MLP Episode 313 "Magical Mystery Cure" and Season 3 Retrospective

Ok, time to do this I guess.

The Good

• Vinyl Scratch was in it. I really like her.
• The basic premise of cutie mark swapping was an interesting idea.
• Apparently Derpy was there in full on derp mode.

The Bad

Oh where do I even begin?

• The plot was crazy rushed. If felt like they tried to shove an entire episode into the first 11 minutes. Which brings us to...
• The second half of the show might as well have had giant flashing letters saying "BUY THE NEW PRINCESS TWILIGHT TOY AND PLAYSET".
• If you're going to do a musical episode, make sure the music is good. All of the songs felt really generic. Where are the catchy tunes with memorable hooks that the show used to have?
• Princess Twilight is still completely out of left field. It just feels tacked on for the sake of selling toys.
• Seeing Twilight's friends bow down to her feels so wrong. She's not supposed to be better than them, they're friends and supposed to be equals.
• Luna shows up, but is given no speaking rolls, and is put in a dress.
  

You know, I could go on, but I think it's pretty clear I don't like this episode. Nothing about it works for me at all. It feels like it was supposed to be the end of the show. Season 3 as a whole has had that feeling. They've been wrapping up plot lines (Trixie and Discord redeemed, Scoots finally getting the respect of Dash, Dash sort of getting recognized by the Wonderbolts, etc...), add that to it being only 13 episodes (bringing the total to the number needed for syndication), and that Transformers Prime is getting canceled once it hits that number. It all looks like this was meant to be the grand finale, but the show was too popular to cancel. Anytime I've seen that happen it turns out pretty bad. Spongebob is my go to example of this.

On the bright side, alicorn Twilight caused this little gem.

Alicorn Day (via FiMFlamFilosophy)