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:
Home of the
Fave
The parents of the Loud family have their faults, but it’s
clear they really love all 11 of their kids.
Dad especially shows this with the amount of cartoons of him bonding
with them making sure he treats them well and see him as someone to look up
to. In this cartoon, as that trend
continues, he’s put through the relatable challenge of showing that he loves his
kids equally.
Given how many cartoons
there are of specific siblings suffering while others get away with bad
behaviors, mostly in the earlier days, this is an interesting topic. It has the potential for others to realize
how unfair it is when a parent supports one kid or one set of kids while others
are left out or belittled. As the
beginning of this cartoon shows, that’s very likely to come up a lot
considering how many kids Dad has to be there for. He’s going to the store, and Luan and Lola
come along with him. However, he seems
to interact way more with Luan than Lola along the way making jokes all the way
through making purchases. Considering
how painfully obvious Luan’s puns tend to be and how she and Dad are the only
ones laughing at them, Lola is left annoyed as usual over this pun
onslaught. Her annoyance and attitude is
even prominent back home, suggesting that she feels that Dad favors Luan over
her, which Dad believes is the case.
Making this direction stand out is how there’s legit proof that Dad
knows what it’s like. It even comes with
a flashback where his own father spent more time with his brother, making him
feel left out in favorite pastimes like cooking. This is interesting information, and I hope
we see a cartoon about Dad’s brother in the future so he stands out as more
than just a plot device. As for now, Dad
spends the rest of the cartoon going to great lengths to show that there are no
favorites in the Loud family. Since
Lola’s upset, he spends a lot of time with her doing all her favorite
things. It makes for a collection of a
few mildly humorous scenes all while he’s wearing a dress from riding in
cramped princess cars to fumbling through a fashion show. At the center is genuine fatherly love that
comes from the joy of spending time with one of his kids.
However, this is only Lola Dad’s giving
attention to, and there are plenty of other kids for him to consider. He often sees one of the kids looking
disappointed and believes that they're jealous of the attention he’s giving to
others. He’s jumping through one
activity after another and it’s clearly exhausting for him. Eventually, he pulls off the ultimate stunt
of making separate dinners for every kid so that everyone has their
favorites. That surely can’t be too
relaxing with all the work that goes into each dish. Even then that’s not enough to satisfy him as
he pushes hard to fulfill any small request up to the point of giving everyone
treatment only one of them needs.
There’s a believable outcome to all this when Dad breaks down from all
the pressure and is put into a funk in the form of a Peanuts reference. There’s also great reassurance that he didn’t
need to worry about anything coming from all the kids if you can believe it,
and Lola wasn’t even jealous to begin with.
Granted it seems contrived since she was clearly upset by Dad and Luan’s
puns before getting to the checkout where she couldn’t get a free balloon, but
the point still stands.
There’s a
balanced perspective to all this where Dad proves he loves his kids equally,
and they don’t harbor any ill-will when one specific kid gets tended to. All this unfolds in a good cartoon to
believably display the nature of parenthood.
A
Hero Today,
Gone Tomorrow
One thing that makes some of this season’s last cartoons is
fleshing out supporting characters who have only had small roles or cameo
appearances prior. For this cartoon,
there’s development for Lynn’s best sports partner Margo. Now Margo has only had one speaking role
while the rest of her appearances were silent cameos easy to miss. Being one of the few members of Lynn’s team
to actually be named, it’s very fitting that she stars alongside her in a
cartoon. In addition, it further adds
appeal to Lynn’s character despite being rough and aggressive in most
instances where she has a major role.
The start shows that she and Margo have great chemistry as friends
and are very supportive of each other. This also applies to little things like
getting a burger. However, since she’s
so used to coming out as the star athlete, Lynn finds it hard to accept what soon
occurs. During a soccer game, although
she brings in most of the points as usual, when the opposing team closes in on
her, she has Margo make the game-winning shot.
From the great aesthetics of Margo’s moves when making the goal, she’s
instantly praised for her efforts, leaving Lynn without her usual praise.
At first, she’s fine with this change of
pace, but then one of the girls from her basketball team, Paula, points out
that this seems weird for her. By the
way, since Paula is still playing with a broken leg, call me ridiculous, but it
feels like that injury is somehow something she was born with. Is it ever going to heal? Anyway, it’s only when Margo starts getting
special treatment over that goal when Lynn starts to really be bothered as
depicted by a nerve in her neck that keeps intensifying. This proves Paula’s point, although I’m not a
fan of how she points it out almost the exact same way every time. It makes the cartoon feel repetitive.
It also turns out unbelievable when you
consider some of the ways Margo gets attention.
I get videos of her move and discussing it during gym, but why would a
goal excuse her from a test and book fine?
Even if she is a great athlete, she still needs knowledge and the
library needs money. Also, if Lynn is a
regularly great athlete, why is the name of a burger suddenly changing after
this one great move from another person? Things like this
make Lynn’s jealousy perfectly understandable.
It’s crazy that Margo gets attention for one move that she never got for
her many great moves. Where’s the
justice in that?
Even so, Lynn is still
in the wrong when in her next game, she purposefully tries to score a winning
goal herself, and only succeeds at the last second.
Since this is a rude unfriendly act no matter what, Margo rightfully
calls Lynn out knowing very well what she was doing. After all, just because there’s little
justice in the treatment Margo got for her one win compared to Lynn’s several,
what Lynn does doesn’t have justice either.
If Margo’s happy for Lynn when she gets attention, it’s only fair that
Lynn be happy for her too. In the next
game, her efforts to apologize are nicely understood in the end, and there’s
even a nice twist where the injured Paula wins the game this time. The last scene of the three of them enjoying
a burger as friends is perhaps the best satisfaction one could ask for in this
story.
While the lengths of the praise
for one win in a middle school soccer game lean towards ridiculous, the
chemistry of the featured friends and Lynn’s good side are on great
display. That’s enough to make it a
well-done starring role for characters familiar and rarely seen.
A-
The Ranking
1. Really Loud Music
2. Head Poet’s Anxiety
3. Roadie to Nowhere
4. Tea Tale Heart
5. Shop Girl
6. Breaking Dad
7. Gown and Out
8. Home of the Fave
9. Fandom Pains
10. Insta-Gran
11. Driving Ambition
12. Selfie Improvement
13. Scales of Justice
14. Middle Men
15. Net Gains
16. Crimes of Fashion
17. Everybody Loves Leni
18. The Spies Who Loved Me
19. No Place Like Homeschool
20. Hero Today, Gone Tomorrow
21. House of Lies
22. The Mad Scientist
23. City Slickers
24. Missed Connection
25. Fool Me Twice
26. Deal Me Out
27. Teachers’ Union
28. Tripped!
29. White Hare
30. A Fridge Too Far
31. The Loudest Thanksgiving
32. Sitting Bull
33. Predict Ability
34. Game Boys
35. Pasture Bedtime
36. Absent Minded
37. What Wood Lincoln Do?
38. Jeers for Fears
39. Friendzy
40. Pipe Dreams
41. Be Stella My Heart
42. Rita Her Rights
43. Ruthless People
The next Loud House review shows Mom legitimately bonding with her kids as the new head of Lucy's writing club, and we start seeing the nature of Luna's relationship with her female love interest, Sam.
Next time on MC Toon Reviews is "Raising the Barn" from Steven Universe.
No comments:
Post a Comment