oh my, this is the scariest artwork I've done, even I think I exaggerated a bit, sure I wanted Rarity to look evil, but not this much, and well… I LOVE IT!!! just like I loved Inspiration Manifestation, and I'm so sorry to upload this like 2 weeks late when everyone is talking about how the finale will be.

Just like my Trenderpoop artwork, this episode 'inspired' me to write about it, and of course what can be better than pairing it with a nice artwork.

This episodes had 2 impacts in me. The first one was the first reaction of it, and I was focused on Rarity the whole time. I cannot say this enough, Rarity creeped the hell out of me, like seriously I'm not joking, and I know many of you say the same, but I make a big deal out of it because I would expect these creepy moods from scary videogames like resident evil, not in a cartoon for kids, let alone MLP. Her evil eyes, combined with Tabitha's St. Germain godlike VA abilities (best voice actress BTW), with the background music and the escalating of the plot made Rarity a pretty good villain, even if her mission was to 'beautify' Equestria, that still would have lead to the path of it's own destruction.
Now, because of this when I finished the episode I was very confused, did I liked it, did I hated it? I could not answer those questions because even if it makes complete sense to have dark magic in a world like Equestria, seeing Rarity this way took me off guard, add to that that I spoiled myself on the hub's facebook page when they showed a picture of Rarity with the evil eyes, but this picture did not do justice to the amound of darkness that sorrounded the episode, and it's rather silly because after re-watching it like a million of times, it doesn't feel as dark as I thought it was but first impression is always important.
Sadly, me being focusing on Rarity, because I was still procesing what my eyes was seeing, could not notice how good Spike was in this episode. I haven't seen in a long while a good Spike episode, and I'm not saying Power Ponies was bad, but Spike was kinda meh there, I was more thrilled about the ponies superpowers.

Now the second impact, when I actually watched the epsode more times, and actually watched a lot of blind reactions, made me focus more on Spike and this episode was so good for him and no other pony could be more perfect that help him learn this lesson than Rarity. Many say that this is a Spike and Rarity episode, but I think it was a Spike episode, because Rarity was posessed by the spell, or curse, so she wasn't being herself till the end.
I've seen in a lot of reviews that the lesson was a honesty one which was used in other episodes, and I couldn't disagree with that more. Sure it was an honesty lesson but it was a new form of honesty that has never been explored in the show before, and it was a little blunt of Spike writting in the diary starting with ' I learned that it's important to be honest with your friends' but it's okay since it's a kids show and morals shouldn't be that complex, it's up to us adults to understand the depth in that moral.
Yes it is a honesty moral, but it was based off the fact that Spike is so inflatuated with Rarity that he literally puts her in pedestal, which leads me to the next question.

Is Spike still in love with Rarity?

Answer is no, but I'm still not sure, but it is more likely to be a no. Judging by the events in Simple Ways, Spike seemed to be really indiferent by the fact that Rarity had a crush on someone else and he was ironically sarcastic when Rarity told him that he didn't know what it was like to be in love with someone that doesn't love you back, by the way he looked at the camera.
I think Spike finally realized that Rarity would never be for him but he still keeps a level of admiration for her that almost feels like he still has a crush on her, for example in Filli Vanilli when he praised Rarity singing while he practically ignored the rest of the group.

This fact combined with the situation that Spike was put in Inspiration Manifestation makes Spike reactions and desisions even more relatable and exquisite to observe.
At first when he was at the castle of the 2 sisters, he seemed oblivious about the book being a source of evil magic. But I think he always knew it was evil because you could see that he was a bit rushed to return the book, this could be because he took an 'important' book from the castle without asking and he knew Twilight would scold him for doing so or because he knew all the way it was evil and he wanted it just to help Rarity with the fair and nothing more, I'm still not sure about that.
However But as soon as he saw Rarity in her house overdoing her fashion works, he noticed she wasn't ok despite her telling him she was in fact, ok. This same thing is confirmed, when she put an uncomfortable gown on Rainbow Dash while she was cloud busting when he said that nothing could be wrong because it was just a dress.
At this point I'm sure Spike already knew that he needed Rarity to stop, but he messed up several times by persuading her and still praising her work even if he knew it wasn't ok.
Owlowiscious played an important role here, and it was amazing. But before I talk about Owlowiscious, I want to get 1 things out. First, the 'who' joke is stupid already and it's not funny anymore, this is one of those jokes that are meant to be used just once, this seriously makes Spike seem stupid, I think he is very naive but not at stupid levels.
Moving on, Owlowiscious was constantly pressuring Spike to stop Rarity in her 'making all beautiful spree', and it was great, because if Owlowiscious was replaced with any other pony, they would just get Twilight and the plot wouldn't work at all. The fact that he can't talk put even more weight into Spike shoulders and not only that, the owl was an interpretation of the frustration that we, as viewers, felt seeing Spike fooling around and following Rarity but not able to tell her the truth. We all felt like 'Spike, what are you doing dude?'…This constant chasing of Rarity and not resolving anything but also don't having the courage to tell her the truth could make Spike seem annoying like he is normally in the show.
Well, to me, he was, but he was annoying in the right way, because he was in a spot many people, no matter the age, can relate. I don't want to say that he still has a crush on Rarity, but he has a level of adoration for her, that he cannot share with any other pony, not even Twilight. Her friendship means a lot to him, but I noticed he's also afraid of her at the same time, he's afraid of losing her…so he's willing to lie, to keep her friendship, even if he doesn't agree with her choices, he praise her and give her empty compliments, you could see that at the beginning of the episode when the pupeteer despised Rarity's work despite how gorgeous it looked.
I first thought that pupeteer was an asshole, but he made good points because Rarity's work was only focused on looks over functionability. Anywho, when Rarity ran off crying he told her that it was amazing but his facial expression kinda betrayed him, he was sad that she was sad, but also I think he also acknowledged that the pupeteer made good points in critizicing Rarity's work.

I found Spike's internal battle fascinating to watch and I kind of realized that Spike has self-esteem issues, like big ones. I could be going ahead of me with this, but these are the things that make a character 3-dimensional, how many layers of depth it has. This episode delivered so much without even showing it.

Now, I think the episode could have been more entertaining. For instance, the section that was held in the castle of the 2 sisters was too long, there were unneded bits most of them about Owlowiscious 'whooing' at Spike. Talking about 'whooing', Owlowiscious whoos were very bad, he mostly sounded like a guy trying to laugh.
Even if I said that Owlowiscious here was brilliant, I would have prefered to see less of him and more of Twilight. I would have liked more small scenes of Twilight trying to find who's responsible for the sudden change of Ponyville. That would have added Spike 2 sources of stress and more pressure to tell Rarity the truth.
Rarity gave me the major chills at the ending, and I would have liked the spell to end in the same way as it escalated. The resolution of the episode was too quick and it felt rushed. I would have liked that after the scene when Spike says no to Rarity and she turns back and say 'what did you say?', she would have been slowly walking to him with a pissed off look, while he walks back scared and almost stuttering he tells her the truth but still doubting of what he's doing. You know what I mean? more drama.

Anywho, all in all, this is one of Spike's major highlights, and I haven't seen an episode that I could appreciate about him since season 2. I normally don't give fuck about Spike because he always ruin something important or he breaks something, for the sake of comedy and I hate when characters are used like that. I can't even say that he was out of character because I don't think he has a consistent personality that I can think about, till Inspiration Manifestation and Equestria Games, which are BTW, both great episodes that are about Spike.

Rarity is cute and fabulous , I should not draw her like this again…maybe