10

The Washouts - Had the ingredients for an incredible episode with the return of Lightning Dust and the focus on Scootaloo wanting to grow into her own pony, but the tone shift about halfway through from Rainbow just being jealous to her being in the right was pretty jarring. 7.5/10

A Rockhoof and a Hard Place - The obvious allegory for suicide is treated with very little gravity (it’s basically introduced with sibling level bickering, Twilight agrees to turn him into stone way too easily, and Spike literally acts like he couldn’t care less about it), and it is solved far too simply. You can’t just make someone suicidal feel better by telling them you appreciate them. 2.5/10

What Lies Beneath - Loved learning about all of the Student Six’s fears as it gives them some much needed depth, and seeing them help each other overcome their fears is really nice. The Tree of Harmony being sentient is also quite neat. 9/10

Sounds of Silence - Best episode of the season, no contest. Autumn Blaze is easily one of the best side characters in the whole franchise. She’s so Pinkie Pie, yet is still distinct, as she has a certain charisma to her that Pinkie lacks, and her VA is so good. The lesson about anger not being bad is so valuable given that the opposite is espoused by a lot of people and media, Applejack and Fluttershy work so well together, the Kirin are really neat both conceptually and design wise, and the song is the best of the season. 10/10

Father Knows Beast - Really enjoyed the Twilight and Spike stuff, and fleshing out Smoulder more was cool. 8/10

School Raze - Cozy Glow is so hammy and manipulative, and it’s wonderful to watch. The Student Six and CMC having time to shine is cool. The characters feel kinda dumbed down though. Why did the Mane 6 go to Tartarus with no plan to get in or out? Why did no one question Cozy Glow being left in charge alone other than the main characters? Why did the Student Six (other than Silverstream) buy that Sandbar would betray them so easily? Why was Cozy put in the same place as Tirek who helped her with her plans in the first place? There are a lot of problems you can spot with this finale, and generally doesn’t feel as well thought out as most others, but it’s still very very enjoyable overall. Cozy is treated too harshly for being a child though. 8.5/10

Best Gift Ever - This is such a wild special despite being so simple. As you’d expect from an MLP Christmas special, it’s super cute, funny, charming, and cozy (and it glows). Everyone’s written perfectly and have even more chemistry than usual (from Applejack calming Twilight down to Cadance and Shining being relationship goals, the interactions are top tier). I loved seeing so many side characters like Discord, Cadance, and Derpy, and loved the new characters (really hope Pistachio succeeds!). All of the subplots are great and come together really well for the lesson of friendship being the greatest gift. And the song at the end honestly gave me chills, but the happy kind. 9.5/10

Spring Breakdown - Equestria interactions were super fun. 9/10

While this is the worst season by far, it’s not bad by any means. It has a majority of the bad episodes in the show with the worst lessons, but is home to plenty of gems still. It does have some greater overall issues though, like having less focus on the main characters to give room for introducing an unnecessary amount of new characters, and the school/student six having a weird level of inclusion. I enjoyed the season overall, but there’s a reason it took me so much longer to get this blog out than the others. My favourite episode is obviously Sounds of Silence (as for most people) and my least favourite episode of the season/series is Yakity-Sax. I overall give the season a 7-7.5/10, only really being bolstered to a 7.5 by the specials outside of the season proper. But despite the (relatively) disappointing penultimate season, Season 9 managed to bring things back to form and gave the show a very fitting end, as I will cover next time for the final rewatch blog.