Talk:The Ending of the End - Part 2/@comment-7345250-20191013055002

Uggghhh. Okay...

It takes a lot for me to say it, but this is one of the handful of episodes I don't like. They pulled a Mandarin, if you know what I mean. It was clever that Grogar was a certain trickster all along, but that cleverness did not offset the sheer waste of potential that was the complete absence of Grogar.

Every time they showed the bell hovering behind Tirek or Cozy Glow, I waited with bated breath for Grogar to emerge from his relic, lambaste the terrible trio's feeble alliance, and take back what was his. But the minutes crawled by, and I was left asking: "Where's the kaboom?"

The Ending of the End is just... nothing new. Discord makes a big blunder, Twilight has a teary-eyed moment of doubt, and not one of the villains demonstrates any depth beyond what we've seen in their prior appearances. While I am very pleased that Tempest Shadow showed up to the final battle, the bulk of this episode is just old hat: a bunch of scattered fights, a reminder that Twilight should pull herself together, and a fabulous friendship rainbow.

Imagine how much more poignant this finale could have been if Grogar had appeared. He could have answered the ringing of his bell and exposed the flaws in the villains' "teamwork" in a language they could understand. Alternatively, he could have turned Twilight's friends into monsters and tested their friendships on that nearly unprecedented level (FlutterBat notwithstanding). There is so much more that could have been done with this concept.

Thankfully, it leads into a much more palatable The Last Problem, which I think is a very charming and appreciably modest (if teary) conclusion to My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.