The Last Laugh Review (Spoilers for American Fans) · 5:24pm Jul 7th, 2019
Well, any hope for the second half of the season not to be leaked is officially dashed. It wasn't a mistake that China aired this episode early, it turns out they've got the second half all wrapped up and delivered to them for dubbing. And like with Italy, the official English version pops up not long afterward. And they show no signs of stopping, so chances are the series finale will be upon us even sooner than we might have thought, which will make avoiding spoilers really difficult. But even if the series finale comes out early, I intend to wait until it comes to the U.S., likely in October. In the meantime though, you all know what's coming.
So, kicking off the second half of the final season, we have a Pinkie Pie focus episode. Pinkie hasn't had a proper one since "Yakity Sax" in Season 8, which ironically ended up airing early even though it wasn't the official fourteenth episode of the season. Just like that episode, the Fox brothers Michael P. and Will wrote this episode. Considering "Yakity Sax" had Pinkie in an unbelievably selfish role that knocked her way down, and that she has been slowly struggling to get back to the top, this episode came at an important crossroads for her. And to help, we have the return of Weird Al Yankovic as Cheese Sandwich (he's had a few roles since then, including The Riddler and Captain Peanut Butter). So, with all these ingredients together in one place, was this episode able to live up to expectations? Or has it raised concerns that the series might be going out with a whimper? Well, let's find out.
We begin on a similar note to "Not Asking for Trouble" where Pinkie gathers all her friends (except Starlight) and reveals an invitation she got. This time it's to visit an official gag factory run by Cheese Sandwich himself. It seems that Pinkie has started to wonder what her life's purpose is, pointing out how even Applejack has her life figured out (except she really doesn't, living on the family farm is something she was born into and has more or less been confined to because the writers never bothered to give her any other goal to strive for). I find it kind of odd they don't mention Sugarcube Corner or the Cakes, let alone how important Pinkie has been established as being to Ponyville's overall morale.
So Pinkie goes to the factory and meets up with a very dry witted stallion who oversees production of all the gags, even a banana peel that slips on its own. Apparently they believe in a scientific approach to comedy, even down to combining two gags into one for bigger laughs. So we're talking a Monsters Inc. approach to something psychological.
Pinkie asks to see Cheese Sandwich, and enters his office to find that the party pony has lost his laugh. Even Boneless Two no longer wants anything to do with him. Cheese hopes Pinkie can help him, and reveals that he used to still be a traveling party pony. But as time went by he started to develop original gags for each pony he met, and soon everyone in Equestria wanted one. Cheese couldn't turn them down, but found it hard to keep up with demand. So he decided to open the factory and oversee production of the gags shipped out all over Equestria. Sounds kind of like Santa Claus, except instead of toys he makes gags and props for physical humor.
What we get from here on is a pretty serious look at actual depression, and they play it pretty straight. Oh sure, they do try to lighten up the mood with some jokes and gags, but Cheese alone feels like a very real representation of depression. It's not something you can just snap out of, something that you can talk someone out of. Even professional therapy or medication can only do so much to treat the problem. The only thing that truly cures depression is time, and even then it's possible to relapse and you may never fully recover. The show has tackled depression before, but never from an angle like this. Most cases of depression show have been brief, when a character is at their lowest, and then they spend the episode working to build back up to where they were. But even though the show has tackled this kind of subject material before, the nature of it works against it for this portrayal. It's out of its comfort zone and can only do so much to keep the episode from feeling like a drag. That being said, I do get a sort of Jack Skellington vibe with Cheese Sandwich, tiring of the same old thing that you've always been doing.
Eventually, Cheese gives up and Pinkie prepares to go away. But then she realizes the problem, Cheese can't see the laughs he's hoping to produce, and not being able to see the results of his hard work have robbed him of his joy and ability to laugh. Pinkie goes back to him and encourages him to tell jokes, which manage to get a giggle out of the factory workers when he mixes up the words. This leads into the song official titled "Last Laugh" but I feel like it needs a better title than that. Still, Weird Al is in top form here as Cheese slowly goes back to being what he used to be. In a way, he kind of feels like Willy Wonka from "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory".
Cheese decides to go back on the road and leaves the factory in the hooves of the stallion who originally came to him with the idea for it. And Pinkie Pie realizes that she's good at what she already does, spreading laughs and making others smile. It's not bad, but I feel like it would've been better had Cheese at least instructed her to check up on the factory while he was gone. The episode ends with Pinkie narrating her story to the others and using one of the gag peanut brittle cans to spray everyone with confetti. So I guess now she doesn't need her party cannon.
And that's the story, so what do I think of the episode? Well as I said, it's a very serious look at depression and it plays it shockingly straight. But that works against the show because it's always been so cheerful and optimistic, a sense that things will get better. Trying to add in Pinkie's worries about her life's purpose felt out of place since they come up and get resolved with little real fanfare, and she's basically back in the same place she was at the start of the episode. Of course, she was in top form here, and I think it again shows how well she can be when written properly. She is able to empathize with others and knows how to make them laugh and feel better about themselves. The idea of Cheese opening a gag factory and losing his laugh are nice, but the episode's dry humor from its supporting character can make scenes feel like a drag. It'd have been nice if Pinkie got to spread cheer to the factory workers herself, and that's what motivated Cheese to go back to his old ways. In the end, I give this episode a narrow A-, putting it above "Student Counsel" which felt like a holdover script from Season 8 retooled to fit Season 9, but below "The Beginning of the End" which set up some interesting ideas for the final season.
Now the next episode is "2, 4, 6, Great" in which Rainbow Dash becomes furious when she is passed over for the position of Buckball Coach at the School of Friendship. But for now I have no desire to see it or the episode after it early, because from what I've heard both of them have the character of focus look really bad. And considering Rainbow Dash has been doing well up to this point, I really don't wanna sit through some unbearable performances from her and Twilight until I can be sure that the show will get back on track.
For me, this episode is good, but it's a bit disappointing because it should have been great. Though that might be because I went in expecting something super hilarious like Pinkie Pride was.
I'll see how I feel when it gets its US premiere.
As for the next two:
2, 4, 6, Greaaat is one of the season's weaker episodes, but I feel it gets too much hate.
A Trivial Problem is one of the funniest episodes of the series. I won't say why yet, but it IS my favorite of the released episodes of the second half of the season so far.
5085441 I feel like that's because this episode is taking itself so serious on the subject of depression. And that's working against it. Depression is just not a subject matter that fits with the show's still overall light-hearted, kid-friendly nature. This is really something that would be more at home in say "Bojack Horseman" or "Rick and Morty" shows were you expect these kind of things to be more serious.
5085443
That's definitely the biggest issue.
Though once Cheese Sandwich started singing, that was the best part of the episode.
My God, this episode was stupid!
What a waste of a perfectly good comedian! Weird Al was utterly wasted in this! So far this is the worst episode of the season!
5085441 That episode made me hate Rainbow Dash and honestly, the best part of "A Trivial Pursuit" was Pinkie's weight gain sequence . This is the third time they've done this lesson!
5085452 I don't think this episode was stupid. As I said, it's a very serious take on depression, but in this case that plays to the show's weaknesses because it is just not used to making that the focus of an episode. Weird Al was great, once again showing off his range.
And yeah, I don't get why we're recycling the moral for "Trivial Pursuit"! I'm starting to give up hope of Twilight ever being written competently in a lead role again.
Yeah after that godawful teacher of the month episode, I'm certain "2, 4, 6, Great" is gonna be a pain because it kinda reminds me of that.
Also, it was nice to hear Weird Al in a depressed tone for some reason.
The show started going downhill BIG TIME when Season 8 started airing. There's only 4 maybe 5 episodes out of that entire season that didn't have me cringing through the whole thing from how bad they were. From what I've seen here, it might not be worth watching Season 9. Things have gotten too convoluted to really enjoy the show anymore. Aside from the few episodes I liked in Season 8, I would've been happy if the series had ended with the movie.
5085443 This episode wasn't about depression.
5085486 Too right. I especially hated Cozy Glow. Her being in season 9 hasn't made me like it any more.
5085468 What made this episode so stupid was the focus of the episode: Pinkie trying to find her purpose in life, which came completely out of nowhere. Didn't she say in "A Friend in Deed" that the thing that made her whole.life worthwhile was seeing her friends smile? And the solution to the "conflict" of this episode, which was non-existent, was obvious from the first seven minutes that made up the first act. And once again, this episode was not about depression in any sense of the word.
As for Twilight in "A Trivial Pursuit", I didn't have a problem with her, as she's been known to have freakouts over trivial stuff before ("It's About Time", "Lesson Zero", "The ticket Master", even in "The Beginning of thr End" are prime examples of this), so as far as I can tell this wasn't out of character for her. My biggest problem with "A Trivial Pursuit" was the fact that it had maybe five minutes of plot, whereas the other seventeen minutes was devoted to the animators seeing how many meme-worthy faces they could shove into a twnty-two-minute episode. (Seriously, they've been doing this crap since season six!) The only part of this episode that I thoroughly enjoyed was Pinkie's weight gain sequence. That made watching the episode at least worth it.
5085470 Having seen the episode, I can tell you that you had better be prepared to have yet another reason to hate Rainbow Dash.
As soon as Pinkie narrated the episode to her friends, she then proceeds to narrate on how she narrated the episode. That bit made me laugh, and the look on Rarity's and Applejack's faces when she was about to narrate it again.
5085492
A Trival Problem felt unfinished for me somehow. I don't know, it felt like I only watched half of an episode. We don't even get to know if they win or not. I was hoping Pinkie would pull something out of her sleeve and make them win, since their chances of winning was pretty low. Rainbow Dash, Applejack and Flutters are apparently great at Trivia, just look at their numbers. Twilight said Team Appledash is almost unstoppable, I wish Applejack and Rainbow Dash got paired, instead having completely silent partners that contributed almost nothing to the episode. Rarity was completely absent in that episode, and they didn't come up for a reason why. I guess she's attending her boutiques in Canterlot or Manehattan? They even come up for reason for Starlight not being there. They all said that Maud and Mud Briar were pretty good, but they had even lower numbers then the other three teams, so that confused me. Twilighting is getting old fast the more I watch these episodes, and they just keep shoving that in our faces. Also Rainbow Dash, again, was the one pushing the competition between her and Applejack.
5085441
agreed on all fronts
I have high doubts that 2, 4, 6, Greaaat will portray Rainbow Dash in such a negative light. It’s just rumors so far. This is like “The Last Crusade,” Where there were rumors that the Cutie Mark Crusaders WOULD break up, which didn’t happen at all. I don’t trust it.
5085471 Well, it's nice to see more range from him. I forgot to mention that he also plays the main character in Milo Murphy's Law and also did the theme song. The show's currently in something of a bubble, it hasn't been officially cancelled but Disney hasn't said they've renewed it for another season either.
5085468
Dude, I know you haven't exactly been pleased with how Season 9 is abusing Twilight's freak outs, but I would like to offer up a theory. What if the show staff is having Twilight freak out more than usual in order to set up a plot point or something in the series finale? Like she does so much "twilight-ing" that it gets to the point where her friends either hold an intervention about it or don't believe her à la The Boy Who Cried Wolf when she tries to warn them about an impending doom aka Groger and his team? Maybe it wouldn't completely forgive how she was written this season, but at least it would make a little bit of sense. What do you think?
5085709 That would be really lazy writing and a poor justification for them running that character trait into the ground. If they're able to lampshade it, and if they're willing to write an episode like "The Point of No Return" where Twilight is supposed to learn not to obsess over perfection, then they know her freak outs have become too predictable. And lampshading a problem doesn't make it go away, pointing out your problem doesn't magically make it disappear.
5085713
Hey, I never said it was a good explanation. I'm just saying it would at least explain why they're focusing so much on her freak outs. I mean, it's better than assuming the writers are doing this just because they want to see how far they can push having Twilight go "twily-nanas" before the series ends.
It was good to see Cheese Sandwich and Boneless 2 again. It did make since that Cheese couldn't laugh because he spent most of his time inside of the gag factory instead of causing laughter for everypony. I liked Cheese's assistant as he can be funny even though he acts different from Pinkie, kinda reminds me of Maud.
It was nice to see Cheese come back. Sans was an interesting character.