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Ruthless
People
A stronger emphasis on family bonding and more satisfying
stories means that we don’t get mean-spirited stories with unsatisfactory
endings very often anymore. This cartoon
is a reminder that not happening as often doesn’t mean we’re clear of them for
good. While it’s not as bad as the
absolute worst works of the other seasons, it does not leave a very good
impression for how set it is on making a selected few suffer no matter
what.
This tone isn’t felt all the way
through though. The beginning features
plenty of the strengths that have made the shows improvements noticeable with
innocent family bonding from all the Loud siblings. Also, the catalyst for the story is quite
interesting when their playing around results in a hole in the wall which has
been weakened by termites. In fact,
termites have spread all over the house and are causing it to fall apart. With no local hotel big enough to hold 13
people, the decision is made for the family to split up. Half of them go to stay with Pop-Pop at his
retirement home which is seen as great fun while the other half goes to stay
with Aunt Ruth with an unhospitable reputation.
Needless to say, no one really wants to go to Aunt Ruth’s. Lincoln then starts a trend of sweet-talking
someone to go to there in his place. There’s cooperation as the rest of his
group does the same rather than admonish him.
There really isn’t anything too bad at the start, and it seems like
everything is all set for a decent watch.
That’s when the cartoon becomes not only less pleasing, but also unfair
and disproportionate with what the show has established. Pop-Pop’s retirement home turns out to be a
total bust with all the fun places closed off and him and all the other
residents going along with extreme elderly customs. Those customs include not having any salt
whatsoever on their food and going to bed at 6.
The fact that Pop-Pop easily complies with this completely goes against
the point that he’s more active than his age suggests which was established a while back. Also, it’s very contrived
that this retirement home built up as this awesome fun place would suddenly
have a state of affairs this poor. It feels like seeing this half of the Loud
family suffering is the main intent of this cartoon, which can’t bring out good
entertainment. This feeling is
especially apparent when we only see the other half in phone calls at Aunt
Ruth’s to inform that they’re having fun at a lake house she has. We don’t even see her motives behind getting
a lake house, further suggesting it’s only there to make the group at Pop-Pop’s
feel even worse.
The same act of bargaining to change places with favors
occurs, but the treatment is still one-sided.
Termites were brought to the lake house and Aunt Ruth has no problem
moving them back to her dump of a home.
As for the other half, they just happen to take part in a cruise
Pop-Pop’s retirement home can suddenly afford.
Then the cartoon doesn’t end; it just stops with one group unhappy while
the others keep living it up. I suppose
it’s better than one kid suffering all throughout like in other bad cartoons,
but maybe there shouldn’t have been suffering at all.
The cartoon goes for a message of making the
best of any situation, but no one ever does that. One group gets good conditions and loves them,
and another gets bad conditions and hates them; there’s just no justice and no
adjustment. It’s disappointing that
after many satisfying works, including the start of this cartoon, the final
product turns out so weak.
D-
What Wood
Lincoln Do?
Life has many venues to explore and try out, and it goes
without saying that you’ll never realize the potential you have in that field
if you never try. At times you may be
assigned something or choose to try something that’s difficult for you and
you’ll need help with it. Even so, the
right thing to do is to look for ways you can still be active or try to get
what’s taught to you to show you’re still willing to learn and get better. While that would be a great center for this
story, it doesn’t quite reach its true potential for appeal through mostly
opting for spending a lot of time on the obviously bad path.
Lincoln’s class is assigned woodworking,
which is a subject he gets easily nervous about with painstaking details of
blurry vision, jelly legs, and ear ringing to show it. This is all the weight he has to be hesitant
of completing the woodwork assignments, and truth be told, it can be seen as
relatable to be nervous about something that seems hard. At the same time, and this may just be me,
but having this many ailments over fear of failing an assignment is pretty
extreme. It works much better as a short
joke scene like one of Clyde getting hospitalized over a fear of blowing up
balloons. Taking Lincoln’s anxieties
this seriously is kind of hard to do over something minor compared to other
reasons people have panic attacks.
There’s no reason why he can’t just learn about woodworking from someone
to overcome his fears.
At first, it
seems like that’s what the cartoon is going for. Mom offers to help Lincoln with his first
woodwork assignment through getting the right materials and showing him each
step of the process. However, this is where the cartoon becomes problematic. Lincoln can’t get anything right, so Mom
insists on doing the whole thing herself instead of pushing Lincoln to do the
right thing. She could at least do
what’s right first and have him follow later.
Even when she does the whole thing, you’d think Lincoln will be braver
to do his next assignment himself, but no.
He didn’t pay any attention to the work of the first one, and resorts to
incredibly lazy and dumb measures to complete other assignments he gets. When told to build a birdhouse, Lincoln
instead steals an elaborate one belonging to his pet bird, Walt. Then when he’s given a special assignment to
build a desk for his teacher, Mrs. Johnson, he tries to buy one from the store
behind her back. He goes through so much
trouble to fake hard work when he’d be better off just trying his best, even if
he fails. Plus, he really should have
expected Walt to not be happy that he took his house and would fight back at
some point.
As one could expect,
Lincoln’s apparent ‘craftsmanship’ is revealed to be a fraud and he’s met with
disappointment. He does ultimately
realize that trying his best would have been the better option to conquer his
anxieties in the end, and does just that with his next assignment. This is a nice conclusion, but I can’t help
but think the whole cartoon would have been stronger if Lincoln tried his best
to learn woodwork right from the start.
That could have made for a worthwhile lesson that there’s no shame in
not being the best at something no matter how hard you work. The majority of time spent on Lincoln taking
the easy and lazy way out of his work without trying doesn’t really sit right
with me for how obviously wrong his actions are.
This is still a good story and does
ultimately stress the importance of trying that I support, but I just feel the
whole thing could have been stronger.
C+
The Ranking
1. Head Poet’s Anxiety
2. Roadie to Nowhere
3. Shop Girl
4. Breaking Dad
5. Gown and Out
6. Fandom Pains
7. Insta-Gran
8. Selfie Improvement
9. Net Gains
10. No Place Like Homeschool
11. The Mad Scientist
12. City Slickers
13. Missed Connection
14. Fool Me Twice
15. Deal Me Out
16. Teachers’ Union
17. Tripped!
18. White Hare
19. A Fridge Too Far
20. Pasture Bedtime
21. What Wood Lincoln Do?
22. Friendzy
23. Pipe Dreams
24. Rita Her Rights
25. Ruthless People
The next Loud House review features Lana advocate for animal rights, and Lincoln and Clyde find legitimate talent in detective work.
Next time on MC Toon Reviews is a Steven Universe disappointment, "Rocknaldo."
Woodworking will be left up to Lana.
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