MLP Marathon Bonanza S6 E1-3 · 5:53pm Nov 21st, 2017
Okay, so I took a short break after finishing Friendship Games, but let’s go ahead and get started on Season 6 now. I’m not expecting another Crusaders of the Lost Mark, but if I can at least get another Brotherhooves Social or something, then I’ll be quite happy.
The Crystalling
It’s nice to see the Crystal Empire again. It’s always been a pretty neat place, but I never much cared for Cadence and Shining Armor. Sure, yeah, they’re cute enough together, I suppose, and I like the joke that Shining Armor can’t keep up with the baby, but unfortunately this is not a two-parter that I ended up liking all that much.
I like Starlight Glimmer’s Rarity-adjacent mane.
I feel a little bad about it, but I’ve never liked baby episodes all that much. Baby Cakes remains one of my least favorite episode, despite the references in it, and that’s mainly because of the babies. I have nothing against babies in real life, but for whatever reason pony babies just kind of annoy me slightly. Maybe it shatters my illusion that there are only kids and adults in Equestria, and kids and adults are automatically more interesting than babies, but ah well. I think it was interesting that Flurry Heart is born an alicorn and apparently that’s a big deal. I’ll be curious to see what they do with that in the future. Though it does beg the question, is she only an alicorn because of Cadence, or is there some weird Palpatine-esque midichlorian manipulation going on here that caused Flurry Heart to be born so she could bring balance to the force friendship?
Who made you, Flurry Heart!?
So, besides all the baby stuff, I generally liked some of the parts of this season opener. I like Starlight Glimmer trying to avoid having to meet Sunburst again, and then meeting him only to find out he’s a just a big nerd. I vaguely like Sunburst, I guess? I like that Twilight realizes at the end of the episode that she can’t teach Starlight Glimmer everything directly, but that she’ll need to learn some things for herself. I especially liked that Spike is the one who gets her to realize this. It’s really nice to see Spike doing what he’s supposed to be doing and being a good friend/assistant to Twilight. Also, I liked when Celestia and Luna fly into the sky and start shooting clouds with magic. That was silly and cool.
It’s always nice to see Celestia and Luna together.
I think the main thing that really kept me from enjoying this opener that much is the lack of a central villain. It’s hard to feel all that excited about stopping weather. Also, the fact that Flurry Heart is the one who destroyed the Crystal Heart is all the more reason for me to not get too invested. It’s not an evil plot, or even misguided actions, but just an accident. That’s just not that interesting, unfortunately. All that being said, I know Sunburst comes back at some point and interacts with Trixie (because I’ve seen screenshots) and I’m looking forward to that happening. Oh, yeah, and I guess I’m looking forward to seeing what happens with Flurry Heart. Maybe she’ll end up being really awesome.
This episode didn’t grab me that much, but it’s still got a cute ending.
The Gift of the Maud Pie
Cool, it’s a Maud episode. She’s always fun.
Well that was a pretty cute episode. It’s nothing spectacular really, but that’s fine. When the episode first started, I was kind of excited to see Rarity going around looking at all these different locations for her shop, because Rarity is always great, but instead it was more or less sightseeing in the end. Even though Maud basically is the same joke over and over again, she never really wears on me. I think she’s a good contrast to Pinkie, and I like the running gag in this episode that Maud’s blank stare drives people crazy.
Rarity and Maud are cute together, but in a friendshipping kinda way.
While this wasn’t a particularly great episode, I do like that it’s just sweet enough to be somewhat memorable. I sort of wonder how far away Manehattan is supposed to be though, because some episodes they act like it’s this massive journey, and others they just pop over for the day. Actually, come to think of it, that’s most of Equestria in general I suppose. Well, I’ll just chalk that one up to magic. It would be boring if they just stayed in their area all the time. In any case, this episode was fairly all right. Maud’s cute and I always like Rarity episodes, so it’s hard to complain too much.
I don't want to disappoint you, but you're going to be disappointed.
4731439
Welp... that's great.
Celestia and Luna can't even deal with the weather. Yes, they lasted longer than Dash, but still not that cool.
4731499
Yeah, they basically do nothing for most of the episode, which is disappointing but kind of expected.
4731516
Celestia over the past seasons has been revealed to have hooves of clay. It's gone from pathetic to quite humorous.
4731439
Took the words right out of my mouth.
Sorry alexmagnet, but this was purely a marketing decision that after 2 seasons has never had a larger payoff or even is ever really revisited. Its sole impact is to piss off fans by appeasing the marketing department that said "Hey we already have a toy that is a baby alicorn princess and we need you to fit it into the show."
They couldn't even be bothered to hand wave themselves a reason in the episode. Fluttershy acts as the audience stand in by asking the obvious question of "isn't becoming an alicorn supposed to mean something? How did this happen?" and the only response is "We have no idea."
I'm with you on not really liking baby characters in most media, but Flurry Heart was particularly egregious because of how she came about and the fact that she was solely a tool to move the plot by blowing up the magical McGuffin. This has led to me referring to her only as The Abomination.
4731574
Well that's a hell of a shame. I wasn't in love with Flurry Heart or anything, but knowing that nothing happens with her is pretty lame. Oh well, at least she's not on the opposite end where she becomes all important or anything. That might have been more annoying.
4731579
Quite true, her having a real focus <shudder> would have possibly been worse.
At least you do have a S7 episode to look forward to with her where some super cute stuff with her & Twilight occurs that does make her marginally more tolerable, but yeah, other than that she's just a thing that is there...
I have this crazy headcanon that she actually earned her ascension before she was born, somehow having interacted with others on a level not unlike Michelle in the webcomic Gene Catlow. (Which I'm wayyyyy behind on.)
I'll actually see these episodes for the first time in January. But I've read them on the wiki, so I'm not behind on the general stories there.
You like Maud? Here's your Maud.
4731841
Cute!
4731844
Indeed...
...How long did you stare at that gif? Long enough?
4731865
Long enough, yes, but still cute.