Talk:On Your Marks/@comment-4531340-20160410093231

Honestly, I feel this was the first truly stellar episode of season six - and while the episode didn't go in a direction I had been expecting, that was far from a bad thing. I liked how it explored the fact that, now that they don't have to worry about their cutie marks, they can pursue their own interests, unrelated to their special talent of helping other ponies to understand/obtain their cutie marks (and while doing that, might discover ponies in need of their special help - so the other two can be called in), and that doesn't weaken their bond of friendship, the bond that holds the Cutie Mark Crusaders together, but rather strengthens it. Really good stuff.

If I had to nitpick, some of the scenes were rather silly (such as the opening scene, where they momentarily fall back into their ingrained habit of trying anything to earn cutie marks - though I would also argue that it was kind of charming, or silly in a good way - the only scene I felt that was really silly in a bad way was the scene towards the end where Apple Bloom realizes she misunderstood about what Scootaloo had meant when she said that they didn't have to do everything together anymore).

I really liked the interactions between the CMC in this one, when each of them are trying to get the other two to do something that they really enjoy (the scooter one was a particular favorite, haha), and I really liked the scene where Tree Hugger randomly popped up as a model (I laughed my butt off at that). While the ending was predictable, I thought that didn't detract from it at all - and I really loved the conclusion reached at the end.

Sometimes I have to think long and hard about what rating I'll give an episode. This is not one of those cases. I knew exactly what rating I would be giving this episode as soon as it was done: 9.5/10.