Tricked!
Since the show turned out an amazing Christmas special, it’s
fitting that it would follow that up with a Halloween special. I’ve mentioned in past reviews that Halloween
has a lot of interesting aspects fit to mine the animation medium for, and the
Louds’ preparations feature that idea.
Since she’s the spookiest of the kids, obviously Lucy is the most excited
about Halloween. This is a day where her
scare factor really comes into its own as she puts together a corn maze filled
with frightening scenes featuring the older sisters whose appearances she
moderates down to the last scary detail.
This part of the special perfectly captures the Halloween atmosphere the
best, and presents Lucy as one of the relatable passionate types of sisters,
further proving why she’s one of my favorite Loud siblings. The special also devotes time to Lola, Lana,
and Lisa going trick-or-treating. It may
not be as interesting as what Lucy does, but there’s still a lot to love with
them. They have creative and adorable means of scoring a lot of candy. Lana and Lola switch costumes three
times at each house and Lisa takes advantage of her kangaroo costume’s cuteness
by showing Lily in her pouch. When these
tactics are executed, they’re genuinely cute to watch and result in nice
humorous banter between the siblings regarding whose tactic is best. However, these two subplots aren’t the crux
of the special. The main focus is Lincoln and
Clyde finding neighborhood that gives out full-sized candy bars, and they plot
to trick-or-treat there while fending off two bullies who want full-sized candy
too. This part of the special, despite
its prominence, to me is the weakest. It
features another boneheaded move by Lincoln and Clyde where they divert the
bullies from the special neighborhood to their OWN neighborhood where the
bullies terrorize everything, and steal everyone’s candy, not to mention make Lucy’s
corn maze she worked so hard on a flop.
Right there, you can see that this could’ve been avoided if Lincoln and
Clyde sent the bullies down some other street, and it begs the question why
they would mention their own street in the first place. Plus, the more interesting subplots of this
special are forgotten about for most of the second act to spend a long amount
of time watching Lincoln and Clyde try to save Halloween by getting the candy
back…only for them to fail when the bullies turn them into human pretzels. It’s not bad, but compared to what the other
characters got up to, it’s pretty lacking, especially since the bullies
themselves are not very enjoyable for being mean and thuggish for no reason at
all. It would’ve been better if
Lincoln’s sisters joined them to get revenge instead of walking away dejected,
just giving up and letting two stinkers ruin their night. Seriously, would characters like Lincoln's sisters REALLY let someone get away with stealing their belongings?
Thankfully, a new plan of Lincoln and Clyde’s
gives them all a chance at revenge when they lead the bullies to the corn maze,
and we get the highlight of the special.
The bullies are given the punishment they deserve as they run into all
the sisters performing their scary scenes all set to an awesome, fast-paced
Halloween rock ballad by best Loud sibling herself, Luna. What makes this part even better is that it’s
followed up with everyone getting a happy ending where Lucy’s maze turns out to
be a great success after all, the kids get their candy, and Lincoln and Clyde are
content with giving it away, even if they don’t have full-sized bars. Even if the main focus of the special isn’t
on the most interesting part, there are several strong parts that leave a
memorable impression, making it one worth watching every Halloween. 9/10
The Ranking
- 11 Louds a Leapin’
- L is for Love
- Pulp Friction
- Frog Wild
- Yes-Man
- Party Down
- Friend or Faux
- Room with a Feud
- Lock n Loud
- Fool’s Paradise
- Fed Up
- Out of the Picture
- Job Insecurity
- Potty Mouth
- Mall of Duty
- The Loudest Mission: Relative Chaos
- Spell it Out
- Baby Steps
- Shell Shock
- Suite and Sour
- Back in Black
- Legends
- Future Tense
- Patching Things Up
- No Spoilers
- Not a Loud
- Tricked!
- The Whole Picture
- Read Aloud
- No Laughing Matter
- Health Kicked
- Garage Banned
- Back Out There
- The Old and the Restless
- Kick the Bucket List
- Intern for the Worse
- Lynner Takes All
- Cheater by the Dozen
- Pets Peeved
- Making the Grade
- Vantastic Voyage
- Change of Heart
- ARGGH! You for Real?
- No Such Luck
- Brawl in the Family
Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the next episode where the kids are up against an annoying demon toy Lily can't get enough of in "The Crying Dame" and the show tackles how dependent our society is on mobile devices when Dad gets in on them and becomes "Anti-Social."
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