Review: My Little Pony “The Ending of the End” ; “The Last Problem”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

It’s the day of Twilight’s coronation, but not all is well. The villain team-up of Tirek, Chrysalis, and Cozy Glow is hard at work on their villainous plan. After draining Discord of his power and stealing Grogar’s powers for themselves, the three of them make their arrival. Tirek takes out the pillars of Friendship, while Chrysaslis goes after Starlight Glimmer and traps her in a cocoon. Meanwhile, Cozy Glow is fighting the mane six and the Princesses in their palace. Together, they might overpower her, but Tirek and Chrysalis arrive in time to save their fellow villain. Devastated, Twilight escapes just in time, leaving her friends to hold them off while she comes up with a plan.

After escaping thanks to Discord and Sunlight Glimmer, the mane six rush to find Twilight. They see a land divided, with ponies turned against each other. Even Twilight has lost hope. Without the pillars of Friendship, how can they hope to win? But with her friends by her side, Twilight decides to give it another go. They confront the villains and make a valiant effort, but it’s not enough. Just when all hope is lost, creatures from all over arrive, gathered by students from the School of Friendship, they make one final stand and friendship wins once and for all.

As The Last Problem opens, there’s been a huge time skip. Twilight and Spike are fully-grown adults now, and Twilight has been running Celestia’s school of magic. But she has a problem, a student named Lester who thinks friendships are more trouble than they’re worth. Through a combination of flashbacks and present-day scenes, Twilight shows her that even though things have changed, their friendships are still going strong.

Our Take:

The last episode has aired, the crew has moved on, and everyone is saying their farewells on Twitter. It’s time for the final episode of My Little Pony! Technically, I should mention it’s actually three episodes, a two-parter finale and one episode as a sort of epilogue. But taken together, these episodes form a wonderful finale for a special show that’s meant a lot to many people over the past years.

The main conflict of the finale stems from Discord. Unbeknownst to everyone until now, he had secretly freed Chrysalis, Tirek, and Cozy Glow and was prepping them to crash Twilight’s coronation, all while in disguise himself as Grogar. It’s a strange plan that is never quite explained well enough, and his motivations for doing so still feel fishy to me. It’s probably one of my only real ‘problems’ with the finale, and it’s not that big a deal. I wish Discord’s motivation had been to teach the villains about friendship, which would’ve shown how he’s changed since coming to know Twilight and her friends. This doesn’t really happen, and his reasons for doing what he does seem pretty random. Granted, he is a god of chaos, so this is perfectly in character. I just wish he had gotten a bit more evolution at the end of things.

The big wrap up to the conflict is nothing surprising, which is why I’m glad they decided to leave room for an episode of epilogue. I did love how the students at the school of friendship factored into it all. Twilight may not have felt like she made a difference, but it was her and her friends’ teachings that helped spark an entire population to come to their aid when they needed it most. Ending the entire show on a huge battle would be cool, but it’s just not what this series is. At its heart, My Little Pony is about the magic of friendship, of course, so I love how they chose to end the show with The Last Problem. Despite all the lovely and fluid animation of the action sequences in The Ending of The End, it pales in comparison with the epilogue, just because of the sheer amount of cameos, easter eggs, and fulfilled fan ships slipped in.

Seeing Twilight, Spike, and everyone else as aging adults is strange and instantly makes me feel nostalgic, which is exactly what I want in a final episode. Luster Dawn is a cool new character, who I hope might be in the next generation of the series? It would be awesome if the two shows were tied together. Regardless of how the next series is connected with the current one, this episode puts a bow on everything and ends it all in ways that make me perfectly satisfied even if this is absolutely the final time we see these ponies. From Pinkie Pie and Cheese Sandwich’s child (did not see that coming and am unsure about how I feel) to Applejack and Rainbow Dash being a thing (did not see that coming and LOVE IT), the show treated this like how a finale should be treated: not being afraid to finalize arcs, fulfill fans wishes, and put a capstone on characters journeys as they move on and grow older. Plus there was still a lot of the trademark humor of the show, like Gummi being in charge of the fireworks.

After nine seasons of character development, friendship lessons, and countless catchy musical numbers, My Little Pony has come to an end. I don’t know what the future holds for this franchise, but what’s certain is that this generation has wrapped up in a wonderful way, with care and attention paid to the small details that make a fitting finale. Even though we may not see more of their stories on screen, there’s nothing they can’t handle together. It is the end of an era, but perhaps the beginning of something new, too.