Season two was a fantastic follow up to season 1, it introduced a lot more antagonist characters then season 1, all with their own personality that made you love em or hate them. With adding more antagonistic characters like iron will, flim and flam even spike, and especially Discord and Chrysalis, it introduced different challenges for the mane 6 to face and overcome. I mean, who doesn't love and good villain? It started out with Discord, who was hilarious and devious, that two-parter was great and emotional. Yes since its a kids cartoon obviously the mane 6 would get back together, but honestly seeing them split and Twilight's heart broken had me choking up a bit as well. Then ending with chrysalis, introducing a new dangerous species and a sadistic queen who can look like anyone, great and fun. Season one of mlp had the 6 mainly deal with their own issues and it had to introduce us to theses six random ponies and why we should care about them, so when season 2 came around, introductions were done so it let us see the great villains we know.
Besides the villains and stakes that arouse, another thing was improved, the music. Half the music in season 1 was great and the other half was okay, but for the most part it was just pinkie being goofy. Season 2 they outdid themselves: Smile, this day aria, BBBFF, Flim flalm brothers, Find a pet, Love is in bloom, Becoming popular and even the perfect stallion, All great, all catchy, if any of theses com on when i'm listening to my music playlist i NEVER skip. If MLP is to be know for anything is how great the music is, most the songs are catchy, fun, sad, everything and i say it all started with this season.
Character-wise we do see sliiiiiiight development. It's not a serialized show, you could watch pretty much any episode in any order except premiere and finale. So because of that, characters in MLP don't usually have major arcs or changes (until later seasons) but despite that there was still slight changes that made me like some of my least favorite ponies more. Rarity stuck up for her friends at the canterlot party, going with spike to the dragonlands and even got covered in mud for the sisterhoove social, showing she is capable and willing to get out of her comfort zone for her friends. Rainbow dash got humbled by mare-do-well, pinkie pie learned responsibility after watching the babycakes, fluttershy got confidence after dealing with iron will and making the tornado, we saw applejack willing to work harder to help others when she when to the cherry farm. I think my favorite slow change for a character was twilight, in this season we saw her develop her 'twilightisms' that we later see a LOT more. With the episode where there wasn't a friendship problem so she made one and the episode where she messed with time travel, it shows how in her own head she got and why its was a bad thing for her, but it also paved the way to be one of the funnier gags of the show where twilight just loses it.
A minor thing to add is that the quality of animation for the show has definitely improved, not majorly but you can tell the animators got comfortable and now experimented with giving the ponies their practically rubber bodies, in season one they were more stiff, usually in a lot of default poses and angles. In season two we can see them experimenting more, especially with pinkie.
Overall season 2 was a great follow up and paved the way for great villains, fantastic songs and growing characters with conflicts.
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