Fed Up
Back in my Season 1 reviews of this show, I’ve mentioned that
one of its biggest themes was that even though siblings
are usually very different, you can still easily relate to them which can let
you know that you’re not alone when dealing with a particular issue in the
family. With this season starting to
frequently feature all the kids work as a team as opposed to mostly Lincoln or
a sister working separately from the rest of the siblings, this theme is stronger
than ever before. This cartoon here is proof
of this. The Loud kids all share the
concern that Dad makes the same meals for dinner every week. While this seems hard to believe at first
since this was never an issue before, as well as the fact that Lincoln mentions
that Friday’s meal is fried fish, but for the rest of the cartoon franks and
beans are said to be for Friday, the entertainment and portrayal of the kids’
dynamics allow me to overlook those points.
The teamwork aspect of the kids makes itself apparent the moment Lincoln
decides that something should be done about their monotonous dinners and forms
a plan to sabotage Dad’s planned dinner so they can get pizza instead. We’re so used to seeing the kids fight with each
other or shutting down someone’s idea when there’s an issue, so the following
sequence where every kid plays a part in sabotaging Dad’s planned goulash for
the night is especially pleasing. Even when Dad comes up with
ways to improvise on a bad situation, the kids never give up and always find
new ways to prevent the same meals from being made again. That said, it’s still impressive how Dad
finds ways to work around the lack of food or proper cooking
equipment. It’s a good display of his
prominent character trait of his talent for cooking. The kids ultimately win with their sabotage
and get their pizza, but given how hard Dad was shown to be working to try and
make his dinner under the circumstances, he still earns the audience’s
sympathy. This is why it’s good that the
time remaining in the cartoon is spent on a forming a compromise between him
and the kids when Leni’s lack of intelligence leads him to find out about the
sabotage. Dad’s ways of making the same
meals every week are explained to exist due to the pressures of making
something good for a lot of people on a budget.
This is a solid, believable reason for the methods, but since the kids
feelings are also understandable, it’s worth watching them try to prove the
menu can be mixed up by cooking dinner themselves. However, since they lack cooking skills and
common favorite foods, they simply can’t make something edible. That’s when the compromise is reached when
Dad turns out a new tasty dinner out of the kids’ mess. In other words, the conclusion satisfies both
sides of the issue instead of one proving right which is really the best way
conflicts between characters should be settled.
Thanks to its strong use of conflict staging and resolution along with
pleasing moments from the characters involved, this cartoon amounts to another
strong entry of this season. 9.5/10
Shell Shock
Whether you want them to get together as a couple or you like
them just fine as friends, there’s something fascinating to the relationship
between Lincoln and Ronnie Anne.
Considering that they started getting on each other’s nerves through
Ronnie Anne’s constant pranking on Lincoln and Lincoln calling her out at the worst times, it’s astounding that they’re still able to bond over some shared interests and slowly develop a respect for each other. Even with the pleasing moments we’ve seen
between them, the fact that we’ve only gotten so few of them and that Ronnie
Anne is shown to be one of the school’s tough kids, it makes sense that not
everything would be perfect between the two.
This is shown when this cartoon’s plot has them assigned to look after
an egg for the week as if it’s their baby.
Since Ronnie Anne is, as I just stated, one of the tough kids, Lincoln
is extremely hesitant to let her have the egg, so he plots to keep it all to
himself all day. To illustrate Lincoln’s
fear of Ronnie Anne potentially handling the egg we get a comedic highlight for
the cartoon which is a series of quick scenes of Lincoln imagining Ronnie Anne comically and
monstrously breaking the egg. They’re
cool to see, but after a lot of them happen, you’d probably be left wondering
why Lincoln is this mistrusting of Ronnie Anne after all the genuinely nice
moments they’ve had together. I mean, if
Clyde can be trusting of a girl he hardly knows named Penelope while they look
after their egg baby, surely Lincoln can do the same for a girl he has some
knowledge of. She may be rough, but
she’s not dumb enough to act that way during a school project. Thankfully, this is just what Lincoln
discovers when after making a rubber cement twin of his and Ronnie Anne’s egg
and accidentally giving her the real egg, he winds up at her house where he
discovers what she’s really like.
Through some nice moments of helping Bobby get ready for work and helping
her mom with chores, it’s revealed that Ronnie Anne can be careful and
trustworthy. It’s a sweet eye-opening
moment for Lincoln, but since he should’ve been more trusting of her in the
first place after all this time, when Ronnie Anne discovers his egg swap trick,
her anger is understandable, though it does result in the real egg baby
breaking. Fortunately, rather than
letting the cartoon end on a downer note for both Lincoln and Ronnie Anne, we
close with Lincoln getting them both another chance at caring for an egg baby,
now more trusting of Ronnie Anne and knowing what she’s really like. She may prank him and can be rough
with her friends at school, but when it comes to serious matters like family
and school projects, she’s one of the most reliable friends he could ask for. With newly revealed layers to flesh out Ronnie
Anne’s character, strong comedy, and a relatable message on the importance of
getting to know someone, this cartoon effectively continues this season’s trend
of expanding the show’s world by developing side characters and being a strong
cartoon in general. 9.5/10
The Ranking
- 11 Louds a Leapin’
- Frog Wild
- Party Down
- Lock n Loud
- Fed Up
- Baby Steps
- Shell Shock
- Suite and Sour
- Back in Black
- Patching Things Up
- The Whole Picture
- The Old and the Restless
- Kick the Bucket List
- Intern for the Worse
- Cheater by the Dozen
- Making the Grade
- Vantastic Voyage
- No Such Luck
- Brawl in the Family
Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the next episode where Lincoln's day gets a superhero edge to it in "Pulp Friction" and the Loud Pets take the spotlight in "Pets Peeved."
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