My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic - Season 9 Premiere: "The Beginning of the End" (SPOILERS) · 4:32pm Apr 6th, 2019
In which Celestia and Luna vastly overestimate Twilight Sparkle's capabilities, old villains return for revenge, and the Tree of Harmony gets kerblammed.
The Mane Six receive an urgent summons to Canterlot Castle, and charge through the city at full speed, freaked out about what could possibly be wrong. When they arrive, they find Celestia and Luna completely calm, composed, and happy, and not a crisis in sight.
Then the Royal Sisters announce that because Equestria has entered its longest-enduring, most peaceful state of Harmony ever (UHHHHHHHHH), it's time for them to retire and leave Twilight Sparkle and friends to rule the kingdom!
Uhhhh...yyyyyyyeah....
The Mane Six are all on board with big grins and happy smiles, but Twilight is nervous, apprehensive, and feels like she isn't ready. Celestia and Luna assure her that she has everything she needs to rule.
Twilight's friends walk her through her freakout, wise to her whole process, and then lampshade all the times they saved Equestria without the Princesses raising a hoof.
Seriously. Every. Single. Time. 
Meanwhile, Queen Chrysalis, Tirek, and Cozy Glow are all brought together in some dark evil place, along with King Sombra..by Grogar.
Yes. GROGAR.
Finally.
So, basically, for season 9 we've got a bonafide ponified Legion of Doom, with motherfucking Grogar as our Lex Luthor.
The villains give a brief exposition dump--basically, Grogar was the evil sorceror who ruled what would go on to become Equestria, defeated thousands of years ago and banished, but biding his time and waiting for the chance to get his revenge.
Grogar commands his new minions to develop the skills to work together toward a common goal. Naturally, being archvillains, they all refuse--Sombra the most vocally. He brags that he will take back the Crystal Empire on his own and keep it. Grogar decides to use him to prove a point, and sends him off to attempt exactly that.
Meanwhile, Twilight is Twilighting HARD, and gives Starlight the Castle and the School to look after now that she's going to be ruling Equestria from Canterlot. Starlight freaks out, Twilight talks her down, and Starlight turns her advice back on her...but the attempt fails, and Twilight is STILL freaking out.
Meanwhile, Sombra has overwhelmed the Crystal Empire's defenses, neutralized the Heart, enslaved an army of Crystal Ponies, and kidnapped Flurry Heart before Cadance could do anything more than write a letter to Twilight.
Wait, wait, how'd he get past the Crystal Heart? Shouldn't it have driven him out?!
Discord throws shade on a LOT of things this episode. And there's a lot of fanfic debate covered here too.
Anyway, the Mane Six take the Elements of Harmony back from the Tree and head to the Crystal Empire to stop Sombra. It takes less than a minute for the Mane Six to beat Sombra using the Elements of Harmony. The girls return the Elements to the Tree...
...which is then destroyed from within by black crystals, the Elements thrown clear and shattered. The girls stare in shock as Sombra reappears before them, gloating maniacally.
Sombra traps the Mane Six in a cage of sharp black crystals, then takes off to conquer Equestria, starting with Ponyville. The Mane Six are wracked with fear and doubt and start lamenting how terrible the situation is, but Twilight overcomes her fear and starts digging an escape tunnel. The others join her. By the time they reach Ponyville, Sombra has already enslaved the citizens and turned them into a slave army, sending them in an assault on Canterlot.
And then things get worse. The Everfree Forest starts growing out of control again.
Something doesn't feel right here. It's too...fanficcy.
The Mane Six take up gardening tools and go to war with the forest while Sombra leads his slave army to Canterlot. He takes the throne room easily, Celestia and Luna being absent.
While the Mane Six are fighting the forest, Celestia, Luna, and Starswirl show up. Starswirl is confident that he can handle the Everfree Forest, as he was the one who kept its growth at bay before the Tree existed. Twilight fills Celestia in on what's going on, then the Mane Six hurry to Canterlot, which is now completely under Sombra's slave rule.
At the castle, the Mane Six run into Discord, who finally decides to lend a claw and helps Twilight defeat Sombra. But while he's no-selling Sombra's attacks, he goes off on a long-winded ramble about his friendships with the ponies, then singles Fluttershy out as his favorite. Sombra aims a black death beam straight for Fluttershy, and Discord takes it full-force in her place, one of a VERY few times we've actually seen Discord injured in any fashion.
Discord reminds the Mane Six that the spirits of the Elements of Harmony live inside them.
The Mane Six use the magic of friendship to defeat Sombra. Celestia and Luna return and tell Twilight that they've decided to give her more time to ease into the idea of ruling Equestria. Discord is severely annoyed that he did that whole pretend-to-be-hurt, epic-speech thing for nothing, then storms off in a huff.
Back in Grogar's nightmare fortress of doom, Grogar shows the others exactly what happened to Sombra, cowing them into submission. Chrysalis, Tirek, and Cozy Glow agree to follow his lead...
So...I do have to knock a couple of points off of this one for being WAY too fanficcy in the middle. I'll give the final season premiere a solid 8/10.
Grogar must have done something to get Sombra into the Crystal Empire.
I'm honestly disappointed that Cozy Glow didn't turn out to be Chrysalis in the end.
Cozy Glow stabs Grogar in the back by season's end. Calling it now. Being a backstabber is her nature.
Discord was a fantastic audience surrogate in this one. As for the Tree...
Yeah, I'm going to have adjust a few stories on the back burner. Though given what I've seen in other promos, maybe not as much as I think...
Sombra's got a new voice now. And he's been killed off, again. He seems to have the worst luck of the draw for villain plots.
I think it's pretty awesome that we'll have Grogar as the final villain, and him assembling all those other villains; he's the baddest of the bad. I guess we'll see Twilight ready to rule Equestria by the end of season 9. Discord really had some good moments here, especially taking that hit for his friends and reminding them they are the Elements; he was being classic Discord.
They really did Nerf both the Crystal Heart and the Tree of Harmony.
Also isn't shattering the Elements exactly what Nightmare Moon did and they just reformed anyway? Why wouldn't the tree for that matter?
I also gotta say... Well it's not the worst season opener but it's not the best either.
5039324
With the heart, I chalk it up to Sombra not being at full strength the first time around which was why he couldn't overpower it. As for the elements not reforming well that can be explained by the tree giving them that power and with the tree gone the elements can no longer reform. I know it's easy to say that the tree can just reform but it has to stop somewhere.
You gotta wonder how shit Equestria really was while Luna was banished if the events of the show are considered the longest it known peace.
5039313
As I put it in one of my EGD comment:
"NOOOOOOO!!! I finally had that throat cancer surgery I've been waiting for 1000 years!!"
5039334
I think the reason was able to go through this time is really because the Heart itself was in full power in the S3 premiere when it (presumably) killed him and it was on "stand by" mode now.
Where's the fucking Rainbow Power? Y'know, from back when they beat Tirek?
Starswirl sensed a disturbance in the force.
This is going to be good. I totally called a villain team up happening this season once Cozy asked Tirek to be her friend at the end of last season, though I thought it would be a bit bigger, At least 6 members, and I assumed Cozy would form it herself, but Grogar being in charge sounds way better.
If the villains ever learn to become friends then it might pose a problem for the ponies, but could also be interesting to see.
.....and every Fluttershy fan briefly forgot she had plot armor - not that kind - and would've been fine. .....Sombra must still die.
5039324
Yeah, really inconsistent with writers keeping with the lore to this point. We knew the physic elements weren't needed, Twilight randomly forgets she can teleport. Sombra doesn't just mind control the main six when he has a chance and is an idiot.
...So was this before, after, or during the Wendigos? If after, was it before or after Discord? If after, how did he conquer and rule Equestria out from under Celestia and Luna while they could use the Elements? If before, wouldn't that imply that Discord overpowered Grogar?
The really need a better reference window for these villain origins than "a thousand years ago".
Edit: Just saw it said thousands, not thousand.
Well, the heart is powered by positive emotion. Sombra returning may have dampened the mood enough for him to return.
That sounds exactly like a starting out fanfic writer worfing the shit out of the crystal heart and the tree of Harmony to open the way for his super original alliance of bad villains to actually do some damage, handwaving the plot holes with ponies ex machina, solving it in a totally original "the power was within you the whole time!" And then admitting his idea was shit in the first place in the epilogue.
The fact that it still earned a 8/10 from you makes it sound like the execution was really well done, though.
5039412
Join the club. I've been cooking up a fanfic series since the end of season four, and it's going to deviate from established events BIG time.
So Luna comes back after 1000 years to retire after a few years "
?
All I am thinking now is that Celestia and Luna have turned into irresponsible idiots.
And I would have loved it for Twilight to simply deny their idiocy and retire herself.
Yep, they'll need a few more Legion of Doom members to take on the Superfriends. Since they've already scrapped Sombra and all...
For a while, it seemed like Celestia and Luna were trolling the Mane 6 -- especially Twilight.
*snicker* Twilighting is a thing.
And we finally get Grogar. It seems I'm also going to get something else I was hoping for: A season-long arc.
Overall, it was a good start to a season. I'll wait to give a full judgement on it, because it'll probably improve as the arc plays out.
-Psst, hey, Celly, Lulu. If you really want to retire there's a better idea. Try a constitutional diarchy, or even set up a republic.
-But really, Luna, you've been back on the throne less than a decade and you already want to abdicate?!
-Why is Cadence not talking to Twilight about suddenly being put in charge of a country? Not like SHE wasn't in the same exact position. Then again, she got several years of tutelage and prep beforehand.
-Seriously, Twi, just reform the elements like you did way back in episode 2. Also, use some other magic besides laser, teleport, and telekinesis.
-Sombra got to literally walk in and take over 3 times with no resistance, wtf.
-The tree's got roots extending all the way to the school, plus the friendship Castle seedling. It's probably gonna come back.
-So, where's the Rainbow Power they don't need the elements to activate? Is that what the bit at the end was supposed to be?
5039305
Count me eager to see what you do with little tree in response to this.
At least Hasbro fulfilled my wish, to make Grogar a much better villain than he has in that stupid G1. I hated him in G1, he was not only retarded looking, but also acted like dirt. And I begged that Hasbro make him look and act 10x better than before, and I'm so glad they done it. :D
Yeah that's what I thought. I guess before Twilight the villain attacks were once a month instead of once a year.
5039438
It must've predated the three pony tribes era; Grogar did say he was the emperor before Equestria was even founded.
5039373
They're probably saving it for Tirek; something tells me he'll be that one powerful minion before the final boss battle.
5039373
.
I always thought they that fed it into making Twilight's shiny crystal palace grow big and strong. Because otherwise she would have had a piddly one-room shotgun shack
5039581
He could bring Sombra back again for all we know and this time he will stick to the plan. He could also bring the Storm King back but the expense of the voice actor may prevent that. W have also other ponies who have a bone against the Mane 6 like Lighting Dust and Svengallop.
He is also called the father of monsters so we can maybe have other sirens(not the ones from eqg), heck even bring back other G1 villains like Arabus and Lavan.
5039301
Sort of like a Lord of The Rings Thing with Saruman and Grima. I can dig it
I liked it. Can't wait to see how things turn out.
YOu know Twilight's caslte was amde by the Tree of harmony liek a Seedling. so in a way, the castle is the tree of harmony 2.0.
I mean the map still works.
5040067
Do you think Discord was one of his creations?