With MLP S5 coming to a long hiatus · 12:16am Jul 13th, 2015
I figured I'd post a list of how I personally rank the episodes, from what is, in my opinion, the best to what is, in my opinion, the worst so far in S5 with reasons why.
DISCLAIMER: This is my own personal opinion. I have no problem if you disagree as long as you don't attack me for my opinion.
1) Slice of Life- so many shenanigans! Hilarious and random!
2) Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep? New monsters and awesome dreamscapes.
3) The Cutie Map part 1 and 2: genuinely unsettling situations. Very Orwellian.
4) Make New Friends But Keep Discord: Would have ranked higher if the Smooze had been evil instead of all cute and innocent. Loved Tree Hugger though- i ship her with Fluttershy now.
5) The Lost Treasure of Griffonstone: Griffins, worldbuilding, and a new monster!
6) Appleloosa's Most Wanted: A straight-up Clydesdale horse, dramatic tension, dangerous/darker-seeming scenes, and lots of slapstick/cartoon violence! Plus, this episode seems to imply to me that cutie marks are overrated!
7)Party Pooped: would have been higher if the yaks hadn't been portrayed as so unintelligent (I mean, they were talking like the Hulk, dangit!) But has this spot because of the action/adventure and worldbuilding. Plus the yaks smashing stuff was pretty funny- love the slapstick humor there!
8) Bloom and Gloom: Surreal dream sequences and weirdness! But not enough action/adventure to be higher in rank.
9) Tanks for the memories: A kids' cartoon that seems to be dealing with grief, and RD getting on her inner Grinch. Plus destruction of the weather factory. But not exciting enough for me to rank it higher.
10) Princess Spike: Again, slapstick humor and some worldbuilding with the dragon-sneeze trees (my guess is they exist to keep dragons from getting into, say, the Crystal Empire and eating the crystals) , but man are those high-class ponies snobs!
11) Castle Sweet Castle: too sappy-sweet for my liking. Though I did enjoy the slapstick.
12) Amending Fences: way too sappy-sweet and way too close to S1 for my liking. Not enough action or humor for me to enjoy it. Might have liked it better if there had been a) some kind of action/adventure, b) some slapstick humor, or c) something darker in the workings to make it more interesting (like they did in the RD microcomic and the Tirek origin in Fiendship is Magic, both of which i loved (and please don't start attacking me or trying to change my mind if your opinion is different)). To me, this episode was just plain boring.
Once the hiatus is over, I'll update my personal episode rankings accordingly with each new episode. So far, I'm really looking forward to the following (if the titles on the seemingly-leaked list are legit) : Scare-Master (hopefully it'll mean more Flutterbat!), Rarity Investigates (hope it'll be a Film Noir spoof!), Crusaders of the Lost Mark (hopefully the CMC will get their marks and the episode will be action-packed (since it is named after a spoof of an Indiana Jones film), The One Where Pinkie Pie Knows (what does the pink one know?! I can't wait to see!), Hearthbreakers (I HOPE it's more on Equestria history, or at least has some kind of villain!) What About Discord (because Discord is involved, natch), The Hooffields and McColts (Family duels in MLP (since it's a spoof of the Hatfields and McCoys, who were famous for a duel)? I hope so!), and The Cutie Remark parts 1 and 2 (Starlight Glimmer's return? We shall see!)
Interesting ranking! I think Make New Friends But Keep Discord is my number one, with Slice of Life coming in at a close second. I'm loving the season so far and I'm very excited for the second half. Though with that episode list pretty much confirmed, I'm beginning to wonder if we'll ever get a Celestia episode. She's one of my favorites, and I find it kind of ridiculous that Luna's gotten two now while Celestia still has none. At the very least I'd like a Celestia/Luna sister episode.
I think it's very likely that at least one of the CMC will get their cutiemark this season (I'll be very surprised if they still haven't received them by the end of series, at any rate), since both of their episodes so far focused heavily on them coming to some kind of understanding about cutie marks, whether their own or someone else's. That's a lot of character development and I hope that we get to see something come of it.
Also....TWO Discord eps this season?! THANK YOU WRITERS!
3241142 Gotta agree with you! We NEED a Celestia episode dangit! I mean, she's had quite a bit of development in the comics, all things considered, but almost none at all in the show!
Here's to hoping the CMC do get their marks! Though I'm kind of confused as to why Babs Seed has a scissors cutie mark, unless it's some kind of fighting move she specializes in. Babs strikes me as more the kick-flank fighter type than the hairdresser type.
As for the Discord ep that is a very real possibility, I really hope the ep focuses completely on Discord alone, without the Mane Six or the princesses. Or if they are involved, hopefully it will be Discord's backstory!! Where did he come from, why did Celestia seem to know him, etc. I know what his origin in my AviaVerse stories will be, but what is his canon origin story?
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A Discord origin story would be great! I would also take a Celestia and Luna origin story, though I doubt they would ever do that in the show.
Something I would also like is for us to actually see Starswirl. Not just a storybook flashback, but an actual character. Maybe Twilight could go back in time or something and actually get to meet him. He's mentioned so often and has apparently contributed so much to Equestrian history it seems a shame to just limit him to exposition dumps.
3290270 I agree! Or maybe MLP could just straight-up have an episode beginning with the words: "1000 years ago" and explore the origins of Starswirl, Celestia, and Luna.
(BTW do you read the comic books? Starswirl himself appears in several issues as an actual character!)
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I have not yet read the comics, but I am familiar with some of the stories.
3292726 I definitely recommend reading the comics the first chance you get! There's so much more worldbuilding and all in the comics that haven't been in the show.