Back at the Legion of Doom...
What do you mean that joke is overdone? What do you mean my jokes are as stale as year-old bread (and probably as moldy)? What do you mean I keep asking "What do you mean?"?
Well, there is one thing I do know! That we were treated to what was a pretty darn stellar villain-centric episode. And we even got a catchy new song out of the deal! With all three of them singing! Definitely a delightful surprise.
Below the break we join
Cozy is right to be concerned and call the centaur out on this one. Leaving food out leads to ants! And nobody wants that! I know that woe all too well.
"I don't trust anything ANY of you say!"
I think that's probably a very good stance to take, Grogar. Especially with the pint-sized master manipulator in your ranks.
Yay best bug!
Honestly I dunno, I just liked the way Chrissy's fangs are bared here, with that look of utter disgust on her face. She IS a queen y'know?! She's got places to go, people to see, hives to be lost! Too soon?
This is actually a sorta cozy little living area Grogar has. For being in the hallowed remains of a large rock, at least.
Cozy back there is giving me the giggles though. I think it's because everyone else here looks so annoyed and miserable, while she has this big stupid grin on her face. Celestia only knows what diabolical and sinister thoughts run through that mind most of the time.
With how much my mouth tends to run, this spell would drive me absolutely batty! Get it? Because I'm a bat! Alright, moving on...
Arts and Crafts with Cozy Glow, tonight at 8:00PM! No, not really. I'd watch it though. 13 easy ways to decorate your evil villain lair! Confetti or streamers? The best way to turn that dark atmosphere from drab to fab!
Or, well, the banner is cute at least. Not only is Cozy an evil mastermind, but she's not a half-bad artist either. +10 inspiration
"You're going to have to exercise A LOT to get as big as you were when you absorbed the life force of all those ponies!"
Dammit, Crazy Glue Cozy Glow. -10 inspiration
Yup. This bug still cray cray!
But that's part of why we love her! And it seems she's still carrying around one of the pieces of wood that made up the mean 6. Twilight, specifically. I wonder if we'll see a return of any of the mean six at some point in the future...
Looks like we've discovered one of big bug queen's weaknesses: cupcakes. Then again, who doesn't have that weakness, amirite? This means Chrissy and Pinkie Pie have something in common! Besides being insane.
Gross, Tirek. But pouty face over there is adorable.
On a completely unrelated note, where did those cupcakes even come from? This certainly doesn't strike me as the type of place to stock cupcakes, cupcake ingredients, or fresh apples.
Gross x2
Don't mind me, I'm just going to screencap all the cute pouty bug moments. Even Tirek is noting Chrissy's less-than-firm grasp on reality.
*cute bug munching noises*
Aw yeah, it's song time! I always get excited when I hear a song begin to start, as I'm sure many do.
Chrissy likes what she see's~
Yeah, I couldn't help myself. That first one actually reminds me of Spike falling in Cowboy Bebop's "Ballad of Fallen Angels".
Pfft!
Just a really cool scene I thought. I like how they've been using the spotlights on each of the villains, too. One of my possible choices as a header image.
"To crush our enemies to dust, and laugh as they all screammmm!"
This is truly, utterly, one demented filly. But she does give some of the very best facial expressions out of anyone in the show. The Many Evil Faces of Cozy Glow. That could be it's own art book.
A bug so nice, she was queen twice!
Gee Chrysalis! How come your mom let's you have two crowns?
Bonus points if you get the meme reference.
I noticed it mentioned a lot, but I'm simply going to echo the many sentiments I read yesterday. It was a really good song! A rather interesting musical style and way to go about it, as well. Something you may not expect for a villain tune and I quite enjoyed that. Plus just look at that choreography!
It had a ton of little moments and facial expressions I wanted to screencap. But I would have been here all night, heh.
This ram is stronk. He noted he's more powerful than all three of them combined, which I suppose was a given anyway. This guy was already a legend way way back when Sombra was the Crystal Empire ruler, and when Tirek was initially rampaging about.
Yay history lesson! We get a little bit of an Equestria history lesson from stronk ram, which includes "Gusty the Great", which I'm assuming is loosely based off the G1 Gusty! I always love when they tie in characters from previous generations of the franchise, into Friendship is Magic. Very cool!
Plus Gusty looks utterly adorable. 10/10, would snuggle.
Seems she stole Grogar's Bewitching Bell, a talisman containing much of his magic. Don't you just hate when that happens? I wonder how she even got her hooves on it to begin with. I'm assuming Grogar probably never took it off. If he were wise, at least. So either Grogar isn't terribly wise, or this is a pony with some serious courage and gumption.
"Well, it sounded easy..."
Haha. You big silly bug. Another one of my possible choices as a header image. So scenic! Can I just build a house and live here?
D'aww, Cozy's outfit is adorbs. I like Chrissy's "What the buck?" reaction.
"... ditch eachother and do it alone..."
Though not completely, Cozy seems to be the only one of the three that understands they need to work together to get things accomplished. Besides stronk ram, of course. Naturally, they're all going to simply ignore the idea and try things the hard way first.
Smug bug. You've heard of a bug in a rug. Well, this is a bug with plenty of smug!
What is that creature even? It appears to just be a giant cloud with eyes.
Sombra, is that you? One "crystallllls~" for yes, two "crystallllls~" for no.
She sure does like that word a lot: "Golly". But here we see the Mastercus Maniputis in it's natural environment doing what it does best: manipulation. What Cozy lacks in things like magic and strength, she makes up for in simply how great she is at getting others to believe or do things for her. In battle it's an incredibly useful a skill.
This guys name is "Rusty Bucket". I know I've touched on this topic before, but who on Earth names their kid "Rusty Bucket"? Especially with how names seem to ultimately dictate what a pony will be or do with their lives.
That was a quick 180 in expression.
Have another.
Did he say... ABBA-LANCHE?!
Oh gee golly gosh, haha. Rusty Bucket has Twilight's book on friendship. I wonder how Cozy is going to react to this...
Yeah, that's pretty much how I expected that to go down. Another awesome Cozy expression at least!
"I didn't wanna be friends anyway."
Awww, now I feel bad for the poor guy. :'(
Looks like Tirek is hard at work building something that will surely be of great use in getting him up the mountain! What could it be? I suppose we will just have to check in with him later to find out...
Love these good ol' animation tropes. You could fry an egg on that pony!
That self-awareness. She even outright admits her special talent is manipulation.
Oops, I did it again~
I like how Rusty Bucket just goes "eh" and walks back inside.
Chrissy, though having gained some ground and made it part way up the mountain, seems to be slowly but surely realizing the fault in her ways to reach the goal.
Let's see how much progress mighty Tirek has made...
Tirek... what?! Is that what you were building this entire several minutes? Tirek, having come to realize Grogar was right and he wouldn't make it to the top on his own, instead decided to hang back and relax while the other two attempted and failed. Well-played, good sir.
"This is NOT the real me! I'm CUTE and LOVABLE!"
Pfft! I died laughing at this scene. The expression alone has me wanting to make this the header to this followup at the moment. These Cozy Glow reactions are just the best!
Tirek even mentions how he is exceptionally wise to Cozy's manipulation tactics and that he actually finds her annoying. Plus she snores. Literally the worst, I tell ya.
Tirek talks to his "GramGram" in his sleep, awww. That's actually sorta sweet. It's hard to imagine someone like Tirek having a family, but he had to have come from somewhere, right? I wonder what his parents and grandparents look like. Or if he has any siblings. So many questions!
Knowing how much the crew love inserting mythological creatures into the series, I'm assuming this creature is the Ophiotaurus. A cow serpent with the head and front legs of a bull, and the tail of a serpent! Pretty cool. So many interesting creatures in this show!
Psyche! It was the badass bug all along. I wonder what it feels like for a changeling to directly feed off your love like that. Draining, I guess is the best word to describe it, it seems.
You thought that was gross, but you didn't think Tirek barfing onto a cupcake and Chrissy eating it was?
And now the bug finally admits defeat as well.
Anyone else a big fan of how Chrissy said "yesss" in this scene? I don't know what it is exactly, but I love the way she said it.
Chrssy is still adorable and awesome. But sometimes this bug is exceedingly creepy. Example: Anytime she cocoons her prey. I was actually glad to see Cozy questioning her about it to learn more. It's nice to see other creatures in the series also find it a little odd or disturbing.
Don't mind me. Just laughing at expressions.
"I've made a detailed list of all the ways I'm a failure!"
This scene was genuinely pretty funny. Bughorse makes a spot-on Twilight!
Poor Rusty Bucket. This guy just can't seem to catch a break. It's going to take him several moons to dig his house out.
This was rather heartwarming to see. Chrissy actually caught and helped Cozy up! Are the bad guys unknowingly learning friendship?! Perish the thought.
The scene also vaguely reminded me of when Starlight held her hoof out for Chrissy way back when.
"I do...?"
Tirek gave me a good chuckle there. Cozy seems to be the pone with the plan, though. While the other two have magic and brute strength at their disposal, Cozy seems to mainly be the brains of the operation. She's clever and quick-witted.
"Would we do that to yooou...? Okay, normally yes, we would!"
Hah! Not terribly convincing there, Cozy.
So much power! *puts on scouter*
"Would that be so terrible?"
Ouch, Chrissy, ouch. Major burn. Tirek even got a little laugh out of that one.
Victory!
One of those heavier scenes in the episode. You can clearly see Tirek is weighing whether he should do the right thing and keep to his word of returning Chrissy's magic or keep it for himself. In the end, he returns the magic to her. Which even surprises him!
It looks like the terrible trio here have learned friendship! The joys of working together, the feeling of having others there for you, the...
Oh, nope, false alarm! Bugbutt here had a abrupt reality check hit her right between those haunches.
Chrissy's hatred and desire for revenge runs just a little too deep for it to be that easy. She is bound and determined to not let the magic of friendship infect her the same way it infected her hive. Or so she proclaims.
As was sorta obvious from the get-go, these three plan to mutiny against Grogar. I have a feeling this plan will eventually backfire on them, however. Like it does. well, nearly every time it is done in a show or film.
Something about villains, especially villains who are natural leaders like these three, is that they do not take orders from others well. Even other villains. Not for long anyway. They will always seek to be the upmost authority figure as they like to be the ones who call the shots. That power of authority is one reason a villain becomes a villain.
So the terrible trio make their way back to Grogar's lair and hide the bell (still within his lair, in the hopes he somehow won't find it) and tell him they were unsuccessful in their mission.
And he buys it! You would think he would be able to conjure some sort of spell or something to be able to detect when it's anywhere nearby. But nope! He simply takes their word for it and storms off in a flustered huff.
Dat foreshadowing~
This was probably one of my favorite episodes this season! It was something fresh and something new! The focus was on a group of characters other than the mane or student six. We got a good bit of character growth from the three villains, a little bit more Equestria history, an awesome song, and the usual plethora of fun and silly moments! So this was a very solid episode in my opinion.
What were your opinions on this episode? Did you really enjoy it or not care much for it? Give your thoughts down in those comments below! Until next time, adventurers! Cobalt Comet out!
