The Season 5 Finale (Spoilers) · 1:34am Nov 29th, 2015
Well...that was something. A really long, somewhat confusing, weird something that just happened on a show about magical talking ponies. I think everyone who dismisses this show as sparkly nonsense should have a look at the post-apocalyptic world scenarios this show managed to pull off....along with one of the main characters having a very obvious SCAR on their face whilst fighting in a war against an evil dictator. But enough about how making assumptions about TV shows is bad. Why in the world am I writing a bucking blog post about this? Because I literally just watched it five minutes ago and.....it was something.
To clarify, I knew very little about the finale before I watched it. I knew it involved time travel and Starlight Glimmer, but otherwise I was totally blind. When I found out time travel was going to be involved, I had a feeling it would be interesting, but I had no idea they'd go this far. But that's kind of the problem.... For future reference, I like this episode. It's not the best, nor the worst, season finale, but it's pretty damn good. We get to see lots of amazing scenarios, each more surprising and dark than the last. But other than that, what else is there? A very confusing time travel plot that actually doesn't make any sense. I don't expect this show to make sense 100% of the time (as great as MLP:FIM is, it still follows some of the most basic cartoon rules), but in an episode like this, making sense is kind of a must. And to be frank, the time travel plot makes barely any sense. It comes across as more or less an excuse to show the ponies in a series of badass post-apocalyptic situations. There's no rhyme or reason to how the present is affected. It's just one after the other, almost as if Twilight is just exploring a museum of "Could-have-been"s. It was nice to see Starlight redeemed and to see why she became the way she is, but other than that the time travel thing really did feel like an excuse for the animators/writers to go all-out. That's not always a bad thing, of course. I'm sure the animators and writers had a ball making "The Return of Harmony", if nothing else because of the incredibly twisted and nonsensical visuals. However, in this case the "going all-out" thing is a lot more forced.
So is this episode worth watching? Is there anything of value here? Yes and yes. Despite how badly handled the time travel thing was, it's worth seeing at least once just for the chance to have a look at some things we'll never see ever again (Pinkie Pie and Maud Pie fighting in a war, Zecora leading a "tribe" of ponies against Queen Chrysalis, Rainbow Dash working for Nightmare Moon, etc.). These are the things that ultimately save the episode from being bottom-tier. But on the other hand (hoof?), we've never really had a bad season opener or season finale. The only real complaint about any of them is that some of the storylines could easily have been spread out through an entire season and worked even better. We've never had an outright terrible season finale or season opener that ninety-percent of the fandom dislikes with a passion. At least the Season 5 finale didn't break that trend, even though it's mostly pure fan fiction fuel.
As far as S5 finale reviews go, yours is probably the first to bring the way the time travel segment was handled poorly to light.
Being a fan of time travel myself there were several things I noticed about the finale here. The first is that in each scenario, only one of the villains succeeded with their plans, and it was a different villain each time. Yes it can be argued that the point was to show 'what-if' scenarios, but that's a pretty poor reason. In time travel there's three paths you can follow, no more, no less. The Fate Route is impossible here, because it involves going backwards and wanting to change events, but instead being the cause of them. An example of this can be seen in season 2. Perhaps the least popular and most difficult to write it the Paradox Route, where changing anything results in the end of the universe. It's often referenced in most Time Travel fiction, but is rarely ever used. The Multiverse Route is probably the most popular as it displays the alternate timelines everyone is so fond of.
I think that's what the writers tried to do here, but didn't quite get right. For one, they took into account the passage of time after the events of each villain winning, but they seemed afraid to include different variables. Are we to believe that Celestia had no plan regarding Nightmare Moon's return because Twilight didn't become her student? And what exactly could have cause what appeared to be Nuclear fallout in the dark future Starlight saw?
Maybe I'm reading too much into this, But I honestly feel a bit unsatisfied with this finale, with such a strong second half of the season, I suppose I expected a bit more.
Also, I feel as though, Starlight's backstory was a little weak when compared to the level of revenge she was wreaking. How does 'my friend is good at thing before I am' become 'I'm going to rewrite history out of spite against somebody that slighted my plan to control a town through forced communism'? It just feels like too much of a leap to me. Maybe if there was enough time they could have shown Starlight descending into what she'd become with a short "It only got worse from there" and showing several three second clips. But as it was I felt her original motivation was pretty normal, and what she became wasn't. Both things are fine separate, but not part of the same character.
I mean, look at Moondancer, basically the same 'my friend left me to move onto greatness' as Starlight, but Moondancer had a far more realistic reaction to being dumped by her best friend.
Anyway, I'm again probably overthinking this, but hey, somebody has to, right? In any case, I agree with your argument and it's pretty well written, nicely done.
3577188 First of all, thanks. Second of all, I agree with what you said about Starlight's back story. When I realized they were about to reveal why Starlight acts the way she does, I was really excited. Unfortunately, my excitement turned to disappointment almost immediately. I'd even go so far to say that nearly every other villain in the series has more realistic motivations for their actions. The only good reason for Starlight to go this far over such a relatively harmless event is if she already had mental issues. In other words, the series seems to be telling us that Starlight is the "Overattached Girlfriend" multiplied by 1000
If someone tries to break up with her, she'll go back in time and destroy the future of the Equestria 
3580795 It isn't posted yet, but this coming Wednesday the latest episode of my podcast is being posted, and we discussed the finale. If you've got the time, look up TheHumodCrew on Youtube to check out our weekly podcast.