Crusaders of the Lost Mark

While actually liking the Cutie Mark Crusaders as characters on the whole (they grew hugely as characters and are not near as cutesy as they sound or as one fears), Diamond Tiara before "Crusaders of the Lost Mark" was not my cup of tea. She was in the stereotypical bully role, and more often than not to me she came over as annoying and unnecessarily mean-spirited for reasons not obvious. So "Crusaders of the Lost Mark" could have gone either way.

Luckily, it went in the right way, and in the best way possible. It is a brilliant episode and after two disappointing previous episodes (in my view) Season 5 redeems itself with one of its best episodes "Crusaders of the Lost Mark", which is one of the best episodes of 'My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic' in my view. It's fun, heart-wrenching and intriguing with great characterisation for the Cutie Mark Crusaders in their best episode (even better than "Cutie Mark Chronicles"), a fascinating new character and the way Diamond Tiara was developed was something of a revelation and made me see her in a different light.

"Crusaders of the Lost Mark" does everything right. The animation is colourful and elegant as ever and the music fits without problem throughout tonally and in placement. There are also songs here and they are among the best of the season, a season that was fairly under-populated in this aspect, the complexity of the lyrics for "We'll Make Our Mark" was really striking. "The Pony I Want to Be" has always made me emotional. The melodies are catchy and emotionally impactful and the lyric writing is a long way from simplistic or childish.

There is a perfect balance of humour and pathos, both done brilliantly individually. Highly amusingly in the former and poignant in the latter and the episode excels in not going over people's heads while not dumbing down at the same time. The voice acting is terrific, especially an incredible turn from Chantal Strand as both Diamond Tiara and Spoiled Rich (managing to bring individual personality to each other for both), while the moral is a relevant one handled with tact.

Had no issues with the very absorbing and often quite powerful storytelling, that always goes at a lively pace. Really loved the inventive and emotionally resonant way the cutie marks are gained and for the first time we are given insight into Diamond Tiara's character and are given a reason for why she acted the way she did before. It was hard to not feel sorry for her and as said above it made me see her in a different light and for the better. The moral is very meaningful and sensitively delivered without playing it safe and there was seldom a more sincere redemption of the show than here.

Overall, brilliant and one of the season's and show's best. 10/10

I've said it before in my reviews, and I'll say it again, you cannot make a good episode destroying old lore for plot's convenience. This episode does just that in one of the most important aspects of the series. I'm not gonna explain much this time, perhaps when I watch the episode again I'll be more expressive. For now I'll just say that this episode destroy completely the hints given at the begging of the series. Applebloom was good crafting things, Sweetie belle was good singing, and Sctootaloo was good at xtreme sports. What does this episode made of them ? Living plot seeds instead of actual living ponies. I cannot explain why people loves this episode besides the CMC finally getting their Cutie Marks, and I understand why that can be interesting and exiting, but only if do right, not like in this episode, which completely ruined them in my opinion. At least it gave plot for Gabby and I really like her character but still, I'm really sorry for what they did to the CMC.