HOME | DD

Description

Most of the early ‘bad’ episodes I can always forgive or look past because I consider them to at least be fun enough to rewatch. But in a series of over 100 episodes, there are bound to be at least 20 or more absolute duds. I’ve already given a complete overhaul of my favorite episodes [that list was only ever meant to be 15, but somehow I managed to make it stretch out past 40] I love this show, so when there’s an episode that completely flies in the face of the show I enjoy, I can’t just let it slide. [NOTE: for this list I will not be including tie-in movies, shorts, or music videos]

Dishonorable Mentions:

Tanks for the Memories

I actually kind of like this one, but I have to put it on the list because Rainbow Dash’s behavior is entirely selfish and irresponsible it really ruins the rest of the episode for me

Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep?

Similar to the last entry, I really had a lot of fun with this episode, but the ending twist completely sours my viewing experience

A Hearthswarming Tale [not shown because I didn’t think to add it until now]

So to anyone who says that this is a good episode that showcases Starlight’s development; its not about her, her character model is just an avatar for the ACTUAL main story character. Starlight is just a member of the audience and can be replaced by literally anyone. Oh, and Twilight basically forces her to accept Hearthswarming as her One and True Holiday. As for the story itself? It’s a bad idea to combine ‘A Christmas Carol’ with ‘How the Grinch Stole Christmas’ if this episode is any indication, given how they completely missed the point of a Christmas Carol. The episode seems to be saying that working hard for the betterment of the world isn’t good whereas having fun during the Holidays takes priority over everything [terrible idea to make RAINBOW DASH of all characters the Bob Cratchet parody. Fluttershy would have worked far better]. Snowfall Frost’s initial goal isn’t in any way a bad one, her biggest problem is that she just doesn’t care to celebrate the holidays because she has greater goals in mind, and they really only pull a Grinch moment because she’s supposed to be the antagonist. In terms of completely missing the point of ACC, Ebenezer Scrooge was a man disillusioned by the world and corrupted by business who was rather nasty to everyone due to all the hardships he’d suffered in his youth, and was especially bitter towards Christmas because many of the greatest hardhsips happened to take place on Christmas. Snowfall Frost was simply told by a Snape parody ‘Work hard and don’t get distracted’. Furthermore, ‘Luna’s Future’ isn’t a good song. Its highly overrated and makes the whole conflict of the episode about as retarded as ‘An Easter Carol’. Oh, and they aired this episode in April and broke the pattern of a Christmas episode every three seasons

Crusaders of the Lost Mark

If I could describe this episode in one word, it would be ‘Rushed’. I was always eager for the CMC to get their marks because I was certain they’d end up getting them in separate episodes from one-another, thus having them learn to still be friends even if one or two of them are ahead of the other(s). Of course doing it all at once could also work, but this episode has an entirely different plot going on in the forefront, so much so that them getting their cutie marks feels almost like it was tacked on at the last minute just to boost ratings, because suddenly the episode’s conflict becomes comopletely different. Frankly, I think it would have been better if Diamond Tiara hadn’t been fully reformed, but the CMC ended up helping Silver Spoon come to her own and no longer need Diamond, meanwhile Tiara changes gears in a later episode, but here we still see the explanation as to why she is the way she is, and THEN when they reform her they realize what their talents really are and they get their cutie marks

No Second Prances

This episode commits the crime of Character Assassination, and in this case, it’s a double-homicide. Trixie is not only acting differently from how she was in the comics by this point, but also seems to have completely forgotten about ‘Magic Duel’, because once again she now holds a disdain for Twilight Sparkle. Did the writers forget that it was ‘Boast Busters’ people don’t like, whereas ‘Magic Duel’ was the one everyone loved? That is the only reason I can think of for them de-canonizing it. and even if you ignore all that, Starlight Glimmer is entirely replaceable in this story. Swap her with any of the Remane-5, the CMC, or Spike, and you have basically the same story

[NOTE: It may seem unfair that my fave list had only 15 favorite spots whereas here I extended it from 10 to 20, but do remember that altogether this list only has only 25 episodes listed while my faves list has over 40 listed. Honestly the only reason it ended up being that way was because it was easier to reformat this base into 20 than it was to make the faves list from 15 to 30. Just keep in mind that out of over 130 episodes, only 21 I really strongly do not like, whereas over 40 of them I highly recommend]

20 – The Cutie Re-Mark

I was really on board with this one up until the infamous ending. It is widely known just how pathetic Starlight’s motivations are and how much they pretty much ruin her character. No, not even being a latch-key kid in any way justifies this; LOTS of kids have been friendless latch-key kids, yet you don’t see them starting identity cults, do you? You’re more likely to see them just isolating themselves from everyone, like Moondancer. This only works if Starlight is so psychologically unhinged that no amount of ‘Friendship’ speeches get through to her and she runs off to do more villainy again… yet she almost instantly forgoes EVERYTHING she’s ever known with little to no actual explanation. And once all of that hits you, you begin to see some of the other faults in this episode; why do Twilight and Spike not change? Why does Spike not disappear? HOW did these alternate timelines actually happen the way they did? Its all really disappointing because we actually get some really good Starlight moments before her forced redemption, like where she’s toying with Twilight, using Twi’s ideals of friendship against her to ruin history, or calling her out on her BS. This came so far, tried so hard, but because of that ending, it doesn’t really matter

19 – Newbie Dash

I’ve covered a lot of this in my Least Fave Character list when I talked about Spitfire and by extension the Wonderbolts; what makes them so much more important and successful than Rainbow Dash that they can pull something like this? I’d let it slide if they were a successful air force, but they’ve only proven to be losers. What’s more, I can’t see why Rainbow is so determined to earn their respect or why she’s being such a doofus in the process. This is just a bad episode that baits us with the fanservice of RD finally becoming a Wonderbolt, though by this point I think it would be a better story if she realized they weren’t worth it and quit the team

18 – A Flurry of Emotions

Princess Flurry heart was a mistake. Oh, she’s cute and all, but then again, she’s a baby; almost all animated babies are cute. But ever since her introduction; what has she done? Caused trouble with her excessive alicorn powers. A LOT of trouble. And what has she done since? Nothing, really. She hasn’t added anything to the overall narrative, she hasn’t developed any of the characters, and her own character has not been explored. In fact, AFOE is the only episode she has even had since her introductory episode, over a full season prior to this one! And this episode is basically just a retread of what happened in ‘The Crystalling’, but without the threat of a Stormageddon. Its basically just an OPed baby annoying Twilight throughout the episode and displaying inconsistent levels of intelligence. Being someone who is the eldest of six brothers and has looked after other peoples’ kids, I generally do not find being tormented at the hands of a baby funny when it serves as a gag and nothing more. I liked ‘Baby Cakes’ because the trouble Pinkie was having with the Cake Twins was the whole point of the episode and the moral was that babies aren’t easy. But here that is clearly not the conflict, as otherwise Twilight should have known what a handful her niece is. I’m also having a lot of trouble figuring out what exactly the moral is supposed to be; is it about managing your responsibilities? Because had both the sick children and Flurry Heart sprung on her in the same hour without any real time to account for either. Is about family being more important? So Twilight was just supposed to cancel her visiting sick kids? I guess it’s the latter, but the way the episode is written, the whole situation seems really unfair for Twilight and the moral just does not seem strong enough to justify it. Furthermore, I find Flurry to be really annoying in this episode, and the portrayal of Cadence and Shining Armor is something I’ve seen a thousand times over. Its not funny anymore

17 – To Change a Changeling

Something I really hate about the new changelings is how they drive home the idea of judging by appearance and not character. In the FiMfiction ‘Body and Mind’, the Changelings never altered their physical appearance when they started becoming accepted, they were just accepted because now ponies knew there were more to changelings than savage vampire bug-ponies. In this episode, I was almost certain that was the route they were going to take with Pharynx, but NOPE! Conform of be kicked out is the message of this episode. As I’ve said before, I really like Pharynx as a character, he comes across as a character you might find in ‘Red VS Blue’ [right down to the ‘It looked better when it had holes in it!’ thing. I could see a guy like that blasting holes in the home base just because] Pharynx didn’t need to change his appearance, he was already loyal to the Hive even though he hated what it had become, and yes, he did dump black paint on a colored changeling [my gosh, the racist jokes just write themselves, don’t they?] and punches holes through rocks, but an attitude adjustment should not have to equal a full makeover. He was still loyal to the Hive, still cared for his brother, and was still willing to put his own life on the line to protect his people against threats. Frankly, it’s the OTHER Changelings who need to change; and preferably change BACK. Not only do they now look stupid, but they’ve gone from a powerful and dangerous force to a colony of millennial hippies who abhor violence to the point where they are basically helpless against the local wildlife, and what’s more, they have such a disdain for Pharynx that they want him gone altogether even though he’s really their only line of defense, now. And if all that weren’t enough; what are Starlight and Trixie doing in this episode? Thorax is SPIKE’s friend, not Starlight’s! Making it even worse is the fact that Starlight’s only contribution to the episode is a really REALLY bad plan and her showing that she really HASN’T learned anything in terms of ‘Friendship’

16 – What About Discord?

This is the first episode of the series I actually really disliked. It wasn’t in any way fun for me, though Discord was mildly entertaining, the whole thing just really dragged on for no real reason. Not getting the joke is something I can really relate to, so when I see Twilight continuously suffer because of it I don’t get any satisfaction from watching this. Furthermore, Discord just isn’t funny, a little amusing, sure, but not funny, and thus all the jokes he makes aren’t funny, made even worse by the fact that they’re not supposed to be. As for Twilight’s friends? They’re just… kind of there, they’re there to drive home the unfunny jokes and make them even more awkward, and I have a really hard time believing that they warmed up so quickly to Discord over the course of a weekend, complete with a series of in-jokes and everything. And then it turns out that this was all a ploy just so Discord could get under Twilight’s fur because of course it was. It’s a long and unfunny joke that was intentionally not meant to be funny

15 – All Bottled Up

I’ve already written an essay explaining why this episode doesn’t work by comparing and contrasting it with an early Dragontales episode, so I’ll just sum it up here; Starlight behaves irrationally and irresponsibly despite being an adult, the angry magic fart cloud is poorly explained at best, Trixie is beyond obnoxious, the conflict could be resolved in five minutes, and the Friendship hangout was completely pointless. The whole episode is contrived and is far too literal with the message to be even remotely entertaining. Little to nothing actually makes sense and the episode is just a chore to sit through

14 – Rock Solid Friendship

So Pinkie Pie has had a history of inconsistent portrayals. This never really bothered me; that is until RSF. Pinkie goes beyond the rational limits of annoying and immature here, annoying her sister excessively just so she’ll live closer to her. And then Maud does because contrivances. Now I ask you; is it a good moral to teach kids that if they whine to someone enough, they’ll more or less get what they want in the end? Maud wanted to go to Ghastly gorge for her rock studies because the Gorge was abundant in rocks, whereas Ponyville was significantly less so. And you can’t argue her cavern home because that is a contrivance. Imagine if you will that this cavern never existed, or what if it was in Ghastly Gorge? Its very location is a contrivance to give Pinkie a happy ending even though she should have learned a more mature lesson. TECHNICALLY she does, but its all backtracked by Maud’s out-of-nowhere revelation of her social anxiety [wouldn’t it have been nice for us to see that instead of her just telling us all at the last minute?] and the all-too conveniently located cavern. Way to take the wind out of a lesson learned. And then we have Starlight? Why is she in this episode? What does she actually contribute? The revelation to Pinkie that she was going too far? I guess, but in a far better written story, Pinkie would have come to that conclusion herself, and all the while a lot of the episode is spent by Pinkie trying to forcibly ship her with Maud to convince Maud to stay in Ponyville, when that time could have been spent showing us tidbits of Maud’s social anxiety and discomfort around other ponies. And why does t even have to be Starlight? Any other character would have done, but because they threw her in there, they had to add a retcon where apparently they met while Starlight was establishing her town. This doesn’t even make any sense as ‘special magical rocks’ were never what kept the cutie marks in place; you’ll recall that when the glass casing was shattered, the marks were free, and if THAT weren’t enough, the Mane-6’s cutie marks were kept in jars without any rocks present. I don’t want to come across as a shallow Starlight Hater, but thus far I have seen very little reason for her to be in any episodes not about her

13 – Daring Done?

You can really feel Gillian M. Berrow backtracking throughout the whole script on this one; what starts out as a mature conflict with Rainbow Dash having to accept that her favorite series is coming to an end turns into a story where Daring Do recognizes all the damage she recklessly does on her adventures and wants to quit because so she can avoid doing that anymore and it looks like she’ll have to accept responsibility. Both concepts are very mature ones for this kind of show, but at about the halfway mark it turns into a plot where one of Daring’s enemies is just framing her and once the plot if foiled, she’s absolved of all blame and everything is back to normal. What could have been a really mature story backtracks into becoming only a very safe story. The scene that introduces Somnambula was also very out of place, the episode just awkwardly pausing so that some old guy can exposit the backstory of this ancient pony when it could have been told to us through Daring Do reading hieroglyphics. The steam bridge was also incredibly cheap, and do I even need to say how sad and pathetic Rainbow’s capture was? She didn’t even fight back, didn’t try to fly away, and wasn’t even ambushed with a sack over her head. Daring Done? Is an episode that COULD have been great, but chose to take backwards the three steps it took forward

12 – Hard To Say Anything

Ok, so we all at some point have had a crush on a girl, right? [Or a guy?] But for whatever reason they’re like ‘Nah, not into you’ and we’ve had to accept this and seek out someone else? And when we don’t, they put as much distance between them and you as possible? That’s life. Sometimes certain people just aren’t into you and may never be, and we have to live this and learn to move on. That is not the plot or moral of this episode. The plot and moral of THIS episode is; bother a girl enough and she’ll find your stalker-esque mannerisms charming. Ok, the message is ‘treat a woman like a real person and not a fairy tale’, but its SO poorly handled. I do not –and no rational woman on the face of this planet would, find Big Mac’s last attempt to win over Sugar Belle to be acceptable given all the @#$& he put her through prior. If SB was in a proper state of mind, she would have kicked BM out a second time and filed a restraining order. Especially after that Primus-awful song battle they did, Primus, WHY DID THEY DO THAT?! And why is Big Macintosh, a grown stallion, taking pick-up advice from three children a book of FAIRY TALES of all things?! This episode only gets more insanely stupid the more you actually THINK about it. No one in this episode is even remotely likable or intelligent. One more thing; why would anyone ever think that having Flash Sentry voice Justin Bieber’s OC would be a good idea?

11 – Every Little Thing She Does

‘Lesson Zero’ worked for a lot of reasons, but one of the reasons it didn’t destroy Twilight’s credibility as a character is because she’s been established to be this way and she wasn’t a villain prior. The point of Starlight Glimmer’s place in the series post-reformation is supposedly in theory to show how far she’s come since her reformation or to at least show she’s making some progress. So what does she do in this episode? Cheat on her Friendship homework by magically brainwashing the Remane-5 so she can get it all done at once. Not even a remotely noble intent behind any of this. I’m sorry, but no. this is not acceptable and she is let off FAR too easily. She committed the act of Mind Violation and she barely receives a slap on the wrist, and as future episodes are any indication, all she really learned from this whole mess was not to specifically use mind control again, because she goes right along using morally questionable magic on other ponies without any kind of warning, which later gives them a massive hangover. Her apology at the end also had to be one of the sorriest excuses for an apology I have ever heard, so much so that the writers felt they actually had to make one of the characters say otherwise just to convince us. It only gets more frustrating when you realize Starlight set up a much less immoral alternative early on when she introduced us to the self-duplication spell-combo; why did she not use this to get the assignment over with faster? She’s only using the spell on herself and not her supposed friends. It would all still come crashing down on her and she would still have to be told what specifically she did wrong, but at least this way it comes at the expense of herself and not her friends, and by extension, not really her character, either. But, no, just, no, I guess. Let’s have her violate the minds of her friends for entirely selfish purposes and treat this like it’s a minor screwup. I also think its really sad how even when under mind-control, the Remane-5 are still far more interesting and entertaining characters than Starlight is throughout the whole episode

10 – The Times They Are A Changeling

So… let’s talk a little about Racism. Hoo-boy, this’ll be fun. So regardless of what Jerry-Lily-Peet will tell you, the reaction of the Crystal Ponies to the Changeling sighted in the Empire actually IS warranted for the most part; Changelings are a predatory species that feed off ponykind and utilize a wide array of transformation abilities to deceive ponies into a false sense of security. For all they know, a Changeling could be literally anyone or anything, anywhere. And given the displayed almost compulsory nature of their hunger, and Changeling within Empire limits could rightfully be considered a threat. And as for him claiming to be good? Changelings are a deceptive species by nature who masterfully utilize trickery to get what they want out of ponies; Thorax could very easily be lying through his fangs. This is not a proper allegory for racial discrimination because Changelings are not only an entirely separate species from ponies, but also basically the predators of ponies. No. That is not the issue with the Crystal Ponies; this issue is their childish display of a reaction to the Changeling and total willingness to listen to Spike whenever the enemy isn’t present. And then we have Thorax… I’ve already gone into how he’s my most despised character in the whole show; he’s whiny, pathetic, annoying, doesn’t make any sense, and more or less he’s just an object of conflict. I’ve also already gone into how the FiMfiction ‘Body and Mind’ is a vastly superior version of this story, written three years before this episode even aired. Pincer is a far more compelling character than Thorax and has far more agency, not to mention his character actually makes sense. Read that and you will never be able to see this episode the same way again. And then we have the song; its actually not that bad, but in the context of the episode it really drags down the story even further. The song is titled ‘A Changeling Can Change’, but the problem with this is that Thorax doesn’t NEED to change because he was apparently just born good from the start and never held any ill-will towards anyone. And finally we have Starlight Glimmer, whose presence amounts to absolutely nothing. If they had instead included Rarity, then that at least would have provided Spike with more conflict and pressure to give up on Thorax. But what does Starlight do? Nothing

9 – The Perfect Pear

Now it might be kind of cheating for me to put it here as I’m doing so more because of fan-reaction than the quality of the episode, but I think it still deserves a spot on this list. Initially I hated it because the death of the Apple parents was literally the only interesting about them and the only reason we wanted an episode about them; and then they proceed not to give us that. But a good story can still be done by taking characters who are only known for one thing and giving them more to them, so I have to give them props for trying that, getting us to know the characters and draw an attachment to them before the episode where they are killed off, thus it resonates more with us as it does their children. HOWEVER; this really only works on an objective level if the story itself is good and the characters memorable, and sadly TPP is not in the slightest. The main characters are so boring the episode has to stuff itself like a turducken with other characters who don’t really add anything to the story and it has to keep cutting back to the Apple children just to remind us that Applejack is their daughter, rather than give us any indication of what kind of relationship the children had with their parents. William Shatner was also wasted in this episode as his character’s lines could be cut and it would make literally no difference to the narrative. The story is also incredibly one-sided and stale as it only ever shows how much the couple loves one-another and how everyone else either supports their relationship or is against it, never showing us any kind of tension between the two lovers that could develop their characters or strengthen the vague moral about ‘love overcoming hate’ or whatever. This story is boring, the characters unengaging, and the themes too vaguely explored. This episode is highly overrated

8 – Triple Threat

Anyone remember how in ‘Green Isn’t Your Color’ Twilight was aware that the conflict could be easily solved if Rarity and Fluttershy just talked to one another and so the writers had Flutters and Rares make Twi promise she would tell the other? Well now imagine instead of two characters having hurt feelings, the risk of the conflict is two races going to war. And now imagine NO ONE aware of the situation even once thinks to actually spill the beans and prevent a potential disaster. Its been said that one of the most prevalent problems with this show is how the characters could solve a lot of their problems if they just were open with one another instead of keeping secrets, and this episode is a prime example of that flaw. Now admittedly there actually is a really good scene between Ember and Thorax where they just have a verbal back-and-forth between one-another and exchange tips on how to be better leaders, but its all too short and the amount of insufferable stupidity it took to get to this point makes it most certainly not worth the wait. Also, I know she was raised in the savage dragon lands, but why does Ember think it’s a good idea to eat another person’s home right in front of them? Anyway, we once again have Starlight, and I would like to reiterate that although it seems like I’m being a typical Starlight Hater, I’m going after her purely from a narrative standpoint, in that she doesn’t serve any kind of purpose to the episode’s narrative. Usually she plays straight-man to other characters and is written as the smarter one; but here she’s just as dumb as Twilight and all the others [come to think of it, why does no one else in Ponyville point out that both a Dragon and Changeling are there at the same time?] Starlight is really only in this episode so that Ember can make a joke about Starlight being so similar to Twilight, a joke so over-used by the fandom its rarely ever used nowadays because its not really that funny anymore.

7 – Celestial Advice

I’ll start this entry off by saying that although Starlight serves little to no purpose to the narrative, she actually only appears at the front and back of the episode, so her useless presence is a non-issue. Now; imagine you have an episode, but the only thing that happens is characters sitting and talking, and the closest thing we get to ‘interesting’ is three short imagined scenarios. Sounds like fun, right? But at the very least the 19 minute-long discussion will have one of the characters developing and doing something they weren’t able to do at the start, right? NOPE. The conflict of this episode is that Twilight comes to the decision that its time to send Starlight away as Celestia did for her, but Twi doesn’t want to and keeps imagining horrible exaggerated scenarios where Starlight ends up getting herself killed. And what conclusion does she reach by the story’s end? That she won’t send Starlight away after all. A total waste of 22 minutes. This entire plot feels like the last two minutes of ‘To Where and Back Again’ but were cut and stretched over an extra 20 minutes. But then there’s the thing that everyobody considers the episode’s hook; Celestia talking with Twilight, its what the episode is named after, after all! Is THIS enough to salvage the episode? No, not really, no. for whatever reason, Songco and Lewis seem to have forgotten that Celestia and Luna are over a millennia old and want us to believe that Twilight is the first student she has ever truly worried about. Seriously? There were no star pupils before Sunset Shimmer, who goes unmentioned here? And furthermore, the way Celestia laughs at Twilight seems very patronizing, she usually lets loose a cheeky giggle, which is really what this situation called for, but this? All of this makes her look less and less capable of ruling a nation if despite so many years of experience she’s so easily unhinged by letting ONE STUDENT go. This episode is a complete waste of time and a terrible season opener

6 – A Royal Problem

Starlight is in this episode when she really doesn’t need to be, her only purpose is making the problem worse and she doesn’t even learn anything from this. She uses highly questionable magic without warning, she has a panic attack and a little pity party, and then she gets off scot-free because the universe sorted everything out for her. You get the picture. So… what I just said about Celestia looking like a less than capable ruler, and Songco and Lewis seeming to forget her and Luna’s long history? Imagine an entire episode of that. This episode has Celestia at what must be quite possibly her most immature and aloof she has ever been. Despite the emotional turmoil having to banish her sister forever must have taken on her, ESPECIALLY in hindsight that said sister became evil because of her negligence; I find it woefully ironic and entirely unfunny that NONE of that shows through here. Luna I can kind of see as much of her life was spent trapped on the moon while evil, she could be argued to be time-displaced as well as a little crazy; but CELESTIA? She has had over a millennia of experience and time to recognize where she went wrong and learn how to better herself, but the way they wrote this episode, you’d almost think that Celestia and Luna were only somewhere around their mid-40s! You CANNOT tell me that she would not even ONCE think to actually try and talk to Luna and prevent another slow, slippery descent to the dark side! And its not even like they’re quarrel is in any way meaningful; ITS OVER FLOWERS AND PANCAKES, FOR PRIMUS’ SAKE!-! And as for the solution of switching cutie marks? This story was already done in the IDW Luna Micro-Comic, and that story was infinitely superior to this one, but regardless I find it hard to believe Luna learned nothing from that. But even if the comics AREN’T canon, Celestia should have known better than to disregard Luna’s dream duties as she had to take over many of Luna’s roles after she was banished! Unless of course you want to argue that Luna’s dream duties were non-existent prior to Luna’s return, but then if THAT’s the case, then you have to consider that during the 1,000 years Luna was in exile nothing is noted to have really happened in Equestria and dangerous stuff only started happening AFTER Luna’s return! Before she came back, everything seemed to be just fine. So this not only render’s Luna’s duties meaningless, but also makes them more of a threat than an aid! Remember ‘Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep’?! If this episode and DPDOMS are any indication, then Luna really doesn’t serve any purpose to Equestria at all! Oh, and don’t even get me started on Twilight’s unhelpfulness and lack of contribution or the whole ‘Daybreaker’ dream sequence of Starlight’s that serves no purpose. This episode. Is. BAD. ‘A Royal Problem’ is far to kind a description

5 – Spike at Your Service

I actually completely forgot about this one until Joshscorcher reviewed it recently, and I just had to add it here. I don’t really hate this episode, but on a more technical level its really bad and I can’t disregard that. Both Spike and Twilight are REALLY out of character here to the point where I’m very hesitant to call this canon, the Noble Dragon Code thing is stupid, and what could have been a good moral is butchered by the overall bad story. Most early episodes considered ‘bad’ I can let slide because they’re at least fun to rewatch regardless of the implications, but this one is so badly handled that its not fun at all and thus I pretty much forgot about it altogether. I have to put it at this point on the list because on a more technical level, this is just inexcusable

4 – Parental Glideance

The plot of this episode is that Rainbow Dash’s mentally unstable parents annoy the buck out of her for most of the episode. That’s its, there’s really not much more plot than that. Like Thorax, I have talked at length about how these two are insufferable one-notes with serious issues and how their behavior has negatively affected Rainbow, but it bears repeating; they practically worship her, scream out her praises regardless of who they’re disrupting, and will fire explosives into military airs shows without care as to who gets hurt. They’ve always been this way, have given rainbow Dash an unhealthily large ego and are the core cause behind every single bad RD episode, and by the episode’s end they’ve learned absolutely nothing. Y’know, I think the Simpsons did an episode about parents showering their children with too much praise. Ya think Josh Hamilton saw that and then turned it off midway before saying that that would make for a great episode? I also don’t like Scootalo’s portrayal here; she’s way more fangirly than ever despite being on close sisterly terms with Rainbow [she never acted this way during ‘Brotherhooves Social’] so why she would be screaming in excitement to meet RD’s parents of all ponies is baffling. And how neglectful must her own parents be for her not to think that RD’s parents aren’t taking it too far? It bothers me to no end how Rainbow is really in the right here, yet the episode has the audacity to try and frame her as wrong for telling her parents to cool it and give her some space. And to add insult to injury, the episode ends with RD joining in on her parents’ disruptive behavior by annoying Cheerilee to cheer on Scootaloo. Yeah, I don’t think that’s a good idea, given how that much attention really didn’t do a whole lot of good for Rainbow. Lastly, Scoots’ only real purpose in this story is to be the catylist for the conflict and then the guilt trip. She really could be written out of this story and there would be little change; just have RD’s parents learn about her Wonderbolt career from a mail advertisement, or something, then get one of the Wonderbolts to guilt-trip RD, and just cut out the whole classroom scene altogether. And just like ‘Triple Threat’, the ending pretty much telegraphs itself from the beginning, so that means we have to put up with about 15 minutes of unfunny excuses for jokes. As we see with ‘Secrets and Pies’, this is the only kind of story Hamilton knows how to write, though S&P I kind of liked because I found it funny, but only ironically

3 – Shadow Play

You know something? Given how many episodes on this list seem to completely forgo any real continuity, I find it painfully ironic then how this episode tries to pander to us all with extensive lore and ‘continuity nods’. Trouble is, this episode tries to do far too much by actually doing very little. In the process of trying to cram so much information in to appease the fanbase, they ultimately break the penultimate rule of “Show; Don’t Tell”, translating much of that lore entirely through spoken dialogue. I challenge you to watch this finale on mute and still tell me even half the backstory the exposited was in any way crucial to the plot. They say that they created the Tree of Harmony, but don’t offer us any proof beyond vague and confusing explanations; they say that the Pony of Shadows is the most Dangerous Villain of All Time and will plunge the world into Darkness unless he is stopped, yet we see no evidence of this at all; they say they’ve explored the supposed dark points of Equestria, but we only see them AFTER they’ve concluded that hat mission was completely pointless; they say that PoS twisted Hollow Shades to his own dark purposes, but we see nothing that confirms this beyond a dreary and desolate landscape; and they say the Elements of Harmony will have to be sacrificed, and yet we don’t see any evidence of this either. ‘Show; Don’t Tell’ is an important rule to follow in the visual medium, and they end up breaking this throughout much of the episode, and this is something every finale prior to this got right. A lot of this issue comes down to the incredibly poor pacing of the story; the first half is nothing more than setup for the ACTUAL plot to get under way, fooling us into thinking that the Mane-6 actually serve some important purpose to the episode, but all it really accomplishes is making Twilight –and by extension her friends, look like complete morons for not thinking that they’d also set PoS free as well. precious time that could have been used to better tell the actual story is wasted due to what could have been a simple montage, considering how they don’t really do anything with the Remane-5 and their respective historical idols. Furthermore, the episode is so overstuffed with characters that not only was it crashing the software, but next to none of them aside from Starswirl serve any real purpose. You could cut out both the Remane-5 and the other five Pillars of Olde Equestria and the plot would remain largely unchanged. I have talked at length about Starsucks and Stygian, so I’ll try to keep it brief; Starswirl is nothing more than a bigoted old coot who refuses to listen to reason because he’s given an ego larger than Rainbow Dash’s, and Stygian is the most pathetic excuse for a villain that this show has put forward [going to show that Josh Haber cannot write original villains to save his life] a pathetic ripoff of Nightmare Moon who doesn’t really do anything at all, barely displays any real power, and spends most of the story offscreen, essentially hiding in the basement of his old village for however long it takes to find him. And… of course, Starlight is in this episode, and while this time she does play a more crucial role, its only due to extreme contrivances of everyone else being dumb. As usual. It gets so bad that even when it looks like Twilight has finally wizened up and is going to save the day by saving Stygian; Copypaste Purplesmart jumps in after her and essentially does the job for her JUST AS Twilight was about to do it. Cut out Starlight and that would probably allow more time to develop the Pillars and establish a dynamic and even conflict with them and the Mane-6, I’m just saying. To top all of that off, the Princesses are so unessential to the plot that they only bookend it, which frankly is far worse than them getting worfed every finale, especially considering how much they’re trying to build up how big a threat PoS really is. ‘Shadow Play’ is not only a bad episode, it’s a mistake. Its contradictory to the established lore and makes retcons where they aren’t needed, it tells more than its shows, it’s first half is nothing more than drawn-out buildup which could be condensed into a five-minute montage, most of the characters don’t really serve any purpose, and the whole thing just comes across as a forced mess. Josh Haber should not be allowed to write any more finales. EVER

2 – Fame and Misfortune

Blah blah blah, Starlight once again serves no purpose to the narrative, she’s just there because potatoes. Blah blah blah. The problem is so prominent that even I have gotten tired of saying it. now whether or not M.A. Larson DID actually write this a few years back as a scrapped concept or if this was DHX’s idea and they forced him to write it is entirely up in the air, but either way the story behind this episode is definitely not a good one. On the one hand you have an idea that was doomed to fail but utilized years later because DHX was butthurt, and on the other hand you have a popular writer for the show who knew and outright said it was a bad idea but they forced him to do it anyway because they’re butthurt. Even if you ignore the terribly written slights lobbed at the Brony fandom, what you still have is an awful episode; Twilight decides to use the experience of her and her friends to spread the message of Friendship and it backfires because Equestria is populated by impulsive idiots, and a good portion of the episode is devoted to showing us just how over-zealous the readers are as they basically ruin the lives of the Mane-6 in a matter of a single day; Applejack’s home is invaded, Pinkie Pie is getting laughed at whenever she talks, Rainbow Dash can’t get two seconds of peace, Rarity’s business is being boycott, and Fluttershy is getting harassed in the streets. And how does it all come to a head? The angry fans are left yelling and screaming on twilight’s front lawn. Oh, the Mane-6 sing a really poorly thought-out song that really only addresses maybe Fluttershy, Rarity, and Rainbow’s perceptions; but by the time the credits role, the idiots are still screaming on the front lawn! Why would I want to watch an episode that spends the majority of it’s time making the main characters miserable only to NOT HAVE AN ENDING?!!!!!!

1 – To Where and Back Again

[Takes a deep breath] SIIIIIIIIIIIIGH. I just might end up doing a journal entry on why Starlight Glimmer is the most worthless and meaningless character to this entire franchise. For those of you who DIDN’T close this tab after reading that last sentence; this episode may have the WORST example of shoving her Copypasted Purplesmartied flank into a story. Somehow out of nowhere she has this conflict with not wanting to be a leader because she ‘led her town astray’ even though that is a grossly inaccurate summarization of what she actually did, which was start a cult and not lead a group of ponies from functionality to identity politics. But whatever. This is her conflict, and unfortunately, it shows up n the most forced ways; first its introduced when the townsponies are acting WAY out of character [as in, all ONE character] and then when contrivances get every single hero but her captured and she has to lead a ragtag group of four [including herself] Unfortunately this position of leadership doesn’t really go anywhere as Starlight’s allies one-by-one get picked off regardless of what she does, and however the story went she’d end up in the throne room where she’d have an opportunity to deus-ex-machina the Changelings into being ‘good’. The other former villains really serve no less purpose than any of the Remane-5 would have, so what’s the point? And again, her conflict of being a leader has next to nothing to do with the man plot; it doesn’t even come back up again later in the series! She’s just THERE and hasn’t changed! Thorax is also pretty useless in this story; he’s presented as a guide through the Hive as they attempt the recuse mission, but soon enough it becomes evident that he doesn’t know here they really are, so then he really doesn’t serve any purpose. At the end, he’s really only a plot device when he becomes the Changeling King [don’t ask why he of all of them is the King. Just don’t. They haven’t answered that question and they will proceed not to] He’s really insufferable throughout this story, especially when he exposits exactly what Chrysalis is doing to him at the climax. Aside from transforming at the end, you could cut him out of the story and nothing would change.

In fact, when you remove both him and Starlight from the story altogether, what you have is a story where Discord and Trixie are forced to work together to save their friends and the rest of Equestria. They don’t need Starlight to tell them to stop arguing and shut up; they have the intensity and severity of the situation to constantly remind them of the bigger picture. And actually, you probably COULD write the climax without either Starlight or Thorax; have Trixie chuck rocks at the stasis pods until one by one the captives are freed, then one of them [most likely Twilight since she’s the Princess of Friendship] convinces the Changelings to stand down and give Friendship a chance [I mean, yeah, Thorax COULD have stood as an example to the others as what Chrysalis really thinks about all of them; but its STARLIGHT she smacks around, and the punishment she dishes out for Thorax is something they’ve probably known would happen for a very long time] And one by one Changelings start helping the captives escape and they now have some Changeling allies meanwhile Chrysalis ISN’T reduced to a comedic failure of a villain. But whatever. Everyone is going to tell me I can’t criticize an episode by rewriting it. Good thing then this episode is still full of flaws. Or a bad thing. Depends on your point of view.

So… Chrysalis’ plan. Somehow her forces capture every single royal family member and the Mane-6 + Spike [because contrivances now shut up] and in the middle of the night, she is told that the plan was successful, and… she doesn’t order them to invade. Equestria… is ASLEEP right now. As far as any of them know, the populace is entirely unaware of the great threat the Changelings now pose and entirely helpless against it by proxy. Chryssi has the PERFECT opportunity to invade without resistance AND SHE DOESN’T TAKE IT?! Its like she was waiting for four nobodies to come in and screw over her entire life! You can’t even argue that she was waiting for Discord, because they have Fluttershy and he’s GOING to come to them and get captured ANYWAY. It doesn’t even have to be a loud invasion; do a quiet one and Discord may be none the wiser when Equestria awakens!

And then we unfortunately have to circle back to Starlight, because Chrysalis says that she INTENTIONALLY left Starlight alone because of how unimportant she thought Starlight was. AND YET she still had her forces capture Spike. Because he was just there at the time? Ok, sure, but then why not Starlight?! Once she gets back to the castle, she’s there for at least three hours, AND NOT EVEN WHILE SHE’S SLEEPING DO THEY COCOON HER??!!!!!!!! PLUG THE @#$% LEAK YOU MORONS!!!!!!!!!!!!! And furthermore, surely they must have had spies watching them for a long time in order to pull of an operation of this scale, so surely they would have known just how powerful Starlight is, more so than Spike? Again; you have a loose end wandering around your makeshift base and could uncover your operation at any time; GET RID OF HER. But thus, the entire operation falls, the Changelings are forever changed, they all now look incredibly stupid, their reformation was rushed beyond all belief, and Chrysalis is [pun not intended] a shell of her former self. All. Because. Of. Contrivances. To make Starlight Glimmer. The hero. Of this story.

Now… to this finale’s credit, it does a far more adequate job of setting itself up throughout season 6, which is more than I can say for ‘Shadow Play’, and Discord, Trixie, and Queen Chrysalis were thoroughly enjoyable… and that’s about all the praise I can muster. The rest of it amounts to the worst episode in the entire series. This episode is laden with out-of-character moments, plot holes, forced character writing, contrivances up the wazoo, an overall a story that would have made a decent finale, but butchered itself in the process. Screw this episode. It is the worst

UPDATE:

I recently saw the news about the leaked Season 8 episodes, art for the 2nd MLP movie, and Gen5 reboot. I refuse to include any S8 episodes on this list because all of the leaked ones were bad. Legit bad. All of them could be shortened to five minutes and nothing key to those stories would be lost

Original Meme base created by MunkTransformerLover

Description

Most of the early ‘bad’ episodes I can always forgive or look past because I consider them to at least be fun enough to rewatch. But in a series of over 100 episodes, there are bound to be at least 20 or more absolute duds. I’ve already given a complete overhaul of my favorite episodes [that list was only ever meant to be 15, but somehow I managed to make it stretch out past 40] I love this show, so when there’s an episode that completely flies in the face of the show I enjoy, I can’t just let it slide. [NOTE: for this list I will not be including tie-in movies, shorts, or music videos]

Dishonorable Mentions:

Tanks for the Memories

I actually kind of like this one, but I have to put it on the list because Rainbow Dash’s behavior is entirely selfish and irresponsible it really ruins the rest of the episode for me

Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep?

Similar to the last entry, I really had a lot of fun with this episode, but the ending twist completely sours my viewing experience

A Hearthswarming Tale [not shown because I didn’t think to add it until now]

So to anyone who says that this is a good episode that showcases Starlight’s development; its not about her, her character model is just an avatar for the ACTUAL main story character. Starlight is just a member of the audience and can be replaced by literally anyone. Oh, and Twilight basically forces her to accept Hearthswarming as her One and True Holiday. As for the story itself? It’s a bad idea to combine ‘A Christmas Carol’ with ‘How the Grinch Stole Christmas’ if this episode is any indication, given how they completely missed the point of a Christmas Carol. The episode seems to be saying that working hard for the betterment of the world isn’t good whereas having fun during the Holidays takes priority over everything [terrible idea to make RAINBOW DASH of all characters the Bob Cratchet parody. Fluttershy would have worked far better]. Snowfall Frost’s initial goal isn’t in any way a bad one, her biggest problem is that she just doesn’t care to celebrate the holidays because she has greater goals in mind, and they really only pull a Grinch moment because she’s supposed to be the antagonist. In terms of completely missing the point of ACC, Ebenezer Scrooge was a man disillusioned by the world and corrupted by business who was rather nasty to everyone due to all the hardships he’d suffered in his youth, and was especially bitter towards Christmas because many of the greatest hardhsips happened to take place on Christmas. Snowfall Frost was simply told by a Snape parody ‘Work hard and don’t get distracted’. Furthermore, ‘Luna’s Future’ isn’t a good song. Its highly overrated and makes the whole conflict of the episode about as retarded as ‘An Easter Carol’. Oh, and they aired this episode in April and broke the pattern of a Christmas episode every three seasons

Crusaders of the Lost Mark

If I could describe this episode in one word, it would be ‘Rushed’. I was always eager for the CMC to get their marks because I was certain they’d end up getting them in separate episodes from one-another, thus having them learn to still be friends even if one or two of them are ahead of the other(s). Of course doing it all at once could also work, but this episode has an entirely different plot going on in the forefront, so much so that them getting their cutie marks feels almost like it was tacked on at the last minute just to boost ratings, because suddenly the episode’s conflict becomes comopletely different. Frankly, I think it would have been better if Diamond Tiara hadn’t been fully reformed, but the CMC ended up helping Silver Spoon come to her own and no longer need Diamond, meanwhile Tiara changes gears in a later episode, but here we still see the explanation as to why she is the way she is, and THEN when they reform her they realize what their talents really are and they get their cutie marks

No Second Prances

This episode commits the crime of Character Assassination, and in this case, it’s a double-homicide. Trixie is not only acting differently from how she was in the comics by this point, but also seems to have completely forgotten about ‘Magic Duel’, because once again she now holds a disdain for Twilight Sparkle. Did the writers forget that it was ‘Boast Busters’ people don’t like, whereas ‘Magic Duel’ was the one everyone loved? That is the only reason I can think of for them de-canonizing it. and even if you ignore all that, Starlight Glimmer is entirely replaceable in this story. Swap her with any of the Remane-5, the CMC, or Spike, and you have basically the same story

[NOTE: It may seem unfair that my fave list had only 15 favorite spots whereas here I extended it from 10 to 20, but do remember that altogether this list only has only 25 episodes listed while my faves list has over 40 listed. Honestly the only reason it ended up being that way was because it was easier to reformat this base into 20 than it was to make the faves list from 15 to 30. Just keep in mind that out of over 130 episodes, only 21 I really strongly do not like, whereas over 40 of them I highly recommend]

20 – The Cutie Re-Mark

I was really on board with this one up until the infamous ending. It is widely known just how pathetic Starlight’s motivations are and how much they pretty much ruin her character. No, not even being a latch-key kid in any way justifies this; LOTS of kids have been friendless latch-key kids, yet you don’t see them starting identity cults, do you? You’re more likely to see them just isolating themselves from everyone, like Moondancer. This only works if Starlight is so psychologically unhinged that no amount of ‘Friendship’ speeches get through to her and she runs off to do more villainy again… yet she almost instantly forgoes EVERYTHING she’s ever known with little to no actual explanation. And once all of that hits you, you begin to see some of the other faults in this episode; why do Twilight and Spike not change? Why does Spike not disappear? HOW did these alternate timelines actually happen the way they did? Its all really disappointing because we actually get some really good Starlight moments before her forced redemption, like where she’s toying with Twilight, using Twi’s ideals of friendship against her to ruin history, or calling her out on her BS. This came so far, tried so hard, but because of that ending, it doesn’t really matter

19 – Newbie Dash

I’ve covered a lot of this in my Least Fave Character list when I talked about Spitfire and by extension the Wonderbolts; what makes them so much more important and successful than Rainbow Dash that they can pull something like this? I’d let it slide if they were a successful air force, but they’ve only proven to be losers. What’s more, I can’t see why Rainbow is so determined to earn their respect or why she’s being such a doofus in the process. This is just a bad episode that baits us with the fanservice of RD finally becoming a Wonderbolt, though by this point I think it would be a better story if she realized they weren’t worth it and quit the team

18 – A Flurry of Emotions

Princess Flurry heart was a mistake. Oh, she’s cute and all, but then again, she’s a baby; almost all animated babies are cute. But ever since her introduction; what has she done? Caused trouble with her excessive alicorn powers. A LOT of trouble. And what has she done since? Nothing, really. She hasn’t added anything to the overall narrative, she hasn’t developed any of the characters, and her own character has not been explored. In fact, AFOE is the only episode she has even had since her introductory episode, over a full season prior to this one! And this episode is basically just a retread of what happened in ‘The Crystalling’, but without the threat of a Stormageddon. Its basically just an OPed baby annoying Twilight throughout the episode and displaying inconsistent levels of intelligence. Being someone who is the eldest of six brothers and has looked after other peoples’ kids, I generally do not find being tormented at the hands of a baby funny when it serves as a gag and nothing more. I liked ‘Baby Cakes’ because the trouble Pinkie was having with the Cake Twins was the whole point of the episode and the moral was that babies aren’t easy. But here that is clearly not the conflict, as otherwise Twilight should have known what a handful her niece is. I’m also having a lot of trouble figuring out what exactly the moral is supposed to be; is it about managing your responsibilities? Because had both the sick children and Flurry Heart sprung on her in the same hour without any real time to account for either. Is about family being more important? So Twilight was just supposed to cancel her visiting sick kids? I guess it’s the latter, but the way the episode is written, the whole situation seems really unfair for Twilight and the moral just does not seem strong enough to justify it. Furthermore, I find Flurry to be really annoying in this episode, and the portrayal of Cadence and Shining Armor is something I’ve seen a thousand times over. Its not funny anymore

17 – To Change a Changeling

Something I really hate about the new changelings is how they drive home the idea of judging by appearance and not character. In the FiMfiction ‘Body and Mind’, the Changelings never altered their physical appearance when they started becoming accepted, they were just accepted because now ponies knew there were more to changelings than savage vampire bug-ponies. In this episode, I was almost certain that was the route they were going to take with Pharynx, but NOPE! Conform of be kicked out is the message of this episode. As I’ve said before, I really like Pharynx as a character, he comes across as a character you might find in ‘Red VS Blue’ [right down to the ‘It looked better when it had holes in it!’ thing. I could see a guy like that blasting holes in the home base just because] Pharynx didn’t need to change his appearance, he was already loyal to the Hive even though he hated what it had become, and yes, he did dump black paint on a colored changeling [my gosh, the racist jokes just write themselves, don’t they?] and punches holes through rocks, but an attitude adjustment should not have to equal a full makeover. He was still loyal to the Hive, still cared for his brother, and was still willing to put his own life on the line to protect his people against threats. Frankly, it’s the OTHER Changelings who need to change; and preferably change BACK. Not only do they now look stupid, but they’ve gone from a powerful and dangerous force to a colony of millennial hippies who abhor violence to the point where they are basically helpless against the local wildlife, and what’s more, they have such a disdain for Pharynx that they want him gone altogether even though he’s really their only line of defense, now. And if all that weren’t enough; what are Starlight and Trixie doing in this episode? Thorax is SPIKE’s friend, not Starlight’s! Making it even worse is the fact that Starlight’s only contribution to the episode is a really REALLY bad plan and her showing that she really HASN’T learned anything in terms of ‘Friendship’

16 – What About Discord?

This is the first episode of the series I actually really disliked. It wasn’t in any way fun for me, though Discord was mildly entertaining, the whole thing just really dragged on for no real reason. Not getting the joke is something I can really relate to, so when I see Twilight continuously suffer because of it I don’t get any satisfaction from watching this. Furthermore, Discord just isn’t funny, a little amusing, sure, but not funny, and thus all the jokes he makes aren’t funny, made even worse by the fact that they’re not supposed to be. As for Twilight’s friends? They’re just… kind of there, they’re there to drive home the unfunny jokes and make them even more awkward, and I have a really hard time believing that they warmed up so quickly to Discord over the course of a weekend, complete with a series of in-jokes and everything. And then it turns out that this was all a ploy just so Discord could get under Twilight’s fur because of course it was. It’s a long and unfunny joke that was intentionally not meant to be funny

15 – All Bottled Up

I’ve already written an essay explaining why this episode doesn’t work by comparing and contrasting it with an early Dragontales episode, so I’ll just sum it up here; Starlight behaves irrationally and irresponsibly despite being an adult, the angry magic fart cloud is poorly explained at best, Trixie is beyond obnoxious, the conflict could be resolved in five minutes, and the Friendship hangout was completely pointless. The whole episode is contrived and is far too literal with the message to be even remotely entertaining. Little to nothing actually makes sense and the episode is just a chore to sit through

14 – Rock Solid Friendship

So Pinkie Pie has had a history of inconsistent portrayals. This never really bothered me; that is until RSF. Pinkie goes beyond the rational limits of annoying and immature here, annoying her sister excessively just so she’ll live closer to her. And then Maud does because contrivances. Now I ask you; is it a good moral to teach kids that if they whine to someone enough, they’ll more or less get what they want in the end? Maud wanted to go to Ghastly gorge for her rock studies because the Gorge was abundant in rocks, whereas Ponyville was significantly less so. And you can’t argue her cavern home because that is a contrivance. Imagine if you will that this cavern never existed, or what if it was in Ghastly Gorge? Its very location is a contrivance to give Pinkie a happy ending even though she should have learned a more mature lesson. TECHNICALLY she does, but its all backtracked by Maud’s out-of-nowhere revelation of her social anxiety [wouldn’t it have been nice for us to see that instead of her just telling us all at the last minute?] and the all-too conveniently located cavern. Way to take the wind out of a lesson learned. And then we have Starlight? Why is she in this episode? What does she actually contribute? The revelation to Pinkie that she was going too far? I guess, but in a far better written story, Pinkie would have come to that conclusion herself, and all the while a lot of the episode is spent by Pinkie trying to forcibly ship her with Maud to convince Maud to stay in Ponyville, when that time could have been spent showing us tidbits of Maud’s social anxiety and discomfort around other ponies. And why does t even have to be Starlight? Any other character would have done, but because they threw her in there, they had to add a retcon where apparently they met while Starlight was establishing her town. This doesn’t even make any sense as ‘special magical rocks’ were never what kept the cutie marks in place; you’ll recall that when the glass casing was shattered, the marks were free, and if THAT weren’t enough, the Mane-6’s cutie marks were kept in jars without any rocks present. I don’t want to come across as a shallow Starlight Hater, but thus far I have seen very little reason for her to be in any episodes not about her

13 – Daring Done?

You can really feel Gillian M. Berrow backtracking throughout the whole script on this one; what starts out as a mature conflict with Rainbow Dash having to accept that her favorite series is coming to an end turns into a story where Daring Do recognizes all the damage she recklessly does on her adventures and wants to quit because so she can avoid doing that anymore and it looks like she’ll have to accept responsibility. Both concepts are very mature ones for this kind of show, but at about the halfway mark it turns into a plot where one of Daring’s enemies is just framing her and once the plot if foiled, she’s absolved of all blame and everything is back to normal. What could have been a really mature story backtracks into becoming only a very safe story. The scene that introduces Somnambula was also very out of place, the episode just awkwardly pausing so that some old guy can exposit the backstory of this ancient pony when it could have been told to us through Daring Do reading hieroglyphics. The steam bridge was also incredibly cheap, and do I even need to say how sad and pathetic Rainbow’s capture was? She didn’t even fight back, didn’t try to fly away, and wasn’t even ambushed with a sack over her head. Daring Done? Is an episode that COULD have been great, but chose to take backwards the three steps it took forward

12 – Hard To Say Anything

Ok, so we all at some point have had a crush on a girl, right? [Or a guy?] But for whatever reason they’re like ‘Nah, not into you’ and we’ve had to accept this and seek out someone else? And when we don’t, they put as much distance between them and you as possible? That’s life. Sometimes certain people just aren’t into you and may never be, and we have to live this and learn to move on. That is not the plot or moral of this episode. The plot and moral of THIS episode is; bother a girl enough and she’ll find your stalker-esque mannerisms charming. Ok, the message is ‘treat a woman like a real person and not a fairy tale’, but its SO poorly handled. I do not –and no rational woman on the face of this planet would, find Big Mac’s last attempt to win over Sugar Belle to be acceptable given all the @#$& he put her through prior. If SB was in a proper state of mind, she would have kicked BM out a second time and filed a restraining order. Especially after that Primus-awful song battle they did, Primus, WHY DID THEY DO THAT?! And why is Big Macintosh, a grown stallion, taking pick-up advice from three children a book of FAIRY TALES of all things?! This episode only gets more insanely stupid the more you actually THINK about it. No one in this episode is even remotely likable or intelligent. One more thing; why would anyone ever think that having Flash Sentry voice Justin Bieber’s OC would be a good idea?

11 – Every Little Thing She Does

‘Lesson Zero’ worked for a lot of reasons, but one of the reasons it didn’t destroy Twilight’s credibility as a character is because she’s been established to be this way and she wasn’t a villain prior. The point of Starlight Glimmer’s place in the series post-reformation is supposedly in theory to show how far she’s come since her reformation or to at least show she’s making some progress. So what does she do in this episode? Cheat on her Friendship homework by magically brainwashing the Remane-5 so she can get it all done at once. Not even a remotely noble intent behind any of this. I’m sorry, but no. this is not acceptable and she is let off FAR too easily. She committed the act of Mind Violation and she barely receives a slap on the wrist, and as future episodes are any indication, all she really learned from this whole mess was not to specifically use mind control again, because she goes right along using morally questionable magic on other ponies without any kind of warning, which later gives them a massive hangover. Her apology at the end also had to be one of the sorriest excuses for an apology I have ever heard, so much so that the writers felt they actually had to make one of the characters say otherwise just to convince us. It only gets more frustrating when you realize Starlight set up a much less immoral alternative early on when she introduced us to the self-duplication spell-combo; why did she not use this to get the assignment over with faster? She’s only using the spell on herself and not her supposed friends. It would all still come crashing down on her and she would still have to be told what specifically she did wrong, but at least this way it comes at the expense of herself and not her friends, and by extension, not really her character, either. But, no, just, no, I guess. Let’s have her violate the minds of her friends for entirely selfish purposes and treat this like it’s a minor screwup. I also think its really sad how even when under mind-control, the Remane-5 are still far more interesting and entertaining characters than Starlight is throughout the whole episode

10 – The Times They Are A Changeling

So… let’s talk a little about Racism. Hoo-boy, this’ll be fun. So regardless of what Jerry-Lily-Peet will tell you, the reaction of the Crystal Ponies to the Changeling sighted in the Empire actually IS warranted for the most part; Changelings are a predatory species that feed off ponykind and utilize a wide array of transformation abilities to deceive ponies into a false sense of security. For all they know, a Changeling could be literally anyone or anything, anywhere. And given the displayed almost compulsory nature of their hunger, and Changeling within Empire limits could rightfully be considered a threat. And as for him claiming to be good? Changelings are a deceptive species by nature who masterfully utilize trickery to get what they want out of ponies; Thorax could very easily be lying through his fangs. This is not a proper allegory for racial discrimination because Changelings are not only an entirely separate species from ponies, but also basically the predators of ponies. No. That is not the issue with the Crystal Ponies; this issue is their childish display of a reaction to the Changeling and total willingness to listen to Spike whenever the enemy isn’t present. And then we have Thorax… I’ve already gone into how he’s my most despised character in the whole show; he’s whiny, pathetic, annoying, doesn’t make any sense, and more or less he’s just an object of conflict. I’ve also already gone into how the FiMfiction ‘Body and Mind’ is a vastly superior version of this story, written three years before this episode even aired. Pincer is a far more compelling character than Thorax and has far more agency, not to mention his character actually makes sense. Read that and you will never be able to see this episode the same way again. And then we have the song; its actually not that bad, but in the context of the episode it really drags down the story even further. The song is titled ‘A Changeling Can Change’, but the problem with this is that Thorax doesn’t NEED to change because he was apparently just born good from the start and never held any ill-will towards anyone. And finally we have Starlight Glimmer, whose presence amounts to absolutely nothing. If they had instead included Rarity, then that at least would have provided Spike with more conflict and pressure to give up on Thorax. But what does Starlight do? Nothing

9 – The Perfect Pear

Now it might be kind of cheating for me to put it here as I’m doing so more because of fan-reaction than the quality of the episode, but I think it still deserves a spot on this list. Initially I hated it because the death of the Apple parents was literally the only interesting about them and the only reason we wanted an episode about them; and then they proceed not to give us that. But a good story can still be done by taking characters who are only known for one thing and giving them more to them, so I have to give them props for trying that, getting us to know the characters and draw an attachment to them before the episode where they are killed off, thus it resonates more with us as it does their children. HOWEVER; this really only works on an objective level if the story itself is good and the characters memorable, and sadly TPP is not in the slightest. The main characters are so boring the episode has to stuff itself like a turducken with other characters who don’t really add anything to the story and it has to keep cutting back to the Apple children just to remind us that Applejack is their daughter, rather than give us any indication of what kind of relationship the children had with their parents. William Shatner was also wasted in this episode as his character’s lines could be cut and it would make literally no difference to the narrative. The story is also incredibly one-sided and stale as it only ever shows how much the couple loves one-another and how everyone else either supports their relationship or is against it, never showing us any kind of tension between the two lovers that could develop their characters or strengthen the vague moral about ‘love overcoming hate’ or whatever. This story is boring, the characters unengaging, and the themes too vaguely explored. This episode is highly overrated

8 – Triple Threat

Anyone remember how in ‘Green Isn’t Your Color’ Twilight was aware that the conflict could be easily solved if Rarity and Fluttershy just talked to one another and so the writers had Flutters and Rares make Twi promise she would tell the other? Well now imagine instead of two characters having hurt feelings, the risk of the conflict is two races going to war. And now imagine NO ONE aware of the situation even once thinks to actually spill the beans and prevent a potential disaster. Its been said that one of the most prevalent problems with this show is how the characters could solve a lot of their problems if they just were open with one another instead of keeping secrets, and this episode is a prime example of that flaw. Now admittedly there actually is a really good scene between Ember and Thorax where they just have a verbal back-and-forth between one-another and exchange tips on how to be better leaders, but its all too short and the amount of insufferable stupidity it took to get to this point makes it most certainly not worth the wait. Also, I know she was raised in the savage dragon lands, but why does Ember think it’s a good idea to eat another person’s home right in front of them? Anyway, we once again have Starlight, and I would like to reiterate that although it seems like I’m being a typical Starlight Hater, I’m going after her purely from a narrative standpoint, in that she doesn’t serve any kind of purpose to the episode’s narrative. Usually she plays straight-man to other characters and is written as the smarter one; but here she’s just as dumb as Twilight and all the others [come to think of it, why does no one else in Ponyville point out that both a Dragon and Changeling are there at the same time?] Starlight is really only in this episode so that Ember can make a joke about Starlight being so similar to Twilight, a joke so over-used by the fandom its rarely ever used nowadays because its not really that funny anymore.

7 – Celestial Advice

I’ll start this entry off by saying that although Starlight serves little to no purpose to the narrative, she actually only appears at the front and back of the episode, so her useless presence is a non-issue. Now; imagine you have an episode, but the only thing that happens is characters sitting and talking, and the closest thing we get to ‘interesting’ is three short imagined scenarios. Sounds like fun, right? But at the very least the 19 minute-long discussion will have one of the characters developing and doing something they weren’t able to do at the start, right? NOPE. The conflict of this episode is that Twilight comes to the decision that its time to send Starlight away as Celestia did for her, but Twi doesn’t want to and keeps imagining horrible exaggerated scenarios where Starlight ends up getting herself killed. And what conclusion does she reach by the story’s end? That she won’t send Starlight away after all. A total waste of 22 minutes. This entire plot feels like the last two minutes of ‘To Where and Back Again’ but were cut and stretched over an extra 20 minutes. But then there’s the thing that everyobody considers the episode’s hook; Celestia talking with Twilight, its what the episode is named after, after all! Is THIS enough to salvage the episode? No, not really, no. for whatever reason, Songco and Lewis seem to have forgotten that Celestia and Luna are over a millennia old and want us to believe that Twilight is the first student she has ever truly worried about. Seriously? There were no star pupils before Sunset Shimmer, who goes unmentioned here? And furthermore, the way Celestia laughs at Twilight seems very patronizing, she usually lets loose a cheeky giggle, which is really what this situation called for, but this? All of this makes her look less and less capable of ruling a nation if despite so many years of experience she’s so easily unhinged by letting ONE STUDENT go. This episode is a complete waste of time and a terrible season opener

6 – A Royal Problem

Starlight is in this episode when she really doesn’t need to be, her only purpose is making the problem worse and she doesn’t even learn anything from this. She uses highly questionable magic without warning, she has a panic attack and a little pity party, and then she gets off scot-free because the universe sorted everything out for her. You get the picture. So… what I just said about Celestia looking like a less than capable ruler, and Songco and Lewis seeming to forget her and Luna’s long history? Imagine an entire episode of that. This episode has Celestia at what must be quite possibly her most immature and aloof she has ever been. Despite the emotional turmoil having to banish her sister forever must have taken on her, ESPECIALLY in hindsight that said sister became evil because of her negligence; I find it woefully ironic and entirely unfunny that NONE of that shows through here. Luna I can kind of see as much of her life was spent trapped on the moon while evil, she could be argued to be time-displaced as well as a little crazy; but CELESTIA? She has had over a millennia of experience and time to recognize where she went wrong and learn how to better herself, but the way they wrote this episode, you’d almost think that Celestia and Luna were only somewhere around their mid-40s! You CANNOT tell me that she would not even ONCE think to actually try and talk to Luna and prevent another slow, slippery descent to the dark side! And its not even like they’re quarrel is in any way meaningful; ITS OVER FLOWERS AND PANCAKES, FOR PRIMUS’ SAKE!-! And as for the solution of switching cutie marks? This story was already done in the IDW Luna Micro-Comic, and that story was infinitely superior to this one, but regardless I find it hard to believe Luna learned nothing from that. But even if the comics AREN’T canon, Celestia should have known better than to disregard Luna’s dream duties as she had to take over many of Luna’s roles after she was banished! Unless of course you want to argue that Luna’s dream duties were non-existent prior to Luna’s return, but then if THAT’s the case, then you have to consider that during the 1,000 years Luna was in exile nothing is noted to have really happened in Equestria and dangerous stuff only started happening AFTER Luna’s return! Before she came back, everything seemed to be just fine. So this not only render’s Luna’s duties meaningless, but also makes them more of a threat than an aid! Remember ‘Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep’?! If this episode and DPDOMS are any indication, then Luna really doesn’t serve any purpose to Equestria at all! Oh, and don’t even get me started on Twilight’s unhelpfulness and lack of contribution or the whole ‘Daybreaker’ dream sequence of Starlight’s that serves no purpose. This episode. Is. BAD. ‘A Royal Problem’ is far to kind a description

5 – Spike at Your Service

I actually completely forgot about this one until Joshscorcher reviewed it recently, and I just had to add it here. I don’t really hate this episode, but on a more technical level its really bad and I can’t disregard that. Both Spike and Twilight are REALLY out of character here to the point where I’m very hesitant to call this canon, the Noble Dragon Code thing is stupid, and what could have been a good moral is butchered by the overall bad story. Most early episodes considered ‘bad’ I can let slide because they’re at least fun to rewatch regardless of the implications, but this one is so badly handled that its not fun at all and thus I pretty much forgot about it altogether. I have to put it at this point on the list because on a more technical level, this is just inexcusable

4 – Parental Glideance

The plot of this episode is that Rainbow Dash’s mentally unstable parents annoy the buck out of her for most of the episode. That’s its, there’s really not much more plot than that. Like Thorax, I have talked at length about how these two are insufferable one-notes with serious issues and how their behavior has negatively affected Rainbow, but it bears repeating; they practically worship her, scream out her praises regardless of who they’re disrupting, and will fire explosives into military airs shows without care as to who gets hurt. They’ve always been this way, have given rainbow Dash an unhealthily large ego and are the core cause behind every single bad RD episode, and by the episode’s end they’ve learned absolutely nothing. Y’know, I think the Simpsons did an episode about parents showering their children with too much praise. Ya think Josh Hamilton saw that and then turned it off midway before saying that that would make for a great episode? I also don’t like Scootalo’s portrayal here; she’s way more fangirly than ever despite being on close sisterly terms with Rainbow [she never acted this way during ‘Brotherhooves Social’] so why she would be screaming in excitement to meet RD’s parents of all ponies is baffling. And how neglectful must her own parents be for her not to think that RD’s parents aren’t taking it too far? It bothers me to no end how Rainbow is really in the right here, yet the episode has the audacity to try and frame her as wrong for telling her parents to cool it and give her some space. And to add insult to injury, the episode ends with RD joining in on her parents’ disruptive behavior by annoying Cheerilee to cheer on Scootaloo. Yeah, I don’t think that’s a good idea, given how that much attention really didn’t do a whole lot of good for Rainbow. Lastly, Scoots’ only real purpose in this story is to be the catylist for the conflict and then the guilt trip. She really could be written out of this story and there would be little change; just have RD’s parents learn about her Wonderbolt career from a mail advertisement, or something, then get one of the Wonderbolts to guilt-trip RD, and just cut out the whole classroom scene altogether. And just like ‘Triple Threat’, the ending pretty much telegraphs itself from the beginning, so that means we have to put up with about 15 minutes of unfunny excuses for jokes. As we see with ‘Secrets and Pies’, this is the only kind of story Hamilton knows how to write, though S&P I kind of liked because I found it funny, but only ironically

3 – Shadow Play

You know something? Given how many episodes on this list seem to completely forgo any real continuity, I find it painfully ironic then how this episode tries to pander to us all with extensive lore and ‘continuity nods’. Trouble is, this episode tries to do far too much by actually doing very little. In the process of trying to cram so much information in to appease the fanbase, they ultimately break the penultimate rule of “Show; Don’t Tell”, translating much of that lore entirely through spoken dialogue. I challenge you to watch this finale on mute and still tell me even half the backstory the exposited was in any way crucial to the plot. They say that they created the Tree of Harmony, but don’t offer us any proof beyond vague and confusing explanations; they say that the Pony of Shadows is the most Dangerous Villain of All Time and will plunge the world into Darkness unless he is stopped, yet we see no evidence of this at all; they say they’ve explored the supposed dark points of Equestria, but we only see them AFTER they’ve concluded that hat mission was completely pointless; they say that PoS twisted Hollow Shades to his own dark purposes, but we see nothing that confirms this beyond a dreary and desolate landscape; and they say the Elements of Harmony will have to be sacrificed, and yet we don’t see any evidence of this either. ‘Show; Don’t Tell’ is an important rule to follow in the visual medium, and they end up breaking this throughout much of the episode, and this is something every finale prior to this got right. A lot of this issue comes down to the incredibly poor pacing of the story; the first half is nothing more than setup for the ACTUAL plot to get under way, fooling us into thinking that the Mane-6 actually serve some important purpose to the episode, but all it really accomplishes is making Twilight –and by extension her friends, look like complete morons for not thinking that they’d also set PoS free as well. precious time that could have been used to better tell the actual story is wasted due to what could have been a simple montage, considering how they don’t really do anything with the Remane-5 and their respective historical idols. Furthermore, the episode is so overstuffed with characters that not only was it crashing the software, but next to none of them aside from Starswirl serve any real purpose. You could cut out both the Remane-5 and the other five Pillars of Olde Equestria and the plot would remain largely unchanged. I have talked at length about Starsucks and Stygian, so I’ll try to keep it brief; Starswirl is nothing more than a bigoted old coot who refuses to listen to reason because he’s given an ego larger than Rainbow Dash’s, and Stygian is the most pathetic excuse for a villain that this show has put forward [going to show that Josh Haber cannot write original villains to save his life] a pathetic ripoff of Nightmare Moon who doesn’t really do anything at all, barely displays any real power, and spends most of the story offscreen, essentially hiding in the basement of his old village for however long it takes to find him. And… of course, Starlight is in this episode, and while this time she does play a more crucial role, its only due to extreme contrivances of everyone else being dumb. As usual. It gets so bad that even when it looks like Twilight has finally wizened up and is going to save the day by saving Stygian; Copypaste Purplesmart jumps in after her and essentially does the job for her JUST AS Twilight was about to do it. Cut out Starlight and that would probably allow more time to develop the Pillars and establish a dynamic and even conflict with them and the Mane-6, I’m just saying. To top all of that off, the Princesses are so unessential to the plot that they only bookend it, which frankly is far worse than them getting worfed every finale, especially considering how much they’re trying to build up how big a threat PoS really is. ‘Shadow Play’ is not only a bad episode, it’s a mistake. Its contradictory to the established lore and makes retcons where they aren’t needed, it tells more than its shows, it’s first half is nothing more than drawn-out buildup which could be condensed into a five-minute montage, most of the characters don’t really serve any purpose, and the whole thing just comes across as a forced mess. Josh Haber should not be allowed to write any more finales. EVER

2 – Fame and Misfortune

Blah blah blah, Starlight once again serves no purpose to the narrative, she’s just there because potatoes. Blah blah blah. The problem is so prominent that even I have gotten tired of saying it. now whether or not M.A. Larson DID actually write this a few years back as a scrapped concept or if this was DHX’s idea and they forced him to write it is entirely up in the air, but either way the story behind this episode is definitely not a good one. On the one hand you have an idea that was doomed to fail but utilized years later because DHX was butthurt, and on the other hand you have a popular writer for the show who knew and outright said it was a bad idea but they forced him to do it anyway because they’re butthurt. Even if you ignore the terribly written slights lobbed at the Brony fandom, what you still have is an awful episode; Twilight decides to use the experience of her and her friends to spread the message of Friendship and it backfires because Equestria is populated by impulsive idiots, and a good portion of the episode is devoted to showing us just how over-zealous the readers are as they basically ruin the lives of the Mane-6 in a matter of a single day; Applejack’s home is invaded, Pinkie Pie is getting laughed at whenever she talks, Rainbow Dash can’t get two seconds of peace, Rarity’s business is being boycott, and Fluttershy is getting harassed in the streets. And how does it all come to a head? The angry fans are left yelling and screaming on twilight’s front lawn. Oh, the Mane-6 sing a really poorly thought-out song that really only addresses maybe Fluttershy, Rarity, and Rainbow’s perceptions; but by the time the credits role, the idiots are still screaming on the front lawn! Why would I want to watch an episode that spends the majority of it’s time making the main characters miserable only to NOT HAVE AN ENDING?!!!!!!

1 – To Where and Back Again

[Takes a deep breath] SIIIIIIIIIIIIGH. I just might end up doing a journal entry on why Starlight Glimmer is the most worthless and meaningless character to this entire franchise. For those of you who DIDN’T close this tab after reading that last sentence; this episode may have the WORST example of shoving her Copypasted Purplesmartied flank into a story. Somehow out of nowhere she has this conflict with not wanting to be a leader because she ‘led her town astray’ even though that is a grossly inaccurate summarization of what she actually did, which was start a cult and not lead a group of ponies from functionality to identity politics. But whatever. This is her conflict, and unfortunately, it shows up n the most forced ways; first its introduced when the townsponies are acting WAY out of character [as in, all ONE character] and then when contrivances get every single hero but her captured and she has to lead a ragtag group of four [including herself] Unfortunately this position of leadership doesn’t really go anywhere as Starlight’s allies one-by-one get picked off regardless of what she does, and however the story went she’d end up in the throne room where she’d have an opportunity to deus-ex-machina the Changelings into being ‘good’. The other former villains really serve no less purpose than any of the Remane-5 would have, so what’s the point? And again, her conflict of being a leader has next to nothing to do with the man plot; it doesn’t even come back up again later in the series! She’s just THERE and hasn’t changed! Thorax is also pretty useless in this story; he’s presented as a guide through the Hive as they attempt the recuse mission, but soon enough it becomes evident that he doesn’t know here they really are, so then he really doesn’t serve any purpose. At the end, he’s really only a plot device when he becomes the Changeling King [don’t ask why he of all of them is the King. Just don’t. They haven’t answered that question and they will proceed not to] He’s really insufferable throughout this story, especially when he exposits exactly what Chrysalis is doing to him at the climax. Aside from transforming at the end, you could cut him out of the story and nothing would change.

In fact, when you remove both him and Starlight from the story altogether, what you have is a story where Discord and Trixie are forced to work together to save their friends and the rest of Equestria. They don’t need Starlight to tell them to stop arguing and shut up; they have the intensity and severity of the situation to constantly remind them of the bigger picture. And actually, you probably COULD write the climax without either Starlight or Thorax; have Trixie chuck rocks at the stasis pods until one by one the captives are freed, then one of them [most likely Twilight since she’s the Princess of Friendship] convinces the Changelings to stand down and give Friendship a chance [I mean, yeah, Thorax COULD have stood as an example to the others as what Chrysalis really thinks about all of them; but its STARLIGHT she smacks around, and the punishment she dishes out for Thorax is something they’ve probably known would happen for a very long time] And one by one Changelings start helping the captives escape and they now have some Changeling allies meanwhile Chrysalis ISN’T reduced to a comedic failure of a villain. But whatever. Everyone is going to tell me I can’t criticize an episode by rewriting it. Good thing then this episode is still full of flaws. Or a bad thing. Depends on your point of view.

So… Chrysalis’ plan. Somehow her forces capture every single royal family member and the Mane-6 + Spike [because contrivances now shut up] and in the middle of the night, she is told that the plan was successful, and… she doesn’t order them to invade. Equestria… is ASLEEP right now. As far as any of them know, the populace is entirely unaware of the great threat the Changelings now pose and entirely helpless against it by proxy. Chryssi has the PERFECT opportunity to invade without resistance AND SHE DOESN’T TAKE IT?! Its like she was waiting for four nobodies to come in and screw over her entire life! You can’t even argue that she was waiting for Discord, because they have Fluttershy and he’s GOING to come to them and get captured ANYWAY. It doesn’t even have to be a loud invasion; do a quiet one and Discord may be none the wiser when Equestria awakens!

And then we unfortunately have to circle back to Starlight, because Chrysalis says that she INTENTIONALLY left Starlight alone because of how unimportant she thought Starlight was. AND YET she still had her forces capture Spike. Because he was just there at the time? Ok, sure, but then why not Starlight?! Once she gets back to the castle, she’s there for at least three hours, AND NOT EVEN WHILE SHE’S SLEEPING DO THEY COCOON HER??!!!!!!!! PLUG THE @#$% LEAK YOU MORONS!!!!!!!!!!!!! And furthermore, surely they must have had spies watching them for a long time in order to pull of an operation of this scale, so surely they would have known just how powerful Starlight is, more so than Spike? Again; you have a loose end wandering around your makeshift base and could uncover your operation at any time; GET RID OF HER. But thus, the entire operation falls, the Changelings are forever changed, they all now look incredibly stupid, their reformation was rushed beyond all belief, and Chrysalis is [pun not intended] a shell of her former self. All. Because. Of. Contrivances. To make Starlight Glimmer. The hero. Of this story.

Now… to this finale’s credit, it does a far more adequate job of setting itself up throughout season 6, which is more than I can say for ‘Shadow Play’, and Discord, Trixie, and Queen Chrysalis were thoroughly enjoyable… and that’s about all the praise I can muster. The rest of it amounts to the worst episode in the entire series. This episode is laden with out-of-character moments, plot holes, forced character writing, contrivances up the wazoo, an overall a story that would have made a decent finale, but butchered itself in the process. Screw this episode. It is the worst

UPDATE:

I recently saw the news about the leaked Season 8 episodes, art for the 2nd MLP movie, and Gen5 reboot. I refuse to include any S8 episodes on this list because all of the leaked ones were bad. Legit bad. All of them could be shortened to five minutes and nothing key to those stories would be lost

Original Meme base created by MunkTransformerLover