“LOL: Who will laugh the last?”, from Amazon “made in Quebec”

Patrick Huard hosts “LOL: Who will have the last laugh?” on Prime.

With lilies all over the decor and promotional images, the new show LOL: Who will laugh the last?, available today, obviously seeks to display its colors: the blue and white of the Quebec flag. This funny series, at the crossroads between a reality show and an evening at the Bordel Comédie Club, is the very first production of the Prime broadcasting service of the American giant Amazon made in Quebec.

Adapted from the international format Documentalfrom Amazon Original, the novelty hosted by Patrick Huard features Marie-Lyne Joncas, Rachid Badouri, Yves P. Pelletier, Arnaud Soly, Christine Morency, Laurent Paquin, Richardson Zéphir, Virginie Fortin, Mathieu Dufour and Édith Cochrane. The 10 comedians lock themselves up in “a mansion” (or a studio disguised as a mansion, it depends) for six hours with two objectives: to make others laugh and not to laugh yourself.

And “laughing” is a big word, since any hint of a smile and any stammering of joy can be considered a mistake. The first earns the offender a yellow card, but the second leads to elimination. The last person, the one who manages to avoid laughing, wins $100,000 to donate to the foundation of their choice. A nice concept behind a not too broad title – we would have done well without the English acronym.

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  Mathieu Dufour. Photo: Amazon

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  Yves P. Pelletier. Photo: Amazon

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  Rachid Badouri. Photo: Amazon

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  Marie-Lyne Joncas. Photo: Amazon

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  Christine Morency. Photo: Amazon

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  Virginia Fortin. Photo: Amazon

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  Laurent Paquin. Photo: Amazon

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  Edith Cochrane. Photo: Amazon

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  Arnaud Soly. Photo: Amazon

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  Richardson Zephyr. Photo: Amazon

Who will laugh last? Not the audience!

Unsurprisingly, Patrick Huard is like a fish in water in his role, he who spends his career navigating between humor and animation. “Usually, reality shows take super beautiful people, but not super bright. We wanted to be different, so our candidates are neither,” he says from the outset, just to set the tone.

The interest lies above all in the fact that the comedians are neither in a sketch nor in a stand-up number. Participate in LOL: Who will have the last laugh? requires repartee, talents in improvisation, spontaneity. It is for this reason that Edith Cochrane, the only participant not to have made humor her profession, is doing well: she is an experienced improviser.

Each is well aware of their strengths and weaknesses, arriving with very different expectations: Christine Morency is convinced of being eliminated very quickly, Virginie Fortin arrives with a lot of confidence and Marie-Lyne Joncas is sure and sure that Rachid Badouri will make himself laugh… Because yes, it happens, and more often than you might think! stop laughing, seeing the comedians find new material for fun in the costume designer or witnessing the strategies deployed to avoid giving all their attention to a joke that could make you flinch, but where LOL: Who will have the last laugh? really finds its strength, it’s in the stunts.

Richardson Zéphir unpacking his lunch during the explanations, Virginie Fortin revealing her panties in a hilarious twist or Georges, Marie-Lyne Joncas' dog clumsily attempting a few feats, it’s good you might get a yellow card.

Quebec on Amazon, ouin pis?

Although we can rejoice to see a giant of the industry to start investing in our culture, it remains hard to believe that the 10 comedians who participate in LOL: Who Laughs Last will be put on the map thanks to the show, even though it is available in 240 countries and territories.

If the concept travels very well, Quebec humor does not promise to be a discovery for people who know nothing about our culture or our language. So let's assume that this abuse of fleur-de-lis is more to show off the braces for having concluded an agreement in Quebec with Amazon than to promote the province internationally.

In this sense, a series like Three Pines, which takes up the universe of Louise Penny’s detective novels with her character, Inspector Armand Gamache, in a fictional village of ;Estrie does a better job of showing Quebec to the world through Amazon’s Prime platform…even though the vast majority of dialogue is in English.

The six episodes of LOL: Who Laughs Last? are now available on Prime.