Rainbow Falls is one of the more intriguing titles of Season 4, and MLP in general. When it was first unveiled, I thought it simply met ‘Rainbow Falls’ as in waterfalls. But fans brought up the fact that what if by ‘falls,’ what if she actually falls physically or something else? Last week we had the alright ‘Pinkie Apple Pie,’ so I was hoping the show would bounce back with a great episode. This is definitely one of the season’s highlights. It has a fun story, a great end moral, and above all else…the return of the Queen of Muffins.

Here’s the official episode description from The Hub:

Rainbow Dash is excited to be part of the Ponyville relay team for the Equestria Games. But when the Cloudsdale team becomes impressed with some of her moves, they give Rainbow Dash the chance to be part of their team. Now Rainbow Dash must choose which team is perfect for her.

Out of all the episodes, I think this one has the most voice-work outside the main characters. A lot of the Pegasi get lines here and there. This can definitely be called a Rainbow Dash episode, but the rest of the ponies have some nice roles. Twilight for example has some compelling dialogue with Rainbow later in the episode. When the latter asked, “What would you do?” in reference to what team she should choose to be a part of, Twilight simply replies, “I think this is a decision you have to make on your own.” And then later when Rainbow is pretending to be out of commission, Twilight states, “You know, choosing not to choose isn’t really a decision.” The writers have been knocking her dialogue out of the park this season. Everyone could use a friend like her. But anyways, back to Rainbow Dash’s story…

Fluttershy and Bulk Biceps make for a pretty interesting team. Personally I hope they team-up again down the road. Perhaps my only true complaint are the Wonderbolts. Throughout the show they have been portrayed as the legendary heroes of Equestria. In this episode they (Spitfire and Fleetfoot) actually use deceit to get Rainbow on their team. It seems all they care about is winning. It’s an interesting side to them, but I don’t think fans will like it. I certainly didn’t. Their whole portrayal after Soarin’ went down for the count felt extremely off. Even though they tried to redeem themselves in the end, it’s not enough. Now I can never view them as true heroes. Maybe that was the point?

One of the biggest things, the biggest thing about this episode is the return of…

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Derpy!

After a good number of episodes she returns. When Meghan McCarthy wrote a tweet with a picture of muffins, everyone knew something was up. While Queen Muffin doesn’t get any dialogue, it’s still fantastic to see her get a role outside of being a background pony. Sure, newer viewers won’t get it but this is a thumbs up to longtime fans. Now, the other big thing I think personally is the end message. Choosing friends over winning when it comes to competitions and things like that, it’s important. Sports and other things of the like will go away, but great friends usually don’t. So hats off to Corey Powell for brilliantly delivering that message. Even if the Wonderbolts seemed off, the writing was great nonetheless.

Overall, ‘Rainbow Falls’ is a very solid episode. It’s definitely one of the better Rainbow Dash installments. The story is good and feels ‘important.’ There’s a conclusion to the premise, unlike the previous episode. Derpy returns, and that’s enough to make the episode for a lot of people. The writing is great, especially with Rainbow and Twilight. These two need to have more dialogue with one another, it’s a ‘rarity’ that they get to talk to each other without any other ponies in the setting. The Wonderbolts’ portrayal might seem iffy at best, and at the worst downright awful. But it won’t ruin the episode. ‘Rainbow Falls’ will definitely go down as a highlight from Season 4.

4/5

Daniel is a huge fan of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. His favorite is Fluttershy and you can follow him on Twitter: @Destroyer_199