• Member Since 1st Apr, 2012
  • offline last seen 6 hours ago

SuperPinkBrony12


I'm a brony and a Pinkie Pie fan but I like all of the mane six, as well as Spike. I hope to provide some entertaining and interesting fanfics for the Brony community.

More Blog Posts1215

  • Saturday
    Episode Re-Review: Triple Threat

    Now it's back to FiM, and back to Season 7. Season 7 finally seemed to find its footing at the very end of its first half, with the back to back successes of "Discordant Harmony" and "The Perfect Pear". The same could not be said for Equestria Girls, which debuted three specials meant to be combined into a full length movie, but only one of which ("Movie Magic") was any good. Still, Hasbro bit

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    3 comments · 96 views
  • 1 week
    Special Re-Review: Equestria Girls: Mirror Magic (Magical Movie Night, Part 3)

    So it is that we come to the third and final act of this special, and what at the very least counts as the black sheep of the lot in the form of "Mirror Magic". Compared to the two previous specials, this one directly focuses on its villain, albeit one we've seen before. But hey, Queen Chrysalis' big return in "To Where and Back Again" seemed to be received quite well all things considered. And

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    8 comments · 145 views
  • 2 weeks
    Special Re-Review: Equestria Girls: Movie Magic (Magical Movie Night, Part 2)

    Despite this and "Dance Magic" and "Mirror Magic" being made part of the same story, different writers penned all three specials. This one was written by Noelle Benvenuti, who had been absent from the writing scene since the lackluster "Made in Manehattan" that we now know was changed from its original planned story involving Flim and Flam. A shame, rather. But more likely, real world problems

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    3 comments · 127 views
  • 2 weeks
    R.I.P. Akira Toriyama

    Shocking and unexpected news has reached the ears of fans of manga and anime worldwide. Akira Toriyama, the creator of the iconic "Dragon Ball" manga that spawned several sequels and anime series, died March 1 at the age of 68.

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    5 comments · 150 views
  • 3 weeks
    Special Re-Review: Equestria Girls: Dance Magic (Magical Movie Night, Part 1)

    I'm going by release date for the specials I didn't cover during my initial re-reviews back in 2021, even though we now know when some of the specials are actually supposed to take place. In any case, this special is one of three that, when combined together, equals the total run time of a full length Equestria Girls movie. From here on out, Hasbro would not greenlight another movie, but after

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    3 comments · 156 views
May
26th
2018

Molt Down Review · 4:33pm May 26th, 2018

And so we come to the first (and perhaps only) Spike episode of the season. One of the biggest details about it was leaked months in advance, and this episode was among the leaked ones. Josh Haber was already revealed as this episode's writer, but despite being story editor for the season where Spike stopped being a butt monkey, he doesn't really have a track record for Spike focus episodes. Considering the track record for Spike episodes with him in the spotlight tend to be really weak for the most part, was this episode to able to defy the curse? Well, let's find out.

We begin with Spike accompanying Rarity to visit a phoenix nest and visit Peewee, who's now all grown up. As it turns out, Rarity's visit has another reason, she wants to collect some phoenix feathers for a dress. During the trip, she notices that Spike is covering up his right cheek, and he thinks it's a stone scale. Rarity suggests he go to Zecora for help, but Spike is confident it'll all be better if he gets a good night's sleep. However, he sleeps until almost noon the next day, and Twilight comes in to check up on him. Unfortunately, Spike has now broken out into itchy red scales in the shape of diamonds.

Spike tries to go back to bed, but Twilight reminds him he promised to help her prepare for a lecture. Though she does repeat the suggestion of going to Zecora for a cure, and Spike refuses. However, during the lecture prep, Spike starts breathing fire uncontrollably at random. Twilight orders him to leave the castle and go somewhere less flameable. His solution is to go to the school, dressed up in his John Lennon esque uniform from "Equestria Games". But Rarity spots him and asks for his help. Spike gets out of it by claiming he's going to be giving tours of the school, and it turns out that's an actual thing. Midway through the tour, he starts to lose his voice, and the only way he can be heard is if he starts shouting. It gets to the point where even Smolder is complaining about the noise, right before Spike singes his outfit.

Smolder finds Spike hiding in what I assume is a janitor's closet, and reveals that what Spike's going through is normal, it's called the molt. She also reveals that in the dragon lands, the family of the molter kicks the dragon out, largely because of the awful smell, and the fact that said smell attracts predators. However, Smolder doesn't do much beyond deliver this exposition. You could cut the school setting and have it be conveyed in a book or a letter from Ember, and nothing would change. She doesn't even show some of the hints of her nicer side that "Non-Compete Clause" indicated.

Finally deciding to do the sensible thing, Spike goes to Zecora, but even she can't do anything to stop something that's natural. She even has to plug up her nose to cope with the stench, and cover her ears to avoid going deaf. Apparently, this is what happened to Rarity, who has suddenly become unable to hear. A problem, because she talks to herself while sewing, and this helps her to concentrate.

Zecora manages to cover for Spike and allow him to slip out of her hut undetected. But once outside, a giant bird shows up, having been attracted by the stench. Spike attempts to lure the bird away from Zecora and hide in a tree, but Zecora urges him to come back down, and she ends up being captured. Rarity also ends up in the bird's talons, since she's unable to hear (and thus couldn't make Zecora's instructions on the magical ear drops). Spike tries to help, but his stone scales have become so itchy that he can barely move, and he has to scratch against a tree. Twilight catches him in the act of doing so.

Quickly learning what's going on, Twilight takes to the sky to attack the bird with her magic. Meanwhile, Spike's itching stops and the stone scars vanish. But then he becomes encased in stone completely, and for a moment he is rendered a statue. But then he breaks free, mostly unchanged except for the addition of a new pair of wings. He manages to more or less break them in and flame broil the bird's face, causing it to drop both Zecora and Rarity. Twilight rescues Zecora, and Spike rescues Rarity. He then reveals all he knows about the molt, but Twilight assures him that she's not gonna kick him out and promises that even though he's growing up, she'll be there to help him get through it.

Rarity also assures Spike that just because he's growing up doesn't mean others will stop caring about him. But the episode ends with her using him as a model for her dress made from the phoenix feathers, talking about all the useful things he can do for her with them.

And that's the story, so what do I think of the episode? Well, it's good for the most part. Spike's concerns are treated very seriously (as opposed to "Triple Threat" which played them for laughs even when he was clearly on the verge of panic), and Twilight caring about Spike is quite a welcome addition, it would've been very easy to have her be completely unconcerned about Spike. Rarity's inclusion feels mostly pointless, as her only real purpose is to be a damsel in distress for Spike. But we already had Zecora serve as that, and even with the implication that Spike had caused Rarity's deafness, nothing really comes of it. Smolder, as I mentioned, doesn't do anything besides deliver exposition on the molt. You could write her out and deliver the exposition another way, and nothing would change. And as nice it was to see Peewee all grown up, the fact that he doesn't play a larger role in the episode other than to foreshadow Spike's own fate, makes seeing him again just fanservice. On top of that, Spike's "change" isn't really much one of, all he does is get wings. His body size remains unchanged, as does his voice. When Twilight got her wings at the end of Season 3, they increased her height a little beginning in Season 4. And the CMC getting their cutie marks came after they started to change in body height a little (it's noticeable if you look at them over the seasons) and their voices had already gotten deeper due to the VAs aging. Surely it wouldn't have been too much to ask for Spike's wings to come with a slightly bigger body and slightly deeper voice. All in all though, this is a pretty good episode. In the end, I give it a borderline A-/A, putting it just above "Surf and/or Turf" which although great from a world building and character standpoint felt really lacking in the story department, but below "Horse Play" as it was the Celestia episode we always wanted. It's really saying something when the episode that is the least tied to the overall "theme" of Season 8, is the one that ends up being the strongest.

Next week, we have an interesting and unusual episode "Marks for Effort", in which the CMC try to apply to Twilight's school even though they've already mastered the cirriculum. It's being written by Nicole Dubac, author of the Ponyville Mysteries series, so she clearly knows her way around the CMC. But other than that, I have nothing to say about the possibilities. It all boils down to execution, and where they decide to go with this. Maybe it'll be good, and maybe it'll be bad. We'll have to wait and see.

Comments ( 8 )

I particularly enjoyed this episode.

I consider this to be the second best episode of the season, behind Parent Map.

And it's my fourth favorite episode of the entire series.

For me, the best scenes weren't even the ones after he got wings, but rather:
1. Smolder's scene (which cemented her further as best student)
2. All the Sparity, which is always great.

Well, thanks very much for sharing this. And, yeah, at least this is easily the third-best Spike focused episode overall (behind only "Gauntlet of Fire" and "The Times Are A-Changeling"). Also, we see perhaps the first time OTHER than the movie where Spike's flame breath is actually used effectively in a serious combat situation.

Another episode that was trash. The only Spike centered episode that sucked in my opinion.

When listening to Smolders explanation about the molting process, I feel she may not know everything about it. I mean, yeah, the parents kick you out, probably because the littler ones need protection, and the molter's scent would draw the hatchling gobbling predators to the den. But I feel the dragon or dragoness in question would probably return once the molting phase is completed.

Why do I say this. Well, you can't tell me that Dragon Lord Ember is still a "baby" dragoness, when she already is a dragon lord and seemed to be in her teen stage, and she was staying with her dad, Scorch, who was the previous dragon lord.

I think that there's a good chance that many dragons don't reach maturity, due to predators getting the better of them, which I know is a tad dark, but that would explain why dragons haven't taken over all the lands yet, and seem to be fewer in number than ponies. There could be the possibility that Smolder's brother didn't make it.

But at the same time, this is just hypothesis, since we don't know who Smolder's parents are, and there's also a chance she hasn't gone through molting herself yet, or she could have, and is only at the school because of Ember's demand.

Well, it was nice to see Spike being taken seriously which is RARE, but nowhere near as good as Gauntlet Of Fire. :moustache:

4871107 I doubt anything's gonna top "Gauntlet of Fire", it's the only Spike episode with no big elephant in the room holding it back.

I agreed with most of your points especially Smolder, I think she was annoying in this episode :ajbemused:

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