I watched the new episodes a few days ago.
"Some Buddy to Love" was quite fun.
Lynn Sr. and Rita wake up one morning at 6:49 only to find that the alarm clock didn't go off. They rush to get everyone awake and dressed for school. Lisa is trying to tell Rita something, but she tells her to cork it. Since Leni is off with Lily visiting Pop-Pop, they've got everyone but Lincoln. He comes out attempting his fourth-wall breaking, but Rita puts the kibosh on that. They prepare cereal and PB&J for breakfast and lunch with them bumping into each other. They hand over the food to the kids and open the door to find Clyde greeting them, "Happy Saturday!". That was what Lisa was trying to tell Rita. Exasperated and exhausted, Lynn Sr. wonders what got them into this mess. Rita reminisces about being trapped in the bathroom for 45 minutes and enjoying it. This gives him an idea: to have the kids spend their day all by themselves. They pitch it to the kids in a way that would have them know more about each other.
They're reluctant, since they think it's unnecessary, so she threatens to ground them forever. Then the parents pick the pairs with a bingo machine. Rita pulls out ping-pong balls marked with drawings of the kids (based on their cartoon designs!). The pairs are Lucy and Lisa, Lana and Lola, Luna and Luan, and Lincoln and Lynn. They make a dash for the bedroom as the kids clamor. They try to think of something to do together. Rita proposes lying in bed and watching TV. Lynn Sr. suggests aiming higher, so she switches to eating in bed and watching TV. He counters with going out to eat at a restaurant instead. In the attic, Lynn offers to teach Lincoln different variations of football. He counter-proposes helping him and Clyde build a rocket so that they could prove their "physics teacher" wrong about their endeavor. Clyde comes by too. She doesn't budge.
Rita suggests going to a restaurant formerly known as The Silver Samurai, which causes Lynn Sr. to think about the places where some of the kids threw up. Meanwhile, the boys head off outside to build the rocket. Lynn reminds them that they still need to actually learn something. When Linc says that he's learned that the two are incompatible, Clyde takes this as an opportunity to actually try Dr. Lopez's therapy methods with the two of them. At the same time, the twins have trouble figuring out what they could learn from each other, since they think they know all about each other already. Meanwhile, Rita suggests setting aside the restaurant proposal for a little while. Lynn Sr. proposes packing a suitcase, blindfolding her, and taking her on a surprise vacation to Mackinac Island. It's a great idea…if he didn't say it in front of her. That was kinda dumb, because I hear that place is quite nice. Upstairs, Lisa and Lucy argue about whether science or the supernatural are superior. Lucy demonstrates by summoning lightning, while Lisa uses a weather machine by making it rain, prompting a challenge.
Lynn Sr. considers biking. Rita reminds him he sold their bikes to buy a unicycle, and he suffered a concussion. Besides, it's raining outside. Just as it clears, Luan finishes teaching Luna how to do a spit take. They're doing quite well at the buddy thing. Luna follows it up by showing how to write a song. Her advice is to use the world around her for inspiration. Luan spots Lisa and Lucy rushing outside, which leads to her to decide to write about the Loud House. Cue the first bars. The day is half over, and the parents are worried about what to do. Rita suggests organizing the garage, something they've been planning, but Lynn Sr. objects, indicating it as unambitious, contrasting it with Mick Swagger's efforts. She suggests being the Mick Swaggers of big special days. Unfortunately, they can't think of anything.
They go off to open the garage and find the unicycle tumbling down the piles of boxes laden inside, prompting them to bail on it. With two hours and eleven minutes to go, they decide to do the TV in bed idea. He pulls out a VHS set of Who's That Lady with the extra bonus seasons of Still That Lady. Unfortunately, there's no VCR. They decide on streaming. Rita chooses 'Duchess of Devonshire: Queen at Sea', and brings out the tablet and snacks from a box. Unfortunately, they don't know the password for the site. In the attic, Clyde notes that Lincoln likes plans and Lynn likes sports. Linc thinks that's obvious. Clyde insists it's relevant, and he proceeds to suggest that the two plan a new sport together. They take to that idea. In the basement, Lisa pulls out a plasma accelerator, while Lucy conjures up a staff. They proceed to fire up their respective weapons at each other and end up being blasted away. How ridiculous.
Luna and Luan go out of their room to find more inspiration. They see the twins talking about how they know everything. Suddenly, Lynn pours ping-pong balls down from the attic before she clambers down. Then Lincoln bursts out of his room towards the bathroom, dodging the girls. More lines for Luan's song! Outside, Linc and Lynn plan out their sport. The sport starts with two players running through a "chaos course". Lincoln suggests lining it with Nerf cannons loaded with "minus balls" that deduct points per hit. Then they go through a "smell zone" loaded with Lily's diapers. Lynn suggests dribbling a soccer ball through it. Then at the end zone, Lincoln suggests jumping on trampolines. Lynn suggests changing it to a splat wall, and Linc decides to make it sticky, and she adds full-bodied Velcro suits. Lincoln feels proud of it, and the two christen it, "Loud Ball".
Lynn Sr. decides to book a reservation at the restaurant formerly known as The Silver Samurai, with a table by the river, appetizers, and roses. For both of them. Lucy and Lisa clamber out of the wreckage in the basement. Lola counts the freckles on Lana's face and finds a new one. She checks it and it turns out to just be maple syrup (Lana's favorite). She's concerned they'll never eat again. She says that she'll go down to get some grape juice to drink up, which surprises Lola. She tried it two weeks ago at the birthday party of a kid named Emma (probably not the Emma from "Brave the Last Dance"), and grew to love it. Lola hates grape juice because it causes burps; that's exactly why Lana likes it. Now there's something Lola didn't know. Meanwhile, Lynn Sr. calls the restaurant and gets a reservation. Unfortunately, it's three months from Monday. Lisa agrees that science and the supernatural are both powerful, and offers to shake on it. However, Lucy's hand is hot, so they decide to bow. Then they see Tanya damaged from the explosion. They're afraid of how Leni would react. They decide to fix her and shake on it, which gets Lisa's hand scalded.
Luna and Luan come out of the house to see Lynn and Lincoln do their first game of Loud Ball. They can "smell the diapers for miles". They're mining the game. Lynn Sr. and Rita try again with the passwords, and end up getting locked out of the streaming service. And there's only two minutes left in their day. They expect to find "Buddy Day" to be a bust, and decide to go out of the room. To their surprise, the kids clamor it as a great success. Lincoln asks them to try out Loud Ball, and they're suited up. They remark, "One boy, ten girls/Wouldn't trade it for the world," which gives the perfect line for Luan's song. The kids proceed to perform a reworked version of the theme song as they traverse the course as we are treated to a montage of everything that happened in the episode. They finish the course at the end, and the kids go back inside. However, they're still stuck in the wall, and the smell of Lily's diapers is wafting over them.
This was a pretty simple episode showing how life in a big family is for the parents, which is something I don't think we saw before. First off, it plays out as a sort of bottle episode where they try to think of something to do by themselves. You can tell how much they want to spend time alone. Nothing much to say except that it's a good job showing this dynamic. Both the strongest and the weakest parts involve the siblings. The strongest ones were the trio of Lincoln, Clyde, and Lynn and the duo of Luna and Luan. I liked how Lincoln and Lynn got along quite well creating Loud Ball. Charming. And Clyde was pretty good helping the two mesh together. Meanwhile, it was fun seeing more Luna and Luan helping each other out. Frankly, the weakest siblings were the twins and Lucy and Lisa. The twins' plot felt rather too sparse. Meanwhile, Lucy and Lisa's plot was too outrageously fantastical for me. Again, they should tone down the sci-fi and the supernatural. It doesn't fit the show or the franchise as a whole. Have them talk about embalming or something.
Other things: I liked the beginning of the episode, where they accelerated the footage so that everyone's dressed up very quickly. And the part where Rita stops Lincoln from monologuing was pretty funny. And Clyde did the punchline. Quite hilarious. Another was the rendition of the show's theme. It was nice seeing the kids perform it wonderfully. You can tell how much fun they had with it. Same for the reprise heard over in the credits (for VOD or streaming). It sounds very much like the original theme song from the animated series. My personal critique, however, is that they didn't change the lyrics to make it less Lincoln-centric, since here, it's two of the girls who write the song. Another thing, maybe tone down a bit of the toilet humor with stuff like the diapers or Lana burping from grape juice. I mean, hasn't Lily been potty trained for a while now? Wouldn't they have phased that out already? It seems odd. I think the show should try and grow out of that.
I give this episode an 8/10.
"Little-ol-lady-whoooo Has Talent" was an excellent episode.
Rita is recording Lynn Sr. talking about competing in the Royal Woods Talent Competition. The goal: to beat the Torkelson family's record of winning seven events 19 years ago, and patriarch Fred would always gloat about it with his seven medals every time he encounters Lynn Sr. He doesn't even live in the neighborhood. When Lynn Sr. calls on everyone to assemble, Lincoln tells us that he doesn't have a talent compared to everyone else in the family. It's odd, considering that the animated series has him do plenty of stuff quite well, but I digress. It's underscored when Lynn Sr. addresses the sisters with monikers reflecting their talents, and Linc is simply asked to do the dishes. Afterwards, the sisters are herded upstairs, and Rita wishes she could perform on stage again. He says that it's about the children (and beating Fred Torkelson), but he does admit he can't think of anyone better.
Suddenly, Howard and Harold McBride burst in doing a vaudeville musical number: they're the hosts for the show. Lincoln asks Clyde what he's good at (which the latter interprets as a fart prank). It's a serious question: there's no category he could possibly win. Clyde assures him the most important category is being an amazing best friend. Of course, that means absolutely nothing. He's just so desperate to get a trophy in the case (rehashing "Making the Case", eh?). When Clyde asks how he could help, Lincoln proceeds to make him pull his finger. Absolutely disgusting.
Luna, competing in the music category, is working on a song about doubt as Leni (fashion category) comes in, saying that she'll be the one designing Luna's costume. Luna complains that the way she's singing the song felt inauthentic. Leni chases her as she storms out.
Luan and Lucy pass as the former talks about performing without Mr. Coconuts for the first time, so she asks Lucy to hide him. She says she'll "banish him to the seventh level of the underworld". Luan responds that she doesn't need to banish him anywhere, so Lucy proposes having him drawn and quartered by the four steeds of the apocalypse, followed by burning in a lake of fire, to Luan's objections. She just needs him hidden. She asks her if she could just lock him in a box or something. An irritated Lucy gives in and ends up knocking the marionette on the door frame as she exits, complaining to a distracted Rita carrying laundry over to the twins' room. There, Lola is practicing her twirling routine. Rita notices that she's flushed and offers her water, but she says she's fine. As Rita comments on how she could beat rival Amber Spitzpatrick, Lana comes in with a glass of water. They explain to a bewildered Rita that it's because of their "twin-tuition", demonstrated with Lana's welding mask.
She goes back out and encounters Lori. She's looking for Lisa, who'll be for Little Miss Talented and Glamorous. Rita says she doesn't know, and goes on her way. Then Lori asks a kid where Lisa is. The kid turns out to be Lisa in a dress, to her amazement. She had downloaded the You So Sassy app into Todd's hard drive for her extreme makeover. For her blonde hair, she had Todd use a follicle manipulator to change her hair color (I don't know what the hell that is, wouldn't hair dye be less complicated?) to get a better chance of winning the pageant. She's hell-bent on it. But there's an ulterior motive: she's plotting to subvert the very idea of beauty pageants. Meanwhile, Lincoln finds a category he could win: yodeling. Only one other person has ever competed for it: Matthew Torkelson, 19 years ago. Despite poor yodeling skills, he thinks he could have a shot. Clyde says it involves alternating between high and low voices, and proceeds to demonstrate with a perfect yodel. This prompts Clyde to decide to join, to Linc's chagrin.
Lincoln tries to dissuade Clyde, but he's standing his ground; he wants the recognition. So they train their voices for the competition in a montage backed to Focus's "Hocus Pocus". Pretty fun. Soon, the talent show day arrives. Lola is singing "America the Beautiful" when Amber Spitzpatrick confronts her dressed as Lady Liberty. Apparently, she bullies everyone in town. When Lola says she can't be beat, she pushes her into the closet and traps her inside. How unpatriotic. Meanwhile, Lucy and Lana are in the garage imprisoning Mr. Coconuts in a steel sarcophagus to be welded shut when Luan bursts in demanding to get him. Lucy orders Lana to seal it, but she senses Lola's in trouble. She abandons the job and Luan tries to open it to no avail. Onstage, the boys confront each other when they hear another person yodeling. It turns out they've got competition. Later that night, Rita comes by looking for Harold. She ends up running into her husband, who's taken his place because Harold blew his vocal cords helping Clyde yodel, to her chagrin.
The show begins, and Lynn Sr. and Howard go and do a wonderful opening number with Harold on piano. Meanwhile, the boys recognize their competitor as Thor Torkelson, eating pickles. They proceed to scarf them down. They begin the show with the theme, "Salute to America", with Lola coming up first to sing "America the Beautiful".
When she doesn't come out, they skip ahead to sports with basketball spinning, where Lynn is competing. Lana arrives and breaks Lola out after a while (there was a snack break). No reward until she wins, though. But she's a shoo-in. She had Amber trapped in a vending machine. Lynn has her ball spinning the longest, winning the sports competition. She does a victory dance that ends up denying three girls and a boy named Charlie (!) entry to the dance competition. Meanwhile, the boys are in the bathroom because of the pickles. Again, absolutely disgusting.
Later, Lola wows the crowd with her routine, and then the comedy competition starts off with Luan. Without Mr. Coconuts, she's reluctant. Lucy has to throw her onstage, where she talks about what happened to Mr. Coconuts. The crowd responds positively, so she follows it up with a bit about "the seventh level of the underworld" ("Or as I call it, our family bathroom."). That segues about going to the bathroom in the Loud House, which satisfies Lucy. Lori finds Lisa waiting to go on stage, having now tanned herself with Lori's bronzer. Lisa's prepared a speech condemning the shallowness of pageants. Lori's unnerved, but she nonetheless supports her. When she tells her that she can't wait to see her on the winners wall, Lisa notices that Lori was a part of it, with her goal: "To be a professional golfer and a supportive sister." Backstage, Leni calls for Luna. The younger sister comes out wearing a baggy tunic with a box on her head, based on her lyrics. She lashes out, saying Leni's not listening, but she insists she's got it.
Lisa commences her speech. She starts her speech as written, about pageants exacerbating the problem of focusing on appearances, but when she sees Lori holding a sign encouraging her, she goes off script and talks about the aspirations of people like Lori. This nets her applause, then Luna is set to come up. The boys finally finish in the bathroom, only to find Thor taunting them. Onstage, people laugh at Luna's getup as she sits on the piano. She begins with a powerful piano ballad. When the music begins to intensify, Leni pushes a button that reveals Luna to be in a leather jacket get-up, leading to a rap number that wows the crowd. Then she switches to a sequined dress and an electric guitar for the third act. Then Leni activates some sort of effect making the dress appear to be on fire, I kid you not! It's like that scene from The Hunger Games with Katniss's dress aflame. The judges worship her, and even the Torkelsons are impressed.
Yodeling is the last event, after a 19-year hiatus. Thor Torkelson goes first with a very classical yodel, which causes the boys to panic and Clyde to consider faking their deaths. Thor finishes the performance and smugly mocks them. This gives Lincoln an idea: to join forces as a duet, not seen since 1986. They proceed to do a yodel rap number that even gets the other Torkelsons bopping in their seats. Then Lynn Sr. comes on and introduces Rita to the crowd. He got away with it by having him and Lana stuff Howard into another vending machine. They do their own brief vaudeville number before getting their kids and Clyde to join them onstage for a chorus line. And Fred gives them respect. And Lily says, "That's all folks!" to end the show. At home, Lisa comes back out with her normal hair (using a molecular re-sequencer, whatever that is), as everyone celebrates their wins. Lynn Sr. reminds them that they won't gloat. However, tonight is the exception, so they all head to Vanzilla to gloat at the Torkelsons and give them a taste of their own medicine.
I thought this episode was much better. First off, the singing. The vaudeville numbers were fun. Lola singing was quite interesting to hear. The yodeling battle was quite wonderful. And of course, Luna serves as the highlight. Design, visual effects, etc. were quite lavish, fitting for a season finale. They pulled all the stops. The character pairings were exquisite. The Loud and McBride parents were fun to watch. Leni and Luna had brief but wonderful tension regarding the Luna's music. We get to see more Luan and Lucy interactions courtesy of the Bradleys. The twins were delightful as always. Lori and Lisa were nice, though I do think Lisa should have toned down the scientific experimentation. Lincoln and Clyde also had dramatic tension, but I thought the toilet humor was too much. Stuff about Lincoln wanting a trophy felt redundant with the animated series. The montage was a favorite of mine. More music! And everyone got their fair share of screentime.
All in all, this was a great episode.
I give it a 9/10.