It's been three months since School Raze (four if you caught an early airing), but at long last, I've posted the video review for The Emotions' Corner on YouTube. The video is below so you can watch it here as well.
As the title of this blog post states, this is an expansion on my personal views of the episode, and why it wasn't as great as it could've been.
The first problem, obviously, is Neighsay getting a heel-face turn. I've already explained how overused that cliche is, but in School Raze, it's practically gotten beyond a joke to the point I'd rather they either kill off every villain altogether. (Forgotten Friendship was the nadir of that cliche.) They try resolving that by having Cozy Glow remain an antagonist in the same episode, which practically shoots the writers' response in the foot. You can't have it both ways! Either you redeem all your villains, or you don't.
Neighsay's justification for being against non-ponies is because of bad experiences with them... Okay, what bad experiences? Even if it was either because of the actions of their leaders or their nature in general, that's a bland, pathetic excuse that literally anypony could have! And that's not mentioning it almost feels like a half-baked way to give him a backstory; Starlight Glimmer had a tighter backstory than this!
This reminds me of Rock 'n' Roll with James speaking to Duncan about the time Diesel came to Sodor and how he supposedly sent him packing. At least there, we actually saw Diesel causing trouble for the engines, and in the Railway Series, James finally understood that not all diesel engines were bad just because of a few bad experiences. What if James simply told Duncan "a diesel caused trouble for us" and that was it? That's pretty much how I feel about Neighsay's heel-face turn. It felt as if it was pulled out of the writers' collective backside, and they're likely never going to use him in a major role again after this episode, making it pointless.
The second problem is Cozy Glow as the villain. No, not that she was sent to Tartarus - it was justified, if you ask me, and she is not as cute/innocent/misunderstood/etc. as some would like to think. The real issue is that... Well, there's two, actually. The first is that she's a twist villain, and a sloppily handled one at that; hell, even Marks for Effort wasn't subtle at all. The second problem - and the one I want to laser-focus on, is that she's a child villain. At her age, how is she expected to rule Equestria at all?
Come to think of it, that's a gigantic plot hole in this episode; how was she able to get into Tartarus and make a deal with Lord Tirek? How did she know she'd end up there anyway? Where are her parents in all of this? Does she have any at all? She's practically a borderline Villain Sue that leaves too many questions and too few answers. And no, you can't say "that might be explored in season nine" because that's basically either poor or lazy storytelling; you have 44 minutes to work with, and it could've been used over spending too much time with the Mane Six and Spike! In fact, that destroys any tension the finale may have had (which was very little to begin with).
And that's why both problems I mentioned harms what should be a great finale. Those who think it's a great finale will enjoy the character arc that the Young Six went through as well as the theme it displayed - friendship is stronger than power. I agree with those who feel that way, but there's only so far they can take you with a somewhat bland story, overused cliches and a problematic villain.
Rating: Bad (3/10)