The Crystalling Parts 1 and 2 Offical Review · 4:00am Mar 27th, 2016
I apologize for this review taking longer than it normally does to come out, but I had to go in to work at an earlier time than I've previously been scheduled for Saturdays where I do work. Hopefully, this won't be a problem in the future. Anyway, it's been a few months, but ponies are back with another season. This season premiere had a lot to work with, considering the bad taste Starlight Glimmer's reformation left in everyone's mouth at the end of Season 5. Could the introduction of a new baby from Shining Armor and Cadence, coupled with trying to make Starlight a bit more likeable, work out?
Well, let's find out.
We begin with Starlight struggling to find her way through Twilight's castle, apparently nopony thought to label the doors. After stumbling in on Spike brushing his teeth (could've been a lot worse), Starlight finds her way to the castle library where Twilight is waiting for her. And of course, Starlight has restyled her mane to look a little more like her teacher. I guess this is similar to how Obi-Wan and Anakin had their hair styled when they were padawans.
Twilight is all too eager to compile a list of things that could serve as Starlight's first friendship lesson, which unnerves Starlight quite a bit. Especially when the subject of Sunburst comes up, and she learns that he has moved to The Crystal Empire. Deciding to clear her head, Starlight heads to the throne room, where the rest of the mane six drop some exposition about the important ceremony known as The Crystalling.
It turns out that it is an important ceremony used to power up the Crystal Heart, and it happens every time a new foal is added to the royal Crystal Family. Naturally, when the invite comes, Twilight decides that since everyone is going to the empire for the ceremony (including Spike this time), the time has come for Starlight to reunite with Sunburst for her first friendship lesson. Naturally, Starlight isn't thrilled with this decision, and even confesses this to Spike (who she catches flexing his muscles in a mirror). Spike, showing concern for Starlight, gives her this advice in regards to Twilight.
Rather than do this, Starlight remains silent, even as Twilight unfolds the lesson plan for how to befriend Sunburst after all these years. Upon arriving in the empire and learning that Shining Armor and Cadence have been very busy since their foal was born, Twilight decides to call off the lesson. However, Spike takes charge of the lesson plan, and he and Starlight set off to find Sunburst. Pretty soon, however, Starlight exploits her recently obtained knowledge of Spike's hero status in the Crystal Empire to stall for time, hoping she won't have to meet Sunburst.
Meanwhile, Twilight and her friends arrive, and discover that the new baby is an alicorn. Celestia and Luna explain only that even they are stumped by this (sounds fishy to me, but maybe they don't want to reveal how alicorns are born).
Despite Flurry Heart's incredible magic enhanced sneezes, Twilight convinces Shining Armor and Cadence to hold the ceremony. Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and Fluttershy are assigned to help Shining Armor get everything ready, while Celestia and Luna take Cadence to remind her subjects of the importance of the ceremony. Leaving Twilight and Pinkie Pie to look after the baby. Personally, even if Pinkie Pie has experience from her first time looking after The Cake Twins, I don't know if she could handle the powers of a baby alicorn. The twins were more than enough for her.
Spike finally tells Starlight they've stalled for long enough, and the two of them set off to meet Sunburst. He appears to be dressed as a wizard, but something seems off about him. Naturally, the conversation between him and Starlight is incredibly awkward.
Rather than talk about her past (and who could blame her), Starlight lets Sunburst do most of the talking, and it ends with Sunburst escorting her and Spike out. Meanwhile, the ceremony is ready to begin, but a sudden high pitched cry from Flurry Heart when she is pealed away from Pinkie Pie causes the Crystal Heart to shatter into pieces. This leaves the empire at the mercy of the Frozen North, as part 1 ends.
Part 2 begins with Celestia and Luna setting off to try and hold back the approaching snowstorm as best they can, and Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy are assigned the important task of convincing the empire's citizens to move indoors. Considering how badly Applejack was at diverting attention away from a fake crystal heart, I'm surprised she was chosen for this assignment. This leaves Twilight, Pinkie Pie, and Rarity, to assist Shining Armor and Cadence with finding a spell to fix the heart. But Flurry Heart's magic only grows more uncontrolled, as she learns how to teleport and flys off.
With Starlight wallowing in self pity over her failed friendship lesson (Twilight really has rubbed off on her), and Spike trying to comfort her (while burning up the friendship lesson plan), it takes them a while to notice what's going on. And in the meantime, the attempts at convincing the public to move indoors goes nowhere fast. Flurry Heart proves to be quite a hoofful for her parents, and even with Pinkie Pie and Rarity's help (though Rarity tries to catch Flurry Heart with a net for some reason), the search for a spell to fix the heart goes nowhere fast. At last, Twilight recieves a spell from an old book that Cadence found which should do the trick. But an ill timed magic blast from Flurry Heart redirected pinball style (with Starlight unintentionally deflecting it upon entering the crystal library) the book and the spell are destroyed.
Starlight sets off to find Sunburst and hope he can fix things, while Twilight attempts the spell with help from Cadence, to no avail. With the storm getting worse, and Celestia and Luna losing power, Shining Armor makes the decision to evacuate the empire before it's too late. Meanwhile, Starlight attempts to get Sunburst's help, only for Sunburst to reveal he isn't a wizard and his booksmarts don't translate well in practice. Furiously, Starlight blows up at him and exposes her past, getting the two of them to open up. And as it turns out, Sunburst does have a few books that contain the necessary spells to save the day. This gets him the important job of being the royal crystaler for the ceremony, and he even manages to fix Flurry Heart's surges before they can do more trouble. With the day saved, Celestia comments on how Sunburst might just be a powerful wizard after all.
The day has been saved, and after a speaking cameo from Night Light and Twilight Velvet (who sounds an awfully lot like her daughter, which would make sense considering early fandom speculation about her being G1 Twilight is what led to her offical name), Shining Armor and Cadence offically name the baby Flurry Heart because of the occasion. Starlight says her goodbyes to Sunburst (who, as it turns out, was a student of Princess Celestia at some point. Probably in the time between Sunset Shimmer and Twilight Sparkle), averting my fears that they would dump her at the end of the two parter. Twilight, however, is a little bit unhappy at the fact that she wasn't able to help Starlight, but Spike points out that her hooves off approach is similar to how Celestia taught her, which makes Twilight feel better. But I'm not sure if it's such a good idea for Twilight to try the same teaching methods on Starlight. What works for one pony, isn't necessarily going to work for another, especially considering what it once led to.
And that's the story, so what do I think of the two parter? Well, overcrowded is probably the best word to describe it. We had the entire mane eight including Spike and Starlight Glimmer (who has currently moved up to eclipse Applejack in the rankings, but is below Spike and Rainbo Dash), Shining Armor and Princess Cadence, as well as Flurry Heart and Sunburst who had crucial roles, and Princess Celestia and Princess Luna for some of parts 1 and 2. Considering what was going on and what the story was focused on, it probably would've been better to cut the plot involving Applejack, Fluttershy, and Rainbow Dash (who probably should've been used to help chase after Flurry Heart), and remove the royal sisters since the only reason they were from a writing stand point was to handwave the worldbuilding away with a "We're not going to try and explain it" statement. Still, the A and B plots flowed pretty well, and Spike had perhaps one of his greatest two parter potrayals in quite a while. In the end, this two parter did a decent job of convincing me and many others that Starlight Glimmer could work as she is now (still not entirely certain it was best to reform her, especially since the writers envisioned hers as Dolress Umbridge ponyfied, though that doesn't make much sense considering Umbridge was a burecrat), although I wish they'd done more than just hastily shoehorn her into the intro. Flurry Heart managed to not be a complete Poof rehash, which bodes well considering Poof is when "Fairly Odd Parents" began to decline, but chances are her appearances will be limited at least for the future. Ultimately, I give this two parter an A+, Josh Haber has done pretty well at filling Meghan McCarthy's shoes (though I would've personally given it to Dave Polsky, though perhaps that might not be possible considering he may still be involved with "Sonic Boom"), but time will tell how good of a story editoir he is (Meghan will be away this season so that she can work on the upcoming movie).
Next week we have "Gift of The Maud Pie", our first ever RariPie episode involving the return of Maud Pie and Manehattan, as Pinkie Pie and Rarity search for the perfect gift for Maud. We'll see if those Pinkie swan boat commericals meant anything, but I'm hoping that whoever's picked to write this RariPie episode knows what they're doing. Much like RariDash, we haven't really explored this pairing much.
And after that Rarpie episode we get a CMC episode, quite early this time, normally we wait like 10 episodes before we get one.
3829725 Actually, we've had a CMC episode fairly early in every season since Season 1:
Season 2: Sisterhooves Social (FIve episodes in)
Season 3: One Bad Apple (Four episodes in)
Season 4: Flight to The Finish (Five episodes in)
Season 5: Bloom and Gloom (Four episodes in)
3829726 Huh I did not know that, hopefully we will get more CMC episodes this season.
Well, I can see where you state your arguements.
Also, with Mr. and Mrs. Sparkle, as the credits have named, I am looking forward to more episodes that actually give them speaking roles.
As for upcoming episode three, I have a feeling this is where Babs Seed will pop in, since she lives there, but I could be wrong, and that could be during the CMC episode "On Your Marks", since it was hinted on Equestria Daily that she will be seen for screen time again, and not just mentioned.
I am interested in the episode EQD labled as "The Gauntlet of Fire". I am hoping this is the episode they actually have Spike in a good light while he's the center of attention, and am hoping to get a little more insight into Dragon culture then teenage boy dragons being complete bullies, I have a feeling the females behave very differently. And I will put a blog out about this in a bit.
3829755 Well, they already told us we can expect to see a song where they sing along with the mane six and some background ponies. I hope they don't forget about Diamond Tiara now that she's reformed, she doesn't need to be in every CMC episode from now on, but an occasional appearance would be nice.
It's nice to see Spike portrayed like he should be, and not just a sidekick. The premier was pretty cool.
I honestly consider this to be the best premiere yet, with Starlight being a major part of why.
As for the next episode, I hope it ends up much better than the last two Manehatten ones.
Alright, I finally got around to watching the two-parter and for me, it was a very good start to the Season.
And Twilight's parents FINALLY got a chance to speak after five years of waiting.
3830645 I don't think it'll take much to top "Made in Manehattan", especially since Pinkie Pie can play off her surroundings pretty well. But I don't really see what was wrong with "Rarity Takes Manehattan", in fact I feel like it was a well overdue return to form for Rarity after being denied a focus episode in Season 3. Besides, Coco Pommel was a cute character, though I don't believe she or anypony else should replace Fluttershy.
I have a question, how many of you have seen a fic shipping Sunburst and Starlight yet? I've seen at least one. But something tells me that ship existed ever since he was introduced. Dunno if this has any relevance to the topic at hand, but just something I noticed.
The one thing I really loved about this episode was that Flurry Heart was really, really attached to Pinkie, I mean crying after being taken away, she loved Pinkie.
3832022 True, I guess Pinkie's experience with The Cake Twins did sort of help her. Maybe she should've tried to explain to Rarity that you can't catch a baby with a butterfly net. It's not a wild animal.
3831700 Actually, Coco Pommel IS one of my problems with Rarity Takes Manehatten. She felt more like a tool of the plot than an actual character in that. Made in Manehatten upgraded her to generic "nice" pony, but that's about it.
In fact, I'll say it right now: Coco Pommel is my least favorite new character from season 4.
As for Rarity Takes Manehatten as a whole, I have a bunch of other problems with it, including Suri Polomare and the song.
It was mixed bag. Love the sub of Starlight and Sunburst, but I felt the plot was confusing. While Flurry is cute and will be a good character down the road. She was a annoying this premiere. She was over powered, didn't not have to care so much with being separated from Pinkie she should just cried a little bit like having your favorite toy taken away. That happened because they need conflict in this episode. The Crystal Heart shattering is a good idea, but they way they set it up very weak. Her magical out were random with no pattern; what I mean is for examples she sneezed she have blasted magic, she hiccuped she should have teleported, and she should not flown that well. I know she is an alicorn, but still too fast. Also if Luna and Celestia were not born alicorn how did they become one. I still believe they were born alicorns. Josh Haber is still a mediocre writer and who should never write anymore premieres or finales. He missed up here and last season's finale.
Final Grade 6.5 or 7 out of 10 Feel free to discuss this with me if anyone wants to.
3833875 the whole Celestia and Luna not being born alicorns was conifimed in a comic but I'm not sure which one.
3833898 It is hard to compare the comics and the show if the comics were canon the umbra ponies would have came instead of the ice storm. I would love a background episode on Celestia and Luna.