It was just....God. THE BEST EPISODE....PERIOD. Not only is there character development, but-oh almost let loose the biggest spoiler yet.

Now describe the episode to me. In 1 WORD.

INSPIRATIONAL.

4769114 AWESOOOOOOOME

Stream lagged out and didn't watch the end, though I was amused by the amount of politics in the episode. Class President? Budget? Voting, lobbying, the power of friendship, allies and dumb enemies resorting to failed intimidation? All just to get that damn spot as Mr. President Pony?

POLITICS, baby!

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Beautiful.

hey wait they all have a shield for a cutie mark douse that mean at some point they will all join the role grad???

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THE BEST EPISODE....PERIOD

I would have to respectfully disagree. It had so many good ideas, but instead of giving them time to explore them, they just threw them all in a blender and then added songs to pad out the time. This really needed to be at least two or three episodes--one where Silver Spoon started to get fed up with Diamond Tiara and Diamond had to find a way to make it up to her, maybe one where she befriends the CMC (assuming she didn't do so in the hypothetical first one), and one where that whole last scene gets a whole episode to explore the implications of their new cutie marks.

I think it's the fact that these ideas were so good that I'm so disappointed with the episode. I don't understand how they failed to fill the timeslot with any one of those ideas, since they're all so interesting.

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I was just noting the parallels to Magical Mystery Cure. This seems to be their goto when they want to make something epic without devoting half a season to it.

I do think that Magical Mystery Cure had better songs, but otherwise I thought they're about equal.

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I liked this one's songs slightly more, but a lot of people are noting the similarities, yes. That's not exactly a flattering comparison, though, at least given popular opinion of MMC.

Iunno. People seem to like this one in spite of saying it's like MMC, so I don't know if it's just the people who liked that episode talking, or if MMC hate wasn't as strong as it seemed/has diminished over time.

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If we're comparing it with MMC, it's undoubtedly worth noting that MA Larson asked for MMC to be a two-parter and they said no. The same could have easily happened here...

Good thing I already have Cubic Zirconia marked as not taking anything past season 3 as canon. Spoiled Rich's existence messes with it a lot.

--arcum42

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I think the lack of hype helped this one. I mean, MMC had ALL THE HYPE, we all knew what was coming, so it would have been nearly impossible to live up to it. I think people are seeing this one the way MMC was intended to be seen.

Edit: THough I do agree both episodes would have been better as two-parters, and I especially would have loved to see a two-parter that wasn't about Twilight, which has been getting on my nerves for a while now.

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Most likely, yeah. And that one Diamond Tiara song ("The pony I want to be"?) I loved for similar reasons to the similar song in Pinkie Pride. Not to mention it was a moment where it felt like my version of Diamond Tiara was getting the spotlight for a moment, more or less, which is always nice.

I'd certainly like to see some of the other characters get the spotlight for two-parters. Not that I don't like Twilight, but....

--arcum42

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A two-part Diamond Tiara episode would have been interesting. I don't know if it's what I would have wanted, but I would have watched it. Maybe it would have given her adequate time to completely turn around, although I still wish she had done so in stages.

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I don't really remember any of the songs, which I guess is telling as far as my opinion of them. But yeah, while they were playing, I thought that they were reasonably pleasant. I felt mildly bad for Diamond, but I would have been more sympathetic if they hadn't decided to change four season's worth of characterization over the course of one episode. Had we had a few hints at this already, or something to suggest that she was anything other than a brat, I probably wouldn't be so harsh toward this episode.

Taken at face value, though, Diamond was a sympathetic enough character, and it even gave us reason to like her at the end when she stood up to her mom. It just didn't end up being more than a mildly enjoyable episode.

4769114 It would have been better as a two parter, but it was still amazing.

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Talk about demolishing the status quo...

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Disappointing.

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I wrote a blog entry about it.

4769262 Yeah, I'm glad my series that I planned to include a bit with Diamond Tiara and the Crusaders is already ignoring everything from the season 4 finale on. Oh, and my other fic that the crusaders have their marks, they all had cutie marks with the same background so I get to say I did it before Hasbro!