Alright, still a bit mixed on the sleep, so this could be a little scattered.
I don't have strong negative emotional reaction to this at all but I think I understand if someone did. The plot is sound in concept and I enjoyed the team's antics well enough but the drivers of the plot seem a bit off. I could see some taking issue with how Rainbow Dash acted a bit irresponsibly and Twilight Sparkle setting up Dash to lead the cheering squad in the first place did seem pretty arbitrary and her doing that as a teaching to RD seemed like it was just thrown in the end of the episode almost as excuse thrown in at the end. Though I'd say such antics aren't completely without precedent. I mean does anypony remember The Mysterious Mare Do Well? The episode would've been more interesting if it had been established as a dynamic within the episode (or at least dropped a hint). Also, I think they could've had it good with it being a co-staring episode with Smolder having costar status and point of view so RD and her could clash and they both get character development from it . I suppose this could however put pressure on screentime for everypony though. The biggest elephant in the room however is I think is less with the episode and more with th context around it. It's one of the last episodes of the show, one which is running out of time and arguably has a lot of elements that could use some development. Perhaps larger still is the fact that if this is RD's last episode it didn't do anything new for her. It didn't do anything big, even on a small scale of fanservice. So your left with a somewhat lackluster episode that doesn't further the storyline of either one of the main staring cast's possibly last solo roll or the new B team, which I do have fears of being crowed out. At the same time can I really expect every episode of the last season to be big or at least resolve final arcs and unanswered questions. I'm not so sure how far I can hold that context against this episode. I actually still enjoyed most of the episode TBH, I liked the SoL and the cute little antics. These are the questions I think up in regards to the plot.
So my final verdict: If I treat this as, like it way it probably was written, an ordinary episode of MLP, it's slightly lackluster. The story could be better, the dynanics of the character could be better, but it isn't anything that I'll spend my time really thinking about as it isn't really a shining example and I'd rate it a 6.9 or maybe a 6.5 depending on how out of line you consider TS and RD, because I still enjoyed it. With context, IDK. I'm not sure I can fully answer that right now.
