Recap / The Loud House S1E7 "Picture Perfect / Undie Pressure"

Picture Perfect: Lincoln tries to take a "perfect" family photo in order to give it to his parents for their anniversary.

Undie Pressure: The kids bet to see who can go the longest without doing their most annoying habits.

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"Picture Perfect"

• Armor-Piercing Question: When Lincoln accidentally blurts out the reason why everybody is taking a second family photo:
  Lori: "What was wrong with the other one?"
• Be Yourself: Inverted. Lincoln learns to accept his sisters for who they really are.
• Blind Without 'Em: Lincoln tries to make Lisa look "perfect" by removing her glasses, and she ends up falling down the stairs.
• Crappy Homemade Gift: Lincoln makes his parents a coffee mug every year for their anniversary. However, he is no good at pottery, and the mugs look droopy. The parents like the sentiment (let's believe it), but they secretly hide the mugs in the attic. When Lincoln discovers the secret, he decides to make them a better gift: a family photo. The photo comes out looking wrong, with things like the twins fighting and little Lily running around naked, but the parents love it as they think it sums the family up well.
• Facepalm: Lincoln does one when he hears his sisters' comments on his handmade coffee mugs.
• Family Portrait of Characterization: Lincoln tries to get a tidy family photo of him, his sisters, and the pets, but the impatient sisters act as they usually would when the camera takes to long to shoot. The end result is the picture depicting the unwinding chaos that are the Loud Siblings.
• Five Stages of Grief: Lincoln ends up hitting all five stages as the episode progresses. First, he is annoyed when his sisters do their stuff in the picture (denial), then he rejects the picture because it's not "perfect" enough (anger). He rallies up the sisters for another picture and ends up changing their looks much to their displeasure (bargaining). Eventually, when he sees them doing their stuff, he regrets the new picture (depression), leaving him to give Mom and Dad the first picture, as it shows the sisters the way they truly are (acceptance).
• Forbidden Fruit: While in the attic, Lincoln comes across a box that reads "DO NOT OPEN!". He opens it anyway, revealing it's full of the mugs he made. This confirms that his parents hated them.
• Gasp!: The sisters do this when Lola reveals that their parents put Lincoln's mugs in the attic.
• Glasses Curiosity: After taking Lisa's glasses from her as mentioned above, Lincoln puts them on Leni to make her latter look smarter (than she already is, as he himself says).
• Go Fetch: Lincoln gets Lynn to go outside for the second photo by telling her to fetch her football, complete with her acting like a dog.
• Goggles Do Nothing: Apparently, Leni's sunglasses are just for show; she thought she went blind when they fell over her face.
• Got Me Doing It: Lincoln does this twice concerning his mug. The first time this happens is when he refers to it as a paperweight after Lori thought it was one. Later on, Luna makes fun of the mug, saying it looks like their Aunt Shirley, which eventually causes Lincoln to refer to it as such.
• Hand Gagging: The girls cover Lola's mouth when she blurts out that Mom and Dad put Lincoln's mugs in the attic.
• Identical Stranger: Subverted in the stranger part. Carol Pingrey, the girl who beat Lori at homecoming queen according to Lincoln, flat out looks like her.
• Jerkass Realization: Lincoln when he sees how happy his sisters are with being themselves.
• Laser-Guided Karma: At the end of the episode, Lincoln smugly reveals the empty box his coffee mugs were in and says the girls should put their gifts in their as they now “look super-lame next to his awesome gift”. Given that the sisters were making fun of the mugs and weren’t much help during the photography, you could say this rub-in was their just desserts.
• Last-Second Photo Failure: Lincoln makes several attempts to make a formal photo of himself, his sisters and their pets as a gift to their parents for their anniversary. When the first photo goes off due to the sisters' impatience from the camera taking too long to shoot, Lincoln takes various more while changing the sisters' looks (much to their dissatisfaction) with similar outcomes, which means he decides to keep the first photo at the end. The parents like the photo since it sums up the Loud family's chaotic nature.
• Match Cut: When Lincoln coerces Luna and Luan into being in the second photo the scene cuts from their room to the backyard with them in the exact same poses.
• Punny Name: The author of Lucy's book is "Ima Cadaver".
• Shame If Something Happened: Lincoln says this to Luna and Luan about their guitar and Groucho glasses, respectively, in order to get them to take a second family photo.
• Shout-Out: When Lola holds a mirror in her hands:
  Lola: "Mirror, mirror, in my hand, who's the prettiest in the land?"
• A Taste of Their Own Medicine: In the beginning of the episode, Lincoln’s sisters mocked and made fun of him for his lousy homemade gift for Mom and Dad, saying that it would end up being put in the attic. However, he ended up making a present that both of them loved: the family portrait. Thus, Lincoln can’t help rubbing it in to his sisters at the end of the episode, saying that they should put their gifts in the attic, because they would look lame in comparison. This makes his sisters start shouting at him while he’s smirking.
• Your Other Left: When posing for the photo in the beginning, Leni is told to move to the left. However, she moves to the viewer's left, which is her right.

"Undie Pressure"

• Addiction Displacement: Since Luna bet that she can't speak with a British accent, she decides to speak with a Swedish accent instead.
• All Animals Are Dogs: Lana acts like a dog when she tries to go outside to play in the mud. Lola commands her to heel and banishes her to Charles' bed.
• Artistic License: Lincoln's end of the bet is to read with his clothes on; when Lily ends up winning in the end, Lincoln still had his shirt on, so technically he shouldn't be eliminated yet or both he and Lily won.
• Assumed Win: After Lola loses, Lincoln declares himself the winner and sheds his pants, but then he bumps into Lily, realizing he forgot her and she didn't cry the entire time, thus Lily is announced the winner.
• Be Yourself: Lola tells the siblings they should all accept their habits.
• Big "NO!": Lola shouts one when Luan snaps and loses the bet.
• Bittersweet Ending: Lincoln loses the bet (albeit very narrowly) and is worried about never reading comics in his underwear again. But Lola, feeling sorry for him and seeing how hard it was for everyone to resist their own vices through the bet, voids her victory and even orders the "victory undies" he wanted while agreeing to accept all their habits.
• Bottle Episode: Most of the episode takes place in the living room.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Besides Lincoln, Lisa does this when she looks at the camera and says that she is only human after doing her poop study and losing her bet.
• Chicken Joke: Bobby says that he had to wait for a chicken to cross the road and wonders why it would, which causes Luan to break and tell jokes. At the end, he is seen chasing that very chicken demanding answers.
• Continuity Nod: Lincoln completely forgets about Lily; this sorta refers back to "Left in the Dark" when he forgets about Lucy.
• Dark Horse Victory: Just as seemingly all the sisters have been disqualified and Lincoln assumes he's won, they realize Lily, who they'd essentially forgotten about, hadn't engaged in her annoying habit (crying), making her the true winner.
• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • Lincoln says in this episode he can only read comics in his underwear as reading them while dressed would be uncomfortable. However, in later episodes, he reads comic books while dressed without a problem, implying he grew out of that habit.
  • Lily's habit is crying nonstop; this was dropped in later seasons.
• Establishing Character Moment: Bobby's first on-screen appearance gives a pretty good indication of his character. When Lori, induced by Lincoln's bet, does not answer Bobby's calls, he comes to the Loud house in the rain to lament and plead with Lori. Finally, when Lori answers the door to talk to Bobby, he proves well-meaning, if somewhat dense, by giving her a six-week-old milkshake from their first date.
• Foreshadowing: After Lisa loses the bet and Lola snaps, Lincoln says, "And then there were two," referring to himself and Lola. He's wrong, as there's actually three left, with the third being Lily, foreshadowing her victory at the bet.
• Got Me Doing It: When Luna grabs Lori's phone:
  Luna: (Swedish accent) "I vill take dat, ja."
  Lori: "No, you von't! Dah, I mean, won't!"
• Hidden Depths: Lola is generally thought of as the most annoying and snobby one in the family. But in this episode she accomplished the feat of being the most sensible one, when she realized that the challenge was a big idiocy. And she ends up accepting that Lincoln is only in his underwear, even if it upsets her.
• I Ate WHAT?!: Bobby gives Lori the milkshake from their first date six weeks ago. The very same one. This makes Lori need to take a dump urgently; which prompts Lisa to complete her studies.
• Irony: Lola is the one who comes up with the contest; yet she is the one who realizes the siblings need to accept their habits.
• I Resemble That Remark!: As Lincoln lists off each habit the girls have to give up, each one is in the middle of doing said habits.
  Lincoln: "So if I have to read comics with my clothes on, Lola can't look in the mirror. (Lola immediately closes her pocket mirror) Luna can't speak in a British accent."
  Luna: (while listening to a radio) "Rock and roll!" (promptly slaps a hand over her mouth after hearing Lincoln)
  Lincoln: "Lana can't play in the mud."
  Lana: (about to run outside into the rain, does an immediate dejected about-face) "Dang it!"
  Lincoln: "Lori can't talk to Bobby."
  Lori: (Stops mid-chat with Bobby on the phone) "Bobby who?"
  Lincoln: "Leni can't say "like"."
  Leni: "Like, okay." (her smile turns into a wince)
  Lincoln: "Lucy can't pop up and scare people. (Lucy retreats into the darkness of the fireplace she was hiding in) Lisa has to give up her weird studies."
  Lisa: (while observing her "specimens") "Forgive me, science."
  Lincoln: "Luan can't tell bad jokes. (Luan, about to say something, literally zips her lips) Lynn can't turn everything into a sport. (Lynn, about to use a broom like a bat, switches to sweeping the floor normally) And Lily can't cry. (Lily, in the middle of crying, stuffs a pacifier into her mouth)
• Like Is, Like, a Comma: This is Leni's bad habit. Naturally, she is the first to lose the bet.
• Loophole Abuse: Lincoln get around his side of the bet by reading comics in Lori's leggings, since they didn't say whose pants he should wear. Though ultimately he ditches them when they end up riding up too much to deal with and switches to sweatpants. Lori did warn him.
• Nightmare Face: Lola has one when the remainder of the bet appears to be down to her and Lincoln:
  Lola: "You may have outlasted those amateurs, but now you've gotta deal with a REAL PROFESSIONAL!"
• Offscreen Teleportation: Lucy's habit. She is challenged to not do this, as it always scares everyone else who doesn't see her coming. She immediately loses this bet from responding to Leni losing her own bet in this matter, which all happens less than five seconds after the bet starts.
• Pet the Dog: Lola buys Lincoln his "victory undies" even though he lost the bet, saying that it's unfair for him to not go about his habits while the others can.
• Potty Emergency: Lori is forced to rush to the bathroom after unknowingly drinking a six-week old milkshake. Unfortunately for her, Lisa follows her right into the bathroom to complete her study.
• Sanity Slippage:
  • Luan goes through it when she tries to resist telling jokes:
  Lincoln: "Why did the chicken cross the road?"
  Luan: "TO GET TO THE OTHER SIDE! TO RUN AWAY FROM THE COOK! TO PROVE HE'S NO CHICKEN!" (laughs manically)
  • Lola goes off her rocker from trying not to use her makeup mirror.
• Shout-Out: Lola's messy makeup makes her look like The Joker from The Dark Knight.
• Something We Forgot: In the end, Lincoln loses because he forgot that Lily was part of the competition too (by a term he set no less) and celebrates too soon after he gets Lola eliminated.
• Smug Snake: Lincoln shows shades of this as his sisters steadily break under pressure. By the time it's down to him and Lola, he's taking open delight in her desperation.
• Tears of Joy: Lincoln gets teary-eyed when Lola buys him his "victory undies".
• Tempting Fate: When Lisa points out that Lori has not taken a dump in quite some time, Lori boasts that there is no way she will let Lisa study her feces. Lori finds out the hard way that she should "never say never".
• That Came Out Wrong: Lincoln does this when he talks about how confident he is that he's going to win the bet:
  Lincoln: "Two down. I can practically smell those victory undies. Wait, let me rephrase that!"
• Toilet Humor: The habit Lisa is challenged by Lincoln to resist is studying her siblings' poop. She fails this once Lori rushes to the bathroom from a bad milkshake, and Lisa follows her in. It is even implied from Lisa's reaction that her latest... study... exceeded all others.
  Lori: *screams*
  Lisa: Sweet mother of discovery!
• Wingding Eyes: Lynn does this when she sees some clothes and a laundry basket:
  Lynn: "Basket...ball..."
• Youngest Child Wins: Lily's resistance to crying is what wins the bet for the girls.

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