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Saturday, August 3, 2019

MLP Episode 914: The Last Laugh

Well, here we go again. We're now onto the final block of episodes for My Little Pony, and come October, that'll be the end of the line for the show. And we're kicking things off with the return of "Weird Al" Yankovic as Cheese Sandwich! Can it live up to expectations?

The Last Laugh
Written by Michael P. Fox & Wil Fox

If you want a brief, blunt answer, absolutely not. If anything, it was practically a Pinkie Pride rip-off, and the things it did to try and stand out on its own just made the viewing experience worse and, dare I say it, more tedious.

So the overall premise is that Pinkie tries to find her life's purpose. Right off the bat, there's a flaw; we've seen for eight years that her purpose was to throw parties and make other ponies happy. Isn't that the reason she got her cutie mark in the first place? Oh wait, this is season nine where eight years' worth of continuity has been thrown out the window just because. I get it.

As for the rest of the story, like I said, it rehashes Pinkie Pride, only based in a factory and none of the humor or charm. Sure, there's comedy, but it's practically tired old gags that could literally be in any series.

Frankly, it didn't feel like it was worth bringing back Weird Al for this episode. When we're reintroduced to Cheese Sandwich, he's stuck in his own factory and completely lost his laugh. Talk about anticlimactic. And that's not mentioning how painfully obvious the solution is; all he had to do was make other ponies laugh. Oh, and him leaving the factory behind (well, mostly) just makes this already pointless conflict even more so.

If the episode had a bright spot, I would say that Pinkie was fairly well-written like a genuine friend who wants to help, and Cheese Sandwich was also pretty sympathetic despite the obvious outcome. Don't know what to think about Sans Smirk though, when all I could think of was a genderbent Maud Pie with glasses at least until the end...

Final Thoughts
Normally, I'd offer up solutions for improving an episode, but all I really need to do is direct your attention to Pinkie Pride; the humor feels more genuine, the conflict is stronger, the ending has a sense of finality with Cheese's character. The Last Laugh is creatively bankrupt. I guess the old saying is true; the bigger the hype, the greater the disappointment.

Watching this episode personally, it felt like a painful reminder as to how little I've been enjoying this season, but we're just getting started on the second half...

Rating: Bad (1/10)

1 comment:

  1. If this is supposed to be the final episode focusing on Pinkie Pie, then it's an extremely pathetic way to go out, especially considering she's my favorite along with Fluttershy.

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