Well, having just binged on the two-part finale, I
obviously have to plow through and watch the ending!
This episode is basically a coda to the whole series. In it, Commander Riker consults the holodeck to learn how Twilight Sparkle dealt with a friendship problem.
* Equestria. The castle is rebuilt! Species coexist in harmony! All ships are valid in this new existence!
* Oh no, the Mane Six were turned into statues?! I wonder what they did?
* Griffons have those claw fingers so they can make the V sign for pictures, and ponies are super jealous about it.
* Now that Spike has grown into a human shape, his lack of pants is ...
distracting.
* Diamond Dogs reference!
* I had to look up the context of Abyssinians here, since Spike cannot possibly be talking about Ethiopians. Okay, in MLP Abyssinia is apparently the kingdom of the Taye Diggs cat people. Oh, I get it! Cats and dogs! Good joke.
* The Celestiazation of Twilight Sparkle is complete. Hey! Get a haircut, you hippie!
* Gallus cuts a fine figure as a guard! I wonder if all griffons have to take jobs that begin with G.
* I'm already composing Luster fanfic where she's super into robotics and uninterested in friends she hasn't built herself.
* Little disappointed we didn't get a "future" version of the opening credits. Actually, now that we're at the end, can I just say, we've
never gotten a wacky version of the opening credits and it CHEESES ME OFF.
* So, they're really selling the suggestion that Twilight isn't friends with her friends anymore. But I wasn't born yesterday, show! I'm not some naive little kid like your target audience! I'm a full-grown brony geek!
* Yeah, let's drink in the stained glass windows. The School Six defeating ... or possibly befriending a stegosaurus, Empress Flurry Heart, the Grogar Gang getting zapped, Twilight double-booking it. I often wonder what happened to Cozy Glow's parents, and what they thought about their daughter, a minor, being sent by the state to pony hell. Lawsuits ensued, no doubt.
* We put a flashback in our flashforward! Eat our dust, postmodern literature!
* Oh, Spike.
Real comic book nerds don't
care whether they've read the comics they own or not.
* The newspaper photos. You know, Chrysalis got it right in the end -- when you know you're going to spend eternity as a statue, you use your last seconds to strike a badass pose. That's what you do. Tirek's gonna be a cowering chump forever.
* Lyra and Bon-Bon's wedding photo (the newsprint actually resembles "Lyra + BonBon"), Muffins in a chef hat (presumably for baking muffins?), and something really important about apples and pears. Or, very possibly, Apples and Pears.
* I like thinking there's a pony version of [insert political cartoonist here] who makes shitty and obvious politoons for Equestria's newspapers. I bet that's Cranky's job. Seriously, "Cranky Doodle" is the best imaginable name for a political cartoonist.
* I know we've speculated for years about an episode about the Mane Six drifting apart. And even if that's not what's actually happening, it's nice to see the show voice the subject.
* Oh man, AJ is burying her anxieties a mile deep.
* Twig crown!
* All the ponies may be burying their anxieties. Although they're also making some pretty cogent points about change. And about fashion.
* That comic book has a UPC code, which raises a lot of questions. I imagine some checkout pony using their horn as a scanner.
*
"
Bye! I guess," is just an amazing line read.
* It is nice that the show began with Twilight coming to Ponyville, and the last episode is about her leaving. Now if we can get a Celestia storybook narration, followed by Pinkie saying "And that's how Equestria was made", we'll have all the bookends.
* That's it, girls, cry it out.
* What happens when Twilight teleports and six ponies' worth of air is displaced in an enclosed train? Maybe Cheerilee and her physics blackboard can help.
* Passenger Pony is reacting to Rarity and her spiders pretty much as I would.
*
"NooOOOOooooo!" [windows shatter for parsecs around]
* It's two, two, two crowns in one!
* We're on Boneless 6 now.
* Rarity's rocking the gray like the boss she is.
* ban mlp:fim for appledash shipping
* It's a book of GIFs! Finally, Twilight attains the perfect synthesis between friendship and books.
* Also nice to see acknowledgement that friendships need to be
maintained.
* Hey, does the Friendship Map still exist and are ponies still going on missions?
* Still kinda weird that the god-princesses are retiring to Silver Shoals instead of, I dunno, exploring distant galaxies.
* Big ol' gigantic group hug.
* If I'm being honest, there's a little disappointment that Future Twilight's visual look is basically "Celestia with Twilight colors". But then again, if anypony was DEFINITELY gonna become just like Princess Celestia, it's Twilight.
* Oh yeah, we need a song, don't we?
* Ponyville: Equestria's rehabilitation center for friendship dropouts.
* OK, I see a lot of freeze-framing in
my future. Twist, Silver Spoon and Di are hanging out, Lyra and Bon-Bon still cutest couple, Muffins still wearing the brown.
* Hey I just noticed, this show is trying to draw a subtle equivalence between friendship and magic.
* So much time has passed that the Cake twins are adults! And ha, Gummy's as big as a horse. Well, I mean he's as big as a horse
for horses, if you get what I mean.
* Busts of the Pillars of Harmony in the school, and Starlight is still headmare? Eh, I guess I would've thought she'd have moved on to other gigs. And the CMC are finally allowed in, oh OK because they're teachers now.
* Look, Granny Smith is dead by now. We're not going to show it, but I know it and you know it.
* Little bunnies all over the place! Such was Angel's monument; and perhaps it would not have displeased him.
* And with this storybook ... bookend, we come to the conclusion. Or at least
a conclusion. It's the conclusion to MLP:FIM, the weekly television series. As far as I know it's still existing in other media, and there seem to be one-shot episodes floating around I haven't seen yet, and I think there's even another film coming? I don't recall, but the point is this is an ending to
one outlet of this particular incarnation of ponies. So it feels appropriate, at the end of this specific journey, to say thanks to the Round Stable, and to its own cast of colorful characters, for being my friend and each other's along the way.