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I guess it was a good thing I decided to write out the plot idea I had for The End of Cutie Marks before this week's episode.

So I was intending to wait until the second half of the season releases on Netflix to watch it since Netflix actually has decent volume on its episodes, but I bit the bullet and watched Crusaders of the Lost Mark.

First off: the face of nightmares!

After that...well, for the five-year anniversary episode, this is actually probably my personal best episode of the season, even more than Slice of Life or Amending Fences. Don't get me wrong, a lot of the episodes in Season 4 and 5 have just been KILLING it, but I get the feeling the writers have lost a bit of direction from the whole core 'Friendship is Magic' theme in favour of more 'adult' problems (sort of an 'age with your core fanbase' thing, where all the girls who were 5-10 when watching in 2010 are now 10-15), and the sheer amount of gags and visual puns and so on that are a wink at the adult fanbase. This actually gets back more to the Season 1 and 2 episodes of actual friendship problems.

There hasn't been that many songs this season, at least in the first half that I've watched, but it looks like they really saving it all up for this episode. Perhaps it's because Diamond Tiara's been in so many episodes and is really more a bully than an actual antagonist, and also because the episode hones in on her, but it's a better redemption episode than the ones for Trixie, Gilda or Discord. Now all we need is one for Lightning Dust, who I think suffered from the same problem as Trixie's initial appearance, in that she had flaws but the writing overplayed its hand in what was shown on-screen so we can't really hate or even more than mildly dislike her.

I like the CMC mark designs, too, given that they're each three-shape enclaves (heart within apple with shield or lightning bolt within wing within shield or music note within star within shield), again relating to the rule of three with the CMC.

(I might just be imagining it too, but I think the writer might have also been making a slight at student politics. There's that saying about how student boards, especially at universities, have the least on the line and yet are the most vicious. A good lesson to take from this episode!)

A couple of little things I will nitpick on: first, Filthy Rich had only one appearance and didn't say anything, though he was of course the guy who actually donated the money for the playground equipment. I was kind of expecting him to show up on-screen to side with DT and give his wife a little speech on friendship or something, since he's been shown to be an alright guy in his few appearances, if not exactly winning any Friend of the Year awards or anything. Second, I think Luna should honestly have gotten a little bit more of an appearance than that bit right at the end, considering she's had an episode with Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom each.

Really, the only disappointment I have is that I was honestly expecting the CMC to finally get their Cutie Marks in the season finale with Starlight Glimmer's return, given Starlight's first appearance she was stripping ponies of their Cutie Marks. Markless Crusaders getting their Marks against a Mark-stealing villain would have been so so good. I would have loved for Scootaloo to finally fly this episode as well, but I think that would have been a distraction (Sweetie Belle gets two uses of magic I saw, and lifting Pipsqueak was probably the biggest use of magic she's been seen doing so far, but she HAS used magic in prior episodes).