There were two guards escorting Cadance off the train, one crystal and one non-crystal. I wondered if the non-crystal one was him, but I didn't remember with confidence and didn't care enough to double check it.

New episode put out early.

Non-spoiler impression: REALLY GOOD

It was quite good. The music was okay (and one song sounded very similar to something from EG), but the polka really stood out. That's something that Weird Al is known for, though. Him singing the Smile song was an excellent touch.

I did enjoy the comedy in this episode, and Pinkie's story was told well. My least favourite part was, once again, the journal stuff. This really solidifies in my mind the biggest problem with the show. Which is to say, far too often do they assault you with the moral of the story and really bludgeon you over the head with friendship in the most cheesy (heh) way possible. This episode was one of the better ones in that regard, though.

spurge; Nope. It looks hideous. The only pony related game I was interested in was Fighting is Magic (fan made), but that's been killed by Hasbro. Maybe the Rise of the Lunarbolts RPG, but I don't know if that one will ever see the light of day.

Except for the music, the thing could be made in Game Maker in about 5 seconds.

This episode felt like an expanded version of the Season 1 Sleepover episode (whose name eludes me atm), contrasting Rarity and Applejack again. I do wish they would have made more of a point of the parallel between Rarity's infatuation with Trenderhoof and Spike's infatuation with her. Spike was aware of it, but the plot could have been richer for it.

"Filli Vanilli" was a dumb name for an episode, but it was a good episode back to addressing Fluttershy's shy. Flutterguy was an excellent continuity nod that didn't feel forced (at first i was bothered by the idea that they could just have Fluttershy replace Big Mac in the group due to the vast difference in vocal range, then Rarity came up with the perfect .

One key point that could have made it better, again, would've been bringing more on Big Mac's obvious growing discomfort at having to lip-sync for so long.

Nice ending in that it didn't completely void her stage fright, but got her going forward.

Pinkie was a jerk this episode.

The new episode with the Breezies was quite good, except I was a little put off by how utterly dependent they are on pegasus assistance. I guess it can be excused by the fact that they are visitors from another land/world, but one wonders how the setup got started in the first place.

Anybody see the bronie documentary on YouTube? It isn't my kind of thing but I was struck by their sense of community and dedication to the show.

There's a lot of stuff in Equestria that seems as if the ponies neglect to micromanage it, it will completely spin out of control. It's like the opposite of nature as we know it, where human intervention can help in some cases but is usually detrimental.

I always love a good fluttershy-focused episode, and this one did some good exploring, though it was a bit heavy on the aesop and less time focused on comedy (unlike many episodes in this season), making it feel a bit less joyful.

That's very true, it just seemed a lot more extreme in the case of the Breezies to me.  One stray leaf spelled disaster, and a seemingly very narrow window of wind strength was required.