Future
Tense
Ever since their faces were finally shown, Mom and Dad have
gotten more significance and development than before, which is fitting for a
season that starts developing characters beyond Lincoln and the sisters. Now we have a cartoon that’s all about them and
how they serve as parents to the kids.
The story is that the Yates family moves in, and Mom and Dad see how
accomplished the kids of that family are, with their parents stressing the
importance of being well-rounded in such a competitive world. Through it all, there’s something very
unsettling about the Yates family. They always
have these big toothy smiles all over their faces and find enjoyment out of
everything especially activities that are highly intellectual and require class
and serious mindsets. It’s practically
inhumane for people to be THIS happy about life. Creepiness factor aside, the Yates family
gets Mom and Dad to be considerate of their influence on their kids. Given how the season has already had a lot of
influence on how well the Loud kids are to their parents, it’s only fitting
that Mom and Dad take the time to try and figure out what’s best for them. While what they later do certainly has good
intentions, it’s easy to see that it takes certain things the wrong way, not
unlike how things went down in the previous cartoon. Mom and Dad rope their kids into doing
activities that are out of their league, mostly the complete opposite of what
they normally like doing from after school activities to community-serving and
artsy outings, stressing them to be good at everything so to get by in such a
competitive world. The kids’ reactions
to being roped into things that they don’t want to do are pretty funny in how
they protest, yet it’s still easy to feel sorry for them since who would want
to be forced to do things against their will, especially when they’re just
sprung on you? At least we get some amusing outcomes out of the sufferings, namely
Lana being socially graceful and wearing dresses, Luan being serious as the
mayor’s assistant, and especially Luna being taught proper English in favor of
her entertaining rock slang. While Mom
and Dad are way out of line for forcing their kids into what they don’t want to
do without warning, through their actions, it’s clear that they really want to
help them, and they’re not even getting competitive with the Yates since
there’s never a moment where they want them to be MORE accomplished than
them. Even more admirable is that when
the kids achieve success in their forced activities, Mom and Dad want to
celebrate with fun stuff, but the kids have changed so much that they’re unwilling to take part
in fun because they’re not healthy or productive, which is very sad
since it confirms that they’ve lost their true selves. Thankfully, Mom and Dad finally see sense and
allow the kids to have fun, admitting that it was wrong to force the activities
on them and that being productive should never outshine enjoying
life. In other words, this whole story
ends up teaching the importance of keeping life in balance and not being too
relaxed or too overrun with work. That’s
always been a personal message to me, and I’m glad to see this show teaching
it. It’s also great that even the Yates
want in on some of the fun at the end…even if their approach to it is still
creepy. If you can get past them and the kids being put through things they don’t want to do against
their will, this is a nicely constructed cartoon serving as a reminder of the importance of living your life in balance starring Mom and Dad. 9/10
Lynner
Takes All
Personally, I find Lynn to be one of the most enjoyable Louds. She’s always up for a game or challenge and
approaches life with a lot of energy and sense of fun, making her a very lively character and I’m generally the most
entertained by characters like that. I also understand why
some might not like her, and this cartoon helps with that. She plays roughly, brags about how great
she is, and barely notices how problematic her behavior is. In this case,
whenever she wins at game night, she’s constantly gloating. Because she’s so in everyone’s face when she
celebrates her victories and never lets them live it down, especially when she
reaches her 300th win, I can see how this can be a problem for some
people. Of course it can get annoying
and make her look like a jerk for making her siblings feel bad about
their losses. For me though, I don’t see
it being that different from other times she enthusiastically plays a game or
acts sporty. Yes, she’s still being a
jerk to her family here, but like with most cases where Lynn plays rough, it
hardly feels like she’s INTENDING to make anyone feel bad. Nevertheless, given the sympathy being
directed at the rest of the Loud siblings, it’s appropriate that the plot
focuses on them attempting to stop Lynn’s gloating once and for all. Their first attempt has them challenge Lynn
at games whose subjects fit a specific sibling apart from her. While the ways their attempts at beating her
backfiring still makes it easy to feel for the other siblings, how Lynn finds a
way to win from specially skilled dice rolls, to exercising enough to make a
perfect grab, to making a huge Ace Savvy fan like Lincoln feel nervous, show
how on the ball she is at winning to entertaining effect. When everyone finally does beat Lynn at a
game through teamwork, it seems like Lynn is too ashamed of herself to
gloat. As it turns out, Lynn turns out
even more competitive and constantly pops out of nowhere to challenge everyone
to everything. As someone who likes
Lynn, I can get a good laugh out of her overly-competitive actions, her
never-ceasing energy, and lively sporty nature here. Though since they show her siblings’ plans to
teach her a lesson failed, some people can easily get annoyed and
frustrated that she still won’t stop rubbing victories in other people’s
faces. Anyway, after the siblings’
attempts to throw the next board game, Lynn finally realizes how much of a pain
she’s been to everyone. She reveals that
she never intended to hurt them and just loves having playing games with her
family proving that despite what she does, she has a good heart indeed. True, she still gloats at the end, but the
fact that it’s now away from everyone shows that she’s grown more considerate
of their feelings. The fact that she
gloats at all, however, leads to a glaring issue with Lynn’s character that even
people who like her shouldn’t ignore.
Lynn treats winning games like a big deal and is more competitive when
she loses one. What we don’t know is WHY
she feels the need to win, thus making her under-developed. This cartoon had the perfect opportunity to
reveal this and potentially make Lynn endearing in spite of her gloating, but it never does. I hope
we get an answer to this in the future, because if this behavior continues,
Lynn might not turn out to be a very good character. Since I still find her entertaining enough here, I
can call this cartoon a good and fun one that stresses why there should be
limits on showboating. However, if you
find Lynn’s behavior overbearing and annoying, I totally get it. Here’s hoping she gets more developed with
her next starring role. 8/10
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
- Future Tense
- Patching Things Up
- The Whole Picture
- 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 next episode featuring Lincoln as a "Yes Man" in a rocking cartoon big on sibling love, and we see Lisa at her most endearing in "Friend or Faux?".
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