Unpopular opinion time

@Kiryu-Chan  
I have similar feelings, except I found the “cliff” to be the mid-Season 5 hiatus (with Season 6 actually being a mild recovery).

I’m watching Marks for Effort. I’ve watched 5 minutes and I don’t see why the Cutie Mark Crusaders should have bad attitudes just to get in Twilight’s school. I don’t see these three little ponies doing something like that.
 
EDIT: I finished the episode. Uhhh… man, I don’t know what to say about it.
 
Oh, and if I haven’t read some spoilers about Cozy Glow, I’d probably be either intrigued or indifferent.

So I watched The Mean 6.
 
And, as a huge fan of Chrysalis since A Canterlot Wedding, I have one question: Why?

@Ring Team  
The reason given is that the school is for people who need the help, not people who have friendship down already.
 
And yes, completely throwing the student six out of the equation.
 
@Ring Team  
Because screw it, that’s why.

@Mildgyth  
Man, the Students would’ve benefited a lot more if they had one more season to use and develop them.
 
@Ring Team  
Cause villains aren’t supposed to win, it’s a requirement when writing children’s fiction.
 
Also I liked the mean version of the mane 6, would’ve liked to see them again for one more episode before having them be killed off.

@Ring Team  
Why not?

@Myoozik  
Yeah, but…
 
It’s the exact same thing as the “mean 6” from The return of Harmony in season 2. It’s not like they have different personalities. They’re the exact same thing.
 

 
I’ll organize my thoughts about this episode later, but I’m gonna say this: After watching this episode, I’m understanding the Kingdom Hearts fans who wanted the third game since 2006 and, after more than 10 years of waiting, they’re disappointed by the result of that game.
 
The weird part is that I kinda expected it. It’s not like I expected an amazing return, more like a “meh” return.
 
And it’s not like I’m mad about it (last time I was frustrated by a MLP episode was in 2017, in Celestial Advice), but I’m genuinely curious and intrigued of the reasoning.

@Ring Team  
Glad somebody else noticed that act of laziness.

@Ring Team
 
Because this alone made the episode worth it <3
 

 
Also, it’s one of the few slice-of-life eps that has Starlight interacting with all the mane six which definitely should have happened more often.

@Ring Team  
Well if you’re interested in the staff’s reasoning, you should probably check the leaks. But even without them, it can be presumed they wanted to have Chrysalis in an ep to remind us she existed, was on the loose and sought revenge. As for the details…well, could be whoever wrote it liked the discorded scenes from Return of Harmony.

@Ring Team  
Other than being separate entities and their negative traits turned up to eleven, yeah there isn’t much of a difference. Regardless, I did like that it returned in one way or the other, though it sucks that Chrysalis had to get humiliated and betrayed for it.
 
@Spinny  
Eh, I’ve been leaning more the opposite where she should’ve interacted more with her own group of friends, but yeah having her be with the Mane 6 more would’ve been great.

I actually dislike it when Starlight interacts with the Mane Six. It just feels like when that happens, the writers need to dumb down the other characters so she can look better or to make us feel sorry for her or something.

Well, The Mean 6. Let’s discuss.
 
Queen Chrysalis appeared as a villain in a surprising twist in A Canterlot Wedding. That was in 2012 and her little end (which kinda reminds me of the Team Rocket from Pokemon) suggests that this wouldn’t be the last time we see her. When I finished that episode I thought “Man, I can’t wait for her return”. I watched the season 3, I liked, but I thought “where’s Chrysalis?”. The same thing with season 4. In season 5 we got a little bit of a taste, but it’s just one minute. Then, in season 6 I saw one of the most underwhelming twists in the show.
 

 
Then I stopped watching the show for some years.
 
Keep in mind that A Canterlot Wedding aired in 2012 and I saw The Mean 6 this year, in 2021. This episode came out too late for me. Literally too much time has passed. And now the writers wanna care about Chrysalis. I’ve done TONS of things in between 2012 and 2021, including finishing an art school, finishing another school related to cameras, film and TV in another city, getting a car license, working on commissions, discovering some amazing films and TV shows, I stopped loving anime because of the community (especially the Kill la Kill fans, who always get offended if you don’t agree with them), I stopped loving Star Wars because of the toxic community, getting a degree in 2D animation in another city, studying some 3D production in that city… It came out too late, in an era where we already have interesting options in the world of film and TV shows.
 
Now that I think of it, when I started watching the season 7, I thought that some episodes are cool, but some of them came out too late. A Flurry of emotions should have been an episode from season 6, not 7. Parental Glideance should have been from season 4 or 5, not 7. Twilight’s school should haven been an idea from season 3 or 4, not 8. Every season or every couple of seasons we got new characters that want to learn about friendhsip, like Sunset Shimmer from the EG films, Starlight or the new students… and it’s shown in a redundant way where you already know what’s gonna happen because you saw the Mane 6 already learning that. The Parent Map should have been an episode from season 5, not 8.
 
The Mean 6 should have been from season 3 or 4, not from 8. When you see this image in 2012…
 

 
…you don’t inmediately think “I’m gonna wait an eternity until I get what I want”.
 
Maybe it’s true that Friendship is Magic is a very inconsistent TV show. And this is a great example. Some episodes came out too late, and while some of them are great (like A flurry of emotions), some of them really came out too late, like Parent Map or The Mean 6. The Parent Map could have been a great episode from the season 5 where we could see something about Starlight after seeing her running away instead of waiting for a whole season to get a new character that was barely introduced or even developed. And The Mean 6 could have been a fun return of Chrysalis in season 3. She could have been a funny villain or a terrifying villain. And now I don’t care too much.
 
But I won’t act like this is the worst episode in the show (that episode is still to me Every little thing she does). And I still love the show. But it’s not because of a solid consistency of the TV show, it’s because Friendship is Magic has some wonderful episodes that totally work on their own, as if these are their own thing. And I love that about it.
 
Well, 13 episodes more and I would finish the season 8.

@Ring Team  
Well, it’s true that some episodes do feel a bit late sometimes (although if they’re good, it’s generally a case of “better late than never” IMO). However regarding The Mean 6, I don’t think it’s particularly late, coming a season and a half after Chrysalis’s dethronement - rather, isn’t your main issue that it took a long time for her to make her second major appearance?
 
(The reason for this, of course, is that she was almost certainly never actually planned to be reused, and the writers only came back to changelings when… well, actually, they didn’t, it was a whole different writing team by then pretty much.)
 
But while that delay can be blamed on the show, you not watching the episode when it came out is on you. (And an animatic for it was the very first Season 8 preview, so people knew Chrysalis was coming back.)

I haven’t seen the leaks or the animatics. The only leak I’ve read was Twilight as an alicorn before getting Magical Mistery Cure.
 
But that’s not an excuse to ignore an interesting villain for many many years.

@Ring Team  
No. But I guess she was not as inteeresting to the writers as she was to you.

I still don’t know what they were thinking with Chrysalis and Sombra in the last Season  
At least with Tirek he had enough characterization already so he didn’t need more. But why bring those two back if you were gonna use them like generic villains?

@Don’t  
For Chrysalis, because she was avilable and amusing and fit the Trio dynamic well. For Sombra, because he was a generic villain, and a fearsome one at that - a major threat that couldn’t be ignored.

Woah there, spoilers. Not that I care, but still. xD

Man, if there’s something that Friendship University is telling me is that the writers love to repeat ideas and presenting them as completely new concepts.
 
Man, the season 8 is getting boring. xD

@Ring Team  
You didn’t watch Father knows beast yet did you? Trust me, its some of the most infuriating piece of television I’ve seen in ages. It actually got me to drop the show for quite a while. S8 truly was a curse.

@Background Pony #E406  
No, I finished watching The End in Friend. I’ll eventually watch that one you mentioned. I have some wifi issues today, so I’ll go back another day.
 
I’m not sure how that episode was overall, but I’ve watched too many The Big Bang Theory episodes, Kill la Kill and Every little thing she does. I think I’m prepared for anything. xD

“End in Friend” is my favorite S8 episode, but it really suffers from being in a later season than in S1-2.

@Ring Team  
It’ll be interesting to see how he takes that one…
 
 
@Background Pony #33AF  
Hmm…I think it actually gains a bit from that. Back then, all the Manes were still getting to know each other - it wouldn’t be surprising for two of them to not be that close. A few seasons in, and it’s more worthy of comment.

@Latecomer  
I don’t know. It feels like it just comes out of nowhere and didn’t make much sense considering how many years they’ve spent as friends (I think 2 or 3?).