Tuesday, June 25, 2019

Everybody Loves Leni / Middle Men (The Loud House Season 3 Episode 19) - 'Toon Reviews 30


If you like this review and want to stay updated for what else I have in store, become a follower of this blog, click here to like the official Facebook page, and click here to follow me on Twitter. Now on with today's review:
Everybody Loves Leni

The title of this cartoon is quite accurate.  Lacking brains but full of heart, Leni is a great character for others to befriend, and it makes sense why she’s so liked by everyone in-universe as well as many of this show’s fans.  As far as in-universe characters go, the story has them like Leni to a fault. 
There are two groups of people who consider Leni as a great friend, Fiona and Miguel from her job at the mall, and Jackie and Mandee from school.  The conflict is that both groups discover that Leni never told them that she was good friends with the other group, and they immediately decide they don’t like each other.  Right away we have a red flag to this setup.  Leni’s mall friends and school friends only just meet each other, and act passive aggressively keen to get away from them.  Who in the right mind would just immediately dislike someone without seeing what the other person is like first?  I’d understand if they did something wrong to them, but that’s never the case.  The best reason for animosity I can see could possibly be Fiona and Miguel, and Jackie and Mandee thinking the other group is trying to steal Leni from them.  Still, did it ever occur to them that maybe Leni has lives outside of the groups and is allowed to have more friends than them?  That should be common knowledge. 
As you can tell, what this cartoon is going for is kind of frustrating, but Leni herself, being the good soul she is tries so hard to appease both groups of friends.  That said, her attempts go horribly wrong, with plenty of cringe-worthy cover-ups when she tries calling her mall friends while hanging out with her school friends.  It only leads to uncomfortable messes and scorn from both parties that further divides everyone. 
In some of the more wholesome moments of the cartoon, Leni gets advice from the more level-headed Louds, Lincoln and Lori, on how to properly get everyone to bond.  Leni puts together a party for her and her friends with games and snacks hoping they’ll be won over by the amenities and come together as a result.  That would be the case for those who are truly open-minded, but not this group of friends.  They don’t even try to get along with each other.  They’re constantly complaining about each other’s interests and even where they come from.  It’s at this point that their problems they have with each other are borderline irrational.  The fact that their negative emotions are about Leni being friends with the other group only makes everything worse. 
It gets so bad that Leni decides to skip out on a blow-out sale she and her friends were looking forward to, knowing that someone will be disappointed no matter her choice. Thankfully, when her mall friends and school friends realize what she’s doing, they realize their faults in this whole conflict.  When they come to her house and Leni’s about to use advice that neither of them should have her if they can’t share her, to her best ability anyway, they tell her their revelation.  So, the cartoon ends well with everyone putting genuine effort to try and get along for the sake of keeping Leni as a friend.  It’s a good payoff to the conflict, but I can’t help but think of how stronger this cartoon would have been if there was a legit reason for the friend groups not liking each other.  Not to mention why they don’t know people can have other friends or that it's so hard to even try to befriend other people. 
They’re baffling plot decisions, but despite all frustrations, they work out thanks to the good payoff and Leni’s from-the-heart attempts to make everyone happy despite everything.
A-

Middle Men


There’s no way to question it.  Lynn is the Loud who’s the not just the most aggressive, but has the most questionable practices.  Some of them tie into her aggression where she acts rough without consent or regard for safety.  There’s also her gross habits, turning everything into a sport, and need to gloat with every win.  All of these qualities give Lynn a divisive reputation among fans.  I personally find her fun to watch most of the time, but it makes sense why others are turned off by her.  As for her questionable practices, they transcend to school too.  However, they lead to a big reveal on Lynn’s biggest showing of humanity to date. 
Lincoln and Clyde are going for a test run at middle school since that’s where they’ll enroll after graduation.  When Lynn hears about this, she’s quick to sign up to be their orientation buddy.  Through it all, the guidance Lynn shares with the boys suggests that her idea is to transform them into smaller male versions of her.  During the actual orientation, whenever Lincoln and Clyde show ways to get around, Lynn instantly sees fault in them.  They pull out a map to find their classes, and Lynn tells them about a kid who was teased for being a newbie.  They offer a seat to another student, and Lynn tells them about a kid who had to use a faulty desk, got stuck in it, and had to be greased out.  They make a mistake in the science lab, and Lynn tells them not to own up to it so they won’t end up like a kid who got belittled for doing that. 
From the sounds of this advice, it can be looked at as the makings of middle school bullies.  That’s not to say Lynn herself is a bully since her rough actions are always in the name of fun, and she’s genuinely proud when she sees Lincoln and Clyde pull off her tips. Still, they obviously don’t sound appropriate in a public school setting at all, so it’s concerning that Lincoln and Clyde don’t see anything wrong with what’s told to them. 
When it’s time for them to fly solo for the rest of their visit, they cause tons of blunders.  Getting lost on their way to a class without asking for directions make them ruin work of a photography class.  They anger kids by taking their assigned desks.  They make a mess in gym and don’t confess, though that could have been avoided if they were careful where they stepped.  In short, Lincoln and Clyde become enemies with so many kids, that they’re sentenced to get beaten up by all of them on the blacktop. 
This is where Lynn’s human layer shows.  In all her stories, she was the one who was belittled and bullied when she started middle school.  It’s kind of obvious given how specific the stories were, but feeling the need to be tough after a bad school experience does make Lynn more relatable than ever.  Selling all this is her genuine regret when Lincoln and Clyde get in trouble because of her advice, and she even offers to take the fight for them.  The boys go out on their own anyway since it’s really their battle.  As for the fight, it’s pretty anti-climactic when it turns out the middle schoolers were never going to fight them at all since the boys did still mess them up badly.  Nevertheless, it’s nice for Lincoln and Clyde to get accepted after what they went through and Lynn to see appeal in their approach to school. 
If you needed to be convinced that Lynn has a good heart amidst her aggression, this is a cartoon to get schooled in.  It can get bone-headed in parts, but those moments are minor and the whole story has a satisfying payoff for everyone.

A-


The Ranking
  1. Really Loud Music
  2. Head Poet’s Anxiety
  3. Roadie to Nowhere
  4. Shop Girl
  5. Breaking Dad
  6. Gown and Out
  7. Fandom Pains
  8. Insta-Gran
  9. Selfie Improvement
  10. Scales of Justice
  11. Middle Men
  12. Net Gains
  13. Crimes of Fashion
  14. Everybody Loves Leni
  15. The Spies Who Loved Me
  16. No Place Like Homeschool
  17. House of Lies
  18. The Mad Scientist
  19. City Slickers
  20. Missed Connection
  21. Fool Me Twice
  22. Deal Me Out
  23. Teachers’ Union
  24. Tripped!
  25. White Hare
  26. A Fridge Too Far
  27. Sitting Bull
  28. Game Boys
  29. Pasture Bedtime
  30. Absent Minded
  31. What Wood Lincoln Do?
  32. Friendzy
  33. Pipe Dreams
  34. Be Stella My Heart
  35. Rita Her Rights
  36. Ruthless People
The next Loud House review is a horror-themed episode where Lincoln and Clyde turn out to be embarrassingly cowardly at everything, but Lola has a well-constructed horror story of making a doll look creepy and never go away.
Next time on MC Toon Reviews is the Season 5 premiere for Steven Universe "Stuck Together."
If you would like to check out other Loud House reviews on this blog, click here for the guide made especially for them.

1 comment:

  1. It's not as if she'd be all that whippy about running to Mommy and Daddy about the way she was treated so it's likely that the parents have no idea why she acts the way she does.

    ReplyDelete