"Molt Down" Review: The Puberty of Dragons and Ponies

I can finally write my review for "Molt Down" today! And with this episode, M.A. Larson returned to wing another creature, this time under his super-secret pseudonym "Josh Haber", continuing his neverending mission of bringing anger and despair over this fandom with the power of Change!

And, I have to say, it's a change I did not expect. For the longest time, I had the theory that Spike belongs to a different and exotic race of dragons that don't get wings, because of his lack of wings that made him seem so different from the other dragons we've seen in the show. Now that theory is disproven as Spike grew wings, ascended and became an alicorn! No, wait, this isn't right, let me fix that.....
Now that theory is disproven as Spike grew wings because he has begun to physically grow up. I am a little disappointed that he doesn't belong to some exotic, mysterious race of dragons that not even Garble or Ember have heard anything about, because they just live so far away. But even with that, the mystery of his origin and ancestry still remains, as we still don't know who his parents are, where he comes from exactly (especially regarding the question if there are other regions populated by dragons than the Dragon Lands we've seen in S6 and S7) and how his egg came into Celestia's possession.
And it was still a super-epic episode as we got new informations about dragons again, something that happened only three times so far!
It's also interesting how Spike managed to get used to his wings and learn how to fly really fast. Where Twilight needed a lot of practice and still had slight problems with flying months after she got wings, Spike managed the same in just a few seconds! I guess that is because he is a member of a species that naturally grows wings sooner or later. It's probably a genetic thing that made it possible for him to learn flying so fast.
What I like most about this episode, is that Spike's molting paved the way for Smolder getting a big role in an episode! She sought him out after seeing his stone scales and realizing what happened and she helped him understand his condition, by explaining him everything about the stone scales, the uncontrolled fire burps, the voice shifts, the smell and how molting dragons get kicked out by their families to live on their own. All of these symptoms, except for the uncontrolled fire burps (really, consult a doctor if your teenager starts doing that!), are an interesting analogy to puberty of humans..... And maybe of ponies too?
Thinking about that now, it reminds me again on how we have not yet seen anything about how puberty goes down for ponies. They obviously won't have fire burps or get stone scales, but, is the puberty of ponies similar to the ones of humans with acne, getting a deeper voice and a stronger body smell? Or is it totally different and the puberty of ponies has symptoms that are nothing like what humans go through when the time comes?
So far, we have gotten slight hints that the puberty of ponies could be similar. Applebloom's voice has become noticeably deeper over the years since the show started and even Sweetie Belle's voice got a little deeper and less squeaky. And in this episode, Rarity has admitted to sometimes having acne and Twilight later said the same to Spike, which confirms that ponies are at least generally able to get acne.
But these are only very small hints and while the voice shifts probably are a thing when ponies reach puberty, since adult ponies have indeed deeper voices than foals, they leave much to desire.
We can mostly speculate how puberty happens for a pony exactly, but after thinking about this episode while writing this, I am convinced that the puberty of ponies is much different than the one of humans.
If we look at dragons, we see that their bodies and anatomy are quite similar to humans; they stand on two legs all the time, they have fingers and actual, human-like arms, as well as toes.
But ponies have, aside from slight similarities with the ability to walk on their hindlegs as well if they want to and to grab and use things with their hooves (or to use their wings like hands, in the case of pegasi), a completely different anatomy than humans.
So far, I thought that puberty happens the same way for ponies like it does for humans, but seeing this and how the "puberty" (Read: molt) symptoms of dragons are very close to those of humans, I now have the theory that dragons basically have the same type of puberty that humans have, because of their same anatomy, but that ponies have wildly different things happen to them and with their bodies than humans do during their own puberty.
Maybe, the puberty symptoms even differ between the three pony races and are individual for earth ponies, pegasi and unicorns? And maybe crystal ponies have yet again completely unique ones that differ from the other three pony races?
This episode definitely approached a very interesting subject and I hope we're going to find out one day, whether Season 9 is indeed going to be the last one or in a season that will air much further in the future.

Another new info we got about dragons, that surprised me as well, is that dragons apparently have natural enemies! Aside from the molt symptoms, Smolder also explained Spike how the smell that dragon bodies give off during the molt attracts predators that eat dragons, precisely, tatzlwurms, hydras and rocs.
Seeing how big and strong dragons are, I kind of expected that they don't have any natural enemies and are, letting aside powerful magical creatures like Tirek or Discord, the most powerful creatures and on the very top of the food chain.
Considering how Smolder said that those creatures are specifically attracted to dragons who molt, a point in life where probably all dragons are much smaller than fully-grown dragons, this might still be true, as it could be that tatzlwurms, hydras and rocs only attack dragons during their molt because they are an easier prey, but knowing this now brings the possibility that even dragons have enemies that are a match for dragons.
Either way, this lets us learn that dragons aren't as invulnerable as a species as we previously thought, which is a quite interesting fact to know.
And, to make this episode even more epic, we even got to see a roc! I am a sucker for gigantic creatures in fantasy worlds like Equestria ever since I've seen the hydra back in Season 1 and I also loved the tatzlwurm we've seen in Season 4. I think I once even said, in a review of another episode, that I'm wondering if rocs exist in Equestria, too. If that's true, this episode fulfilled a wish of mine; everything from his first assault to this absolutely awesome shot of Rarity and Zecora between his massive claws was wonderful!
I wonder what other gigantic creatures, that are only myths and folklore on Earth, live in Equestria..... Maybe the world serpent is what we will see next? This might be pushing it a bit, as such a monstrously huge creature would surely be a big sensation in Equestria and therefore, be talked about a lot, so we would have likely already heard about it if it would exist in Equestria..... But one can dream and hope.

And even with all this dragon information, there is more we found out. We also got a nice little piece of information about phoenixes. Their feathers make ponies deaf on contact, which is a very interesting thing I didn't expect and it makes me wondering why this happens to ponies specifically..... Could this be a defense mechanism against ponies? Has there been a certain past between ponies and phoenixes, one where ponies were hostile against phoenixes, and so phoenixes developed like this, so that ponies can't hear them anymore to find them after having contact with one of their feathers?
I also wonder how Celestia deals with this..... Perhaps she is immune because she is an alicorn or it has to do with her ability to move the sun.
The best thing about this, though, is that we got to see Peewee again! We have only seen him once and that only for a short time, way back in Season 2, and we never saw him again, except on a photo, and never really found out why Spike has brought him back, instead of keeping him as a pet. It feels epic to finally get an answer on this after so many years and seasons.
This also goes hoof in hoof with a ton of continuity; not only do we see Peewee again, we also heard Rarity talking about the little incident she had with the wrong potion from Zecora that we saw last season and Spike talking about how he had a growth spurt because of greed.

Another thing this episode delivered us with, something we haven't gotten for a long time, is real Sparity shipping fuel! We all know that Rarity is very concerned about how she looks and you definitely would not expect her to admit in front of anyone that she gets acne sometimes. Yet, she admitted it to Spike and was not even slightly worried he could make fun of her for it or spread this information around.
This seems like a level of trust Rarity wouldn't show to other creatures, but she did to Spike..... Combining this with other moments seen in the past, this doesn't make it hard to draw the conclusion she's feeling more than friendship for him. Even though she still abuses his love he feels for her to get him to do favors.....

Background pony-wise, this episode had another, interesting return of characters we haven't seen for a long time..... Curtain Call and his mother Bubblegum Blossom! The last time we've seen them together was during Season 5 in "Made in Manehattan", when Curtain Call begged his mother to watch the Midsummer Theater Revival together. It's amazing to see them back, they are two ponies who deserve a lot more love in the fandom and I still hope this appearance will get them more of it!
There was also a filly in the group of visitors of Twilight's school (who has not been named yet!) together with an older mare who is probably her mother. Maybe the mothers of Curtain Call and this filly think about sending their foals to Twilight's school in Ponyville and inspected the school because of that? I really hope that is the case, because Curtain Call might get a bigger role then!

And that covers the most important aspects of this episode, which is where I wrap up my reviews for the first half of Season 8! More will follow once Season 8 has returned and I might catch up with some reviews for episodes of other seasons I didn't make yet for several reasons during the mid-season hiatus.
To conclude this review, here are some more details:

Interesting Background Details

- The beginning of the episode has small cameos of Yona, Silverstream, Gallus and Sandbar. Yona can be seen trotting up to the school at the side of a mare, Silverstream flies to the balcony of the school and lands there where she meets Gallus and Sandbar is right behind them.
It was easy to see Sandbar and Yona in the library, but you might have missed them together with Silverstream and Gallus at the beginning of the episode.
Also, Ocellus is the only one of the Student Six who isn't seen anywhere, not even in the library to do her homework, even though she is the studiest one of them. Is she perhaps sick or had a certain reason not to come to school on this day?

- Pinkie's short role in this episode is one of the most hilarious ones she ever had. She quite apparently gets a lot of crazy ideas if she unexpectedly gets a free day and doesn't know what to do with her time. :D

- Smolder has a brother! Not much more to say about this, and it really speaks for itself, but I'm interested in who he is. Somehow, I had the feeling it could be Garble when she said that. Maybe because she didn't seem to speak very favorable about her brother?
I hope we get to see her brother one day!

- When the roc attacked Spike, this happened at a place inside the Everfree Forest that has barely any trees. I wonder which place this is? Maybe it is near the Froggy Bottom Bog that we saw in Season 1.
Which would be interesting, considering that a hydra lives there. Maybe Spike was lucky to not having become attacked by two gigantic creatures.