I didn't even know you could fake this. The pony I voted for won, so I am pleased. More importantly, the pony I wanted to lose didn't win, so I am pleased.

A lovely episode with Discord. He really did teach Twilight a good lesson, as she had let her status as Princess of Friendship get to her head, and perhaps he learned one himself. This reminded me of a real season one episode with a real friendship lesson. And Discord is coming into his own as neutral trickster. And I really liked how Spike wasn't the butt of any jokes and didn't get injured or made a fool of at all. He was treated as a friend and a meaningful addition to the mane six, not as a prop.

92/100

Cute spider (Fuzzy Legs)

Cute pumpkin

We finally get to see what a pony skeleton looks like.

Unplanned guests! I didn't get any of the references until somepony on the Internet pointed them out.

Hoers mask? Stupid.

16:08 somepony is dressed as Twilight

Fake Granny Smith's head fell off! I did not see that coming. That would definitely have scared me as a little kid.

What a sweet little episode.

Flutterbat returns as a costume only, and that was fine. It was a reference to an episode I really disliked and it didn't bother me. This episode was just good all around. I liked the tea party where Fluttershy tried to scare her friends with situations that scare her personally like disappointing her friends. That was a nice look into her personality.

I also liked the ending. Even though Fluttershy is really good at scaring her friends the second time in the maze she still doesn't like Nightmare Night and decides to stay home next year because she doesn't like seeing her friends scared even if she knows they are not in any real danger. That's really sweet. There's also the aspect that you can't convince everyone all the time. That was passed over in the episode where Pinkie Pie became Cranky's friend even though he despised her at first. I'm glad they didn't have a downer ending with that one, but ending this one with Fluttershy still not liking Nightmare Night was satisfying.

This episode really gets me excited for ponies again.

94/100

I'm going to call this pairing ApplePie.

It's a book!

The CMC don't have their cutie marks in the theme. Shame. How hard would it be to edit them in? Maybe two seconds. It would take two seconds.

It's so cool seeing Apple Bloom with her cutie mark! It's taken so long and now she has it!

Maud!

MarbleMac. Poor Cheerilee. Four seasons and now this.

Fat Big Mac gets the top bunk to crush Apple Bloom.

Maud smiles!

It seems odd that an episode with so many moments that got me really excited was actually kind of boring. The ending was fine, it was nice seeing the other Pies, but this episode didn't do it for me.

75/100

"Costume Ideas" best one.

Diamond Tiara's meanness is caused by her mother's meanness cliche. It works in the story, and I don't know how realistic it is or not, but blaming parents for personality faults is just so overused. That's why I liked the villain in 8MM, he had no excuse, he was just evil. This episode reminds me of One Bad Apple. Babs was a bully because she was bullied, and the same is now true for Diamond. I don't "know" how often that happens in the real world, but a lot of bullies just seem to be evil all on their own.

So when other ponies get their cutie marks a symbol just appears, but when the CMC get their marks after 109 episodes they levitate and expensive pyrotechnics happen. And their marks are very similar. Even more than Apple family similar. They're not just unified theme similar, they're the same thing with a little tiny different device in the middle that you can't see from a distance. Yeah, they're friends with magical destiny bonds and all that, but the Mane 6 are magical destiny bonded friends too, who are also the living embodiments of the magical forces that keep the entire universe in balance, and all their marks are totally different. This seems like laziness. And it seems like an opening to make a lot of mistakes during animation.

AJ makes a subtle hint about missing parents. I hope they don't fudge this up by having the parents be alive and just on vacation. Kids shows have dealt with death a lot, since the very beginning, and it would be a kick in the teeth to pull a dick move like having the Apple parents show up and say "Hey kids, we're back! What did we miss?"

Recycled opening footage. They could have reanimated it differently. It looks like more laziness.

I'm glad we got to see more of DT's character than just being a generic, unfairly cast villain. I'm glad the CMC finally got their cutie marks. It's about time. It was very exciting to see all that. But, seeing both happen in the same episode seemed very rushed, even by the standards of the show. This wasn't just cramming a resoultion into the last three minutes, this was two whole different episodes glued together. One of the crappy filler episodes (Princess Spike) could have been cut so we could see DT's redemption and the CMC getting their marks in two separate episodes, so as to explore everything in detail. That way we could have had plot, instead of rushing everything with a ton of songs. Far too much happened to get it all in one viewing.

It wasn't as bad as when Luna just said "yeah, I'm over 1000 years of guilt" in the last 30 seconds because they needed a speedy resolution, but a lot of really big things happened really fast. A lot better than most of the cartoons I've seen, in a whole different league, but still too rushed.

This episode was really nice, and the fact that actual character progression happened is something so unbelievably rare that I think I pretty much have to overlook the pretty big flaws, because where this episode succeeded it succeeded tremendously.

91/100

Columbus' goal was Antillia, which was the Portugese name for Puerto Rico. He followed Portugese maps from the 1420s and ended up exactly where he planned.
http://theurbanmystic.blogspot.com/2014/09/the-lo...

When am I finally going to get to watch this?

I would really like to see Sunset return to Equestria. It's so sad she's stuck in the human world. Returning and seeing her parents again, who must be devastated at having their daughter vanish all those years ago, and going back to Celestia and making amends would be fantastic. It would tie everything together. I think she deserves nothing less.