>>34405891Amazing season, at least if you look at the individual episodes. It was also a particularly emotional season, with Starlight's redemption, the CMC's getting their cutie marks, Twilight making amends with an old friend, Colatura's jaw-dropping performance, Luna overcoming her self-hatred, and, though it's not the best episode, Big Mac professing his brotherly love to her sister, Gilda saving Rainbow Dash's life... Maybe I'm having some confirmation bias but all of these manage to crack me up.
Then there is Slice Of Life, some people cringe by it but I love the fast-paced fanservice and references, and indeed it even has an emotional moment of its own. I love the existential horror of Bloom & Gloom as it finishes off the nightmare episodes and in extent tying up the CMC blankflank arc as a whole (not counting Appleoosa's Most Wanted).
The Map permanently expanded the setting from little old Ponyville to all of Equestria. It's a serious shift of show atmosphere but they used it to a very satisfying extent. I'll discuss Glimmer as a cast member in next seasons, but as a season villain who appeared in both the opener and the finale, she did a great job. Not some gigantic monster but instead a simple unicorn who almost brought about the end of reality itself. Sure, her backstory could have used a better backstory and a more justified cause, but I'll buy it. If it were fleshed out just a little more I can see how one wrong step led to another; a lot of things happened between her childhood incident and when she met the Mane 6.