Fool’s
Paradise
With this cartoon, it seems to suggest that every season is
going to include a cartoon about April Fool’s Day considering that Season 1
gave us “April Fool’s Rules.” That raises a lot of questions about the timeline of this show. Will the kids continually age with every new
April Fool’s Day cartoon? Won’t Lori
have to go to college during one in the following seasons? Do these cartoons even have a way to
logically fit in the timeline? Questions
aside, the appeal of this cartoon is that it takes all the interpretations of
April Fool’s Day to the apocalypse from last season and further expands on them
creating an unforgettable atmospheric experience filled with hilariously
imagined pranks with the perfect Loud for the day, Luan, as the mastermind. The rest of the family believes they’re
finally able to catch a break from the annual prank onslaught this year when
they find a magazine ad for a clown camp they send Luan to. However, just when they think they’re safe,
those thoughts are dashed when their car breaks down and they have to spend the
night at a crummy motel. Once at the
motel, a series of antics lead them to evidence that Luan set up pranks all over
the facility, and it’s only a matter of time before one gets set off for each
of the siblings. The whole family is
forced to make a run for it without any knowledge of when the next prank will strike and their
fright is creatively staged as running from a strange
monstrous force. It also helps that what
they get up to is set against a dark and threatening setting like an old motel
at night. When the pranks do get set off,
they really up the creativity in execution from the last time. There’s collapsing balconies into a big
gelatin mold, trap doors that launch people up to a fly paper-laden sign, fake
rooms filled with nasty obstacles like a skunk and rhubarb pies (which Lana’s
allergic to), Lily getting replaced with a monkey that attacks Lynn, and a ton
of bleach covering a certain sister who loves darkness. Through it all, there’s a huge revealing
twist to this prank barrage that Lincoln is quick to discover. It turns out that Dad was in on Luan’s plans the whole time to get out of her April Fool’s Day pranks for a decade,
and the explanations for how everything from the pranks to the clown camp ad
that started it all are highly clever.
The best part about this reveal is that Dad feels genuine regret for
helping Luan with her prankish tortures on his family, right down to
questioning what kind of father he is.
Fortunately, he gets a big moment of redemption when he and Lincoln form
a special prank to get back at Luan, and it’s a huge success as Luan gets flung
into the air, stuck on that fly paper sign, lands in dirty laundry, and gets
stuck in the sky. This is sure to
satisfy anyone who felt that her simply getting a pie in the face last April
Fool’s Day wasn’t enough for her.
However, in fitting with the horror genre of the cartoon, the ending
isn’t completely happy as the whole family is left running scared of the
prospect of next April Fool’s Day which Luan promises to be even worse. What she does then actually turns out to be a pretty nasty set of pranks, but that will be discussed in my eventual reviews of Season 3. For this April Fool’s Day cartoon though,
it’s easily one of the show’s most creatively structured cartoons aided by the
genuine suspense, fun and insightful character moments, imaginative pranks, and
some sense of victory from the victims. 10/10
Job
Insecurity
If all the Loud siblings working as a team more
often than in the first season wasn’t enough to prove how mature they’re
becoming, perhaps this cartoon where they’re led to question how their actions
impact their dad’s life can help. With so many
cartoons where the kids frequently run wild for their own amusement without
much concern for others, it’s great that they turn out so thoughtful here. They find out that Dad no longer works at his
old IT job and has instead taken a dishwasher position, a job he doesn’t like,
at a local fusion restaurant. It’s here
where the kids become more considerate of their actions to others, getting the
idea that they got him fired from his IT job, namely for their hyperactive
antics at the latest Take Your Kids to Work Day (nice to know that his old job
at least became more inclusive since Season 1).
Anyway, they take a generous route of finding Dad a new job and making
sure he gets it. There’s plenty of heart
in how seriously the kids take finding a new job for sure, but there’s also
some humorous bits like imagination spots of Dad doing random jobs and, after
they find a new IT job and get someone to pose as Dad to make sure he gets it,
teaching Mr. Grouse, someone with an old world mindset, what certain computer
terms mean. Speaking of Mr. Grouse, he’s
fast becoming one of the best supporting characters. He’s still a grump and typically does things
for Dad’s famous lasagna, but this is where it starts feeling like he’s putting
in some effort in a bargain through actively trying to understand computer
terms and getting better as time goes on, and showing happiness for the kids
when he gets the job in Dad’s place.
With the job secured, the kids let Dad know what they got for him, and
it’s at this point that even if the kids meant well, there’s no shaking off
that this is another misunderstanding plot.
They didn’t know that Dad lost his old job for three weeks and he never
told them, then when they found him washing dishes, they went with the idea
that it was their fault. However, Dad
tells them that he actively quit his IT job and became a dishwasher to train to
be a chef at the same restaurant which is his dream job, tying into his
frequently seen talent for cooking.
Anyway, since Dad shows no hesitation in telling the kids this despite
having a reason not to tell them, that means nothing was stopping the kids from
just asking him why he has the new job. Granted, their beliefs seemed
believable from what they saw, at the time it looked like Dad didn’t want to
talk about it, and we weren’t given a scene of the truth the kids didn’t know,
so the plot could’ve been executed worse.
Plus, what the kids learn leads to a very impactful ending when they
push for Dad to get his restaurant job back, regretting their actions again,
Dad kindly makes them feel better, and circumstances lead to him not just being
allowed to work at the restaurant again, but also become a chef right then and
there. It’s all one of the most pleasing
and satisfying conclusions the show has turned out. Overall, this cartoon stands as one of this
season’s strongest. It’s not just
humorous in parts, but it’s also got legitimate heart through the character
bonds, opening new chapters for characters’ lives, and especially presenting
the Loud siblings at their most thoughtful and mature. 9.5/10
The Ranking
- 11 Louds a Leapin’
- L is for Love
- Pulp Friction
- Frog Wild
- Party Down
- Room with a Feud
- Lock n Loud
- Fool’s Paradise
- Fed Up
- Out of the Picture
- Job Insecurity
- Potty Mouth
- The Loudest Mission: Relative Chaos
- Spell it Out
- Baby Steps
- Shell Shock
- Suite and Sour
- Back in Black
- Patching Things Up
- The Whole Picture
- Back Out There
- The Old and the Restless
- Kick the Bucket List
- Intern for the Worse
- Cheater by the Dozen
- Pets Peeved
- Making the Grade
- Vantastic Voyage
- No Such Luck
- Brawl in the Family
Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the next episode with "ARRGH! You For Real?" misunderstanding the appeal of fictional media, and Lori discovering what having your own place is really like in "Garage Banned."
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