EP 21: Every Little Thing She Does
Rating: 4 4 4
Twilight's teaching Starlight magic and crap with teleportation being part of the study, showing them teleporting across very large distances, possibly across Equestria. If Twilight and now Starlight's teleportation magic is this strong, whenever they and the other ponies have to travel large distances, couldn't they just teleport one of them at a time to the location or is it harder to teleport others and this isn't feasible? Next they engage in combat practice so Starlight can actually merc a fool the next time the need arises.
After the theme song, Starlight shows off a speed spell and then combines it with some other spell to duplicate herself. Seeing this made me think spells can manipulate quantum physics at a macro level. What I think is going on in this spell is she isn't really duplicating herself but instead is switching positions constantly to a point you can't notice. Her duplicates also can't have independent actions, only able to do the exact same thing as the other giving further evidence to this theory. Also the speed spell would realistically be very taxing on her body unless she had some way to prevent the obvious overexertion this would cause.
After this, Twilight mentions Glimmy hasn't done any friendship lessons since meeting Trixie and according to my timeframe theory, that was up to a year ago. Twilight tells her to do a lesson while she's off doing some stupid presentation in Canterlot. Before Twilight leaves, we see Starlight's room where she has a framed image of a crossed-out equal sign which I found very amusing.
The friendship crap she has to do is a bunch of menial tasks with the other ponies and she decides to just combine them all into just one giant task and invites all five to the castle for her friendship lesson. The ponies all cause Starlight to have an autistic meltdown so she runs away and decides to just turn them all into mindless obedient zombies.
Herobrine sighting #39
So the mind-controlled ponies do exactly what Starlight says and at one point, she asks Flutters what happened to her animals to which she replies "They ran away." which was really funny. Eventually Twilight returns and tells Starlight she's being a stupid autist that doesn't realize the point of the friendship lessons were to learn about her friends and not be good at the actual tasks.
Alright episode so 4 EV. 4 VB for Starlight realizing she should just hang out with her friends and not be an autistic fuck that tries to be skilled at the tasks they want to do. 4 DV for continuing Starlight's friendship lessons.
EP 22: P.P.O.V. (Pony Point Of View)
Rating: 3 3 3
Twilight's excited for Pinkie, Applejack, and Rarity to return from some boat trip and when they do, they just fuck off, not wanting to talk about it. They refuse to go to Twilight's tea party thing she invited them to to talk it out so she and Spike go to each one individually to learn what happened.
In Rarity's story, Applejack ruins the trip when she has a manic episode, believes she's a pirate, and then boards some other ponies' boat where she kills them and steals their shit thinking it's treasure. Rarity and Pinkie are complicit in the murders and help Applejack throw the bodies into the sea to cover her crimes since Rarity doesn't want her to go to prison and Pinkie thinks she'll be institutionalized, a hell she herself has experienced and doesn't wish for anypony. Applejack doesn't recover from her episode while Rarity and Pinkie realize what they've done and refuse to speak to each other by the time the trip's over.
Twilight and Spike go to Pinkie next and in her story, Rarity came on the boat as a wanted criminal and out at sea, the Equestrian Naval Forces found the boat and as they approached, Rarity pulls a mortar-like weapon out from the lower deck and uses it to fire a bunch of missiles at the approaching vessel, sinking it. Not wanting to be found and killed by another naval ship, Pinkie and Applejack aid Rarity in guiding their boat into international waters as they devise a plan to get back to Equestria without being detained or killed. Pinkie wants to just risk it and B-line back to the port and act as if nothing happened while Applejack wants to spent two days sailing to one of her relatives who's good at handling this kind of thing. Rarity calls in an air pickup and has the boat destroyed as everyone continues to argue over how to handle the situation.
In Applejack's story, Rarity and Pinkie got their psychiatric medicine mixed up and after Pinkie takes Rarity's antidepressants, she becomes suicidal and tries jumping overboard. Applejack and Rarity try saving her but are both pulled overboard with her and have to keep Pinkie from trying to drown herself and have to wait two hours for the coast guard to rescue them. On the way back to land, Pinkie's crying about wanting to die while Applejack and Rarity argue over the medicine and how Pinkie's probably gonna be forced back into a psychiatric hospital again and the three eventually refuse to talk to each other.
Then Twilight solves the thing and they become friends again. At the end, they bring a treasure chest from under the water and use the goblets inside to serve ice cream. Those goblets are probably covered in amoebas and protozoa and crap and they're risking disease eating out of them. Applejack also has to sell Apple Bloom into indentured servitude for a few months since the boat was uninsured.
Weak episode not that entertaining so it only gets 3 EV. No vibe getting it 3 VB because it's just some generic "long-time friends may have arguments" crap with no actual substance. No actual development so 3 DV.
EP 23: Where The Apple Lies
Rating: 5 3 5
We start with Mr. Rich getting a season's shipment of zap apple jam which suggests this takes place right after zap apple season. Turns out Apple Bloom filled the carts wrong and actually filled half the carts in the zap apple shipment with apple juice which Granny has a strict policy of only selling on the farm. Worrying about being sent into indentured servitude again, Apple Bloom lies and says she's sure she loaded the crates correctly but Applejack checks and sees she fucked it all up.
After fixing the situation, it's revealed Applejack used to lie a lot and we get a story from when Applejack and Big Mac were younger. In the story, Granny sends Applejack and Big Mac to get some stuff from town where they come across Filthy Rich and his cunt of a fiancee. Mr. Rich is respectful as per usual but Cunts McGee looks down on the farm ponies even though she has to marry into wealth and has no actual value in society. We also learn Mr. Rich at this time recently became the head of the Rich family business. Mr. Rich also wants to sell the farm's apple juice but Big Mac knows Granny's policy while Applejack is tired of this family tradition shit and wants to prove she'd be better at running the farm than Big Mac so she makes a deal with Mr. Rich. Back at the farm, Granny explains her reasoning for her policy explaining the jars preserve zap apple jam for a long time whereas juice starts going bad quickly so its quality can only be guaranteed while sold on the farm.
Next scene, look at the image below. Notice how Cheerilee is in her 80s style and is seemingly fully grown. Now, back in Sonic Rainboom, we saw Rarity and Cheerilee are the same age. Here, Applejack looks younger. However, back in Call Of The Cutie, Applejack mentions how all the Apples were late bloomers so it's still entirely possible Applejack and Cheerilee and therefore Rarity are the same age. And considering I proved the ponies start the show in their early 20s, this story has to take place only a few years before then.
They go to tell Mr. Rich the deal's off but it backfires and Applejack lies about Granny being sick. Later, Mr. Rich and the cunt come by to check on Granny so Applejack has to tackle her at a point to keep her from being seen which is pretty funny. We then see Big Mac explaining how he came to referring to himself as "big or large" suggesting the Big in his name was chosen by himself. Outside, Applejack has to keep Granny distracted until Mr. Rich and his uppity bitch leave and as Applejack's leaving the barn where she got Granny to start rambling about some story, we can see her eyes dart back as she's walking from the barn which is a nice animation detail.
So Applejack lies Granny's in the hospital so Mr. Rich and cuntbag go there to see Granny so Applejack has to lie further to get Granny to go to the hospital with them. At 14:50 Granny's voiceline gets cut off.
Screwloose is hurt :(
After a bunch more lies, Applejack has Big Mac lie in a hospital bed which is then taken off somewhere and Applejack has to go find him and we see Derpy is Applejack's size. Actually, Derpy was Rarity's age in The Cart Before The Ponies so this is actually evidence of Applejack and Rarity being the same age.
They find Big Mac in some room where a surgery is to be performed in front of a bunch of ponies and Granny walks in to talk about the blight and how you need to prune the branches before grabbing a saw. Applejack then has to confess to everything before Granny amputates Big Mac's leg. Big Mac also learns to stop yapping so much and becomes the quiet pony he's known as.
We return to the present and Apple Bloom learns her lesson from this story. She's still sent off to indentured servitude for another month though.
Very engaging episode with a few goofy moments so it gets 5 EV. It gets 3 VB because the message is a generic "don't lie". 5 DV because we get a lot of lore on the Apple family.
EP 24: Top Bolt
Rating: 5 4 3
Rainbow Dash is at the Wonderbolts locker room going off about her plans she has with her friends during her break and the pony she's talking to could not give less of a shit.
Rainbow Dash and Twilight are then summoned by the map just to be sent back to the Wonderbolts headquarters. New recruits arrive for training and eventually they have to go to some class but before, Twilight shoves a poster in Rainbow Dash's face containing the golden ratio and a valknut.
Twilight's just allowed to teach the class for some reason despite not being a Wonderbolt or even employed at the place. We meet the two main ponies this episode, Sky Stinger and Vapor Trail. They're pretty much a team that's never been separated before but will have to be during solo trials. Sky Stingers cocky, overly confident attitude is pretty amusing during this scene.
After class, Sky expresses he's worried about Vapor Trail being able to pass the test. However Twilight and Rainbow Dash discover Vapor Trail is assisting Sky Stinger making him seem more skilled than he actually is. Rainbow Dash and Twilight disagree on telling them the truth because Rainbow Dash believes it will break their confidence while Twilight thinks they need to practice without assistance to get better. In the scene, Sky lands to boast with Vapor landing behind him to tell him he did great only for him to throw his towel back at her face knocking her down which is really funny.
They confront Vapor on her bullshit and she crumbles, going into her backstory with Sky. Afterwards, Twilight drills Sky on technique and crap while Rainbow Dash works on Vapor's confidence and Sky utterly fucking fails while Vapor proves she's actually good at the shit.
Vapor gets tired of Sky's shit and finally breaks his self-delusion so he tries to mansplain his way out only for Vapor to be proven right and he becomes disheartened and fails a bunch shit. Twilight then womansplains to him about how she had to practice to become princess of friendship so he wonders if he practices, he can become the "princess of flying" and this was pretty amusing. Then Rainbow Dash and Twilight get them to be friends again and they pass the trials and join the Wonderbolts.
Very engaging episode so it gets 5 EV. 4 VB for the message that you have to get worse to get better sometimes. 3 DV because no actual development occurs.
EP 25: To Where And Back Again Part 1
Rating: 5 4 5
We start this episode with Twilight and Glimmy walking down some stairs and I just love how they do it. It's kinda goofy-looking and cute like the filly run cycle. Increasing the speed makes it fucking hilarious.
So the two ponies start jerking each other off about their accomplishments when Spike warns them about an incoming object coming straight towards the castle and after it crashes through the window, it turns out to be Derpy delivering some mail to Starlight. She gets an invitation from her old village for a Sunset Festival.
She arrives at the thing only for the village residents to reveal they lured her into a trap to lynch her. As she's hanging, dying from asphyxiation, Luna appears and saves her and she realizes she's dreaming. She wakes up.
The next day, Starlight confesses her feelings to the others or some gay shit like that. Twilight recommends she brings a friend implying Starlight should bring her but she ends up choosing Trixie which pisses Twilight off.
They arrive at the festival but Starlight has an autistic meltdown and runs away. When they return to Ponyville, everyone's a cunt to them and laughs at Starlight's story. Glimmy goes back to the castle only for Spike to be a cunt and Twilight to tell her to never return to the village, advice unexpected from her. That night, Starlight has a dream where the entire village has been slaughtered and Luna appears and begs for help because changelings are back. Luna also says "They've taken my sister and I." which is grammatically incorrect.
So Starlight jumps off a castle balcony to sneak to Trixie for her help. Afterwards, they sneak into the castle and eavesdrop on the Mane 6 in the map room where they abuse Spike. Pinkie slams him into the corner of the table at a point which is hilarious. The Mane 6 who are actually changelings then use some magical communication thing to contact Queen Chrissy who reveals she's taken the real ponies, including the princesses seemingly in less than a day. They escape the castle and then Thorax just appears out of fucking nowhere freaking Trixie the fuck out.
Why's Glimmy patting her ass?
Then Discord just appears out of fucking nowhere and they have him prove he's really him which prompts him to utterly fucking transform reality around them proving he's legit. This was pretty amusing. He couldn't give less of a fuck about all of Equestrian royalty being kidnapped by the changelings until Starlight mentions Fluttershy and he completely fucking loses it and teleports them to the changeling hive but can only teleport them right outside of its area.
EP 26: To Where And Back Again Part 2
Rating: 5 4 5
Turns out Chrissy's throne is carved from a stone artifact creating an anti-magic field, keeping any non-changeling magic out, including Discord's chaos magic. If this artifact can completely disable non-changeling magic, it could actually be used as a weapon. Imagine if they used the artifact to create this field back in Canterlot. If Chrissy was just a little more tactically minded, she could be the most dangerous villain so far. Would the Elements work within this field?
Discord uses "millennia" as a singular noun and they decide to just walk to the hive. Discord on the way there mentions how he can't imagine how others manage not being able to just disappear and reappear whenever they want. Clearly, his mind's been rotted by triple-A gaming. As they're all tired and pissed off from walking, Starlight says they shouldn't be mad because none of them knew their magic would be disabled which prompts Thorax to say "I did." which is very funny. Also, thank you Vim for whatever the fuck just caused it to quit and reset VLC because I hit 's' while typing.
They come up with a code to prove they're them once they get to the hive and then conduct a black op to infiltrate the place. After getting in, they continue to bicker until Discord alerts the hive to their location and Trixie has to use her smoke bombs to create distractions to get away. However, the Trixie we see use them turns out to be Thorax and can changelings teleport? We see Trixie instantly travel to places she can't get to on hoof.
After getting past a guard post, Discord alone comes across Fluttershy but is smart enough to know it's a changeling trap. The changelings then psychologically fuck with him by making him witness a bunch of distressed Fluttershys.
The others are waiting for Discord to reach them after his distraction and he does return but fails the code phrase so they know he's a changeling. Trixie sacrifices herself by going with Discord and being ambushed. Before she sets off, Trixie calls out Starlight's fear of leadership and tells her to mare the fuck up and just take charge to get through this ordeal.
Starlight finds the throne room and Chrissy confronts her only it turns out it's actually Thorax appearing as Starlight and the real Starlight is trying to destroy the throne powering the anti-magic field. Chrissy while hunting Starlight down explains her plan to replace the most beloved figures in Equestria so the changelings can feed off the love they're adorned with. However, I found a problem with this plan. We already saw the changelings as the Mane 6 were incompetent at their roles in interacting with others on a believable level so if Chrissy were to actually succeed in her plan, the changelings replacing the beloved ponies would likely fuck up and Equestria would find out shit's off. After this, once everyone knows the ponies are actually changelings, the supply of love would stop and the whole point of doing this would be a failure.
Starlight then womansplains to the changelings the plan's stupid and explains how Thorax was able to get his love by accepting friendship and has no longer been starving for it since. Chrissy decides to drain Thorax of his love prompting Starlight to tell him to go ahead and share it and crap and after he knocks Chrissy back into the throne, breaking it, he transforms into the ultimate being of undermining the state. With his new form, the other changelings decide they also want subvert Chrissy's state and create a new changeling kingdom of love socialism.
With Chrissy's government now shattered and a new state established, they offer her to join them without punishment but she refuses and runs away to create a micronation of love libertarianism. Thorax is deemed leader of the changelings and Celestia obviously is hoping for the changelings to join her confederation.
To celebrate dismantling a government, the ponies go to the village Sunset Festival.
Very engaging episode, especially with the cast of side characters starring in this one so both parts get 5 EV. I do like how they essentially undermine the changelings to reform them and again, I like the characters so 4 VB. The changelings are good now and Thorax's character progresses so 5 DV.
Post-Season Notes
When this season aired, I remember thinking it was a massive falloff from season 5's greatness. Years later, when I rewatched the show, I remember thinking season 6 while not as great as season 5, was a lot better than I had remembered. Now, I realize I was right the first time. Fuck, this was such a hard falloff. Apparently they replaced the writers and shifted leadership or something. Another problem is this season had a few episodes that felt like season 2 episodes with the characters being complete cunts at times.
Now onto my timeframe theory. We know last season likely ended in April of year 7. This season, we don't get any timeframe hints until A Hearth's Warming Tail. Here we know it's Hearth's Warming Eve placing it at the end of year 7. This means episodes 1-8 take place from April to December of year 7.
The only other hint we get towards the timeframe is in Where The Apple Lies where we know zap apple season has passed which can be anytime in the second half of the year, likely on the earlier side considering back in season 2, I deduced Family Appreciation Day was the second of four episodes that had to take place during the second half of that year. Episodes 8-22 take place throughout the first half of year 8 while 23-26 are in the second half. Some of the episodes before 23 may be in the second half but only episode 23 and onwards, are we certain they're in the second half.
In this season's Comic-Con panel bonus feature, someone actually asks the panelists the span of time that has passed in the show to which none of them have an answer only giving joke non-answers. My timeframe theory is likely the best theory we have on this and looking it up, I'm pretty sure I'm the only person that's properly mapping it out with in-show evidence.
MLP Commentaries IndexWritten 2025-2-11 Published 2025-3-1