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Scales of
Justice
It’s now clear that the girls of the Loud family are more
interesting characters to headline cartoons.
One reason is because of the entertainment from their unique
interests. Some of them can even add
endearment to topics that would normally come off as preachy and boring.
This is easily true for Lana when it comes to
her interest in nature and animals. Her
various pets all over the house and knowledge of their care is usually the
center of a few funny or cute scenes.
However, these aspects of Lana’s character are put to good use when
they’re the center of a story, like this one where her love of animals reaches
out beyond her home. Like an earlier
animal rights story, “Frog Wild,” Lana spends the cartoon ensuring the
well-being of animal friends from the outside world.
She’s friends of a fish family at Tall
Timbers’ Pond and is excited for the eventual arrival of their babies. However, the pond is scheduled for being cleared
to make way for a mustard warehouse, and it’s not good for the fish family’s health
to move. While the construction worker
is needlessly unsympathetic about the job, Lana’s attachment to the fish family
shines as the true heart of her environmental activism. There’s a clear endearing reason to save the
pond from demolition other than a simple vague one about this decision not
being good for the environment. Plus,
the cartoon further stands out for working in mindset of a young child. Lana learns from her parents that making a
statement about saving the pond involves complex steps through petitions,
signatures, etc. With the details too boring and the task sounding hard, she
instead takes a simpler measure to protect the pond.
After Leni freaks out over her covered in mud
thinking she’s a monster, Lana decides to do the same to the construction
worker. She gets a bunch of forest
animals to form a lake monster, and it looks convincing enough to scare away
the construction worker from the pond.
Convincing is the key word to this direction. Lana’s lake monster disguise shows that a lot
of effort went into this plan and that she didn’t face the construction worker
with a shoddy unconvincing monster getup.
You can actually buy that this plan was perfect.
However, since taking the easy way out of a
predicament isn’t seen as a productive path to take in life, the story does
appropriately have consequences to Lana’s actions. She ends up turning the pond into a tourist
attraction which isn’t good for the fish family, so she convinces the populace
that the monster’s at a different lake to make them leave. This also means the
mustard warehouse construction is going right back to where it started,
endangering the fish once more. To make
Lana’s consequences bigger, there’s no time to do the right thing with the
petition, so taking the easy way out is set to destroy what she tried to
protect. She’s only saved by convenience
when the fish turn out to be endangered and therefore protected by law. I must admit this occurrence means that the
entire story could have been avoided if someone pointed that out earlier. Surely someone other than Lisa could have
realized this. This wouldn’t be a huge
factor if this reveal had a tie to the petition and the monster scheme.
Still, I can’t fault the great positive vibes
of Lana’s fish friends getting saved. It
makes the cartoon a strong example of how to push a positive agenda through
highlighting wholesome personal bonds with nature.
A
Crimes
of Fashion
I may be growing to feel that Lincoln may not have been a
strong enough lead character, but he still has genuinely strong starring roles. This cartoon features just that along with a
great team-up of him and Clyde, and a story that puts their interest in Ace
Savvy to good use.
The biggest thing working
in this cartoon’s favor is how it highlights a potential talent for Lincoln and
Clyde. When reading Ace Savvy comics,
they always figure out the culprit. In
other words, enjoying their favorite superhero suggests strong detective skills
they hope to use in actual mysteries.
They get the chance to do that when they hear about what Leni has gotten
up to. Giving this season further value,
Leni getting that job at the clothes store is seen as a permanent change and
not a one-off occurrence for the one time.
However, this may not be the case when she gets let go due to a bunch of
scarves going missing ever since she started working there hence the belief
that she stole them. Like most audience
members, Lincoln and Clyde do not believe that Leni would commit such an act
and set out to clear her name.
This is
already an interesting premise, and their crime investigation is just as
enjoyable. Lincoln and Clyde go to the
store searching for any suspicious activity around the scene of the scarf
thievery. Every peculiar act they
witness comes with a legitimate suggestion as to why the person passing by
could have stolen the scarves. A girl in
their class sneaking to the scarves before grabbing them does look suspicious,
and they have a point when Scoots, the elder woman, has a mall crime
spree history. However, legitimately unsuspected
circumstances prove them wrong. That said,
they do tend to lean towards their usual foolishness through being quick to
make a scene on any possible culprit.
They may have reason for their beliefs, but there’s always a chance they
could be wrong. It can’t be that hard to
get all the facts before acting.
Their
claims do start getting a tad ridiculous when they assume a co-worker named
Fiona is the real thief. While it’s not
hard to suggest she framed Leni, especially when it looks like she’s taking out
something as blue as the scarves, they suspect Fiona because she threw them
out. They seem too dense to realize that
she didn’t throw them out to hide something.
They kept making messes and she was rightfully annoyed. Needless to say, they’re wrong about her too,
and it seems like they were wrong to believe enjoying superheroes can lead to a
productive life.
That’s when an
interesting direction is taken. While
Lincoln and Clyde are lamenting, Leni folds their capes like scarves. This
gives them an idea to solve the mystery, and they risk getting banned from the
mall to tell the storeowner. A few scenes of her son asking them to play
superheroes with them throughout the cartoon were staged like innocent cute
side scenes. They turn out to be far
more relevant when Lincoln and Clyde ask him to take him to his pretend secret
lair, and that’s where the scarves are.
I could question why the owner never suggested that her son was playing
with the produce, but that would be nitpicking.
Following this is Leni rightfully getting her job back, and Lincoln and
Clyde gaining credibility as detectives.
It’s a strong satisfying conclusion that gives recognition to the
characters involved, and it especially makes me wish we saw Lincoln and Clyde
solve mysteries more often after this.
Above all, it brings strong inspiration for greatness by showing that
great skills can sometimes stem from the most unlikely places.
A
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. Scales of Justice
10. Net Gains
11. Crimes of Fashion
12. No Place Like Homeschool
13. The Mad Scientist
14. City Slickers
15. Missed Connection
16. Fool Me Twice
17. Deal Me Out
18. Teachers’ Union
19. Tripped!
20. White Hare
21. A Fridge Too Far
22. Pasture Bedtime
23. What Wood Lincoln Do?
24. Friendzy
25. Pipe Dreams
26. Rita Her Rights
27. Ruthless People
The next Loud House review are two lesser entries back to back with Clyde overreacting which threatens to end his legitimately good position as junior administrator, and the first appearance of the new girl from "White Hare" being overshadowed by Lincoln and his friends trying to win her over.
Next time on MC Toon Reviews is "Tiger Philanthropist" from Steven Universe.
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