Let's Talk Season 8 · 4:40pm Nov 16th, 2018
So last night I finally finished Season 8.
Well... that was a thing that happened, wasn't it?
Yeah, I don't really have a high opinion of this season. I didn't outright hate anything, but it definitely didn't grab me at all like other seasons did. For the most part, I don't care about the Friendship School, or the Student Six or Young Six or whatever the hell you want to call them. It was like watching OCs on Parade whenever they were the focus. Again, I didn't hate them, I just didn't care about them... or much else, honestly. To clarify, let's break this down episode by episode and go over the season.
Eps. 1 & 2: School Daze: I'm sure you've seen the meme going around the points out that Season 1 was about Twilight realizing she can't learn friendship out of books, and now, we get a damn school about teaching friendship. I mean, I know we want to play in the wider sandbox the movie gave us1, but really, these student characters are just not interesting. They aren't. I know they're supposed to be rough around the edges and soften as time goes on, but they never really evolve. Sure, they become friends and get it by the end of the season, but they're still essentially The Griffon, The Dragon, The Hippogriff, The Yak, The Pony, and The Changeling. They're one-note and bland.
Chancellor Neighsay, despite an always excellent performance by Maurice LaMarche, is just as one note. "This princess wants to CHANGE THINGS?! Upset the PROCEDURE AND THE RULES?! HOW UNORTHODOX AND COMMON!" Gee, haven't seen THIS kind of character before in kids' media. Overall, this is almost like a new pilot for the series, more concerned with introducing new concepts and characters rather than building on anything the last seven seasons and the movie gave us. And really, the school itself is like a goddamn anchor. The movie goes out of its way to expand the world Equestrian exists in, the map does likewise and what does the show do? Anchor the characters even more to Ponyville. And Twilight just assumes her friends will be all on board with being teachers on top of, you know, their REGULAR JOBS. How the hell is Rarity able to teach, and run her own business at the same time, not to mention the (few) non-school related things that happen this season? You know what would have been an interesting story? One of the Mane Six realizing that they've taken on too much for them to handle as part of Twilight's latest project.
Ep. 3: The Maud Couple: I like Maud. I didn't think I would, but I do. But here's the thing: a character like Maud is only good in small doses and usually only if it's the one character in the series. This episode not only decides to double up on the character type by introducing another character with the same personality, but they make it a romantic episode on top of that. The moral's okay: reassuring younger siblings that just because an older sibling gets into a relationship, that doesn't mean they'll forget about you. But Mud Briar is every pedantic internet rando who ever "Well, actually"-ed their way into your social media feeds. He's obnoxious and irritating, and as a result, you spend the whole episode thinking "Maud, honey, you can do better."
Also, Pinkie gets unbearable when she's neurotic.
Ep. 4: Fake It Till You Make It: The first episode that I liked. It's really easy for Fluttershy to become a non-entity in this series (she did almost NOTHING in the movie), and usually ends up being a foil for other characters who take center stage. Here we get to see the rare instance where FLuttershy becomes a jerk in three exciting flavors and it is glorious to see. One thing this season has done is give us some great faces from all the characters and this is where we get our first indication of what we can expect to see going forward. Fun stuff.
Ep. 5: Grannies Gone Wild I am ambivalent about Rainbow Dash. She's on the bottom of my ranking of the Mane Six, and not very high on my list of favorite characters overall. This episode didn't really make much of an impression on me. In fact, this should have been a warning for a later episode in the series. This whole thing plays out lie those old cartoons where the main character is put in charge of a baby, and the baby wanders around evading certain death through the whole thing. Only difference is, this episode isn't funny. It left no impression on me and I really don't have much to say about it.
Ep. 6: Surf And/Or Turf: By the same token, I have never been a fan of the Cutie Mark Crusaders. I found them annoying in the early seasons, and while they've gotten more bearable in the later seasons, there's very few episodes where they're the focus that I enjoy. This one, however, I did enjoy quite a bit. I liked returning to Mt. Aris. I loved Scootaloo being thrilled about being a sea pony. And I like the divorce metaphor going on throughout the story. Divorce is hard on a kid, especially when you think you have to take sides with one parent or the other, and this episode manages to get that across without getting too depressing.
Ep. 7: Horse Play: I think the fandom (and one particular fan who will not shut up about Celestia in any given comment thread on EQD) puts Celestia and Luna on a higher pedestal than they deserve. As such, I loved seeing the two bicker in "Slice of Life," as well as the interactions in "A Royal Problem." We already got a solo Luna episode in "Luna Eclipsed," so it was nice seeing Celestia getting the same treatment. She's not perfect. She can run a country and hob nob with the best of them, but she can't act worth beans.2 I'm down for anything that makes the rulers of Equestrian that much more grounded, and the Mane Six trying to figure out how to tell her without being accused of treason was great.
Ep 8: The Parent Map: As I mentioned elsewhere, I didn't like Starlight originally, but she's grown on me. So seeing her and Sunburst's parents was a lot of fun. This episode didn't leave a huge impact on me, but it was nice seeing more family members of the cast.
Ep. 9: Non-Compete Clause: Ugh. What else really needs to be said about this episode, that hasn't been said elsewhere? Aside from it being another damn school ep, it regresses Rainbow Dash and Applejack back to their idiotic Season 1 competitive selves. I barely paid attention to this episode and I look forward to forgetting about it completely.
Ep. 10: The Break-Up Breakdown: Discord is a jerk, and even though he's reformed, he continues to be a jerk, then waves everything off as a "test" when he gets called out on it. That said, the Guys Night episodes are actually pretty fun. Who knew putting Spike, Discord, and Big Mac together would actually work? Discord's still pretty insufferable in this one, but he's at least serving a purpose as the usual "blah, romance" voice that shows up when things get romantic. Trying to undermine Mac and Sugar Belle's relationship is still pretty shitty, though, even for him. While this episode uses the oldest cliche in the book ("Overhearing part of a conversation and misunderstanding it leads to hijinks"), it's still a pretty entertaining episode. Peter New is great as Big Mac in this one and even Discord redeems himself somewhat by the end. Not bad at all.3
Ep. 11: Molt Down Ah, puberty. Such a delicate concept to try to address in a kids show, especially one where long time viewers may be entering it themselves at this point. But this one succeeds. Spike has also grown on me over the last few years, and this is one of the better Spike episodes in the series as a whole. Plus Spike gets wings, which is pretty awesome.
Ep. 12: Marks for Effort Enter Cosy Glow. I'll rant about her later. Another episode I barely paid attention to. It's a CMC episode, and it's a school episode. Didn't care in the least.
Ep. 13: The Mean Six: This episode had so much potential. I enjoyed the Mean Six driving Chrysalis crazy and Evil Twilight scheming behind her back. I liked that we got better versions of the Discorded Mane Six from Season 2. But really, like most people, I would have preferred a direct confrontation between the Mean Six and the Mane Six rather than each set confusing their counterparts for each other. Bonus points for indicating the Tree of Harmony is more than just another relic. Overall, enjoyable, but it could have been so much better.
Ep. 14: A Matter of Principals: Oh goody. Another school episode, and also a Discord Is A Jerk episode. Unlike "The Break-up Breakdown" however, Discord's just insufferable here. Once again, he decides to be a jerk, once again he torments one of the cast just because, and once again, when he gets called out on his bullshit, he waves it off as a test and everyone forgives him. When the hell are the cast going to stop buying that excuse every time Discord decides to be an ass?
Ep. 15: The Hearth's Warming Club: A holiday mystery! Intrigue, drama, the exploration of other cultures celebrations, warm fuzz-- Gallus was being a clod. Again another Student Six episode. While the look at the other creatures' celebrations was interesting from a world building standpoint, again, I just didn't care about this episode at all.
Ep. 16: Friendship University: The return of Starswirl, Neighsay, the Film-Flam brothers, and the best thing to come out of this season as fan art inspiration: Plainity. A nice little riff on those for-profit colleges that are everywhere nowadays. Neighsay showing up to rub Twilight's face in it was actually a nice element to this story. Starswirl being a lot more humble helped things too. Of course, it's a scam, what isn't with Flim and Flam these days? A nice middle of the road episode.
Ep. 17: The End in Friend: We don't often see Rarity and Rainbow Dash be the focus of an episode. In fact, I think the only one to this point was "Rarity Investigates." I like the conflict here and the two trying to figure out why they are friends when they're so different. Some fun dialogue and sight gags. One question: Why do pony boots have toes?
Ep. 18: Yakity-Sax Another episode with a good moral, but lousy execution. I did like how Pinkie started turning gray like her sisters as well as her hair going flat this time. Not much else to say about this one. It came and it went.
Ep. 19: On the Road to Friendship I was expecting so much more with this. I would have preferred Starlight & Trixie on the Road Trip From Hell, rather than the two of them being stuck in a crowded wagon and that being the main source of conflict. They barely went anywhere and most of the episode was spent in Somnambula (the town, not the pony). I think they really missed an opportunity here. But for what it was, it was pretty good.
Ep. 20: The Washouts: More Rainbow Dash Gets Her Ego Bruised. While it's nice to see that Lightning Dust isn't so much evil as just Rainbow Dash's faults taken to the next level, and Scoots outright declaring that she can't fly for the first time in the series, by and large, this was another one I kinda tuned out.
Ep. 21: A Rockhoof and a Hard Place Hey, a school episode I actually liked! I enjoyed Rockhoof's stories and dilemma through this episode and how Yona became his biggest fan. A really good episode involving feeling out of place. It's straightforward and entertaining, much like Rockhoof himself.
Ep. 22: What Lies Beneath Aside from the revelation that the Tree of Harmony is sentient and can communicate with other beings, this one doesn't do much but set up the season finale. The fears of the students don't really seem to amount to much and Cozy Glow continues to just be annoying.
Ep. 23: Sounds of Silence My favorite episode from this season. New species, new location, Applejack and Fluttershy bickering and a kickass song performed by Rachel Bloom. I'm someone who has a short temper and it's really easy for me to lose it when I'm in an argument with someone that seems to go nowhere, so this episode really spoke to me. I've tried the whole "it's better if I just don't say anything and feel nothing" approach and it never works, so seeing that lesson illustrated here was great. Plus Autumn Blaze is adorable.
Ep. 24: Father Knows Beast A fairly standard plot is made watchable by exploring the emotions of the characters involved: from Spike struggling with his identity, to Twilight worrying if her raising Spike actually stunted his development, to Smolder jumping in when she realized Smudge was taking advantage of Spike. I don't think any of us thought Smudge was really Spike's father (and I don't think we were meant to) but this episode did raise some question which I kinda hope they explore next season.
Eps. 25 & 26: School Raze: Everybody told me this was one of the best season finales in the show. Structurally, it is. It's decently paced, nearly every major player this season has something to do, callbacks to previous episodes make sense, and even Celestia and Luna are sidelined in a logical way that doesn't feel cheap. The problem is that Cosy Glow is a terrible villain.
We've seen the Darla Dimple comparison. And that's the problem: she's a cliche. The over the top cute and nice girl who turns out to be a raving lunatic under the surface. She's a god damn Elmer Fudd lisp away from being unbearable. Her motivations make no sense: Yes, she assumes friendship is power and the more friends the more powerful, but WHY does she want the power? What's her deal? We know absolutely nothing about her but the surface. Some people think her expression at the end means we haven't seen the last of her, but what does that matter when we have nothing to go on. She wasn't threatening, she wasn't interesting, and introducing her halfway through the season but doing nothing but the "Gee Golly Gosh Aren't I Adorable" nonsense was wasted potential. Make me care about her as a villain!
She wanted power and friends, so why drain the magic from Equestria? To trap the Mane Six in Tartarus? Okay, but what was she going to do afterward? Friendship is literally magic in Equestria. So no magic, no power, which means the whole damn plan was self-defeating. If this is going somewhere in Season 9, fine, but it's piss poor storytelling here.
Oh and to all those who screamed "They locked a child up in pony hell!" No, they didn't. Tartarus in Equestria is basically a huge dungeon, that's it. And basically, Cozy committed treason. I'd argue she got off lightly. Oh yeah, and the student six turned out to be affiliated with the elements too, surprise, surprise.
So yeah, aside from a couple of standouts, this season was really really bland. I don't have cable but I usually keep caught up on YouTube or Dailymotion, but I honestly didn't bother this season. I didn't even see the second half until it hit Netflix earlier this week. Maybe the show is running out of steam, or maybe it's because I realized I prefer Equestria Girls to FiM, but this season did not grab me at all and I sincerely hope they dial back on the school and the students in Season 9
1 Kudos to the creative team for giving a big "fuck you" to the nerds going "Twilight wouldn't have acted like that by now, this must take place before the last couple of seasons," by basically saying, nope, the movie happened between seasons 7 and 8, deal with it.
2 More kudos to Nicole Oliver for doing what is hard for any actor: giving a deliberately bad performance without it being obnoxious.
3 I didn't learn until this past summer that Rebecca Shoichet (Sunset Shimmer) is also the voice of Sugar Belle. Yay, bigger speaking role in FiM!
I agree with pretty much all of your descriptions for season 8 episodes. I didn’t care much for the school episodes myself and I have to wonder where the writers are going with it other than to introduce a more varied cast of characters now that we’re in the final stretch of FiM. I certainly hope that Equestria Girls runs a little longer than than the main show or even has a short series (season 3 length) before it finally gets tied off and I feel that EQG has a little more to offer than FiM by itself. Maybe if we’re lucky Sunset may make a minor appearances in season 9 in the way that Starlight did several times in season 5. We can only hope.
You aren’t done with season 8 there is an episode 27. And it’s a Christmas special. A full length pony Christmas special called The Best Gift Ever. It’s a good 45 minutes episode with new creatures. Think about it. I’m not going to say anything about it
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Already saw it. I don't count specials as part of a season.
Talk about a mixed bag of a season.
The School of Friendship (which is more of a forum for cultural mingling more than teaching) and the Young Six kinda grew on me, though I still think the Young Six would have worked better as one-on-one apprentices that were introduced two or three seasons ago. You can't just drop Legacy into your story without proper setup. And as it goes, I've seen better "Inheriting the Elements" stories here on FimFiction.
Really, my least favorite part was Neighsay (as a character). Everything that he appeared in was too rage-inducing to watch. The Premiere was a complete load, Episode 16's only appeal was the "University" abbreviation and Plainity, and the Finale was only okay at best. If you ask me, Neighsay should have been a one-off character like Sombra. Because Celestia really should have fired him at the end of the Premiere. You don't act like he did and get away with it, especially if you're a government employee. His actions and words could have seriously damaged Equestria's foreign relations, and they reflect poorly upon Celestia; who I can only assume is the one that appointed him to the position. Other than that, I didn't much care for Mud Briar the Sheldon Rip-Off (mostly because I'm not a big fan of the character in Big Bang Theory), and Cozy Glow was obvious from the start and her motivations were shit.
The parts I really liked were the Kirins (I love their lil' neck floofies), Episode 13 (I'd tune in just to watch them banter), Scootaloo as a Hippocamp, Episode 21 (I love Rockhoof!), and Spike getting his wings.
Everything else ranged between "Egh" and "Mm, okay" for me. Though the Finale was, somewhat fittingly, a mixed bag to end on.
That's what I figured out as well: Equestria Girls is a lot more interesting to me now. And not just because of fanfics. The style of EG is vastly different from FiM. Where Friendship is Magic is very confused in what it wants to be, taking in elements from action-adventure/lesson-of-the-day/sitcom/slice-of-life and jumbling them up in a mixed bag, Equestria Girls has really defined itself as strictly short-form slice-of-life with the occasional longer action-adventure/drama specials here and there. Maybe it's just my tastes mellowing out some as I get older, but I really do prefer EG to FiM, and I hope that style continues on into Gen5.
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Well it is season 8 episode 27&28 on the wiki and hasbro so it counts as a season episode
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I don't care.
Make New Friends But Keep Discord - Fluttershy called him out on his jealousy towards Tree Hugger, and I think he genuinely learned a lesson that episode (Even though the Smooze hasn't been seen since)
Dungeons and Discords - Spike and Big Mac called him out, even though it took them some pain in an alternate dimension to get there, and again I think Discord learned a lesson.
I've only seen up to episode 9 of season 8, but I'll finish it eventually.
This exchange right here ...v
Am I the only one who's gonna say it? How the gee golly f*ck did a (based upon her mannerisms) seven year old defeat Starlight "I broke time" Glimmer? Makes zero sense.