Season 5 Reviews: Castle Sweet Castle

Okay, I know this review is long delayed, and I'm really sorry. I just got caught up in a lot of things.

So as suite, we leave epic stories until the other side of the season, and focus on smaller scale conflicts with the characters learning things about friendship. It's happened every season thus far, and is basically the franchise's bread. Now, the third episode is very important. You need to make this episode good because its going to be a much smaller scale conflict than the opening which might disappoint viewers, so you've got to try and make up for that with some really great stories to pull them back in. I'm going to list all of the third episodes of each season, and see how well they fared being the sequel to the openings of the seasons.

The Ticket Master:

Whilst not the worlds greatest MLP episode, it captured the heart and spirit of MLP pretty well. It was a major downfall in scale from the last two episodes, like the rest, but it was saved by 3 things. One, the pilot two parter wasn't even really that good, two, the pilot episode wasn't very large scale, and 3, this episode wasn't a bad episode; It was mediocre. Whilst this should be a good episode to reintroduce the viewers back to slice of life, the two parter for this one wasn't great anyway, so it get's a pass.

Lesson Zero:

This is one of the best episodes of the entire show, and an excellent way to kick start the filling of the season. It comes on everyone's best list, and it showed that it wasn't just Return of Harmony that was going to be improvement over season 1, no, this was going to be a major improvement over season 1 overall. Lesson Zero stopped the audience from being disappointed by going back to slice of life stories, because it gave us a masterpiece. It also added more development onto the season, like changes to the letter system and really the entire shows structure being altered for the better.

Too Many Pinkie Pies:

The Crystal Empire wasn't great, and this was an improvement over those 2 episodes by a long way. However, whilst a really good episode, it wasn't nearly meaningful enough for episode 3. Episode 3 needs to be a slice of life episode which will change things, because remember, the audience is expecting big stuff for the time being. Either way, a really good episode, not the best third episode.

Castle Mania:

Completely sucks as a third episode. Was just a cheap throw away episode which should have been any other number. Sure, it wasn't the worst episode in the world. But the characters didn't learn anything of massive importance, and it was a light hearted episode which I don't think the third one should be. The only thing saving it is that Princess Twilight Sparkle was a snorefest anyway.

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So we come to Castle Sweet Castle. Is it a good third episode?

I feel like I have gone a complete 180 about this show since last week. Last week I was gloating for days on end. Thinking that this show is finally starting to mature, and is bringing us fantastic stories and really creative ideas. I was really excited for what the future might hold, and this episode brought me crashing back into reality.

Now I should shut up with all this third episode bullshit, it's not really important, and it's just really a personal thing. I will admit that after seeing an epic two parter, I kinda wanted that to continue, so the first slice of life episode needed to be fantastic and meaningful to get me to not feel disappointed. This episode seemed meaningful to the entire show and had the potential to be great, but this was not a very good episode.

I should explain why.

Now, I'm first going to talk about what I do like about it. The moral at the end is great. The lesson that appearances don't matter and it's memories that make somewhere feel like home is an absolutely fantastic moral, and the way that they brought the roots of the library into the castle was really sweet. Sure, I do feel upset that the warm and cozy library has been replaced with a sterile, dark, and quite frankly depressing castle, but at least they recognize how important the library was to an extent, and did tell us an important lesson which everyone can relate to.

However, the road getting here was fucking atrocious.

My first big complaint is that this focused more on the castle than the library, and this was suppose to be the episode where Twilight grieves over the library; it was what we were promised pretty much the moment season 4 ended. This wasn't about the library, because we only get one fucking scene when Twilight grieves over it, this was about the castle. Now, I won't say it was completely ignored, because it was going on in the background, but I don't think this episode was quite extreme enough. Twilight had lost her home, with all of her books and memories she shared in the library completely destroyed, and she seems to move on a bit too quickly. What about the books? They were all destroyed by Red Arabus weren't they? Even if they picked them up I'm sure they would have been really damaged, and some would have been obliterated completely without question.

There's also the matter of tone. This was suppose to be a really serious episode, but it's constantly played for laughs, and isn't serious like it should be. It's not even good comedy either most of the time. Spike trying to distract Twilight was cringe worthy, and Twilight, the smart one, isn't able to see through him. It does have some serious scenes, but I felt again like this wasn't extreme enough to say goodbye to the library for good.

It didn't give the library a proper send off, a lot of things weren't addressed, the writers just expect us to move on after this episode even when it clearly wasn't enough, and it didn't have the feels like we were almost promised this episode would have. We're moving on way too quickly.

I miss the library. Why did it have to be destroyed? Couldn't Twilight have had her castle and her library? Her castle for doing princess things and storing important items, and the library as her home? No, because they wanted to have a massive fight between Twilight and Red Arabus and blow up as much shit as possible, including one of the most homely and most well loved places in MLP. The MLP equivalent to bag end.

There's also my biggest problem with the episode. You know, I wouldn't have used the tone, scale, and the fact that it didn't properly say goodbye to the library if it was a well written episode. But this episode, aside from the moral which is fantastic, is very badly written.

So the mane 5 want to try and make the castle feel more like home. They fill it with all their stuff, then realize that it's Twilight's library and not there's, and then they immediately say that appearances don't matter. So, let me get this straight. You are so enthusiastic about making this castle look nice, but when you realized that you couldn't get what you wanted, you say that it doesn't matter.

It would have been much better if the mane 5 wanted to help make the castle look like what Twilight wanted first, and then come to the conclusion that appearances don't matter, because at least then they would have attempted to make it like Twilight wanted...

You see, they come to the conclusion to quickly, and it's written in a way which makes the mane 5 seem really selfish, because they abandon appearances when they can't get what they want, and this is a real problem.

Also, it constantly switches between the mane 5 and Spike, and Spike distracting Twilight is not funny and is only there to fill time. Why did this have to be included? Couldn't we have just had a more serious story and the mane 5 continuing fixing up the castle just with more effort put into it and a more realistic and less selfish realization. Spike distracting Twilight wasn't funny, once, and it baffles me that people think that this was his best portrayal. I generally am not a big fan of Spike in general, and I will be talking about him in future, but I can't deny that in some episodes he's been portrayed well. Despite helping the mane 5 this time, the distractions were not funny and I cannot believe that Twilight didn't see through him.

Also, this Spike having a crush on Rarity. It's getting old. It was funny, I don't know, in the first couple of seasons. In season 4 they actually started doing something with it, like in Inspiration Manifestation, were it's revealed that Spike and Rarity have a strong bond and not just a one sided crush. But this has regressed it to season 1 style, with Rarity using Spike, which isn't funny anymore, nor was it ever really. It just makes Rarity look like a manipulative brat.

Overall whilst a great idea and a great ending moral, the execution of this episode wasn't too good. It's not as bad as Spike at your Service or anything, I wouldn't even put it in the bottom 10, or hell, even the bottom 20. I guess after The Cutie Map my expectations were very high, so I guess I disappointed myself. Still, all of my complaints still stand by.

I'm going to in the end, give this episode a D+. It has a great moral, but it fails execute Twilight's grief well enough, has focus in the wrong places, has and overall has a generally bumpy ride getting to that moral.

D+

Whilst Castle Sweet Castle has an exceptionally strong and powerful moral, the road getting to the end is generally bumpy. With focus in the wrong places, rushed and unrealistic realizations, bad comedy, and overall it just isn't enough closure to finally say goodbye to the Golden Oaks Library.