Tag Archives: season 3

My Thoughts on Regular Show, Season by Season (Part 1 of 4)

Posted on by
Reply

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

For those who don’t know, Regular Show is an eight-season Cartoon Network show directed by J.G. Quintel that ran from 2010 to 2017. In short, it’s about a bunch of guys who work at a park and get into mishaps that lead to surreal adventures. But there’s much more to Regular Show than that, and in this three-part blog post series, I want to review this show and give it the justice it deserves. This post goes over seasons 1-3; the next two will go through seasons 4-6 and 7-8 respectively.

EDIT: Change of plans, this is now going to be a four-part blog post series. The next three posts will go over seasons 4-5, 6-7, and 8 respectively.

Regular Show is a show that I have a long history with. I remember the day I first watched it in I want to say January 2011, on the old tiny TV in my parents’ bedroom when I was home alone, and it didn’t take me long to get hooked and follow almost every episode live from season 2 through 5, then inconsistently in season 6. As much as I enjoyed the show, I eventually stopped following it for a good while as my parents got rid of our cable TV in favor of streaming services. That didn’t stop me from watching episodes on unofficial mirrors online, which I did several times from 2016 to 2019, but I never quite finished the show. Eventually, over the course of the past month, I binged the entire show on TV with my family Hulu subscription until I watched the final episode on August 10, 2022.

Given that it took me over a decade between first watching and finishing Regular Show, and that it had a fair amount of influence on my life—my main Internet username before my current one was WikiRigbyDude—I think it’s only right to talk about this show on my blog. But don’t worry, I won’t make a lengthy ambitious post series analyzing every episode. Instead, I’ll talk about the show season by season in three blog posts, and discuss various episodes along the way that I think are highlights. Unlike a certain show involving horses, most Regular Show episodes are only ten minutes each, meaning there’s usually not that much to say about each one.

Continue reading →

Cookie Fonster Reviews Every MLP Episode Part 28: Magical Mystery Cure

Posted on by
Reply

Introduction

< Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 >

Season 3, Episode 13

NOTE: This post was supposed to be released about an hour ago, but it looks like I forgot to schedule it. Sorry about that!

We’ve made it to the season 3 finale now! It’s a huge turning point for the series, as you probably know. Like season 1, this season’s finale is a single one-part episode. But this time, I’m giving the finale a post all to itself, making for my first MLP post that goes through only one episode. It turns out that was a good decision, since Magical Mystery Cure broke the record of my longest MLP episode review to date, surpassing The Best Night Ever by quite a lot! (Yes, I did a word count, not including words quoted from the show.)

Season 3 Episode 13: Magical Mystery Cure

In five words: Twilight gains wings; fans scream.

Premise: In an episode abound with musical numbers, Twilight Sparkle wakes up to find that all her friends’ cutie marks have been swapped. Only she can fix this, using, well you know, the power of friendship.

Detailed run-through:

This episode starts with a joyful, triumphant musical number called “Morning in Ponyville”, where Twilight Sparkle wakes up and sings about how this is a perfect morning where nothing can ever go wrong. The fact that this episode immediately starts with this song already tells us that it’s going to be a little different from other episodes of this show; an episode where most things are told through music.

Continue reading →

Cookie Fonster Reviews Every MLP Episode Part 27: Just for Sidekicks + Games Ponies Play

Posted on by
Reply

Introduction

< Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 >

Season 3, Episodes 11-12

I’m almost done with season 3 now! My final season 3 post, covering Magical Mystery Cure, will come out a week from now, and then I’ll take a bit of a break. I think it’ll be fun to release my first season 4 post on (almost) the one-year anniversary of my first season 1 post: March 11, 2022.

Season 3 Episode 11: Just for Sidekicks

In five words: Spike experiences continuous babysitting mishaps.

Premise: While the Mane 6 are out to the Crystal Empire, Spike has to watch over their pets and gets into a huge wrangled mess.

Detailed run-through:

All his pony friends have pets of their own just like he did, but that didn’t stop Spike from doing what he thought was right.

This episode starts with a quick follow-up from the ending of Dragon Quest: a set of photos showing Spike with his pet phoenix named Peewee, ending with him releasing Peewee back to his homeland. As I said at the end of Dragon Quest, this is a selfless gesture on Spike’s part, showing that as much fun as he had with his little pet, he knew the right thing to do was let Peewee live with his own species. I’m going to imagine that Spike traveled there all by himself to drop off his little buddy, much like he traveled to the dragon kingdom by himself in Dragon Quest. It would be a good example of him taking extreme lengths for those he cares about.

I love how Spike is singing along to the background music. He does more of this throughout this episode.

Spike prepares a delicious gem cake, but he can’t control himself from eating all the gems for it in the process. He immediately suspects Owlowiscious of stealing the gems, until the owl shows Spike a spoon that reflects his face, indicating that he ate them. Their one-sided rivalry from Owl’s Well That Ends Well has returned in full light here, cementing this episode as one that doesn’t take itself too seriously.

Continue reading →

Cookie Fonster Reviews Every MLP Episode Part 26: Spike at Your Service + Keep Calm and Flutter On

Posted on by
Reply

Introduction

< Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 >

Season 3, Episodes 9-10

Season 3 Episode 9: Spike at Your Service

In five words: Spike contradicts all previous logic.

Premise: After Applejack saves his life, Spike insists on acting as Applejack’s servant as payback and constantly messes things up in the process for some reason.

Detailed run-through, I guess:

*sigh*

I’m sorry for sounding so reluctant here. It’s just that this is the least excited I’ve ever been to analyze a MLP episode, because this episode… well, it’s one of very few episodes of the show that I outright dislike. So bear with me here, OK? I’ll try to get back to the good stuff as soon as I can.

No, I am not going to skip this episode, as tempting as it may be.

To start this episode, Twilight Sparkle gives Spike a day off because she has a huge set of books Celestia wanted her to read over the weekend. Spike excitedly goes outside and goes through a long list of things he’s wanted to do… except it’s a very short list of simple tasks like smelling his feet, which he gets through quickly. At this point, Spike probably feels lacking in identity other than being “Twilight Sparkle’s sidekick”, and while plenty of episodes explore this aspect of his character in earnest depth, this one uses it to lead up to a storm of annoying contrivances.

Continue reading →

Cookie Fonster Reviews Every MLP Episode Part 24: Magic Duel + Sleepless in Ponyville

Posted on by
Reply

Introduction

< Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 >

Season 3, Episodes 5-6

Pointless trivia: I worked on my review of Magic Duel entirely within my own house, whereas I worked on my review of Sleepless in Ponyville entirely within a hotel room at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center. Pandemic restrictions or not, I’m happy to report I had a great time at MAGFest 2022 (though as of this post’s publication, it already ended a few weeks ago).

Season 3 Episode 5: Magic Duel

In five words: Boast Busters’ much better sequel.

Premise: After getting brutally owned in Boast Busters, Trixie returns to Ponyville with a desire for revenge and a special magical amulet.

Detailed run-through:

The intro portion of this episode teases viewers with loose hints of a familiar face. A hooded figure goes to a shop to obtain a dangerous magical amulet, and while she’s denied it at first, she gets it after giving the shopkeeper a big bag of money. Trixie is a fan favorite character, so it makes sense that her return would start off subtle.

After this, we get a scene of Twilight Sparkle practicing her magic skills much like she did at the start of Boast Busters, showing that she’s sharpened her magic prowess since then. She uses a magic spell to levitate Fluttershy’s animals in a gentle looping formation, keeping them calm and happy despite Fluttershy’s extreme nervousness. Again like Boast Busters, this scene shows that Twilight takes great pride in her magic skills. Twilight then mentions Celestia hired her for the entertainment in an upcoming special event. She’s clearly referring to magic tricks here, and that was the one thing Trixie thought she was so good at.

Continue reading →

Cookie Fonster Reviews Every MLP Episode Part 22: The Crystal Empire, Part 1 + 2

Posted on by
Reply

Introduction

< Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 >

Season 3, Episodes 1-2

NOTE: I published this post about an hour early so that I could get it out and update the previous MLP post and introduction post before going off to do convention things.

How appropriate for my first MLP post of 2022 to be number 22. Well, I actually wrote this post in 2021, but I held off publishing it until 2022 to give my posting schedule some breathing room. 2022 is a complete open book for me; aside from me attending MAGFest at the start (as of this post’s publication, I’m at the convention right now), only time will tell what experiences I will go through as the year progresses.

Also, here’s how season 3 will be divided up. Season 3 consists of 13 episodes, so each post will take up two episodes, except for Magical Mystery Cure, which will get a post all to itself. Not because I expect my review of that episode to be extremely lengthy, but simply because the season has an odd number of episodes and I had said I wasn’t going to do posts covering three episodes anymore. Because of this, one episode of season 3 has to get a post all to itself, so I went with the obvious choice. On the other hand, when I go through later seasons, there will probably be plenty of times where I decide to give an episode a post to itself solely because I expect its review to be lengthy, like Slice of Life or Amending Fences.

But as much as I adore both of those season 5 episodes, let’s not get too ahead of ourselves. Instead, it’s time to start season 3!!!

Season 3 Episode 1: The Crystal Empire, Part 1

This review has spoilers for up to the season 4 finale!

In five words: Twilight Sparkle begins unexpected test.

Premise: Celestia puts Twilight Sparkle and her friends to the task of protecting the Crystal Empire, which has returned after a thousand years, from the wrath of King Sombra, who has also returned after a thousand years.

Detailed run-through:

Who is this nerdy-looking unicorn girl and what’s her deal?
(I wouldn’t be surprised if fans have a common consensus on what her deal is.)

Season 3 of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic begins with a short scene where a royal guard informs Celestia that “it” has returned. This scene is quite a strange way to begin the third season, but it serves a clear purpose: loosely hinting at a new villain, matching the pattern of every two-part episode so far introducing a new villain. First Nightmare Moon, then Discord, then Queen Chrysalis, and now… it. (I’m talking about King Sombra, of course.)

Continue reading →