S09E12: The Last Crusade

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S09E12: The Last Crusade

Post by Wayoshi (?) » Wed Jun 12, 2019 11:02 am

Unexpected visitors to Ponyville threaten to break up the Cutie Mark Crusaders forever!
This thread is for discussion of the episode. This episode airs at 11:30 Eastern / 8:30 Pacific on Saturday, June 15!

Official preview clips and images are okay to post, as is speculation about the episode. Spoilers from non-US releases are NOT OK to post.

Early spoiler thread: http://www.roundstable.com/forums/viewt ... =16&t=1923

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Re: S09E12: The Last Crusade

Post by Applepie2017 (?) » Wed Jun 12, 2019 1:22 pm

deleted
Last edited by Applepie2017 on Sun Jun 16, 2019 8:18 am, edited 1 time in total.
But...
This one's too young

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Re: S09E12: The Last Crusade

Post by Aramek (?) » Sat Jun 15, 2019 11:25 am

Crikey, it's gonna be good!
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Re: S09E12: The Last Crusade

Post by Octavia (?) » Sat Jun 15, 2019 11:37 am

Scootaloo has parents. Eat shit, fanon. :cutealoo:
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Your MRI results have shown total infection to now be approximately one fifth of the full mass of the tissue.

"So you're saying..."

Your brain is about 20% tumor.
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Re: S09E12: The Last Crusade

Post by Aramek (?) » Sat Jun 15, 2019 11:42 am

OH CRIKEY, HE'S REAL PISSED OFF NOW!
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Re: S09E12: The Last Crusade

Post by Octavia (?) » Sat Jun 15, 2019 11:44 am

Aramek wrote:
Sat Jun 15, 2019 11:42 am
OH CRIKEY, HE'S REAL PISSED OFF NOW!
I'M GONNA JAM ME FINGER IN HIS BUTTHOLE

Also I wonder if Alabama is gonna ban this episode for Scootaloo's aunts.
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Your MRI results have shown total infection to now be approximately one fifth of the full mass of the tissue.

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Your brain is about 20% tumor.
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Re: S09E12: The Last Crusade

Post by Aramek (?) » Sat Jun 15, 2019 12:07 pm

I love Scootaloo's alive gay aunts.
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Re: S09E12: The Last Crusade

Post by PonyHag714 (?) » Sat Jun 15, 2019 12:07 pm

This was a sweet episode, and an important milestone. I'm glad the question of Scoot's parents has been settled. Image

I liked the cameos at the end. Nice to see Gabby among others. Image

I like Scootaloo's aunts. Clearly she is in good hooves staying with them. :allears:
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Re: S09E12: The Last Crusade

Post by Fizzbuzz (?) » Sat Jun 15, 2019 12:12 pm

At first I thought Scootaloo's situation seemed unusual, but it occurred to me that families where the parents have to leave their kids with other family members likely aren't unknown; consider a family where both parents are in the military, who might not want to uproot their kids every couple of years when their deployments change. It's enough to leave me wondering who this episode's moral was for; should children watching be encouraged to stand up to their parents when something the parents would do would leave them worse off, or is this aimed more at the parents, reminding them to always consider their kids even when their careers would pull them away? It's very fortunate that Scootaloo had the safety net in the form of her aunts, at least.

Also, can we talk about the ending? Even without the purpose of convincing her parents to reconsider bringing Scootaloo along, to me it was a poignant reminder of how many hearts she, Apple Bloom, and Sweetie Belle have touched in the past several years. Something like that is perhaps what I'd expect from the series finale, but so many friends have been made over FiM's run that maybe there have been just too many to look back at in a single episode.
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Re: S09E12: The Last Crusade

Post by Fizzbuzz (?) » Sat Jun 15, 2019 12:35 pm

Also, one other thing: is it just me or is it a bit odd to hear the characters literally saying "the CMCs"? For a society where the predominant modes of interpersonal communication are still spoken or handhoof-written, vs. typed like our text messages and forum posts and such are, I'm not sure initializations like that would catch on quite so much. I get the feeling that it's a convenience for us, an audience that's grown ever more accustomed to such linguistic conventions in the nine years since this show began. It's enough to leave me wondering if the ponies of G5 will have a means of instantaneous global communication in reflection of how ubiquitous smartphones have become in our social lives now.

Yes, I am aware this line of thinking is incredibly grognardy. :wat:
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Re: S09E12: The Last Crusade

Post by The Doctor (?) » Sat Jun 15, 2019 12:46 pm

A good episode, but I think they missed a great opportunity by having Scootaloo leave. Show is ending and friends moving away is part of life. I think it would have been bold of the team to have that goodbye.

Its kid of the same thing as having the CMC have the same cutie Mark's so the CMC antics could continue. The first few seasons were building to them learning to be themselves, and they just decided to play it safe, and basically keep the status quo.

Being the last season I would have rather had a daring shake up, rather than a safe, predictable resolution

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Re: S09E12: The Last Crusade

Post by Kronos (?) » Sat Jun 15, 2019 8:59 pm

I'm with The Doctor in that I was totally expecting the resolution to be Scoot moving away and that she would occasionally come to visit Ponyville on that once-a-month train, while otherwise communicating by letter or something. However, there I think ultimately for Hasbro marketing purposes they had to keep the CMC together. Or maybe Scoot is needed for something later in the season like she gains actual flight (she had a whole episode dedicated to her absent-for-the-past-nine-years parents, maybe they'll go two-for-two this season with her and she can fly with RD).

Then again, this episode was pretty bold with how it straight up made the Lesbiaunts truly canon in the best way - by not acknowledging the same-sex couple by pointing it out whatsoever. They're just THERE and everypony acts like it's a perfectly normal thing without calling attention to it.
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Re: S09E12: The Last Crusade

Post by SlateSlabrock (?) » Sat Jun 15, 2019 9:19 pm

On one hand, it's a little odd to have Scoots' parents just leave her in Ponyville, although the CMCs are probably nearly old enough to be moving out on their own by now. Having to move is something a lot of kids will deal with, and just saying, "Nah" isn't going to help them much.

On the other hand, it would've been a downer to say, "I must go now, Shire Lanka needs me! [slide whistle]" this close to the end of the series.

I agree with Fizzbuzz that, moral aside, the ending was a great way to acknowledge how far the CMC have come and how much they've done for others.

I'm glad Scootaloo doesn't live under a bridge. I'm not sure that, in the larger picture, this paints her parents (or even her suddenly-existing aunts) very well, even with the real pressures of adult life.

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Re: S09E12: The Last Crusade

Post by Fizzbuzz (?) » Sat Jun 15, 2019 10:35 pm

The Doctor wrote:
Sat Jun 15, 2019 12:46 pm
A good episode, but I think they missed a great opportunity by having Scootaloo leave. Show is ending and friends moving away is part of life. I think it would have been bold of the team to have that goodbye.
Kronos wrote:
Sat Jun 15, 2019 8:59 pm
I'm with The Doctor in that I was totally expecting the resolution to be Scoot moving away and that she would occasionally come to visit Ponyville on that once-a-month train, while otherwise communicating by letter or something.
As I was going into this, I was actually thinking the opposite. I thought that Scootaloo having to move away and learning to deal with that would be the trite story beat and that her so boldly standing up to her parents is a fresh take. Seems like most shows for kids don't ever say, "hey kids, sometimes your parents are wrong!" I suppose FiM gets away with it here thanks partly to how much its target audience from the beginning has grown up and partly how much Scootaloo and her friends have grown up as well.
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Re: S09E12: The Last Crusade

Post by Captain Rufus (?) » Sat Jun 15, 2019 11:54 pm

Cmc victory lap episode. Kinda ehh except for that. Seemed more like a Silver Quill video on them.

Nice to see Scootaparents though. I don't much care about Aunts being a couple or not cuz shouldn't matter one way or the other just like it shouldn't IRL. (Except sadly due to humanity being pricks to others for any reason that provides an easy target these inclusions ARE important to those who are unjustly marginalized for no valid reason. If this makes sense. If it does feel free to use it or variations on it where needed to explain to others.)

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Re: S09E12: The Last Crusade

Post by Applepie2017 (?) » Sun Jun 16, 2019 11:14 am

deleted
But...
This one's too young

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Re: S09E12: The Last Crusade

Post by Mechanical Ape (?) » Thu Nov 07, 2019 12:40 am

It’s time for Let’s Watch A Ponies (TM)! Tonight is the first of what appears to be multiple episodes in S9 named “The Last [X]”. Jeez, show, you don’t have to rub salt in it. :glare:

• Parents are canon, so Scootaloo’s not an orphan, which would be too depressing. She’s just horribly neglected! :party:
• Cheerilee’s :starity: face is pretty much my own. This is not even close to how I pictured the Scootaloo clan.
:sweetiefrown:
• Oh super, Apple Bloom’s messing with potions again.
:ohboy: “Rarity won’t be mad!” Sweetie Belle, have you watched this show?
• Hey, it’s Troubleshoes!

I didn’t have many notes on this one! It was mostly straight plot with few twists ( :idea: ), subtleties or unique character moments. That’s not necessarily bad but it doesn’t make a lot of space for comments, at least not from me. I mostly just watched the episode and waited to see what would happen next. It was fine.

It’s good to see the CMC get a sendoff. They never got to save Equestria, but they’re hometown heroes and they’ve earned respect, as opposed to being those weird kids who run around annoying everyone. I dunno if I buy that nobody else can do what they do, but Cutie Mark Crusaders Forever is certainly a credo I can get behind, so, good enough for me! :anticipation: :hishovel:
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Re: S09E12: The Last Crusade

Post by LingEarth (?) » Tue Dec 29, 2020 8:36 am

I kinda agree that it would've been better for Scootaloo to actually leave. In the real world, no kid is going to have that compelling a reason to convince their parents not to make them move. OTOH I'm not sure how they could've pulled it off without it feeling like way too sad of an ending for an MLP episode.

I'm not sure how this episode fits with Parental Glideance, where Scoot said she never had anyone around who encouraged her. Sure, her parents weren't around much, but it seems like her aunts were around a lot when her parents weren't, and they were nothing but encouraging in this episode. Oh well. :pinkieshrug:

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