I really enjoyed this episode. I don't think I've ever seen a more entertaining representation of the five stages of grief.
It is entirely possible that she apologized off camera. I mean, look at how happy the rest of the town is at the end. I think that much can be implied. I think it's also entirely possible that the rest of her friends were truly understanding of just how much Tank means to Dashie. She LOVES that little guy and she'd do anything for him. She's very impulsive and since her emotional attachment to him clouded her reasoning, I honestly don't believe the possibility of really putting anyone at risk ever crossed her mind. She knew it was wrong but didn't believe it was dangerous. I feel like her heart was kind of in the right place even though her head was way out in left field.
I thoroughly enjoyed this episode and all of the references. This is only the second episode now in all five seasons to make me do a double take with the Game of Thrones reference (the first is the "punch has been spiked" quip made in Owl's Well That Ends Well back in season 1). So for me, this episode felt strongly like a throwback to the first season for that reason. The Applejack cries on the inside bit was fantastic as well. There was a comment regarding Rainbow Dash showing only loyalty to herself in this episode, and therefore going against her element. I would argue that she was showing loyalty to Tank, and just wanting to make sure that Tank was happy. The writing was weird in representing this though, as it did make it appear it was just Rainbow Dash being selfish. As for the catastrophic factory destruction, that wasn't intentional on her part. She merely was going for a malfunction to stop the process of winter being successfully produced (wow that was weird to write), but then everything just started going wrong. I'll continue to stand by Rainbow Dash, because her particular element is the one I feel the strongest connection to. I'll end this by just saying that I'm sure we would all like to find someone who will love us as much as Rainbow Dash loves Tank.
I think that it makes sense for the loyalty pony of all ponies to have trouble with letting go, and her blowing everything way out of proportion is completely in-character for Rainbow Dash. It was hilarious, too, so no complaints from me.
There was one more thing I wanted to point out. Rainbow Dash was surprised by Tank's hibernation because, as she said, this was their first winter together. Tank was introduced in the seventh episode of Season Two. If there was no winter between Season Two and Season Five... We now have absolute confirmation of a timeline. The theory that the series took place in the span about a year has been shown to be correct. This also shows that the official MLP books are not canon, because they didn't get the timeline right. This is actually kind of a big deal, now that I think about it.
How is that a big deal? It hasn't been just a theory since the first episode of season 4. Celestia practically spelled it out right there.
It really made me like Fluttershy a lot more. She gave me some laughs with her attitude at first but she was still caring. And yes, Rainbow Dash showed so much personality. I love her so much but this was really a shining episode for her. Plus I liked her song. It was pretty great imo.
Unfortunately, practically spelling it out isn't good enough for some people. There were a number of people who still stubbornly clung to their headcanons in the face of overwhelming circumstantial evidence.
