Nickelodeon has confirmed
that The Really Loud House has been renewed for a second season, accompanied by a feature-length Halloween movie!
New promo: the show comes back on June 1st!
New airdates from The Futon Critic!
Here's a new promo!
New airdate for from The Futon Critic!
New promo!
I watched the new episode today.
"What's a Mother to Redo" was pretty great.
It's Mother's Day, and Lynn Sr. and the daughters are making breakfast for Rita, with fajitas and burnt toast while Clincoln McLoud films it all. Everyone keeps asking who gets the credit, so Lynn Sr. settles it by taking 50%. The gaggle carries the tray to the parents' bedroom, where Rita is reading a book. After they greet her, he asks Lisa to squirt lime on the fajitas. This causes steam to billow out of it and fill the room, leading him to accidentally topple the muy caliente fajitas onto her, leaving her with burns on her lap. Some time later, the rest of the family talks about what happened. Lynn Sr. has taken only a quarter of the blame, while Clincoln were just bystanders. Anyway, he proposes a redo of their Mother's Day gifts and tells them to work on it while he tells her the news, where Rita is reading her book. He's excited, but she just wants to finish her book, which she's been reading since Lori was three. How long is that?
The siblings brainstorm everything from ladders to sushi to even a new baby! Lynn Sr. goes up to say she's in. Lori is proposing a theatrical retrospective of Rita's life with Leni and Luna, Lisa and Lily propose baking her favorite cake, Lana plans to swat a fly bothering her, and Luan intends to do a tap dance routine. All are great ideas. Lynn Sr. thinks so, too, so he goes back down to tell her. She still wants to read her book, The Other Side of the Mountain Top (it's like the Other Side of the Creek, right?). He says she'll have a head-on collision with love. That worries her. While he takes a break to play video games, someone rings the doorbell. It's Howard and Harold McBride, who are here to bring Clyde's viewfinder and megaphone for the filming. He tells them about the redo thing. Remembering what happened, they ask him what he's doing. When they realize that he's basically doing nothing, Howard and Harold propose taking him to their friend Alizae, the proprietor of Royal Woods's best spa, to pick a package.
Clincoln is about to interview Rita about the redo when Lisa and Lily come in and request that she help gather the ingredients at the grocery store. She leaves with the two daughters. When they come back, some of the oranges spill. Meanwhile, at the spa, Lynn Sr. is being served citrus-infused water, and Alizae hands him the list of spa packages. Back home, Clincoln films Rita picking up the oranges. They zoom in on what appears to be a vein on her forehead. It's actually the fly, and Lana tries to swat it, hitting her. Upstairs, the three eldest daughters, plot out the performance. When Lori says she'll play Rita, the others challenge that. Lori says that she looks the most like her. Leni challenges it, claiming they went as twins one Halloween (they just went as cats – Siamese cats), while Luna says she already has performing experience. When they notice the boys filming them, Luna shuts the door, hitting Clyde. Luan preps her tap dancing outfit when she hears the same kind of music from Lynn and Lucy's room.
She opens the door and finds out Lucy's also planning a tap dance routine. She demands that Lucy do something else, but she refuses. Luan promptly proposes a "tap-off". In the kitchen, Lily has scattered flour all over, while in the spa Lynn Sr. is being given an oatmeal-infused herbal exfoliate on his face. Rita opens the oven to preheat it, only to find it was. She learns it by grabbing the rack, causing her hands to get burned. She decides to go back to her room, only to encounter Lori, Leni, and Luna, who want her to choose who would play her. They tell her to audition them in 20 minutes. As they leave, Leni notices the burns on her hands. Rita continues to the room to find that Lola has scattered the contents of the closet all over the room; she's reorganizing it. She rifles through the clothes to find her book. She accidentally throws some clothes at a spot where the boys are hiding for their filming, so they ask her to pretend they're not there before Lincoln directs Clyde to film her old nursing bras.
In the attic, Luan sets the terms. They begin just as Rita sneaks into the twins' room to read, to the latter's irritation. The sisters do quite well. At the spa, Alizae is giving Lynn Sr. the Tibetan toe isolation. Back home, Rita is quickly driven out of the room. In the hall, she comes across Lori and co. all dressed like her. They invite her into Lori and Leni's room for the audition. Lori talks about the time she picked her junior prom dress after Lily was born, so Rita chose to bring her. She then does a routine where she struggles with a car seat as the boys film it. Leni does a routine where Rita tutors her on stuff like geometry. Luna does an ironing routine where she calls out the other daughters for their mayhem. Each one does a terrific job showing how much Rita is stressed by everything. As the boys go film them, she sneaks out.
While the fly continues to bother her, Lola catches her downstairs, saying she still has to sort the clothes. She holds up a gaudy tracksuit that she says is too small. Rita disagrees, so she goes to put it on. Suddenly, as she keeps trying to swat the fly, Lana fires a suction cup arrow at it, only to hit the wall, missing her by inches. Rita tells her to use the sticky, clear fly paper, only to end up hitting a layer of it covering the doorway to the bedroom, to her exasperation. Back in the attic, Luan and Lucy get tired from all the tap dancing. Luan has an idea. They invite Lily upstairs and offer to have her perform with them. She says yes, to their delight. Downstairs, Rita tries the tracksuit and admits that it doesn't fit. Noticing the silence, she crawls into bed for a chance to read. Unfortunately, Luan, Lucy, and Lily proceed to start tap dancing again.
Overwhelmed, she sneaks out of the room, missing Lola (who's looking for her), and evading Lisa (who's trying to use a time machine to make the dishes clean?). She tries a taste of the frosting as Lisa rants about unfair judges and Todd, then makes it out the back door. Before she could walk out, she gets caught by Lynn, who notes that Rita complains about not having time to do exercises. So she's set up an obstacle course. Rita insists she's fine, but she eyes her tracksuit and frosting on her face. Lynn notes that it is strawberry, to her shock. At the spa, Lynn Sr. is handed an 18-carat chocolate-dipped strawberry. He declines, saying that Rita is actually allergic to strawberries. As she is subjected to the course, Lynn Sr. thinks Alizae's spa was the perfect place for her. Unfortunately, he finds out it would cost way too much for all this. He is equally shocked when he finds that just getting the chocolate was simply too much. Then he asks if the lotions are complimentary.
After finishing the second round of the course, she hears the smoke alarm from the kitchen. She ends up hitting another barrier of clear fly paper. Lisa tells her that the cake is getting burned. She takes it out of the oven with her bare hands as Lisa apologizes. Lori, Leni, and Luna gather at the living room in concern. When Lisa tells them what happened, saying she ruined Mother's Day again, Rita says that she liked the taste and that it was her favorite gift, to the other girls' shock. Lola decries the wasted effort, while Lisa calls out her lie. Lynn tries to get her to go back to the course, while Leni announces that she, Luna, and Lori have decided on a "three-person, one-woman" musical show. Luan, Lucy, and Lily arrive ready to perform their tap dance routine for her. The eldest sisters begin singing an operetta about car keys as Lana tries to get the fly, with the boys in tow.
She gets overwhelmed by everyone trying to get her attention, and she cries out that she just wanted to read her book. It causes her to catch the fly with it, leading to Lana getting frustrated, saying that with her efforts wasted, she has to go get another gift. This causes an argument among them, so she tells them all to stop with all the gifts. As Lynn Sr. enters the house carrying the lotion from the spa, she declares Mother's Day cancelled forever, and storms off to her room, leading him to walk back out. Later, he goes back in to talk. After some time, there's progress. He tells the daughters that she needs time; having said she might be out of play until New Year's, he "talked her down to Christmas". He informs them that given enough time, they could "redo the redo" – a "three-do". Rule of threes. Suddenly, the boys go downstairs, announcing that they have completed their documentary, and proceed to head for the parents' bedroom, causing everyone to scramble to stop them.
They show the documentary to her and press play on it. As everyone cries out, they see the footage of the fajitas spilling on her, causing everyone to fall silent and grimace. Just then, the titles for the video appear, and what follows is an interesting documentary on their efforts. Clincoln McLoud has interviewed the sisters on the most favorite thing about Rita, and they all give their different reasons about why they love her, from her interests to her personality. Even Clyde says she treats him like family. The footage shows all sorts of funny and heartwarming moments. Lincoln succinctly summarizes it best: what makes her great is everything. As the video concludes with goodbye, even Lucy starts tearing up. And Rita absolutely loves it. And then they declare that they'll leave her alone for the rest of the day, so they exit.
Lynn Sr. then gives the spa lotion, claiming he hasn't been to Alizae's spa. She's impressed, as expected. Then she asks for one more thing. So he reads The Other Side of the Mountain Top out loud to her, and finishes the book. He tucks her in as she falls asleep. Before the credits, there's a dedication to the mothers of the show's cast, with a montage of the kids.
This was an absolutely brilliant episode. Each moment hit their mark at the right time, at the right place. Every actor played wonderfully, with special mention to Jolie Jenkins showing the wild reality of being a mother of 11 kids. The others are brilliant as well: Lori, Leni, and Luna's dynamics with each other were better executed compared to their interactions in "Forces of Habit" in the animated series. Of course, this is bolstered by strong writing. Screentime was also evenly distributed without leaving people behind: Lisa and Lily used their time quite well, and Lynn and the twins got their moments that helped build up the tension. Luan and Lucy get even more characterization. Courtesy of the Bradley sisters, they both get to expand beyond their archetypes and even demonstrate their tap dancing skills, further bolstered by Lily transferring over to them. Lynn Sr. gets to spend time with the McBrides, too. That results in some quite wonderful moments. And Lincoln and Clyde's observer roles helped set up a wonderful ending.
Likewise, you can feel the tension all throughout the episode. Each action leads to an escalating reaction. It all leads into everything crashing down with Rita. Of course, nobody really means to do that here. They're all in the right place. It's just that with eleven people in the house, everything starts adding up and straining a lot. It reminds me of the recent episodes of Craig of the Creek, where Bernard Williams gets stressed by the troubles of growing up, causing him to regress and start going to the Creek at everyone else's expense. Here, it's the opposite. The stresses are from the fact that she has to go through all these kids trying to get her attention based on them trying to be responsible for her for the most part. This just as easily overwhelms her, but something else happens. Rather than regressing to a childish manner to avoid the weight of responsibility, the weight of their responsibility actually ends up ricocheting back towards her. It's an interesting dynamic.
All in all, this was a great show. This was a surprisingly unique approach, and you can tell that just like everything the Louds are doing here, this is a labor of love and real passion, and it has resulted in great TV.
I would give this a 10/10.
New promo!
This was posted five days ago:
I watched the new episode yesterday.
"Better Together" was pretty fun.
Lincoln and Clyde are beta testing their spitball machine, the Infinite Spitball Super Cyclone 5000 for the spitball war against Rusty and Liam. It goes awry. It causes a mess and fails to hit its targets, so Lincoln suggests going to the dump, where he can get a hydro pump from a jet ski he found. But Clyde hears his dads honking the car outside; they're picking him up for study time. Lincoln tells us that Harold and Howard are trying to get Clyde to join the Bright, Exceptional, Talented, and Remarkable Program at school, or BETR, and they're drilling him frequently to ensure he gets as much knowledge as he can. At home, Lynn Sr. is taking care of Lily, who's having a cough. She wants to watch Johnny Rabbit (hey, another rabbit theme) on her tablet. He thinks it would work, so he plays one of their songs, "Little Baby Bunny". It's catchy. Unfortunately, she keeps asking him to play it over and over again, for two hours before she falls asleep.
By then, it has become an earworm in his head, and when he complains about it to Rita, she chastises him for being spineless. It's demonstrated by Leni asking to borrow money: Rita immediately refuses before Lynn Sr. caves. At school, Rusty, Liam, Lincoln, and Clyde boast about their plans for the upcoming spitball war, with Liam gathering donkey saliva. Mr. Bolhofner calls on them to come in for the BETR examinations, while Clyde accidentally drops the blueprint for the Cyclone. Clyde focuses on the exam, while Lincoln is distracted by his planning for the Cyclone and spitballs). After deciding to troll the students with a silent fart (disgusting), he declares the fifteen-minute mark, Lincoln realizes his situation. Meanwhile, Lynn Sr. arrives home in Vanzilla, playing what I heard was a Bryan Adams song. When he turns off the radio, "Little Baby Bunny" rings out in his head. He turns the radio on and off again, and yet the song is still stuck there.
When the test concluded, Lincoln was only able to answer ten out of 120 questions. Clyde finds that the blueprint is missing, but gets sidetracked by Principal Ramirez paging him. Everyone thinks he's in trouble, not helped by his dads' presence. But it turns out to be a celebration: he's been accepted into BETR! He tells Lincoln about it, as he apparently got the second-highest marks on his test, and the mayor intends to meet him. Lincoln wants to work on some new plans, but Clyde has to go to new classes, such as applied molecular dynamics. At home, Lynn Sr. is offering Leni, Luan, Lucy, and the twins one week without chores to "knock this song out of my head", prompting Lana to throw a ball at him. It doesn't work, and when he asks for more ideas, more balls hit him. Clyde arrives at the Loud House to find Linc all scratched up. He'd been waiting two hours because Clyde had a virtual field trip to Egypt. Meanwhile, Lincoln was chased by a Doberman at the dump and had to sit on a totaled Subaru.
A frustrated Lincoln demands that he just drop the program, but Clyde suggests that he take another shot at joining it instead, since he is also very smart. He takes the test again, and later, he gloats at Rusty and Liam over it. When called to the principal's office, he expects to enter the program, saying to them, "As the French say, hasta luego." Upon arrival and sight of his parents, however, Principal Ramirez tells him that he's being dropped a grade. It comes as a shock to him as Lynn Sr. starts hearing the song again. And somehow he's still in middle school rather than being sent back to elementary school. Two of his new classmates, Stacy and Macy, mock him for that in class. He really beefs it in the lesson on decimals. Meanwhile, Clyde gets the opportunity to talk to an astronaut before his teacher, Dr. Forest Harlow, announces the charcuterie. He makes banter with his new classmate Wainwright about it. Dr. Harlow is absolutely delighted by Clyde.
At home, Lynn Sr. offers the girls cash, which he was planning to use to buy Rita diamond earrings. When she hears about it, she takes it as a challenge. The girls try different tactics. Lola tries drowning it with ribbons and Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Want To Have Fun", Leni suggests making his mind a complete blank, Luan tries some jokes, Lana tackles him from the fridge, and Lucy tries outright demonic rituals. Clearly, none of them work (and I'm pretty sure the demonic summoning could just as easily be Lynn Sr.'s mind starting to fall apart). At school, Lincoln has to fall in line in the halls as Clyde and "the Betters" proceed through it. When they see each other, Lincoln explains that he basically choked on the test and that they still need plans, but Wainwright tells Clyde not to associate with him or give him money (because he'll just use it for candy – ouch). He gets checked up at the clinic by Mr. Bolhofner, and says he's been having a rough time and that he'll lie down.
He ends up napping and having a dream where he's a janitor for Clyde, now a CEO who doesn't remember him at all. When Lincoln encounters him and tells him about the things they did together (including one that we'll see in next week's episode), he doesn't recognize or remember him, and proceeds to have him fired. He wakes up and runs to Clyde. He asks him to leave the program, telling him about his nightmare to take part in the spitball war, but he doesn't follow, and Wainwright tells him that Clyde will do nothing as fatuous as that. Clyde defines that term for Lincoln. He also admits that he sees Wainwright's point. He promptly denounces them all as fatuous and leaves, but not before he samples their tiny pickles. He suits up and disposes of the Cyclone unit for Clyde when he is hit by a spitball. Rusty and Liam have fired the first shot of the spitball war, and all hell breaks loose outside. Meanwhile, Dr. Harlow asks his class what Mark Anthony proclaimed at the of his best friend Julius Caesar before the battle of Philippi.
Clyde sees Lincoln surrounded by the other kids struggling when the teacher calls on him. Realizing what he has to do, he declares, "Clincoln McLoud will always endure!" He tells Dr. Harlow he can't let Lincoln get his butt kicked. He proceeds to make his way out, but not before giving the answer: "Cry havoc, and let slip the dogs of war." Dr. Harlow is delighted. As the battle rages, Liam is about to take him down with a big wad when Clyde comes to the rescue! Clad in the Cyclone, the two fire it up and quickly clear the field, leaving only the four boys. Liam and Rusty quickly flee, and Clincoln McLoud celebrates their victory, only to be cut by Mr. Bolhofner, as a spitball had hit him. They're sent to the principal's office. Lincoln says that he'll take responsibility for everything. Principal Ramirez and Dr. Harlow go in the room with one of the units. Linc tries to take the blame, but Clyde elects to share blame. Thing is, Dr. Harlow is absolutely amazed with the Cyclone, calling it "a marvel of modern engineering"!
They're about to leave when he proposes they lead a new program: the Brilliant Engineers, Scientists, and Technicians, or BEST. The two decline, saying they only made it to have fun, and leave. However, Lincoln comes back to ask if joining could get him those tiny pickles, causing Clyde to drag him away. Later that night, Lynn Sr. is still hit by the song. Suddenly, he stops hearing it and turns to find Johnny Rabbit lying on his bed. He begs him to stop, but he says that the song isn't in his head anymore! He's free at last! Relieved that he'll never hear it again, he falls asleep. Johnny takes off his head and "he" is revealed to be Rita, swearing that she will get those damned diamond earrings.
This was a pretty good episode. Much of it is more of the run of the mill Clincoln McLoud episodes the show uses. It's paired with the theme of friends drifting away, something we've seen quite a lot in the franchise. Perhaps the most dramatic part was how Linc imagined Clyde completely forgetting him in adulthood, which was something poignant. I know shows like Amphibia spent quite a lot of time on this, so I do think there's merit in going through this. For slice-of-life cartoons in TLH's mold, Craig of the Creek did something quite similar on a hypothetical basis. Speaking of, Lincoln and Clyde making a spitball machine is something that could have just as easily fit in the environment of the Creek as it would at Royal Woods Middle School without stretching the imagination. The logic is sound. The only flaw is the matter of Lincoln being sent down a grade. Isn't he supposed to be in the 6th grade? Wouldn't he be sent back to elementary school? That was a poor oversight that could be fixed easily and made much more sense.
Characterization is top-notch. We get to see the difference between Lincoln and Clyde's kinds of intelligence, although you kinda have to read between the lines for the former. I know some would rather have seen a direct comparison. Your mileage may vary, but you can tell that Lincoln generally has stronger people skills compared to Clyde's intellectual prowess. Rusty and Liam get a nice friendly rivalry that gives it a bit of an edge that was pretty exciting. Other characters like Wainwright, Stacy and Macy (despite the flawed implementation), Mr. Bolhofner, Principal Ramirez, and Dr. Harlow all have very fun moments that definitely make for some highlights with their interactions. Finally, the spitball war was quite a thrill to watch. The movement of the various characters was perhaps the highlight of the episode, with all sorts of stunts and general mayhem that shows the playfulness of the kids at school. Again, it could fit in shows like Craig of the Creek or Clarence. I hear that the CGI could use a bit of work, though.
More discerning viewers would likely prefer the simple B-plot of Lynn Sr. dealing with the earworm. There was plenty of humor and jokes that would delight the viewer, carried by Brian Stepanek's comedic skills. The interactions with the other Louds, from Leni to Lily to Rita make for some fun moments for kids and adults alike. The usage of Bryan Adams and Cyndi Lauper was the highlight of those portions of the episode. How these famous singers failed to displace a children's song from someone's head would make for hilarious water cooler conversations. And of course, each moment went without a hitch. Virtually every single scene was perfectly executed with realistic logic that's a trademark of the franchise. And they all serve to provide heft to the plot and give the viewer laughs. Even Lucy's ritual approach could easily be rationalized as Lynn Sr. starting to become mad from the song, combined with his own hysteria. My nitpick is that Lana felt rather out of character. Her actions were more of a fit for Lynn.
All in all, this was a pretty fun episode to watch. I would give this episode a 9/10.
Edited by tgsr on Jun 9th 2023 at 10:30:29 AM
New promo:
Nick has released the first episode on YouTube!
New Q&A with the cast:
Looks like we're having one-hour episode premiere blocks for the final episodes of Season 1:
New promo images:
New promo:
Episode 2 has been released on YouTube:
New behind-the-scenes video:
A digital album featuring tracks from the show has been released!