EP 21: A Rockhoof And A Hard Place
Rating: 4 4 5
Archaeologists are tired of Rockhoof using his own home as a home so they kick him out, sending him away to be a teacher at the friendship school. After destroying one of Rarity's decorations for tricking him into believing it was real fruit, he's made the theory and defensive friendship teacher and when he asks the students what he's supposed to be teaching, Ocellus says they were learning how Discord was trapped in stone for "hundreds of moons". Thousands of moons would be more accurate as he was trapped in stone for around 13,000 moons. Ocellus also states Discord was put in stone sleep which contradicts how Discord stated he was actually aware while in stone, at least after the Mane 6 used the Elements. Gallus convinces Rockhoof the class is about telling stories so Rockhoof decides to reenact his story of fighting an ursa major, combat and all. I am reminded of a time in school where for some reason, the teacher wanted two of us to reenact a scene from a book we were reading where a giant guy is choking a woman and wanted the person playing the guy to stand on a chair to simulate the size difference. I offered to be the guy and some girl offered to be the woman. However, right before I was to wrap my hands around her throat but not actually choke her, she remembered I'm the fucker who's known to be a complete fucking psycho and she got scared I'd actually choke her so we had to switch places.
Anyways, because Rockhoof's destroying the classroom while reenacting the story, Twilight tells him to knock it off and then he ends up flooding the school trying to stop a fire that was just Spike and Smolder having a dick measuring contest. Twilight fires him and tries to get him some other job, taking him across Equestria to see what the other Pillars are doing. Flash Magnus is a drill sergeant in Canterlot, Mist Mane is a landscaper in the Crystal Empire, Somnambula is a motivational speaker and Rockhoof calls out the entire industry for the scam it is, Meadowbrook is a pharmacist, and while we don't see him, Stygian writes novelised autobiographies. What kind of loser writes about their life? Even worse is when they sneak it into shit completely unrelated such as reviews and commentaries. After meeting his old friends doesn't help him find a job, the ponies send him off to join the hippogriff navy but he fucks that up by getting one of their boats destroyed.
Since he can't get a job or find a purpose to live, he asks Twilight to cast a spell to turn him to stone so he doesn't have to suffer anymore. However, this isn't Canada so Twilight rejects his request. Yona then convinces him not to kill himself by having him finish his story and Twilight tells him he can be a story teller to fill the lack of purpose in his life like most people who have nothing else to live for.
Some of the Rockhoof antics are pretty funny so it gets 4 EV. 4 VB for the message about the importance of stories and crap. 5 DV because we see what the Pillars have been up to.
EP 22: What Lies Beneath
Rating: 4 4 4
The students are learning history from a pony-centric point of view because apparently only Equestrian history matters and the non-pony students are too conditioned to realize they're learning nothing about other species' histories. Later, the Student 6 are studying together but the history of the Elements goes right over Smolder and Gallus like when I try to explain MLP lore and theories to people. Then Cozy Glow appears and is just straight-up racist and goes off about how the non-pony creatures are disadvantaged and how being friends with each other "isn't in their nature".
Eventually while they're all bored and tired of studying, they hear a noise which they discover to be an opened grate so they go down it and are greeted by a sparkly Twilight whom gives them a test which they must pass in order to escape. The test turns out to isolate everyone and simulate their greatest fears. Silverstream still has trauma from when the Storm King reigned, Gallus is claustrophobic like an idiot, Yona's afraid of spiders, Smolder is called cute, Ocellus is a modern day German who has trouble accepting her people used to be bad so she supports anti-free speech laws, and Sandbar is simply told by simulacrums of Rainbow Dash and Rarity to follow them.
Gallus solves his problem quickly since the writers couldn't come up with something compelling to be a great fear of his. Smolder has to confront her fear of admitting she loves cute stuff. Sounds like the life story of the average brony. Yona becomes the spider lord. Eventually Gallus finds Silverstream and has to help her confront her trauma and admits he's afraid of small spaces which is some pussy shit compared to the oppression of a tyrant. Silverstream confronts her fear by standing up to the illusion of the Storm King which wouldn't work in reality and would only result in her being killed or imprisoned. The only way to stand up to tyrants is with a bullet. Meanwhile, Smolder has to help Ocellus with her national trauma and convince her she's not evil for simply being born as a creature whose race has a history of genocide. Sandbar passes a loyalty check and then the Student 6 confront sparkly Twilight who is revealed to be the Tree of Harmony itself and they escape. It's revealed the whole ordeal was a test to prove Cozy Glow wrong and non-ponies are fully capable of friendship. The Tree's sentience is also evidence towards my harmony manifestation theory. Cozy convinces them to not tell anyone what happened and that she'll take care of everything.
Good enough for 4 EV my notes say. 4 VB for the Student 6 fully understanding they aren't incapable of friendship just because they're different species. 4 DV for learning the Tree has some form of sentience and learning of the Student 6's fears.
EP 23: Sounds Of Silence
Rating: 5 4 5
Applejack and Flutters are summoned by the map. They take the train to the middle of nowhere where a crazy old stallion rambles, giving them vague warnings before maniacally laughing. I aspire to be like this when I'm an old fuck. Applejack arrives at the actual destination and after the rough journey, realizes Fluttershy didn't follow her so she has to trudge back where she finds Flutters has fucked off to help some animals. Applejack then nags and nags over Fluttershy which pisses her off to the point of screaming at Applejack to get the bitch to shut up so she can explain herself.
Flutters leads them to a hidden entrance to a village of kirin who are completely silent and refuse to speak like autistic toddlers. Getting no responses, Applejack asks if they understand Ponish to which they nod yes. How does this isolated community speak the same language? Why do all the races speak the same language? And it's not like Ponish is some biologically inherent language shared between all sapient creatures because other languages have been referenced and even spoken.
After the initial contact with another race in probably hundreds if not 1000 years, the kirin just fuck off and go back to what they were doing while Flutters and Applejack continue to try to talk to them. The kirin then point them to one that does talk so Applejack goes off to find them while Flutters stays back and commits a microaggression.
Applejack finds the talking kirin named Autumn Blaze who just yaps and yaps before revealing in a song the kirin took a vow of silence because they're a bunch of pussy-ass Europeans who can't handle being insulted or hearing mean things so they support censorship. We learn the kirin transform into nirik when they're angry which are pretty much kirin but super-powered by rage. She also explains how she found a way to cure her silence and she got kicked out of the village for not shutting up. Song's fine.
Herobrine sighting #48, #49, #50, #51
Herobrine sighting #52, #53
Herobrine sighting #54, #55
Herobrine sighting #56, #57, #58, #59, #60
Applejack decides to try to convince the kirin to accept Autumn Blaze back and runs into Fluttershy who has succumbed to the censorship propaganda spouted to her. Applejack and Fluttershy then argue over what to do so the kirin decide to force them into the Stream of Silence or whatever it was called to permanently censor them. Autumn Blaze then has to save them from the curse of being a European and explains the benefits of free speech and the rest of the tribe realizes anything short of free speech absolutism is absolute tyranny.
Herobrine sighting #61
Herobrine sighting #62
So Applejack and Fluttershy find the flowers they need to cure the kirins' self-imposed censorship and when they bring them to Autumn Blaze, she tells them to explain how they found them and to feel free to add "complicated descriptions and comedic tangents". You guys think she'd like the Mox Coms? The rest of the kirin take the cure and the episode ends.
I found it entertaining enough to get 5 EV. Definitely one of the very few high notes of this season. 4 VB for the message that people shouldn't be silenced just because they say hurtful things or stuff that offends others. There's also a message about anger and crap but we already did that last season. 5 DV for seeing a new location and new sapient species.
EP 24: Father Knows Beast
Rating: 3 5 3
Twilight's trying to teach Spike to fly properly but she's an idiot and doesn't understand dragons have different flying techniques because they're a completely different species so Smolder has to teach him. Twilight then thinks because Spike was raised by ponies, maybe he thinks that's causing him trouble in his development when in reality, he couldn't give less of a shit.
Later after thanking Smolder, an adult dragon crash lands into Ponyville named Sludge and he's an ageist cunt to Spike and Smolder but they take him to the castle to recover since he injured himself landing. We then get a boring sequence of the ponies helping him recover. As he's about to leave, he reveals to Spike he's his father returning from getting milk so the ponies let him stay at the castle.
Sludge tells the story of how Spike was lost as an egg and starts with how Spike's mother was selected to scout for the dragon migration which actually may line up with Spike's age if I'm right in my theory on it and when the ponies said the dragons migrated once a generation back in Dragon Quest, they meant pony generation. Sludge explains Spike's egg was left with him and eventually, he was captured by dragon slavers and had to abandon it. The ponies question his story, asking about what happened to Spike's mother and how the egg made it back to Equestria. Well seeing as Sludge was captured, how was he supposed to know? And for how the egg made its way to Equestria, Sludge said he had to choose between sacrificing himself or the egg so it's entirely possible the dragon slavers sold the egg to the magic school or Celestia instead of enslaving the baby, staying somewhat true to their deal with him.
Sludge then hangs out with Spike in another boring sequence. In one of the things, they simulate Hearth's Warming gift giving in the middle of what appears to be summer. We will get to this in the post-season notes. Framerate drop at 11:30. Sludge then goes on about how Spike should act like a real dragon and we get a song of him explaining how Spike needs to get rid of all his pony shit and give it to him and Cleveland Browns Glimmy at a point. Not into it.
Twilight then walks in on Sludge trying to sleep.
The ponies begin to suspect Sludge is just using Spike to live comfortably in the castle like a NEET. Spike then finds Smolder and confesses what he's been doing to which Smolder tells Spike what he's doing is fucking stupid and wrong and dragons aren't leeching NEETs that just lie down and rot all day.
Spike and Smolder then devise a plan to throw out all of Sludge's pony things Spike had brought to him like a supposed real dragon should and Spike tells him they're moving to a cave. Sludge then admits he's not actually Spike's father and just manipulated him to leech off the ponies like the welfare trash he is. Spike realizes he doesn't need to rely on racial identity for a sense of family and the ponies are his real family.
Has two of those boring sequences and isn't that entertaining so it only gets 3 EV. I give it 5 VB because you can apply the message to racial or ethnic identity and how people will use that to manipulate you to behave how they want. Your racial or ethnic identity doesn't actually matter and your true family is who you choose it to be whether biological or otherwise. No real development since Sludge isn't actually Spike's father so it gets 3 DV.
EP 25: School Raze Part 1
Rating: 4 6 4
Derpy.
After Derpy crashes into the school, Cozy collects the mail and goes inside where she finds a new student who's lost and has to guide them to their first class because the school is horribly understaffed. You'd expect Starlight to be there to greet the new student but no, she's fucked off with Rainbow Dash to take only a few select students on a trip to Cloudsdale. Some non-flying students are also there with Starlight casting a cloudwalking spell on them which seems to have to be constantly casted unlike the one from Sonic Rainboom which only needed to be casted once and lasted for a certain period of time. Starlight's spell seems way too risky to be using on students.
Anyways, the spell fails and the non-flying students and Starlight fall through the cloud. Also notice how Ocellus, Silverstream, and Smolder don't fall through the cloud like the other students even though Starlight heavily implied to Ocellus changelings can't walk on clouds. This suggests non-pony and non-griffon species that fly actually can cloudwalk. Anyways, the flyers save the others and they go to Twilight who finds her magic is gone. Then we hear a loud thud and grunt of pain before Flutters flies in and says "Rarity ran into the door." and this is a lot funnier than it should be. They get called by Celestia who then gets a letter from Starswirl saying they have three days before magic is drained from Equestria. They suspect Tirek so the ponies are sent to Tartarus to investigate. Starlight is left in charge of the school.
Starlight goes missing. Cozy Glow decides to take advantage of the power vacuum and declares herself the substitute headmare and commits a microaggression against the non-ponies. Meanwhile Rarity punches herself in the face and the ponies reveal their saddlebags normally contain refrigeration magic. That night the Student 6 go snooping. Meanwhile again The Mane 6 and Spike arrive at Tartarus. Looking back at the season 2 commentaries, the time to travel to Tartarus does line up with how long it took in It's About Time. They find Tartarus is locked but they use a magical artifact never once seen previously to open it which then breaks upon use and they enter.
Inside, they find Tartarus contains a bunch of magical animals from previous episodes. Why the fuck is Equestria imprisoning animals? Are the non-sapient animals incapable of retrospection and reason going to be reformed for reintegration into society? They're also kept in cages presumably to just rot there and somehow survive like this seeing as they don't seem to be fed or anything. What if they're actually kept alive with magic and forced to live in their cages, able to do nothing? They then find Tirek.
At the school, the ethno-nationalist scumbag declares himself headstallion to Cozy Glow and blames the non-ponies for the disappearance of magic. They then find the Student 6 and the ENS locks them in a room but Sandbar passes a speech check to get out by stating he agrees with the ENS and he's not a race traitor anymore. Sandbar then goes to the CMC for their help to save the other Student 6, revealing he undermined the ENS's trust because like most ethno-nationalists, due to their low memetic resistance, will believe anything you tell them as long as it's vaguely within their belief framework.
Tirek reveals he's had a penpal who turns out to be Cozy Glow. So the prisoners are forced to live in a cage in perpetuity but are allowed to send and receive mail? Meanwhile at the school, Sandbar and the CMC find Cozy Glow has abducted Starlight in a magical field and Cozy's pissed the ENS won't fuck off because he's ruining her plans since she's just grifting to ethno-nationalistic beliefs for her own personal gain whereas the ENS actually believes the shit he's spouting. Cozy also reveals the magic is being sucked to another realm which reveals some other place possibly with sapient life either just had a massive boost in magic or has just gained magic. This makes me wonder things. She also reveals she wants to use the magic of friendship to gain power and become the empress of friendship to rule Equestria. This belief friendship equates to power seems juvenile to me and makes me think she lacks the insight to distinguish between power used for tyranny and power used for freedom and peace. This juvenile perception makes me lean towards Cozy Glow being an actual child as opposed to a fully grown mare that just looks like a child and uses this to manipulate others.
EP 26: School Raze Part 2
Rating: 4 6 4
Cozy Glow continues to fail to stop the ENS's annexation of the school. Sandbar and the CMC fail to stop the magical draining vortex thing so they go rescue the rest of the Student 6. In the morning, the ENS attempts to declare himself the headstallion but Cozy launches and uprising against him which then imprisons him.
Cozy reveals to him she wants to be the head of the school of friendship since that will give her the most friends and therefore the most power, failing to understand what friendship actually is and giving further evidence towards my theory she's truly a child. The CMC then come to distract her and the Student 6 free the ENS so he will help them against their common enemy. He uses his teleporter badge which still works and fucks off to warn the princesses.
Meanwhile Twilight has been planning to drain the remnants of magic from the imprisoned creatures and Tirek agrees to assist in their escape after he fully realizes he'd be stuck in Tartarus with the ponies he hates so much if they can't leave by the time magic's gone.
Cozy Glow traps the CMC in a closet since she knew they were trying to distract her. Meanwhile the Student 6 go to try to free Starlight but Cozy arrives with the rest of the school's students behind her to stop them. Meanwhile Twilight goes through with her magic leeching and opens the door and they escape. Cozy convinces the students the Student 6 are behind the disappearance of magic and launches an attack on them which ends in them getting sucked into the magic vortex thing and the students question why the Student 6 would sacrifice themselves saving each other if they're the bad guys. Then magical rainbow magic crap happens because the Tree of Harmony did some shit or something out of nowhere and they stop the vortex and restore magic and crap. After everyone returns, Cozy is captured and the ENS finally stops being a dick. At the end, the Student 6 are practicing for graduation but Twilight tells them it will take more than "one semester" to learn all there is to know about friendship. The CMC then come out of the closet and Cozy Glow is imprisoned in Tartarus.
Both episodes were entertaining enough for 4 EV. 6 VB for the message friendship doesn't care the differences between people and how people will use those differences like race as a means of propaganda to frame the different people as somehow lesser or a threat to the propagandiser's group. 4 DV because Cozy's true intentions are revealed, we see more of Tartarus, and the Student 6's friendship has grown strong to the point of emulating the Mane 6.
Post-Season Notes
This season fucking sucks. I thought it was the worst season at the time it came out, after the series was over, and now I still think it's the worst season. Doesn't have as sharp low points as season 7 or season 2 but is still weaker overall. In fact, I remember back when this season was airing, I fell behind on watching it after the hiatus and didn't finish it until awhile after it had aired. I think the friendship school was ultimately a stupid idea. It interrupts what the Mane 6 are doing with their lives and shifts the focus of the show towards it too much unlike other seasons' arcs which didn't straight-up interrupt the characters' lives. I do like the Student 6 unlike a lot of people who also hate this season though. If somehow we could've had them without the friendship school, the season may have been better.
Now onto timeframe theory stuff. This season is fucked. It's like season 2 where the most straightforward theory makes it take place across two years instead of about one, assuming episodes are chronological. And unlike season 2 which could maybe be reordered to shorten the timeframe by a year, serialization is much more prominent in this season so we can't really reorder it even if we wanted to.
This season obviously takes place after the movie and I can only assume the movie takes place soon after season 7 ends in later year 9. We know in The Maud Couple, it's Maud's birthday and it's suggested she's not twins with the other Pie sisters since Pinkie isn't celebrating both of their birthdays. Considering the timeframe of prior stuff, we can assume Maud's birthday is sometime later in the year. In Fake It 'Til You Make It, we see a calendar Maud has but there's no evidence as to whether the month shown has any relevance to anything and may just be the month referenced during animation.
Next hint we get is in Non-Compete Clause where we see Fluttershy has won teacher of the month for the ninth month in a row. This would mean they'd be about halfway through year 10 at this point. This also contradicts this season's finale where Twilight says the students have only been there for a semester. Next hint is in The Break Up Break Down where we know it's Hearts And Hooves Day which in season 2 is implied by other timeframe hints to take place either the same date as or around Valentine's Day. This would make it be in year 11 if it's chronologically after Non-Compete Clause but I refuse to believe a year has passed between episodes. How I'm going to interpret this is Fluttershy wasn't actually teacher of the month for that long and this was just written in for comedic effect. They also say "month" even though we're well past the months to moons retcon so the writer obviously lacked knowledge of pony lore. The Break Up Break Down taking place on or around Valentine's Day does put us into year 10 by this point. This means episodes 1-10 take place from sometime in later year 9 to February of year 10.
In Molt Down, Spike gets wings which makes it impossible to reorder episodes after this point with those before. Next hint is The Hearth's Warming Club where we know it's Hearth's Warming which would place us at the end of year 10, making episodes 11-15 take place across year 10. I don't know how to interpret this or reorder episode chronology in a way to condense the timespan, especially considering Spike doesn't have wings in The Break Up Break Down taking place early in the year and has wings in this episode late in the year.
In The End In Friend, Rainbow Dash mentions Rarity is working on her winter fashion collection despite it not being even summer yet which tells us this is in spring. Then in Yakity-Sax, Rarity mentions working on a new fall line but as we know from the previous episode, it's more likely she's just working on it and it's not actually fall. In Father Knows Beast, when Spike and Sludge are simulating Hearth's Warming, it's implied to be summer.
In the season finale, Twilight states the students have only been there a semester but this is simply impossible even if we were to reorder the episodes. Spike's wings alone make only a semester passing an impossibility considering what I've already said. We know neither the writers nor the executive staff are paying attention to how time is passing in MLP so I'm going to just say this is a writing error and in reality, the school has been open for almost two years and the season ends around the summer of year 11. This makes episodes 16-26 take place from around the beginning of year 11 to summer of that year.
MLP Commentaries IndexWritten 2025-4-10/11 Published 2025-5-1