My Review of MLP: FIM season 9 episode 22–Growing Up is Hard To Do · 1:27am May 20th, 2021
Grading Scale:
A (fantastic episode)
A- (an excellent episode with at least one flaw)
B+ (a great episode with a couple of flaws)
B (a good episode which still could have been better)
B- (a good episode with numerous flaws but still rewatchable)
C+ (a decent episode)
C (eh... it’s not terrible but not good either)
C- (it’s not worth rewatching although it does have good elements)
D+ (a bad episode with a few good things in it)
D (a really bad episode with wasted potential)
D- (a terrible episode with badly written characters and butchered moral)
F (horrible and unwatchable)
Hello, my faithful viewers! Here is my review of season 9 episode 22 “Growing Up is Hard To Do”! We have now our final CMC-focused episode of the series and of this season as a supposed conclusion of their character arc and as a follow-up to that terrible excuse of an episode, “The Last Crusade”. I legit thought that would be the last CMC episode of the season since it did bring all the characters the fillies had helped over the course of the show to show support for them and kinda served as a wrap-up for their arc.
Well... as it turned out, this episode just happened to show up and threw all that character development out of the window. According to Jim Miller, he and the staff actually wanted to age the CMCs based on this plotline since season 6. As we delve into this episode, you will see clearly how this single-handedly derailed their story arc in the final season of this show.
The episode begins with Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Belle gather together as they are heavily excited to attend the Appleloosa County Fair where almost everypony is going as well. Despite the meticulous plans they laid out, they forgot one tiny detail: ask any of their older sisters to come with them.
So, they ask Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and Applejack if they could come with them, but each of them just so happened to be busy so they couldn’t come with them. Then later, they ask Fluttershy and Twilight until we see that they too were otherwise occupied with the wishing flower business. Yeah, that’s right, don’t ask Pinkie Pie, Mrs. Cake (who was there at the fair later), or any one else they may know if they were available because the plot doesn’t demand it. 🙄
I get that children must always be with adults and guardians at ALL times when going to public places considering the potential predators that exist out there and so forth, but in the case of the CMCs, they already know how to attend a train on their own as shown from previous seasons. Heck, we literally saw them ride a train by themselves in “The Last Crusade” to see Scootaloo’s aunts! Continuity? What’s that?
So as far as this wishing flower thing is concerned, it just happened to be there in the day when the CMCs just wish that they would go there with no adult telling them what to do and go to the fair with no problem. Oh, look, their unwitting wishes have come true and the flower turned them into grown ponies. Oh boy, the brony and pegasister artists must have gone apeshit over this. 🤣
Okay, I admit, their adult designs do look very appealing and attractive. Huh, I’m honestly surprised Sweetie Belle especially didn’t dedicate her time to go after Feather Bangs now that she has aged. Because we all know how she quickly fell for him. 
Anyway, as the CMCs join the train, they randomly sing a boring, forgettable song about doing whatever they want and being adult and so forth. They exit the train and—oh no! They end up being lost and have nowhere to go! It’s almost as if they forgot they could attend trains with no difficulty! 😑 They were just holding the Idiot Ball and had amnesia because the plot says so.
Oh, look, new characters whom we will never see again! Biscuit and Spur, ladies and gentlemen. I’m gonna ignore how Spur looks like a teenage Cozy Glow and move on. Why is this season full of brand new characters who only appear in one episode and are never seen again? I’ve always hated that in this final season. They are nothing more than just last minute, boring characters only to pander to the fans. Why focus on them instead of focusing on characters whom we actually know and are familiar with since the beginning?
Just when Spur needed advice from the adult CMCs as to how she could settle her disagreement with Biscuit about Bloofy, the Crusaders run off like children (ironically) and have their fun.
Hey, Sweeite Belle, remember how you told Rarity that you were a more responsible and mature pony in the season 7 episode “Forever Filly”? Why are you not acting like one in this episode?
Things get heated when Bloofy instantly mass-shifts into a purple tornado and wrecks some stuff up in the fair. The Crusaders do all they can to save Biscuit and Spur and get Twilight and Fluttershy to help them. They were surely lucky that the latter was able to save the day because of her love for animals. On a side note, since when did Sweetie Belle learn to teleport?
Lastly, after everything was settled down, the girls wished themselves as foals again and it is all a happy ending. Look, I get it, it’s one thing to grow up physically whereas it is another thing to grow up in maturity along with gaining the wisdom and experience to make the right choices in life. That’s a very important moral; however, this is yet another episode that also makes a great sin in regressing the characters and make them forget what they had already learned from previous episodes.
I want to genuinely ask this important question, and I am asking this with all seriousness: did the writers of this season (especially Nicole Dubuc and Michael Vogel) not watch any episode from seasons 1-7? Were they even allowed to? If anybody knows, please answer.
As for this episode, this was utterly worse than “The Last Crusade”. The CMCs were complete immature idiots, Biscuit and Spur were boring, the writing was atrocious, and the plot was way below average. I don’t know why they left this episode in this season because it would been much better if they had done this in season 6. Now that this is left in the very last season of this show after everything they went through, it butchered their character development beyond repair.
At least they still got their chance to shine one more time in the next episode. This gets an F. Oh, and please stop with the horribly animated “meme” faces. Those loathsome faces in this episode look worse than other “meme” faces from previous episodes and the last season.
Peace.
Same here Mr. J, I really wish Hasbro didn't have to end the show on Season 9 so that the new characters could at least shine a little more.
Ah well.... such is life in the Hasbro department though.
I have a question for you guys. If you were living as your OC in Equestria, what would you do if get hold of this Wishing Flower? What would you ask for? Me personally, I would wish for Eternal Youth Immortality so that I would be 18 years old for all eternity and not die. If I get another wish, I would also ask for 900 Billion Bits so that I could be more wealthy than Filthy Rich and Fancy Pants combined. The smart thing though is to wish for an entire field of these Magical Wishing Flowers.
I'd have given it an F-
5521912
Eh.... I rather prefer their younger design anyways. Much more cuter. X3
5521916
True, but there is a trope called "Not allowed to Grow Up"
And it is kind of a example when you think about it. ^^'
Personally, I like to consider this episode as something that took place before the School of Friendship even started and before the film, mainly because there seems to be a lot of leg room for doing just that.