Episode Re-Review: The Cutie Re-Mark Parts 1 and 2 · 3:41pm May 11th, 2021
And so it was that, after a season of several unexpected shake-ups as the show seemed to be maturing (or at least trying to), we would come to a finale where spoilers had already given away what was going to happen. A sign of how things would not be as tightlipped for future seasons as they had been in the days of The Hub. So instead of another "Twilight's Kingdom" that everyone was looking forward to, it seemed like the finale would be another "A Canterlot Wedding" or "Magical Mystery Cure" and would be dreaded by everyone (or at least most everyone). Josh Haber was the one tasked with making this happen, officially cementing his status as Meghan McCarthy's designated successor as she left to commit herself to the movie. Even to this day, this two parter remains devisive and some even consider it to be a point where the show jumped the shark (though I'm not one of them). So a lot was and still is working against this two parter. But has it deserved its reputation of infammy? Well, let's find out.
Part 1 begins with Twilight rehearsing a speech to give to Celestia's School of Gifted Unicorns with only Spike for encouragement. She seems to be doing great, but she still wants to run through it until she can successfully complete the speech without looking at the cue cards. Then, after the title sequence we cut to the next day and her giving the speech. She mentions the CMC having gotten their cutie marks all at the same time, which is something that has supposedly never happened before. We do get a cameo from Moondancer when she has to wake Spike up, which at least goes to show that she's improved from "Amending Fences".
Spike briefly screws up and inserts a slide of him at the beach, which Twilight thankfully doesn't see. Twilight then mentions the sonic rainboom that gave her and her friends their cutie marks, which is supposed to tie into this whole "Cutie Mark Magic" kind of thing (interestingly, there were toys based on "Cutie Mark Magic" that looked like they would be the next "Rainbow Power" but they never showed up in this two parter. No word on whether or not "Cutie Mark Magic" was ever supposed to be a thing in the show) but really just serves to more or less kick start the plot by telling Starlight (who's in the audience) all she needs to know to stop Twilight. Twilight does mention seeing Starlight Glimmer in the audience and Spike concludes afterward that she's obviously coming back for revenge. Then the two enter the throne room to find Starlight waiting for them.
She does show some hints of her genre savieness from before by refusing to spell out her plans to Twilight, right before she uses the table map to open up a time bubble and disappears into it. Spike then picks up the scroll left behind, and he and Twilight are pulled into another time bubble and disappear as well. We get a brief cameo from Pinkie Pie as she was coming to the castle with a cake, and this is the extent to which we'll really see the rest of the mane six (at least as their normal selves) for most of the two parter. Twilight and Spike, meanwhile, end up in Cloudsdale and soon discover that they've been sent back in time to that fateful race Rainbow Dash had as a filly.
Twilight and Spike then watch the race, before Starlight pops up from behind a cloud and uses a spell to freeze filly Rainbow Dash in place.
Twilight and Spike then get pulled through another time bubble, but Twilight doesn't initially realize what's happened. It isn't until she notices the castle is missing and that the Crystal Empire has taken up half of Equestria that she suspects something's changed. She and Spike travel into Ponyville to get answers, only to find it has been transformed into a steampunk like setting. Carousel Boutique has even been boarded up, and Sweet Apple Acres has now become a factory that makes canned goods.
This Applejack doesn't recognize Twilight or Spike, but despite this she tells them about a war that's going on between Equestria and the Crystal Empire. A war that King Sombra appears to be winning since he's enslaved the citizens of the Crystal Empire to fight for him. Princess Celestia, oddly enough, is leading the charge for Equestria. But the most we really see of the war involves soldiers lightly slapping each other and Sombra using crystals to keep himself out of the fight. We do also see a Rainbow Dash with a bitten off ear, a scar and a metal wing. And both Pinkie Pie and Maud are able to utilize their natural super strength to destroy boulders. I guess some things never change.
Meanwhile, Rarity and Fluttershy are aiding the front line efforts by doing things such as making uniforms or shaving off sheep for their wool (like what many countries did during World War I, heck U.S. President Wilson kept an army of goats on the White House lawn to use to help cut the grass due to shortages of able bodied men). And this Applejack then agrees to accompany Twilight and Spike to the foundation where the castle's supposed to be, as Twilight then finally realizes that the map still being around means that Starlight has obviously changed the future. But the map has a way for her and Spike to go back in time to thwart her. And so they leave the alternative timeline behind.
However, it seems like Starlight anticipated this as she managed to set up the scroll to where she goes back when Twilight goes back. So no matter what she'll always be there to try to stop Twilight. And it's here that Starlight's villain derailment starts to become noticeable. She begins monologuing repeatedly by how she wants revenge for having her village being taken away, and at no point do they try to be clever about this or use it to subvert the cliche.
It's only after Starlight finishes her monologue/rant that the crystal she traps Twilight and Spike in falls. Twilight manages to dispel it, though she has to rescue Spike from falling as a result. They then find out that Starlight has decided to stop the race before it happens by convincing the bullies not to pick on Fluttershy. This is actually an interesting dilemma because Twilight is now forced to try and make it sound like friendship and kindness aren't good things to encourage. Starlight insists that she did it to spread her philosophy of equality and that stopping the Sonic Rainboom is "just a bonus", which of course is a lie when she's made it clear she wants revenge. Twilight then decides there's only one thing left to do, convince filly Rainbow Dash to race and do a Sonic Rainboom. It of course doesn't work, not even when Twilight claims she's seen Rainbow Dash do it "In the future". I'll at least say I can buy her grasping at straws here and not thinking things through, but I do have to question why she doesn't try to grab Starlight before another time bubble opens up. She and Spike then tumble out and find themselves in a different bad future, this one apparently dominated by Chrysalis. And part 1 ends with an alternative Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy in green camoflouge interrogating Twilight and Spike at spear point.
Once the recap is done in Part 2, we find out that the ponies here are part of this resistance group being led by Zecora. She even has a mohawk. And apparently, she's created a special paint that can expose changelings, which is why she and everyone else are wearing them. Twilight and Spike glow, causing Zecora to speculate that they're from a different timeline (I guess she's knowledgable about time travel). Twilight explains about Starlight and ponders how if she stops the same thing from happening how the future can be radically different each time. Zecora suggests that time is like a river, small changes can have big impacts. But I think the better explanation is the chaos theory or the multiverse theory. The chaos theory is also known as the butterfly effect, which suggests that even the smallest of changes at one point can eventually lead to major changes down the road (often famously summed up as "Does the flap of a butterfly's wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?"), and the multiverse theory suggests that there exist many parallel universes separate from each other and they're all the same except for one or two major events that played out slightly differently. What we get is not a bad explanation, but it does feel kind of half hearted and more of an attempt to try to handwave this plot point. Though to be fair, the show has done time travel before and time travel in fiction in general tends to get tripped up over itself.
As for this timeline, Chrysalis and her army of changelings managed to take over Canterlot and with it most of Equestria. So Zecora is running a sort of Le Resistance in the Everfree Forest. Suddenly, a disshelved looking Applejack, Rarity and Rainbow Dash come running into the base camp claiming that there was an attack. However, Zecora suspects that this is a trap. And indeed it is, Queen Chrysalis is posing as Applejack. And somehow, she was able to get some of her changelings into the camp as well despite Zecora's special paint that exposes them.
This Chrysalis proposes Zecora surrender in exchange for a promise not to hurt anyone, and Twilight stupidly suggests that Zecora should consider it despite there being no indication that this Chrysalis is anymore trustworthy than the one Twilight dealt with during "A Canterlot Wedding". And of course, Chrysalis lacks the echo filter to her voice which as I said before was done because supposedly they claimed it made her too hard to understand (which I don't believe, and even if it did they could've toned down the echo filter instead of removing it completely). Zecora then tells Twilight to run while she and her group of rebels stall for time by attacking Chrysalis in what's likely to be a suicidal charge.
Twilight and Spike go back to the past again, narrowly avoiding the changelings that try to get in their way. This time, Twilight is prepared and engages Starlight in a no holds barred showdown. Somehow, Starlight is able to keep up with Twilight the whole time even though at the end of "The Cutie Map, Part 2" Twilight shut Starlight down no trouble. And at no point does Starlight mention that she's been practicing, so she's just been plot armored to keep up with Twilight (essentially nerfing Twilight for this to work). And the fight has the unintended side effect of stopping the race, triggering another time bubble as Starlight proclaims that Twilight can never defeat her no matter what.
Even though this time around it's dark out, Twilight doesn't suspect the obvious when she wonders why the map brought her and Spike to the Everfree Forest again whereas all the previous (two) times it's been day. She and Spike head up to the Castle of the Two Sisters to get away from some timberwolves and find the castle appears to be under new management. Rarity is in charge of changing the castle tapestries, an indirect nod to Josh Haber's debut in "Castle Mane-Ia". And of course it turns out to be another alternative timeline, this one ruled by Nightmare Moon in what would appear to be eternal nighttime. And she has Princess Celestia banished within the moon. We do briefly see this timeline's Rainbow Dash, she's a guard for Nightmare Moon with bat wings and a buzz cut. But Nightmare Moon is more interested in the idea of "time travel" and opts to use Spike as bait to make Twilight take her to the table map. She effortlessly dispatches the timberwolves that get in her way, and proclaims her desire to use the map to go back in time and ensure the Elements of Harmony are never found. But Twilight outsmarts her, teleports past her and goes back to the past once again.
We're then treated to a montage of Twilight trying (and failing) to stop Starlight, resulting in her being sent to various alternative timelines where Tirek, Discord and even Flim and Flam managed to take over somehow (strange that there's no timeline for where Starlight won or where the Everfree Forest successfully invaded half of Equestria). Sadly, we don't get to see any of them in depth. And when Starlight messes up time again, Twilight finally does the sensible thing and pulls her into the time bubble as well. This takes them to a future where there doesn't appear to be any signs of civilization anywhere, and Twilight mentions that every future she's come back to has been worse than the one before it (although the Nightmare Moon one was arguably the closest to normal, just so long as you never insulted Nightmare Moon or said you missed the sun I would assume). Starlight does seem to briefly look on with dismay at what she's seeing. But when Twilight tells her that this is where her actions have lead, Starlight denies it and then on a whim she snaps and decides to show Twilight and Spike what happened to her. She's somehow able to use the map to send them all back in time to the town she lived in as a child.
So what childhood trauma could send Starlight down this dark path of revenge? Well, she and a colt named Sunburst were playing a game where they stack books on top of each other. The books suddenly came down on Starlight, but Sunburst used his magic to catch them and put them all back on the shelves where they belonged. And in doing so he earned his cutie mark. He happily ran past Starlight and according to Starlight that's the last she saw of him. He went off to Canterlot to attend magic school, and she never made another friend because she was too afraid a cutie mark would take them away as well. She mentions nothing about her parents, she mentions nothing about being bullied. One friend moving away that she supposedly didn't try to contact was enough to make her hate cutie marks and decide to go so far as to doom Equestria just to get revenge. But you know what? This already happened with Moondancer, and she at least only harmed herself with her overreaction by turning it inward. Heck, Apple Bloom lost a friend to a cutie mark (supposedly, since we never saw her hanging out with Twist after "Call of the Cutie") and all she did was make new friends, she didn't blame others or lash out at the world even though she was being bullied over not having a cutie mark. And yes, different kids will react to the same situation in different ways, but you can't possibly expect this backstory to be the sole reason Starlight became such a monster. Heck, for all we knew at the time of this episode's original airing she could've been faking it. Trying to make it like The Joker from The Killing Joke where he tries to justify his horrible actions by saying that anyone can be like him if they have "One bad day".
And after all of that, Starlight is prepared to not only keep doing what she's doing but also rip up the scroll so Twilight and Spike can no longer follow her and try to stop her. Starlight still refuses to accept that what Twilight showed her in the future was right, and claims that "Not everyone's lucky enough to earn their cutie marks at the same time as her friends.", which Twilight doesn't correct by pointing out that she was not friends with the rest of the mane six yet (and many of them probably didn't know each other, the only exceptions were Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy and Rarity and Applejack, and only just between the two of them). Yet on a whim, Twilight is able to find the words to get through to Starlight and make her have a change of heart, simply by telling her to "Try again" and make sure that her new friendships don't end (which is not the best advice to give to someone who already lost one friend, supposedly).
So everything is back to normal, and then Twilight fills her friends in on what happened when they show up. But none of them have changed at all because of Twilight's experience, aside from maybe learning that they're apparently the only thing keeping the entire multiverse from falling apart (as if Rainbow Dash needed yet another boost to her ego). Then they decide that instead of maybe reporting Starlight to the authorities and turning her over to face punishment for her crimes, she can be allowed to become Twilight's student and learn about friendship. She doesn't even have to say sorry or show remorse. She's just allowed to come in no questions asked and join the circle of friends. And yeah, I get the whole "Forgive and forget" philosophy and the idea of second chances. But I think most people would agree that someone must show they're willing to atone in order to truly be granted that chance. Starlight didn't show that, but yet she is forgiven anyway for what I can only assume is because she's so powerful. This in turns leads to "Friends Are Always There for You" which is the last time until the grand finale in "The Last Problem" that a season would end with a song. And suffice it to say, "Friends Are Always There for You" is quite weak. It's not a very good montage song, and what we see in the montage is Starlight just being accepted into the circle of friends without any difficulties or work on her part. Heck, she even goes back to the village she once ruled over and we don't get to see this apology play out because it's just part of the montage. It's a pretty sloppy way to end the episode, the two parter and Season 5.
And that's the story, so what do I think of the two parter? Well, we may never know what the original plans for Starlight Glimmer were. Who knows what Meghan McCarthy would've done if she hadn't left the show to work on the movie? Heck, considering M. A. Larson was the story editor for most of Season 5's first half, it's entirely possible Larson was supposed to Meghan's chosen successor originally. And who knows what he would've done if it had been up to him to write this finale? It's likely that Hasbro is partially to blame here, they probably wanted to add another unicorn to the main cast to even things out now that Twilight was an alicorn. I doubt the show staff knew about Sunset Shimmer's redemption, seeing as the script for "Rainbow Rocks" was likely already completed before work on this two parter began. And putting aside the obvious comparison, Starlight Glimmer's redemption even by show standards is quite weak. Her previously interesting and intelligent villain personality is destroyed, turning her into a one-dimensional revenge obsessed idiot who is heavily plot armored to make this story work. She shows no real remorse for what she's done and even tries to justify what she did via a backstory that was poorly conveyed and was full of so many holes it could be mistaken for Queen Chrysalis. Twilight's not exactly in top form here either, she's too slow on the uptake even long after she should be able to realize that things aren't the same. It feels like she has to be weakened significantly in the power and intelligence departments in order to make Starlight look better, which is not how you write characters (especially villains). The first alternative timeline is interesting since we get to stick around long enough to learn more about it, but the second and third timelines are brief and lack a lot of core details that we really need. The rest of the timelines fly by in a montage, and it's not clear what the last one we see is supposed to convey (did all the evil forces take each other out and wipe out civilization in the process?). Despite what you may think though, I don't hate this two parter. It's far from the best, but I'd sooner watch it than watch "The Best Night Ever" or "School Raze" for a finale.
There are some good moments sprinkled throughout, though you have to sift through a lot of filth to be able to see and enjoy them. I'm not sure how much of this is Josh Haber's own decisions and how much of this is what he was given to work with. Maybe something got lost in the shuffle during the writing handover and Haber had to all but start from scratch. This really feels like a first draft, even though I'm willing to bet it underwent some revisions late in the game. But it most certainly could've done with a rewrite. Even if we were going to get a reformed Starlight Glimmer out of this no matter what, there had to be a better way to go about it than the way we were shown. And yeah, the show would kind of patch up Starlight's backstory a little in later seasons and she would become a decent protagonist in her own right. Time has lessened the sting of this two parter just a little, enough to give Part 1 a borderline C+/B- and part 2 a C for a combined two parter grade of borderline C/C+. Season 5 as a whole was definitely more of an envelope pusher, and we're five for five on the seasons improving in quality, though this may be due to Season 5's second half containing lightning in a bottle with stuff like "Brotherhooves Social", "Crusaders of the Lost Mark" and "The Mane Attraction".
And now it was on to the third Equestria Girls film and the first not to include its parent franchise at all (aside from a post-credits stinger) "Friendship Games".
I am going to be honest, I wasn't a huge fan of this finale and found this to be one of my least favorite episodes/Finale. I like that they try to do different which I like, but I not a huge fan of time travel episodes and movies. Some time travel movie/episode I don't mind watching and love are Avenger Endgame and Back to the Future. Other then that, I don't like this episode and Starlight back story. It to weak, I like her better in the first two episodes and when we fine out that the only reason she dislike cutie marks is because one of her friend gain one and that make no sense. I mean Applebloom handle losing her friends to a cutie mark and she turns out fine. If the Writer adds more to her back story like she gain her cutie mark in her mid to late teen. I could understand, but turning evil because of one small thing that is part of a pony life make no sense at all. And these episodes made me dislike Starlight ever since season 6 started. She has good moment like the Royal Problem and a few other good Starlight episodes, but other than that it pained me to watch Starlight on a episode.
So if I rank these episodes, it has to be an d-
Honestly, this is still my favorite of the first five finales.
I will always say that what we saw of Starlight's story isn't the whole thing.
We saw Point A and we saw Point Z. There's an entire journey there that we only know bits and pieces of.
Plus, this episode gave us Starlight's glorious sarcastic clapping, one of the best two seconds of the entire series.
And I like that Starlight had to be talked down rather than just magical rainbow laser like some in the past. And it felt pretty long, starting from when she saw the ruined future.
Like, some question why she didn't just tear the scroll immediately, but I'll always say that at that point, she WANTED to be talked down the rest of the way.
In my opinion, and of course you're free to disagree with me on this, this finale should have had one of two possible endings:
1) Starlight shows the willingness to reform and remorse for her villainous actions, but Twilight takes her magic away and keeps it locked up somewhere as not just a punishment for Starlight's crimes, but also a precaution in case Starlight is trying to manipulate them once again. She also says that her new pupil can have her magic back only after proving herself trustworthy and learning the true meaning of friendship.
2) Starlight shows no remorse for her actions, refuses Twilight's help, and escapes to hatch a new revenge scheme. Realizing that she cannot hope to defeat Twilight and her friends on her own, she decides to recruit the villains that also seek vengeance against the Mane 6 and starts putting together her own Legion of Doom during the next season, with Trixie serving as her first lieutenant and the relationship between the two becoming something similar to the one between Megatron and Starscream from Transformers.
5516748
I agree, take Starlight magic away till she trustworthy since she brainwash the main 6 in that one episode
In my opinion, “The Cutie Re-Mark” is a severely underrated episode. It’s lack of popularity and overall mixed reception is something I don’t think I’ll ever understand.
I thought Starlight’s redemption was extremely well-worked and strong, as well as one of the best in the fourth generation. Plus, the concept was something that I found to be original as both an MLP episode and a story involving time travel.
5516710
If that was the case it really shouldn't have come on the heels of Starlight's poorly conveyed and hole riddled backstory. They either should've put all the details into that backstory and had Starlight sound regretful instead of angry, or just cut out the backstory and saved it for the Season 6 premiere when they ended up reminding us of it anyway.
And yes, it is kind of nice to have a villain that's not friendship or rainbow lasered to defeat, but that shouldn't have come at the expense of derailing Starlight's personality and character or plot armoring her while nerfing Twilight.
This is the episode that snapped my suspension of disbelief and I will forever hate the f
ckers who thought that redeeming someone like Shitstain Glitter was a good idea! 
I'll admit I liked first half well enough, but the last five minutes of the second half completely ruined the finale.
This is similar to Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep, in that it's an episode I both love and hate. The love part being the cool factor with the alternate timelines and seeing some of my favourite villains again in all their glory. I especially loved the Sombra timeline. It's also a really exciting episode in the second part with the urgency with which Twilight keeps trying to return things to how they were and the pace becomes increasingly frantic, as shown with the way it devolved to the point that it was a montage. But the things I hate is the stuff you listed. I'm not sure what I would give the episode overall, but it's definitely not the best episode of the show like I thought back when I first watched it.
5516748
3. Toss her sorry ass into Tartarus where she belongs.
5516835
Your hatred for Starlight is honestly a reason as to why I don't follow you despite you following me, really.
5516801 Starlight ultimately did prove that her redemption was the right call. However uneven it was, she did ultimately by the end become a better pony than she was before. But how her redemption got started was really bad and raised a lot of questions that weren't answered, a bad sign of what was to come for many major villains both new and old.
5516748
You hate Starlight too, don't you?
5516710
Glad I'm not the only one who enjoys this episode.
5516889
Can you really blame me?
5516909
Not really, now that you ask. I'm just not a big fan of all the hate Starlight often seems to get.
5516799
I never really thought Twilight was nerfed.
It was mostly a matter of intent.
Twilight probably wasn't going at it with her full strength, lest she hurt Starlight more than she had to.
Starlight probably was.
5516892
I do not hate the character itself. I am simply opposed to the fact that she never faces any sort of consequence for her villainous deeds nor encounters any trust issues with anyone.
5516923
Makes sense.
Not a fan of this episode, while I never hate Starlight as a character but her reason why she hates cutie marks is stupid. At least the writers give her a reason why she did what she did instead just write her without a reason, I'm looking at you Cozy Glow.
If you've seen Voice of Reason and Thespio's Worst Episodes of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic video, then you know the latter put this two-parter as his worst episode of the entire series. He also did a two-part collab review of this season finale with an obscure brony analyst named Heather Feathersong five years ago. Here are the links to them:
Part 1
Part 2