Episode review: S9E23: "The Big Mac Question"

Did the well-timed little gust of wind remind anyone else of the shooting stars of past episodes?

It seems I was a little premature in dubbing last week's episode the last for the Cutie Mark Crusaders. Although "The Big Mac Question" wasn't fully a CMC ep in the way "Growing Up is Hard to Do" was, the fillies did play a very substantial role. But more of that later. This episode was co-written by Josh Haber and Michael Vogel, so I was hoping for both entertainment (from the former) and solid writing (from the latter). Past the cut, we'll see if we got it.

Eeyup. I really enjoyed this episode, and there really wasn't much I can fault it on. Although I'm not generally a big fan of romantic storylines – the show is called Friendship is Magic, after all – Big Mac's blossoming relationship with Sugar Belle has produced some nice episodes. I'm not sure anyone would have seen this pairing coming back in Season 5, but it has given us some good moments. Most notably in Season 8's "The Break Up Break Down", which was referenced this time around.

It wasn't the only one, either. This was a fairly callback-heavy episode, with nods and winks going right back to the start of S2 and Discord's chocolate rain. Happily, none of them got in the way of the plot, which I appreciated. Most were simply incidental and could have been skipped – but not the callback to the events of "The Perfect Pear" near the end. I doubt anyone minded being reminded of such a fine episode, and it was directly relevant to this story, too.

Mrs Cake has absolutely had enough of Discord's horseapples

Discord was at his most Discord-y this time around, and I suppose you might argue that his apple-y antics went a bit over the top even for him. I thought it generally worked in context, though, and it was fun that the episode's framing device (a little like that of "The Saddle Row Review") let us see his thoughts from what was apparently quite a while later. The CMC also had a good run in these surrounding sections.

The main storyline allowed Peter New to say (a bit) more than "Eeyup" and "Eenope", which was nice, though he seemed to be delivering some of the lines early on extremely slowly even for Big McIntosh. Sugar Belle remains a slightly bland character with considerably less screen presence than Big Mac, but she nevertheless came across as the sweet, gentle mare she is. Surprisingly determined at times, too, as we saw even back in her debut episode.

Slightly surprisingly for an episode so close to the end of the series, "The Big Mac Question" was almost devoid of the Mane Six, with only Applejack making a (very stylish) appearance, and even that only in the final scenes. Still, I think that was the right choice – okay, perhaps Pinkie could have given Mrs Cake a hoof with the baking, but that might have lent the episode an excessively madcap feel and taken away from some of the sweetness.

Scootaloo is really, really not convinced

That isn't to say that the episode was lacking in comedy. The talking apples provided plenty of visual gags, and it's hard for an ep with Discord featuring heavily to do too badly on this score. The dialogue was pretty snappy, and there were some fun animators' touches as well, such as Scootaloo's distinctly unimpressed look at Apple Bloom's pun. AB also managed to do a meme face that actually felt right, going with her "playing it cool" stance.

Since I'm on the subject of animation bonuses, I have to touch on the one that's got everyone talking – whether they noticed it at the time or not. After all these years, we finally have an unambiguous same-sex relationship on screen, not just mentioned on Twitter as a "That's how we saw it" thing. We've followed Lyra and Bon Bon since S1, and I'm sure that's why this moment felt entirely right: not forced, but an organic continuation of the last few years.

Apart from the revelation that Octavia once dated Bulk Biceps, the main other point of order was Granny Smith's two Star Trek references. Mudbriar as Spock seems so perfect that it's a wonder nobody's drawn fanart of him like that before (at least as far as I can find) and the fact that Grand Pear was played by William Shatner surely made the joke irresistible. There was even a little joke in the second reference about how Discord was "probably much the same" in space.

Come on, you didn't think I'd leave this one out, did you?

Given that the two-part "finale" starts next week with episode 24, and given that the final episode of all will take the form of an epilogue to the whole series, "The Big Mac Question" marks the final "normal" ep of Friendship is Magic. After almost nine years and well over 200 episodes, it's time for us to say goodbye to the slice-of-life stories that have dominated the show. After what's frankly been a pretty mixed S9, I'm very glad that that aspect went out on a high note.

Best line: Discord: "Nothing. I thought we were saying each other's names."
Best moment: With apologies to the foreground happy couple, it has to be LyraBon.
Worst moment: What has happened to Mister Cake?

Yays

• Entertaining and highly watchable throughout
• A framing device that worked well
• Big Mac and Sugar Belle were very sweet
• The CMC got another "last" outing and were pretty good
• That background proposal!
• Some very enjoyable callbacks

Neighs

• The "talking apples" joke was maybe not quite strong enough to run all episode
• The repeated scene repeated too much, which helped make the second act drag a little

★★★★