The Round Stable

When Celestia and Luna decide to retire and hand off the ruling of Equestria to Twilight and her friends, it sends Twilight into a tailspin of self-doubt. Meanwhile, the ancient villain Grogar bands together a legion of nefarious characters to conquer all of Equestria, but a restored King Sombra has conquering ideas of his own.

This thread is for discussion of this two-parter. The final season premiere of Friendship is Magic episode airs at 11:30 Eastern / 8:30 Pacific on Saturday, April 6!

Official preview clips and images are okay to post, as is speculation about the two-parter.

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Still can't get too excited for the premiere. The big "epic" episodes with a new threat to Equestria just come off as the same thing again and again.

Really hoping there's some twist with Celestia and Luna and they're not just taking off as a way to get them out of the way for the season. After being the show's punching bags the last 8 seasons, it would be nice for them to finally get to help protect Equestria.

I feel conflicted about being hyped. It's a little bit like celebrating the end of the show.

Pretty awesome that the first episode will be airing during the Whinny City con.

:looks at “Days Without Threat to Equestria” sign:

:goes to get the zero:

“But didn’t we have an episode proving your respective duties are really hard for everypony but you specifically?”

“Yes. Yes, we did.”



“Bye!”

Time to call back the other pony with a sun cutie mark!

Its been forever since I have been in a stream for the show here. Are folks in the discord watching things or is there a link I should keep an eye out for?

Eeeeeee.

BeautifulShy wrote: ↑

Sat Apr 06, 2019 6:19 am

Its been forever since I have been in a stream for the show here. Are folks in the discord watching things or is there a link I should keep an eye out for?

Yes, it's best to show up to #ponyday in Discord. There'll be stream links there.

If anyone reading this needs a Discord invite link, PM me.

When you can't figure out how to use Celestia/Luna, just meta joke about it instead!

Wayoshi wrote: ↑

Sat Apr 06, 2019 11:43 am

When you can't figure out how to use Celestia/Luna, just meta joke about it instead!

LET OUR LAZY WRITING TROPES BE OUR STANDARD!

After 8 years, Celestia and Luna finally get to use their power and...

zap some weeds.





I'll take it.

Boy, am I glad to be back on the .

This episode makes a grand setup, both between Grogar's league of evil almost certainly threatening things at least a few more times and what'll definitely be several episodes about the Mane Six getting ready to rule the whole country. With the show's crew knowing this'll be the last season, I hope the show can properly follow through on what it promises; past season-long stories have fallen a bit flat due to them having to both end and not end things.

I legit enjoyed that.

After 9 years they finally figured out how to use Celestia and Luna in big-threat episodes. Give them a supporting role to play. And their comment at the end about enjoying it actually gives me hope that they'll get to play a significant supporting role more in this season.

Pretty underwhelming (other than the return of Grogar) but really I'm just excited for the adventure episodes to be out of the way and the slice of life ones to begin.

I liked the episode a lot and it was nice getting back into watching episodes live with everyone. It was nice to get back to that.

I did like how everything was set up for the whole season going forward and I really liked how self aware the episode was. Overall a good start to the beginning of the end of G4.

I liked it. Sombra didn't last long, but he was wonderfully evil, enslaving all of Ponyville. I look forward to seeing what the other villains have cooked up.

I felt that Celly and Luna wouldn't be able to stay away.

Discord actually scared me for a moment when he gave his speech. I thought he might actually be gone forever. Thankfully not.

We're off and running, one more time. So far, so good.

I didn't care much for the power-creep on Sombra, but that's my only real dislike of the episode.

And the show is pretty consistent with villains getting big powerup's before returning.


Also, I got 2 hits on the Bingo Card.

I also enjoyed the referential jokes, particularly those at Twilight's expense, made in the first part of this episode. They're great since while they are funny on the surface, they're also an excellent example of how well the Mane Six know each other after all these years. Though they've done a lot of growing up in that time, I suppose some things never change.

Fizzbuzz wrote: ↑

Sat Apr 06, 2019 11:15 am

Yes, it's best to show up to #ponyday in Discord. There'll be stream links there.

If anyone reading this needs a Discord invite link, PM me.

AAARGH! Spent all afternoon hunting down stream links, never found one that worked. Had I known this...

So, what do we think. Did Grogar find the Amon Sûl-stone or the Annúminas-stone? I can't imagine it would be any of the others.

The high amount of twilighting got more than a bit tiresome, but the opening episodes grew on me as they progressed. Discord was spot-on with his lamp shading, and I found his shower curtain animation particularly clever.

Cozy Glow worked surprisingly well together with the other villains. I cannot help but wonder whether, over the course of the season, any of the villains (lowercase v) will chafe sufficiently under the rule of Grogar to reform and join Team Friendship. My hope is for Queen Chrysalis.

I wouldn't mind seeing Chrissy switch sides myself.

The good:

• All the princesses! Starswirl! Discord! Lots of villains! Everyone!
• I've been saying since about season 6 that they need some sort of seasonal story arc focus beyond map episodes, and a Legion of Doom is a decent way to do that (as long as there's still time to tie up other loose ends before the show finishes).
• Discord being especially well-used as a mentor figure here. Not solving all the problems, not just being a dick. Just right.
• Non-Smoke Monster Sombra is a really different kinda guy, but making him the dumb, overconfident member of the Legion of Doom is acceptable.
• "I'm just a kid, soooo...."

That said, this sure was a lightning-fast episode. Twilight is the sole ruler of Equestria! Sombra wins! Sombra is defeated! Sombra wins again! Sombra marches on Canterlot! The Everfree is out of control! Sombra loses again! The princesses are back!

And a lot of time was eaten up with Twilight freaking out, everyone losing faith, one trump card after another getting burned to show that Sombra was just totally unstoppable, and so on. Last season, Twilight had this weird line about how "I've finally learned that it's okay to count on your friends for help," which seemed weirdly out of place, and here we have the same thing. "No, let's not send the princesses a note because... I have to prove something." At least they did show up later on.

TL;DR: Pacing was kind of a mess, but the villain team carried the episode, and I'm happy to see more of them in the future.

edit: Could've filled in a few more bingo squares on technicalities, but I think for now I'll just take the obvious G1 reference.

I didn't like King Sombra's new voice. It was a lot less evil and grumbly then before.

SlateSlabrock wrote: ↑

Sat Apr 06, 2019 1:56 pm

edit: Could've filled in a few more bingo squares on technicalities, but I think for now I'll just take the obvious G1 reference.

I think you get the "By Your Powers Combined" square. And you should DEFINITELY fill in the "end on a laugh" square.

The Doctor wrote: ↑

Sat Apr 06, 2019 5:04 pm

And you should DEFINITELY fill in the "end on a laugh" square.

Haha nice catch.

He's violently dead.

Was a good bit of fun to start the end. I will be both free of and miss Friendship Horsies. Discord totally explains why he doesn't just auto solve everything. Because he doesn't need to and he wants them to do it. Its how you get better.

A shame the goat is evil. Goats should not be evil. Goats are good.

With the Tree of Harmony destroyed, this meme is relevant once again.

As often is the case, I enjoyed it more on the rewatch.

Something neat I noticed during the second round: Princesses (being Celestia, Luna & Cadance) walk in a distinctive manner, where they lift their forelegs higher than ordinary ponies. Princess Twilight Sparkle has not been walking like that, but as she descended upon Sombra in the final showdown, step by step, she was doing it in a clearly princess-like manner.

Niels Olof wrote: ↑

Sat Apr 06, 2019 1:28 pm

The high amount of twilighting got more than a bit tiresome, but the opening episodes grew on me as they progressed.

There were two things I didn't care for in this episode and that was one of them.

You want to put Twilight in charge and retire, fine. That was even Faust's endgame. But the manner they did it in the episode, with Celestia and Luna just dropping it on her with a few days notice just seemed like a really cheap way to get Twilight into panic mode. I think them saying it would be a while would still get her panicking enough for the comedy. It just felt like a really forced piece of storytelling that ended up playing no real relevance in the episode.


The other thing was the power-creep on Sombra (and this has really been an issue with other returning characters in the show).

The Crystal Empire. He was able to make ponies forget the past before he was King.
The Cutie Remark. Now he can control everyone in the empire with magic helmets.
Beginning of the End. He can effortlessly mind control the Empire and Ponyville in no time at all, with or without helmets.

Her hair always makes me think of cinnamon rolls.

I liked this premiere. My only real complain about it was that I think they tried to pack too many plot points in 44 minutes. That's why some parts felt rushed.

But otherwise, Sombra was good enough villain for this story and overall the characters (especially Discord) were written pretty well here. The story arc with Grogar and his team of the villains seems promising.

Going forward, I’m going to be quicker to watch episodes so I don’t miss out on discussions! But this week ... this week it didn’t happen.

Anyhoo!

• Sorry Spike, you’re still wingless in the credits.
• Rainbow Dash: Dream Warrior!
• “They literally almost never help.”
• I guess Sombra wasn’t disintegrated after all! (edit: ah, “dispelled into the ether”)
• Starlight is Twilighting!
• Ha, Cadence ready to kick ass.
• OH FUCK THE ELEMENTS ARE BROKEN wait didn’t that also happen in the pilot and it didn’t matter? I don’t recall, it was nine seasons ago.

• Part 2. Oh wait, is this a fake out and we’re still in Twilight’s greatest fear?
• Rainbow didn’t mention Scootaloo, THAT’S COLD
• I got to see Rainbow Dash swing an axe. I can die happy