My Little Pony Friendship is Magic General

[Zeldafan2]

This episode was REALLY good. Pretty much everything Amy Keating Roger's put here worked for the best; there were no distracting sub-plots or time-consuming character cameos; everything was blended together very nicely.
Although her character design was uninspiring, Sassy Saddles was a pretty good one-note character. She may come off as fairly antagonistic of a character through the majority of the episode, but her redemption after all is said and done still works because Rogers deliberately keeps her from acting needlessly mean or callous; instead, she incorporates this into a larger part of her character, establishing she's lost jobs because of this behavior before without knowing why.
Meanwhile, Rarity was in top form. Watching her wrestle with a conflict between creativity and straight-forward money-making was an interesting set-up, especially for Rarity because of how business-savvy she is.
The one downside is the musical number. It wasn't that catchy, and I didn't find it as memorable as Art of the Dress or sweet and elite's song. To be fair, though, the second half of the song was a bit better than the first, and the way it was interspersed with dialogue reminds me of broadway musical numbers in a way.

[Bobtheduck]

Didn't know it had started up again. Thought Doctor who would be starting my fall viewing.

[Bobtheduck]

Does it feel to anyone else like the show is wrapping up? The loose ends are being tied up. GIlda, DIamond Tiara, the CMC, Luna... So many conclusions. The only loose thread I can think of is the villainess from Ep 1 of this season, and Netflix (and some common sense) spoiled that ending, so... While Kids' shows rarely rely on that kind of story arc, MLP had a decent one woven into the normal episodic fare, so I feel like season 6 is going to be redundant.

Oh, and I loved Friendship games. I keep seeing people say 2 was better, but 2 was my least favorite of the 3, and 3 was my favorite.

EDIT: Oh, and people are comparing this episode to Magical Mystery Cure. I didn't even think about that fact that it was a comprehensive musical episode, and it's a bit of DUH! I should have known that something big was coming. I honestly didn't care that Twilight became an alicorn, but MMC was a terrible episode. I loved this one, though. Both would have worked better as two parters, though. Loved that they officially acknowledged the death of the Apple parents, not just giving hints like the shooting stars.

Edit again: A month since I first posted this, AND it was a double post. This forum is pretty dead, now, isn't it? In case someone comes back to the thread,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0ZO24eAWb8