Episode review: S9E24/25: "The Ending of the End"

"I am PinkCozia, Queen of Queens. Look upon me, ye mighty, and buy our toys!"

Well, here we are. It's the S9 finale. Also, therefore, the finale of Friendship is Magic as a whole, making this the very las—what's that? An epilogue? Oh. Okay, this is nearly the very last time I'll be writing one of these reviews. The show's never scheduled a two-parter like this before, but I was hoping for something impressive. Nicole Dubuc was handling the first part of this double-length ep, while Michael Vogel was on second-part writing duties. How did it perform? You know what to do to find out!

That wasn't bad at all. Now, that may sound like damning with faint praise, and to an extent it is. I was hoping for an all-time classic episode, something to go up there with "Shadow Play", and I don't think we quite got it. There were a lot of enjoyable bits in "The Ending of the End" – and I do mean a lot – but they weren't always smoothly connected. It was very noticeable how much exposition the dialogue contained, some of it quite clunky: Fluttershy and Rarity at the market, for example.

I'm still more than a bit annoyed about Grogar not being real. He was the villain from G1, perhaps even more so than Tirek, and I'd enjoyed his portrayal throughout S9. Looking back, some of his odd moments can be explained by the fact that he was actually Discord, but even so. I would much have preferred him to have been a genuine threat in his own right, and perhaps for the fan theories about the Legion of Doom ending up fighting him to have turned out correct.

Why is Determined Fluttershy so utterly fantastic?

Otherwise, in the first half of this finale, things are set up pretty much as you'd expect: Twilight ("and her friends") facing a threat that's supposed to be bigger than ever before, though in all honesty I still think Chrysalis did as much in the threat department on her own in "A Canterlot Wedding". It's also irritating that we never do get any backstory for Cozy; I get the time constraints, but even a couple of lines would have been something. "She's just evil" is unsatisfying.

I really liked Starlight's battle with Chrysalis, though. Glimmy handled that very well, having the presence of mind to teleport the two of them somewhere else and then showing real style in the actual fight. One noticeable thing about this finale was that, considerably more than the FiM norm, the villains were allowed to openly threaten to damage our heroes. Chryssy does so here. ("Wrong. I can hurt you!") Starlight does very well... but she does lose, and is cocooned.

As for the Mane Seven (including Spike, since he's prominent in this finale), in all honesty they don't do a great deal in the first episode, beyond swapping a few platitudes about friendship, having a go at Discord and promising to help defeat the villains. Maybe I'm being unreasonable given this is very much an action-orientated finale, but FiM's finest moments for me have usually been the character-focused ones and I don't think that's as strongly in evidence here as sometimes.

Precisely one unicorn stayed. Not Sweetie, not Lyra, but Sugar Belle

Anyway, after the usual not-a-cliffhanger (because who waited even a day between parts?) we're plunged into all-out war. It's the final season, so the writers throw everything in: the Pillars, the Young Six, Cadance and Shiny. Even this lot doesn't seem to be enough, thanks to Chrysalis and Cozy's earlier work sowing discord (small d!) among the ponies – something I thought was slightly unrealistically easily achieved. The three pony tribes are now disunited, which means...

...windigoes! Given the only other times we've seen them were the in-universe stories in "Hearth's Warming Eve" and "A Hearth's Warming Tail", you could have argued up until now that they were nothing more than an old mares' tale. No longer. That said, they're not given the part I expected, being defeated so quickly as to make little difference in the end. This sets up the finale for the grand, well, finale, with the Mane Seven ranged against the Terrible Trio and the latter in possession of Grogar's bell magic.

As it turns out, thanks to the off-screen work of the Friendship School-inspired Young Six, reinforcements are coming. Lots and lots and lots of reinforcements. This is the chance for the animators to include just about every good (or at least not outright evil: Flim and Flam are there!) character they can think of. It's irritating that this is the only time we get to see Little Strongheart again, but hey ho. There's a nice scene in Seaquestria as we finally see Silverstream and Skystar in the same "room". Oh, and Tempest. Obviously.

I'm actually a little surprised Hasbro allowed Chrysalis's clear threat to rip Spike's wings off

And then it's time for the Rainbow of Light! :D Okay, it's not actually called that in FiM, not even in the S1 premiere, but it was back in "Rescue at Midnight Castle". Give me this one, hey? The various goodies combine to blast the baddies and strip them of their powers. All that remains is to enact their punishment. Considering Discord said back in "The Return of Harmony" that "I don't turn ponies to stone", Cozy at least can count herself a little unlucky. Still, it's certainly a dramatic moment of final victory.

With one exception that I'll get to, I loved the final scene in Donut Joe's. I'd put money on this having been chosen as a conscious callback to the S1 finale, and as a reminder of what was (despite Nightmare Moon) a simpler, gentler time in Equestria. It's arguable that Starlight, at least, should have been with them, but that would have diluted the atmosphere, while Celestia without Luna (as in S1) would have felt very odd. Just a shame we got a weak "everypony laughs" ending.

A few other things: I really liked Fluttershy in several scenes of this finale. We see her more than once standing strong and determined, in a way that fits her late-series character but would have felt very odd a few years ago. Her little speech to Twilight in the Crystal Empire, about knowing more than most what it's like to be scared, is satisfying too. Oh, and both Cozy and Pinkie's superpowered forms are great. I can see a billion fanarts coming out of those few seconds.

Joe's presence means two of every regular pony tribe, plus their alicorn ruler-designate

So, what have we got in the end? Probably something like last year's finale. That was a very entertaining one as long as you took care not to look at it too closely, and I think the same is true here. "The Ending of the End" is a long way from being flawless, and it could really have done with some of the rough edges being polished to a shine, but I still enjoyed plenty. I gave the S8 finale four stars, and I'm going to do the same to the S9 finale. Except, of course, this finale isn't the final episode. You'll have to wait a little while to discover what I thought of that!

Best line: Twilight: "The same thing we do every time, Pinkie: try to save the world!"
Best moment: Rainbow lasers one last time
Worst moment: The Grogar = Discord reveal

Yays

• Some exciting battle scenes
• Celestia and Luna actually getting to do a bit
• The lovely final scene in Joe's diner
• Fluttershy's determination
• The Young Six showing what they'd learnt
• Not reforming major villains

Neighs

• Grogar – a potentially glorious villain dribbled away
• Too much expository dialogue
• That yellow portal really did not look great
• "Everypony laughs" is a weak ending

★★★★