[Tokumonkey]

You know, despite that this series clearly disappointed a lot of people - and I had my own frustrations with it - that was probably my favorite Sentai finale so far.

More than most Sentai finales I've seen, it felt like this was what they'd aiming for the entire time. The unexpected thieves, the PatRangers finally getting to use power-ups (that moment with 3gou and scissors was just terrific), the good use of continuity... Most all of it felt great.

I wonder if part of my problem with this series is that they were aiming for this "they're still fighting at the end" thing. The biggest conceptual flaw of the show is that there's no bleeping reason for the teams to fight, and this episode finally gets all that out into the open.

The closest they got to excusing that was getting into the PatRangers not wanting to give up their collection pieces. Still, the whole series has suffered from the "artificial conflict" element.

But I'm grousing. I loved this episode enough to excuse some of the filler that came before it. That the final Gangler collection piece is the one from the opening sequence was super, super satisfying.

It occurs to me that given where they left the series, an LvP movie could get away with some seriously satisfying stuff, since they don't need to support the ongoing conflict anymore. I suppose that an LvP/Ryusoulger movie isn't out of the question...