User blog:Justsomeordinarydude/White Hare (The Loud House): A Reaction.

White Hare

This episode I found really interesting to watch the first time around, mainly due to the fact that there were a few particularly noteworthy aspects to be found. This episode, when boiled down to its very core idea, is all about fan-service. Firstly, there’s the concept itself being about how The Loud House as it was originally supposed to be, and what could have been had Savino’s initial ideas had been untampered with and put into practice. But it’s not just the Louds being transformed into rabbits which some may have been intriguingly unique or interestingly appetising. There’s also the plot surrounding that scenario. Remember the episode Heavy Meddle? To this day, it seems to be one of those moderately judged episodes. By that, I mean it has its fair share of fans, but also a few haters and complainers, who take issue with some of that story’s more prevalent problems. Mainly, how the meddling of the sisters inconvenienced Lincoln in his efforts to deal with his bullying, and how their seemingly ludicrous claim that a female bully only picks on a male victim due to romantic feelings turned out to be spot on (not to mention, the implications behind this and how this can be a misleading and/or unhealthy message, and the fact that Ronnie’s behaviour in that story was seen as fine with no need for backlash). Here, Lincoln goes through the same problem, as he has hopes of getting close to a new girl at school, and aims to appeal to her by providing her with a cool first impression of himself. Of course, his sisters immediately begin to obsess of this yet again upon hearing about it, complete with the creepy, overly excited smiley faces. But here, Lincoln actually does something perhaps many fans have been waiting for; he actually chews them out for their behaviour. He calls them out over how their efforts in the aforementioned Heavy Meddle resulted in him being hurt (another noteworthy aspect being how, if I am not mistaken, this is the first episode to include a call-back or piece of footage from the events of a previous episode, suggesting a further use of continuity will be a feature of future stories as this could be an early indication of that. Interestingly enough, late season 2/early season 3 was also the time Gumball started to utilise continuity more heavily as well, so maybe TLH is following that example).

After calling the sisters out and actually managing to avoid being meddled with, he comes across some rabbits while hiding out in the forest. Here is, of course, the part of the story when Lincoln is replaced with Warren and the rabbit concept begins to take centre stage. Warren has an even harder time dealing with 25 sisters, and the living room is completely filled with the sibling group as a collective whole, just perfectly portraying what an oversized cast there is here. Naturally, given there is a story to tell involving Lincoln/Warren and only an 11-minute slot to encompass it, the rabbits aren’t really given that much time to stand out. Most of them are lucky to receive one line of dialogue or one tiny moment to make an impression. At the time of writing this, without looking on the Wiki or anything, I can’t remember a single one of their names. This episode highlights the (relative) strengths of The Loud House as it is. While it already suffers from minor problems concerning character focus and balancing this between each member of the cast, this scenario involving 25 rabbit siblings would have just been too impractical. There’s no way such a show with such an extensive character roster could ever succeed in regards to characterisation or giving each character a decent amount of screen time or development. Ultimately, these rabbit siblings seemed to be a mix and match of the 10 Loud sisters we know and love (or not, in some people’s cases). The rabbits were essentially what would happen if you took the Loud sisters, split each of them down into 2 or 3 separate entities, and gave each of them a fraction of the personality traits of said Loud. Though some of them seemed to be carbon copies, like the dark haired rabbit basically being a complete copy of Lucy.

Though saying that, the episode wasn’t really about developing the rabbit siblings anyway; it was merely a sneak peek into what could have been, and what we did receive was actually was enjoyable to watch. The chase sequence was actually rather funny to watch and at not point was I overly annoyed with the actions of any of the characters. The closest the episode got to becoming awkward or unpleasant to watch would be when fails utterly hard at impressing his crush, and some stereotypically faux cool bunny came in and shoved him away, but even that wasn’t so bad, and it did serve to provide the ending of the story with a heart-warming and appreciable (if cliché and maybe a little mushy) ending, as after Lincoln finishes dreaming, he comes to appreciate the efforts of his sisters and requests their help, only for them to finally declare he doesn’t need changing and he should just be himself when speaking to this girl. Actually, that’s another noteworthy point. Maybe this episode was the turning point for the sisters and their meddling ways. Maybe their interferences will cease and they won’t continue to change each other to “help” them attract their crushes. Between Warren failing miserably in this episode and Lucy being transformed into a barbie doll, with equally poor results, in Back in Black, it’s painfully obvious that meddling approach doesn’t work very well. Heavy Meddle being the exception (and even then, Lincoln got a black eye because of it, as he pointed out in this story, and there was probably a better way to seek a resolution in that story). Maybe after this episode, this will stop and the lesson the sisters learned here will actually stick (an especially likely probability if the aforementioned indication of an increased utilisation of continuity is in fact what I think it is).

This was a really fun and entertaining little sneak peek into what could have been and probably a more tasteful and enjoyable equivalent to One of the Boys, which while perhaps not as poor a story as many designate it as, certainly could have been a lot more satisfying and left a lot to be desired. Despite not receiving a lot of time to stand out, one thing I though was done right regarding the portrayal of the rabbit siblings was how they reacted to Warren’s crush. While I’ve always taken issue with instances of identical behaviour between the sibling group in this series and how implausible it is for all of them to act or react the same to same many scenarios (including times when it becomes apparent one of them has a crush or romantic interest such as in this episode or HM), this habit within the series is actually subverted in the bunny portion of this episode. Each of the rabbit sisters shows a somewhat different reaction when they hear the news that Warren has a crush, which is more plausible considering there are so many siblings here and each of them is vastly different. One of them outright commands Warren to tell them everything about this girl. Another shows an opposing reaction, stating she hates the new girl already (possible out of protectivity, jealousy, etc.). Another shows great enthusiasm, stating she loves matchmaking, while the Lucy clone actually states there is little point helping him, given how life is full of despair. While they all eventually unite and try to “help” Warren after chasing him down and forcing changes upon him, they at least have partially different reactions and behaviours over the situation, befitting to what (little) is known of their characters. This is in contrast to all the times the Loud sisters have abandoned what is established of their characters to act in an identical manner for the sake of a plot. So, this was one aspect of the rabbit scenario which I thought was executed quite well.

Overall, this story was about as much as it could be. A fun and enjoyable little “what if?” tale about how the show might have been had Savino completely had his way. Not a perfect or outstanding story, by any means, but fun and entertaining, nonetheless.

Final Rating: 8/10