EP 14: A Matter Of Principals
Rating: 4 3 3
Twilight's showing off a bunch of historical artifacts and wants the students to do some gay scavenger hunt to find them but the Mane 6 are called by the map to some far away place and look at the map itself; it doesn't really look like the actual map of Equestria.
Applejack states how because they're all being summoned, there won't be any teachers to run the school. So not only did the Mane 6 have to put aside their careers for this stupid school but also are the sole staff despite knowing full well they'd likely have to do important shit together without having a plan for the school when this happens.
Turns out Twilight does have a plan but that plan is to make Starlight the headmare and leave the job of six ponies to her. Twilight and Spike also say "months" at a point. When the Mane 6 leave, Discord appears out of fucking nowhere and declares himself head-draconequus. He then proceeds to make improvements to the school but Starlight is stupid and doesn't like his changes and orders him to stop. He even hires substitute teachers but Starlight is unappreciative. The substitutes are Iron Will teaching a class how to be sigma mares, Cranky teaching a class how to be his indentured servants, and a tree.
The next day, Starlight hires Spitfire, Trixie, and Maud as substitutes despite the fact they have no qualifications to teach the friendship school's subjects. In Trixie's class, Discord decides to become a student and gets a call in the middle of class and after Trixie confronts him over it, he leaves the phone with her and she shows she knows how phones work by answering it. This suggests telecommunication technology does exist within Equestria. However, Equestrian telecoms seem to lack the absurdity of the real-world telecom infrastructure as Trixie doesn't know what a long-distance plan is. If you want to learn more on why the telecom system is a complete scam, go read Phone Numbers Are Outdated.
In the middle of Discord's real-world threat training which is preparing the students for actual threats and how to escape from them, Starlight shows up to ruin it because she doesn't understand the value of Discord's teachings, failing to realize there are times when kids can't rely on adults for protection. Discord calls out Starlight's stupid paternalistic ideas so she banishes him from the campus since she can't justify her position.
Then the homosexual scavenger hunt begins but Discord found a bypass to the banishment and manages to make it less boring but Starlight is still unappreciative of his attempt at making boring activities fun. Discord then wins the scavenger hunt and Starlight apologises for being a no-fun cunt.
Has some goofy moments so 4 EV. No vibe so it gets 3 VB. No actual development so 3 DV.
EP 15: The Hearth's Warming Club
Rating: 3 3 4
Sandbar tries to start a song but no one wants to sing a gay-ass song. Silverstream then mentions how she likes tuesdays so she must not be a fan of mine. Anyways, Twilight sends everyone home on winter break but someone decides to be an atheist and ruins the Hearth's Warming decorations and Twilight concludes it must've been one of the Student 6. She tries to get the perpetrator to confess by having them reveal themself without the others knowing before interviewing them one-on-one. Kinda surprising she's doing this seeing as school administration will usually just blame a kid and punish them regardless of fault. Trust me, you know I would know.
While the Student 6 are being interviewed, the other five have to clean the place and decide to share their Hearth's Warming traditions. Ocellus goes first and tells of how Twilight basically just told the changelings to celebrate it and they did, following the instructions she left them literally. So not only have the changelings been completely pacified but their culture is being replaced with pony culture. Ok chuddies, I'll give you this one.
Yona tells her culture's traditions which are untainted by pony influence. Next, Smolder tells of dragons' tradition of having a feast and telling stories which end in the complete destruction of their enemies using the story of a dragon committing sedition as an example. Then Sandbar and Silverstream talk about their traditions and when they're done, since no one confessed, everyone starts accusing each other of the tomfoolery and Gallus has an emotional breakdown and reveals how griffons have a shitty pseudo-holiday, he has no family, and Griffonstone fucking sucks. So pretty much the average atheist Christmas.
Gallus then confesses he did the shit so he could stay with them since he hates his shitty non-culture. Twilight hears this and tells him he has to stay over break as punishment and the others decide to stay too and Twilight invites them all to some dinner since he learned his lesson.
Nothing really that entertaining so 3 EV. No vibe, getting it 3 VB. We hear about the different creatures' traditions so 4 DV.
EP 16: Friendship University
Rating: 3 2 4
Turns out the show didn't forget about the Pillars and Starswirl has been off traveling across Equestria learning about friendship. Back at the school, Rarity has ordered a bunch of expensive sewing machines because somehow they're vital to her friendship lessons. I just wondered, are there any classes at the friendship school students get to choose to take like in real life upper secondary school? Twilight also finds out a new friendship school has been opened and panics at the fact she no longer has a monopoly on the industry.
They travel to Las Pegasus where the new school is and find it's run by the Flim Flam brothers and we get a song that's just the same as the other two Flim Flam brothers songs just with different lyrics. They could've at least varied the music style. Have the Flim Flam brothers rap or something. It turns out their school is actually accredited by the ethno-nationalist scumbag since they were willing to pander to regulatory agencies. Twilight is then accused of trying to undermine competition via corporate espionage. It turns out Starswirl is also studying there so Twilight asks him why he doesn't study at her school which confuses me since it seems only kids go to Twilight's school because we don't see any adult students and all the activities they do are kinda juvenile. I don't think Starswirl would be much interested in butterfly watching and basket weaving.
Twilight tries explaining to Starswirl the brothers are con artists and brings up the various scams they've run. I am reminded of the very short period I helped conduct scams in Fortnite STW. Although, I was really scamming the scammers themselves by providing a bullshit service to them. How it worked was they would convince the victim to drop all their maxed out weapons to show them off and the scammer would then rush in and pick them all up, leave the game, and kick the victim out of the party. What I would do is pretend to be a middle man that guaranteed a safe exchange by stating if the scammer did scam, I had their IP and would boot them offline if they pulled any bullshit and somehow this usually made the victim more trusting. I have never even used a single piece of DoS software so I was making up my ability to do this. I would then get a portion of the weapons as payment. And no, I do not feel bad for doing this since you have to be utterly fucking stupid to fall for a scam like this. Scams like these could be avoided entirely by just sending screenshots of inventories or dropping one item at a time. Not that being scammed really matters anyways because by the time you're in late game, you have enough resources that maxed-out weapons cost virtually nothing.
Rarity gets the idea to conduct tactical espionage action on the brothers' school to figure out if they're running a con and disguises herself and Twilight.
I'm making another unfunny MGS reference. Haven't had one in awhile.
The op fails when Twilight gets caught and is then blackmailed into dropping her investigation or else they'll release the photo they have of her snooping. Rarity then mentions how the tuition may be free but the worksheets the ponies have to do aren't and they're charged by the sheet. Starswirl, since he's famous and brings in customers, gets his worksheets for free while the peasant consoomers have to shell out. The Flim Flam brothers must've taken influence from all those sigma mare courses.
After this revelation, Twilight follows the brothers to their money room where they talk about wanting to expand the resort they got back in Viva Las Pegasus and it's framed as if wanting to expand one's business is some evil deed. Twilight also calls their charging of worksheets a scam when it really isn't. Is it a rip-off and a service that's not worth paying for, especially when the ponies know about competing schools? Yes, but to call it a scam is wrong. Twilight then threatens to reveal their plans to their students. Because using money they make from their business to expand their other business is such a wrong thing to do. The brothers confess they're just using material she wrote but because she has a non-commercial clause in her material's licensing, they're ordered to stop and refund all the money to the students. At the end, we get foreshadowing when Rarity wonders how the brothers got a copy of Twilight's book and Cozy Glow appears right after.
Yet another uninteresting episode so it only gets 3 EV. It gets 2 VB because of how it treated wanting to make profit and expand one's business as something bad. 4 DV for seeing what Starswirl and the Flim Flam brothers have been up to.
EP 17: The End In Friend
Rating: 3 3 3
Rarity wants to go hang out with Rainbow Dash and Twilight wants to have the class follow them around as an example of how vastly different ponies can still be friends and some shit about compromise. First, they go to play buck ball together where Rarity decides to just draw in the middle of the game instead of playing which pisses Rainbow Dash off. This reminds me of the times I and an associate would get in trouble and piss everyone off during indoor kickball because we would have pretend gunfights and swordfights instead of playing defense.
Next they do what Rarity wants which is shopping and as anyone would know, shopping with a woman is an insufferable ordeal. As Rainbow Dash calls Rarity's activity stupid and boring, Twilight tries to tell the students it's just banter. This is some weak-ass banter if I've ever heard any; I and my associate would call each other various slurs and tell each other "kill yourself" every other sentence and that's when we weren't mad at each other.
Next, they go to the gem mines and Rainbow Dash pronounces "lever" like a Britoid. Rainbow Dash ends up breaking all of Rarity's gems and they have an argument and decide not to be friends anymore. Reminds me of all the times I and someone would be screaming at each other, trying to say the most psychologically damaging shit we could and the next day, we'd be in a party like nothing happened.
They go to the school's fake therapist to talk things out but after this fails, Starlight has them read each other's favorite books. Later when Starlight has them discuss the books, they just say the other's book is trash. Since this failed, Starlight brings them to Twilight for an emergency in an obvious setup explaining how some powerful artifact is missing.
Second half of the episode is Rainbow Dash and Rarity looking for the thing together and at the end, realize they're friends in a very predictable ending.
Predictable and generic. 3 EV. 3 VB for no vibe. 3 DV because there's no development.
EP 18: Yakity-Sax
Rating: 3 5 3
Pinkie's picked up a new yak instrument but her shitty playing is making everyone want to kill themselves. After the ponies bitch to each other behind Pinkie's back, we get one of those boring sequences I always bitch about only this time is it not only boring, but also annoying with the constant shitty and loud music playing. Because everyone's tired of Pinkie's shit, they tell her she fucking sucks and should stop. Also, Derpy.
She decides to stop playing after this and puts up a front pretending to be fine when in reality, she's depressionmaxing. The next day, the town is bustling with glee at the expense of Pinkie's happiness. Reminds me of my childhood.
Cutie pie alert!
The ponies try to cheer her up but fail in another boring sequence but at least I get to look at Pinkamena more. She's so fucking pretty.
Later, Pinkie's gone and they learn from Maud she's moved to Yakyakistan to find any semblance of meaning in her life. When they arrive, they find her at a bar where she states "I feel nothing.". Automatic plus 1 VB. So she'll stop contemplating suicide, they tell her to play the yak instrument which restores her to normal so who cares? Just have Pinkamena replace Pinkie and the show will be so much better.
Despite having Pinkamena, it's still a somewhat boring episode with barely anything going on so it only gets 3 EV. Message about just doing what you like is fine, it has Pinkamena, and her "I feel nothing." gets an additional point which totals to 5 VB. 3 DV because no real development.
EP 19: Road To Friendship
Rating: 4 3 3
After one of Trixie's magic shows, she gets invited to perform in Saddle Arabia and she decides to go if Starlight comes along and she does. They prepare to set off but Trixie's wagon is packed and after making barely enough space for two ponies, Starlight arrives with luggage. However, they're normies and think it's too cramped. They set off and there's a song that sounds like a Family Guy musical number. It's decent.
They arrive at the Somnambula village as a rest stop I think and they argue before going to bed but it's too cramped again and I've only gotten this much written halfway through the episode. This season's commentaries are too fucking cramped.
As they're trying to sleep, Starlight starts snoring and is forced to wear a mask but then Trixie starts mumbling in her sleep. When I was younger, I used to laugh in my sleep and I would wake up laughing. In somewhat recent times, I've had dreams where I attack someone but the sleep atonia fails and I wake myself up punching. Going against the thing dreams occur during REM, I've had vivid dreams within the nine minutes between alarms many times before. I've also had times where I've noticed myself meld into my thoughts and transfer into a dream as I doze off. I've also had problems with looping dreams and there have even been times where I've been tricked by my dreams into having false memories where I mistake a memory I actually had in a dream for something real.
They both wake up fucking pissed and their first show on their apparent tour fucking sucks. That night, Trixie offers Starlight a carrot but she declines, stating how it will make her thirsty even though it's mostly water with no dehydrators. It's like how people are propagandised into thinking they have to drink straight water when the food they eat has enough.
After Trixie spends a night in the woods, the next morning she arrives to find Starlight has traded her wagon for an objectively better one and Trixie loses her fucking shit and panics so clearly there's some sort of sentimental value that wagon has. Perhaps it was given to her by her father?
Trixie runs off and finds her wagon and lies in the road for a day trying to get the pony to return it to her. Meanwhile, Starlight realizes traveling sucks or something and comes across Trixie and the pony the wagon was traded to and Starlight and Trixie make up or something.
Has some amusing moments worth 4 EV. No vibe so 3 VB. No development so 3 DV.
EP 20: The Washouts
Rating: 4 2 4
Scootaloo rushes a Rainbow Dash fan club meeting so she can start a new one for some group called the Washouts and Rainbow Dash sees this and like someone trying to save their friend from becoming a furry, desperately tries to keep Scootaloo from falling down this dark path. Rainbow Dash also states how she eavesdrops on every Rainbow Dash fan club meeting. Always expect me to be eavesdropping on the NightMox fan club meetings. I'm always listening.
Rainbow Dash is then bitching to the girls about how she's scared of Scootaloo not seeing her as a role model and I'm reminded of how I and some other loser back when I was allowed in school were called role models by the social worker in one of our weekly meetings we had because we were troubled or something. When she said this, I and the kid looked at each other and struggled not to burst into laughter. Because you know, a violent sociopath everyone hates and some schmuck only slightly less socially retarded than me whom everyone laughs at are great role models to the younger students.
Scootaloo and the Mane 6 go to a Washouts show where we get a sneaky Derpy sighting in a transition fade.
They find out the Washouts are former Wonderbolts who got kicked out. We also see one of them, Rolling Thunder, whose name sounds similar to the title of a song by a certain Mr. President, use her wings to bandage herself. I've noticed lately pegasi use their wings like hands and it just looks weird. You would assume the appendages are feathers or clusters of feathers but I guess not unless the animators forgot they were. They then find out Lightning Dust is the leader. During her reintroduction, Scootaloo asks "You two really know each other?" to which Lightning Dust explains how Rainbow Dash got her kicked out of the Wonderbolts. Scootaloo already should've already known this though as she explained Rainbow Dash and Lightning Dust's history just last season in Parental Glideance although her description of events was wrong.
Scoots then tries to join the Washouts so Rainbow Dash brings her to the Wonderbolts headquarters so Spitfire can propagandise her on how safety is important or some stupid shit like that. This obviously doesn't work and Scoots ends up joining the Washouts anyways. Scoots reveals she's to do some dangerous stunt and Rainbow Dash tries to stop her but Scoots blackpills Rainbow Dash on how she can never be like her idol since she can't fly but can be a Washout despite her disability.
At the show, Scootaloo wants to bail but Lightning Dust becomes manipulative out of nowhere and makes Scootaloo do the stunt. Rainbow Dash then saves Scootaloo, possibly kills Lightning Dust, and founds the Scootaloo fan club.
Entertaining enough for 4 EV and has some goofy parts. It gets 2 VB because I have problems with this episode. Towards the end, when Scootaloo is going on about how the Washouts give a flightless pegasus like her a chance to achieve her dream of being like Rainbow Dash, the episode should've stuck with that and made the Washouts be a good opportunity for her. Rainbow Dash saving Scootaloo sets a horrible message that kids are too stupid to make their own choices or take risks and need to rely on adults to save them from their own stupidity and we know how I feel about paternalistic messages. The message that Lightning Dust is wrong in her lack of safety is also stupid because in the first show, the announcer states how they're trained professionals and in reality, probably do have safety measures in place, just that the real risk and act of getting hurt is part of the show. The episode also could've had a message about people's interests changing. We see what Lightning Dust has been up to so 4 DV.
MLP Commentaries IndexWritten 2025-4-8/9 Published 2025-5-1