Saturday, July 1, 2017

'Toon Reviews 4: The Loud House Season 1 Episode 2

Heavy Meddle



 
 
 
 
 
 
You can definitely say that the Loud sisters really care for their brother after watching this cartoon.  However, you can also say that they care for him a little too much which makes the viewing experience a bit frustrating.  The main premise is that Lincoln is annoyed by how his sisters always seem to barge in on his personal problems in an attempt to help him, but they only make things worse, (which is uniquely personified as a tornado of sister heads) and now he’s trying to prevent that by keeping them from finding out that he’s being picked on by a girl named Ronnie Anne.  After a set of pretty enjoyable moments of Lincoln covering the truth, the sisters eventually find out, and we see first-hand why their meddling is such a problem to Lincoln.  They may have good intentions of helping their brother in his time of need, but they never take to time to listen to him and figure out the right way to deal with the issue.  As a result, the rest of the cartoon features the sisters grabbing any random boy without listening that it’s a girl who’s picking on Lincoln, and when they find that out, they seek no ill-intention in the situation and stick to the conclusion that Ronnie Anne likes Lincoln.  The fact that these girls have such a one-track mind of not listening in on the whole story or assuming one possible reason for the bullying instead of all reasons gives the feeling that nothing is being accomplished which costs the cartoon a good amount of entertainment.  That said, the payoff is pretty decent where after getting a black eye when kissing Ronnie Anne, Lincoln finally snaps and tells his sisters to stop with the meddling, but later gets an apology note and things to heal his eye from Ronnie Anne, showing that she really does like Lincoln.  This ends the cartoon with the sisters learning to not butt in when they’re not wanted and Lincoln learning that sometimes meddling can help you.  Plus, it’s a good start to Lincoln and Ronnie Anne building a strong friendship later in the season. We’ll see a lot of stronger moments of helping from the sisters later on too.  As for this cartoon, it’s all right with some strong enjoyable parts, but much of its frustrating qualities do not make it one of the show’s best works. 7/10
 Making the Case



 
 
 
 
 
 
This cartoon follows a convention that makes me feel very uncomfortable.  The convention follows normally good characters managing to intrude the privacy of people he/she is very close to, exposing them to the public, and are then treated like they’re evil and deserve to be shut out from life despite making one mistake.  I never like good characters getting treated like that.  It all starts out sympathetically when Lincoln desires to get a trophy for the family case like most of his sisters after many failed attempts.  He gets the idea of entering a video contest, and after a talk with Luan, he goes on to keep the camera running whenever he sees his sisters do something funny.  Some moments are funny, but a few of them are kind of cringe-worthy, especially a set of moments of Lori farting.  Anyway, following the convention I talked about, Lincoln posts the video of his sisters’ moments, it becomes the most popular, but his sisters end up hating his guts because of the humiliation it causes them.  It’s not just the sisters hating Lincoln that’s the problem, they also go way too far with their hatred considering that Lincoln clearly shows them that he regrets what he did, but they won’t give him a chance to fix his mistake even though he’s usually a good kid.  This point is driven in so hard, it makes the cartoon kind of painful.  However, there are some things that don’t make this cartoon as painful as others that follow this convention.  The sisters allow Lincoln to explain why he did what he did, Lincoln did kind of bring the hatred on himself by ignoring Luan’s tip to not post the video without permission (even though they later say she didn’t say so because it’s the unspoken rule), and at least Luan is willing to help Lincoln fix everything by providing him with embarrassing moments of him.  As for how this ends when Lincoln posts himself in an embarrassing video to replace the old one, it’s not as satisfying as it can be since after all that trouble, he loses to a hamster video and has to make do with a makeshift trophy from his sisters, but I guess it’s rewarding enough that his sisters genuinely love him again.  This cartoon’s heart is in the right place and does have some good parts to it, but its painful factors prevent it from being one I’ll want to see again anytime soon. 6/10
The Ranking
1.      Left in the Dark
2.      Heavy Meddle
3.      Get the Message
4.      Making the Case
Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the next episode where we follow Leni, the dumb blond, take up driving in "Driving Miss Hazy," and discover what a heavy dose of authority does for the Loud House when Mom and Dad are out in "No Guts, No Glori."

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