"The Mean 6" Review: A Dark Future for Equestria?

And here we are, arrived at Season 8's mid-season finale! And it brought us a huge surprise..... Much earlier than expected, Chrysalis returned to enact her revenge for losing her hive! And she did not waste any time and got straight down to business.....
After coming into Twilight's friendship school disguised as a photographer from the Historical Society in Canterlot and taking pictures of all the Mane Six (and Starlight, but only when prompted and only begrudgingly, a very nice and logical implication of who the mare from the society really is!), as well as ripping out a hair of their manes/tails, she returned back to her true form and said that she has all that she needs now.
Right after the opening, we saw what she needed those things for. And here we already got the first of the things that make this episode so spectacular. Chrysalis was using the things she had obtained to create clones of the Element Bearers, in order to be able to use the Elements of Harmony for her own, dark purposes of conquering Equestria and making it her new hive of earth ponies, unicorns and pegasi.
The scene that shows us this moment focuses solely on her and what she was doing. And this focus on Chrysalis and what she did stayed like this throughout the episode. This is the first time we got an episode that showed us certain events largely from the perspective of a villain! A truly unique thing that MLP: FiM hasn't done before and it brings some fresh air into the show.

And there was another intriguing detail that makes me wonder a lot. Before Chrysalis enacted her spell, she was seemingly talking with the trees, saying "We have been planning this for quite some time". The question here is, why "we"? Her and who else worked on this plan? This seems a little like Chrysalis was talking to someone we couldn't see and who didn't speak, so that we could not hear this other person either. Does Chrysalis have an accomplice who she made this plan with? One who perhaps even helped her develop this spell?
Other possibilities would be that the trees were somehow alive and had a consciousness already before they got turned into clones of ponies, since it was clearly dark magic what Chrysalis used there, or that Chrysalis wasn't speaking to anyone and that she has simply lost her mind over after she got defeated and her hive turned against her. But I can't shake off the feeling that there was someone else who contributed to this plan and who rather stays in the shadows.

After their creation, it showed quickly how similar the clones are to the Mane Six, but also how different they are to them. The clones have all of the same abilities that the actual Element Bearers have; Fluttershy's clone was able to understand the language of animals and Twilight's clone had not only her strategical thinking, but could also use the same spells as Twilight.
Yet, their personalities were different and they were the exact opposites of their Elements; Pinkie's clone was constantly grumpy and bored of everything, Fluttershy's clone was a total bitch, Rarity's clone was greedy and wanted to hoard everything she could get her hooves on, Applejack's clone was a notorious liar, Rainbow Dash's clone was disloyal and Twilight's clone simply evil. All of them twisted or a darker version of the actual Element Bearers.
The scariest one of them, it was definitely Twilight's clone. The clone of Twilight was mostly still like the real Twilight, and also played her role the best and most convincing, but she was utterly evil. She used her strategical thinking to chase down the clones who had gone lost, she used her intelligence to betray Chrysalis and was using her magic for evil purposes, when trying to kill Chrysalis. She even questioned Chrysalis because she didn't kill the Element Bearers immediately.
Twilight's clone gave a very terrifying impression of how Twilight would be if she were evil and what problems she would cause then. It showed that Twilight would be a very dangerous threat if she wanted to be one.

For the most part, the clones of Twilight's friends reminded a lot on how they acted when Discord had turned their minds around with his chaos magic, only Pinkie's clone and Rarity's clone were a bit different, with the former being constantly bored instead of hating laughter and the latter being greedy for everything and not just gems and other valuables. Which brings me back to my suspicion that Chrysalis could have an accomplice. If you are a longtime reader of my episode reviews (all reviews before "Bloom and Gloom" can only be found in EQD comments, so far, and all reviews before "Fake It 'Til You Make It" are only on Deviantart), you will know that I distrusted Discord for a long time and that I am still not completely sure what to think of him. Considering how similar the clones of the Element Bearers were to the discorded versions of the real Element Bearers, is it maybe that Discord contributed to Chrysalis' plan somehow?
He has not done something evil for a long time now, yet he still kept a sinister side all this time and is still very unpredictable. It would not come as the biggest surprise if he chooses the dark side again one day.

A thing I especially like about this episode is the way the events were presented. There is a constant back and forth between Twilight's group and Chrysalis' group and between the clones and the real Element Bearers. It keeps you on the edge of your seat, constantly expecting that the two groups run into each other eventually and clash and you keep asking yourself when it is going to happen. And then it doesn't happen and all ponies return to their respective groups and reach their destination independently from each other and, in case of Twilight's group, even without knowing that there was another group in the first place.
How the episode makes you expect that the two groups will fight each other eventually by that constant change of focus, it creates a high amount of suspense, then delivers you with a twist when you expect it the least. After all these years and seasons, MLP: FiM is still getting better and better. This might be the most suspense-filled episode of the entire show and definitely the one with the most unique narrative structure.

Speaking about unexpected events, the episode ends in a very surprising way, too. Not only does Chrysalis' plan fail, her clones also get defeated by the Tree of Harmony itself! Which is also where the events took a very dark turn, as you might have realized yourself already..... There are several indications that the cloned Element Bearers corrupted the Elements of Harmony after arriving at the Tree of Harmony.
First off, we have each Element of Harmony having started to glow black after each of the clones who were supposed to wield the respective Element expressed or showed the opposite of that Element.
We had Rarity's clone pointing in greed at the Element of Generosity right before it turned black, Fluttershy's clone was rude and hostile which caused the Element of Kindness to turn black, Pinkie's clone laughed in an evil way and made the Element of Laughter become black, Rainbow Dash's clone refused to help the other clones in retrieving the Elements and the Element of Loyalty became suddenly black and then Twilight's clone used magic with the goal to kill Chrysalis, magic used for an evil purpose, and as a result, the Element of Magic turned black.
Only when the Element of Honesty became black, this wasn't connected to Applejack's clone lying and it's a mystery how the change of Applejack's Element happened exactly. But after the Element of Generosity turned black, the camera focused on the respective Element each time it changed its color and right after each of the clones betrayed the Element they were supposed to wield, which is the second indication of what happened there.
Finally, the Elements of Harmony did something they are not supposed to do..... They killed. Throughout the show, since the very first two-parter, we have seen that the way the Elements of Harmony work is by removing the evil from the one who is targeted with them or by bringing them to a place or into a condition that makes it impossible for them to harm Equestria any more.
Nightmare Moon was banished to the moon and later sealed inside of Luna again, Discord was turned to stone, King Sombra got trapped under the ice and the Shadow was simply separated from Stygian and Stygian freed of him, robbing the Shadow off of the host it needed.
Each of these times, the Elements of Harmony never killed anyone. And there has not been a single known case where they did that. The Elements of Harmony reform and clean, but they never destroy.
Yet, when they attacked the clones of the Element Bearers, they did kill them by making their bodies wither and make them become dead branches again. This is not something the Elements of Harmony would do without manipulation or interference, as they are a force of light and not of darkness. This makes clear the most that the Elements of Harmony have changed.
These three things indicate that the Elements of Harmony have been corrupted by the genetically identic clones of their bearers, by them infusing the Elements with the opposite of what they stand for.
With the Elements of Harmony being corrupted, practically anything could happen now. This is a very unexpected and dark development and it lets the future for Equestria look quite grim.....
If the Tree of Harmony, Equestria's and perhaps the whole planet's strongest magical force, itself gets corrupted and becomes evil, then Equestria's future could become a very apocalyptic one.

And with the end of this suspense-filled and very surprising episode, we are sent into another mid-season hiatus..... We are left with the questions of what will happen to the Tree of Harmony now, what consequences the corruption of the Elements of Harmony will have and what Chrysalis' next steps will be, now that her first plan for getting revenge on Starlight failed.
The former two make me concerned for Equestria's safety, but that Chrysalis' plan failed and her future is once again unknown, gives me a little more hope that Season 9 might not be the last one, after all, as Chrysalis will probably need a long time to come up with a new plan and because, as you will know if you followed recent news, we already got a different villain confirmed for Season 9.
Either way, with these open questions we are left with now, it will definitely be a very exciting mid-season hiatus, with many opportunities to discuss, speculate and create theories until Season 8 continues.

P.S.: Cozy Glow had nothing to do with Chrysalis' plan and did not even appear in this episode, so my conviction that she is not evil turned out right!