Every once in a while you come across an episode of Power Rangers that should not be looked at the same as its preceding season’s episodes. These episodes go beyond filler, serve little purpose and can make you cringe with every line written. But, these episodes happen to be the backbone of Power Rangers and the series has seen more than it’s share of this genre. “Last Laugh” is one of those episodes; we see no story progression, get a few strained laughs and fill time with a random story line. It is hard for me to critique this episode because I feel like the only bad part are the jokes, but isn’t that the point? One could only come to think that the writers knew what they were doing in this instance and created the most cringe worthy jokes they could muster up. Let’s go through the episode!
We open on the Rangers walking through some sort of festival and Gia comes across the Festival of Laughs where two people are standing in front of a crowd telling jokes. For some reason, she wants to check it out and drags the others over with her.
Needless to say the jokes are all terrible but Gia notices that Noah is the only one not laughing. (besides the people at home.)
The others attempt to explain to Noah how these types of jokes work, but Noah feels like he understands all that. It’s just that the jokes aren’t funny. Emma and Gia suggest not to take them so seriously and to let go.
As Gia turns around to face the jokers, she laughs even harder and suddenly transforms into a ball of light!
Around the Rangers, the other patrons transform as well!
The balls of laugh light float into a vessel held by the monster, NoJoke!
Laughter annoys him, so he captures all those who laugh in his bottle!
NoJoke has captured Gia and when her time runs out the captured will dissolve and be NoJoke’s delicious drink!
Malkor congratulates Vrak on his Laughter idea and how easy it will be to destroy the humans with this scheme!
RoboKnight joins the chase as NoJoke takes a run for it, the Rangers morph and attempt to capture the gourd bottle where Gia is being held captive! When he is attacked, NoJoke unleashes a powerful dark wind and when the Rangers attempt to use Twistorando to combat this it only causes more trouble!
After a few blasts from RoboKnight, NoJoke flies away on his giant wings leaving Jake to feel the pain of losing Gia once more.
NoJoke retreats and meets up with Bluefur and Bigs! The group laughs about their plan almost to the point of Bluefur being captured in the gourd bottle! NoJoke has to remind him not to laugh or the bottle could capture him as well!
Jake grows frustrated that they are all standing around while Gia is still captured, while Emma wonders how they can move forward when all NoJoke has to do is make them laugh in order to capture them.
RoboKnight does not understand their difficulty and advises them to just not laugh, laughing is not a necessity.
Meanwhile, NoJoke runs around town capturing people with their laughter!
The Rangers catch up with NoJoke and decide that sending Noah and RoboKnight to the front is the best plan.
The two apparently have no sense of humor and this will stop NoJoke’s attacks from working.
Noah attempts to work with RoboKnight but as usual RoboKnight attacks on his own and the synchronicity failed.
The other Rangers attempt to intervene when Noah and RoboKnight can’t work together, but Jake and Emma get trapped by the Tickle Wind which causes them to laugh as well!
NoJoke retreats once more and leaves only the 3 of them remaining, but RoboKnight only wants to go rogue and take the monster on alone.
As NoJoke ravages the city and turns more people into balls of light, Noah and Troy walk around the city to search for him!
Suddenly, Troy gets an idea!
Troy takes Noah to a place where laughter can echo and asks him to tell him a joke.
Noah struggles with the idea and can’t seem to come up with one.
When Noah can’t seem to think of any jokes, it’s up to Troy to attempt to make him laugh instead.
Troy tries a few faces but it just doesn’t seem to work!
When normal jokes won’t work as well Troy decides that perhaps science jokes will work instead!
Success! Noah begins to laugh and suddenly his voice echoes throughout the area!
Tensou alerts Troy that NoJoke is heading their way!
The Ranger morph and confront NoJoke at an outdoor stage, the two use Defenstream and Twistornado to combat the Tickle Wind!
RoboKnight joins the ground and the three surround NoJoke with their blasters!
Suddenly, NoJoke feels backed into a corner and unleashes his most powerful weapon!
NoJoke unleashes the mother of all farts!
Troy is suddenly overcome with laughter, because fart jokes are his eternal weakness.
Troy is captured in the gourd bottle and Noah with RoboKnight take on NoJoke together!
The two retreat and suddenly Noah comes up with a plan, he remembers back in their battle that NoJoke had to stop himself from laughing.
Perhaps if they are able to make him laugh, he will be sucked into the gourd himself!
RoboKnight reveals himself and uses a thunder attack with his Robo Morpher!
Noah appears and begins to tell the worst jokes imaginable, but it seems to make NoJoke laugh out loud!
NoJoke is laughing so hard that his own gourd is beginning to capture him which gives him no choice but to destroy the bottle!
The Rangers reunite and morph into their Ultra Mode!
Working together in their Ultra Mode it was no joke how easy it was to destroy NoJoke!
With their Dynamic Strike and a Knight Dynamic the Rangers finish off the monster!
Vrak sends down the Zombats to assist NoJoke!
The Rangers summon their Megazords and take on a giant NoJoke!
NoJoke’s powerful wind created by his wings causes problems for the Megazords and Troy suggests that it’s time for Noah to call upon the Sea Brothers!
The Sea Megazord combines and creates a whirlpool above their heads with the Saw Shark Zord!
The water drenches NoJoke and shrinks his wings disabling them!
RoboKnight loads his Victory Charge card and with that NoJoke was ended!
Noah thanks the RoboKnight for himself and proves to the others that his a great straight man!
Celebrating their victory Noah pains them all with his new found ability to share jokes!
Final Thoughts
What can be said about this episode? It had jokes so terrible it actually made me laugh. This episode was truly filler in a season where filler should not even be needed. Goseiger’s 50 episode arc should be enough without having to create an episode like this in Power Rangers. Why did they choose this episode out of all the other Goseiger monsters and filler episodes? I am not too sure. I can’t really cast too much judgement on this choice because I couldn’t remember enough episodes of Goseiger to even give a suggestion for another episode to use. I can say however, that this episode gave you a chance to laugh at the Rangers themselves and grow a few of them as characters. Let’s break that down.
I can say that this episode as one of the first times where we actually Troy laugh, be a goofball and smile more than once! One of the best things about this episode is indeed this fact! As the episodes go on we are finally seeing more of Troy and I cannot welcome this enough! His jokes, laughter and faces made this episode for me. Andrew Gray was truly refreshing during this episode and I hope that he continues this trend!
Noah finally got a little more depth as well and only benefited from his laughter and jokes throughout the episode. Many times you could tell that not only Noah and Troy are close, but that the actors themselves are pretty close as well. I felt we got to know more about Noah beyond the seriousness and again this was welcomed in my eyes.
I have to say that so far based on these current episodes we have that, as much as I love them all, Azim Rizk, Ciara Hanna and John Mark Loudermilk are carrying this show. I do want to see more episodes with them, but we do need more of a spotlight on Christina Masterson as Emma.
I was sad to see that the “Jake the the Rescue” story-line was not used more in this episode. While I do understand that this was a Noah (and at some points Troy and RoboKnight) episode, I feel like the parts where Jake is severely distraught over losing Gia could’ve been touched on more. I am sad to say that with a similar story-line Samurai did it better. WHOA, what am I saying? Yes! Samurai did this better. Remember “Team Spirit” where Emily loses her Spirit and is about to die and Mike is ready to slice his way into the Netherworld, facing death, to get the Nighlok to come out!? That was an epic way to show how much he cared for her. I wish we had gotten something like that in this episode especially with Jake and Gia.
In conclusion, this episode was not terrible but it is VERY far down the list so far of Megaforce Episodes. It was enjoyable but it is probably an episode I don’t see myself going back to in a year to relive the magic. Also, can we talk about the whole laughing issue? The Rangers had to fight to NOT laugh at NoJoke’s jokes….RoboKnight seemed to be the only sane one here! JUST DON’T LAUGH! He’s not even funny!
Episode Scores
Story: 6/10
Action: 7/10
Monster: 7/10
All Together: 7/10