S5 E18: Never Stop the Journey

Alternate title: "IT'S OVER"

I was NOT ready for this episode when I woke up this morning. It started out as another CMC episode, yay. Then we got Pipsqueak -- oh, that's what I needed. Yes, good. Then Diamond Tiara on full tyrant bitch mode. And around this point, I was thinking to myself that they had better do SOMETHING with her, because she has gone from schoolyard bully to dictator, and you can't really hyperbolize her character anymore. And you know what? They did. They gave her character meat. And yes, I felt bad for her. The ending would have been too 180, "I'm good now" if it weren't for the inclusion of her mother. The force of the confrontation allows a more dramatic transformation. Initially, I was expecting her to reluctantly offer up her family's sums to fund the new equipment, rather than overthrow Pipsqueak, and after seeing the others be happy for it, start a slow development into the side of good. But the method we got works too. This was the best CMC episode, largely for the depth and dynamics we get between these four characters.

And then, of course, we have the end of the CMC's crusade. I was not prepared for this. But I'm good with it. It had the right feeling of a long road finished, a goal achieved, and a new journey about to begin. It continues the theme we've seen thus far of the characters continuing on with their lives. We're crossing milestones, achieving new things, progressing with these characters and their ambitions rather than having static, serial pieces that never evolve. And maybe now we will get a better CMC episode.

Now before we get more "The CMC are great what are you talking about!?" business (enough of that with Spike, thanks), their episodes are largely constructed around doing more shenanigans to find their cutie marks, blundering, not earning their tattoos, and sometimes learning a lesson for it. In some cases, they blatantly miss the moral. It's funny once? Twice? But not five seasons in. We saw a few episodes where this wasn't the case, and the episodes that focus on one of the three are generally better. But now that the underlying goal is achieved, it will be interesting to see what happens with these characters. What will their goals be? I'm certainly looking forward to it, in any case. The cutie marks are found, but the journey continues.

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