User blog:Justsomeordinarydude/Ruthless People Reaction

Originally uploaded 2/7 on DeviantArt

Ruthless People

Wow, hasn’t this episode been amongst the centre of controversy with the Loud House fandom as of the past few days? Ruthless People, for me, is one of those stories which doesn’t really go one way or the other in terms of qualitative gradation. I neither hate nor like this story, for a number of reasons. As such, let’s dive in…

The main focus of the episode is on Lynn Sr’s group (himself, Lori, Luna, Lynn Jr or ‘LJ’ as she’s now called, Lincoln and Lola) suffering from misfortune and trying to make the best of the situation after the whole family is forced to evacuate the house for a while after it becomes obvious there is a termite infestation. While Rita and the other half of the siblings enjoy various forms of luxury, the main focal group get dealt the short end of the stick, and every attempt they make to change things for the better horribly backfires against them. As you might expect, a type of narrative like this is filled with what can be considered mean-spirited humour, as the main source of comedy (as a subjective term) is how Lincoln and the rest of Lynn Sr’s half of the family are dealt with misfortune and torment. Personally, I don’t mind mean-spiritedness and black comedy as much as most, but I appreciate that if that form of comedy is going to be used in an attempt to provide entertainment value to an episode, it needs to justify itself by actually being funny (or at least being done in a way so that it serves a beneficial purpose so as to be worthwhile). To be honest, I don’t think it manages to do this. There are a few comedic instances in the episode, which I will elaborate on momentarily, but none of the jokes which actually work here are ones directly connected to the misfortune that the group endure. As such, I can understand the criticism this episode receives. It just seems to rely on torturing the main focal characters of the story just for the sake of trying to accomplish the task of adding entertainment value (strangely enough, maybe this was actually a strategic move by the writers, trying to please the critical fans who hate the sisters, most specifically those deemed the ‘mean’ sisters as Lori, Lynn and Lola are all in the group in question, even if that trope is finally starting to die out at this point. As a contradictory point, fan favourite Luna was also in the group, so the validity of this estimation is highly questionable at best). Even the ending just comes about with Lynn Sr’s group continuing to be annoyed with how they been dealt the short straws in spite of their efforts, and how the other group continues to have it much better, thereby generating a sense of envy.

While the main plot doesn’t work especially well due to not justifying its use of black comedy particularly well, the episode is still far from meritless. As far as amusement goes, there are some instances of solid comedic output, even if they are surrounded by unfunny moments. Lola’s over the top anger and rage is enjoyable to watch as always, and Grey does a great job in voicing her as always. Speaking of characters voiced by Grey, Lana also has her humorous moments. Even though the whole problem was technically her fault because she invited the termites into the house to begin with, she’s still so fun and adorable, you can’t stay mad at her. She even throws the termites a goodbye party, complete with a disco ball, which was pretty funny. Lynn Sr and Lincoln also had their moments, but for me, the star of this episode was Lynn Jr. Yes, okay, she had a couple of really minor moments which may have rubbed fans the wrong way with her (both the scenes where she kicked Lincoln’s suitcase and threatened to give him a wedgie were not cool, since she had poor reasons to threaten violence on him in both cases), but otherwise, she was just a lot of fun in this story. Everytime she is playing football indoors and then accidentally runs through a wall, only to get up and act like it was a sheet of paper, still incredibly energetic and ecstatic even after a great impact and fall… there’s just an energy to Lynn’s rough playing, passionate, butch and hyperactive personality that makes her so much fun to watch. Even her showing off her ‘muscles’ (despite the fact that she’s drawn to look like a stickman character like all the other leads) is kinda funny in that it’s so weird for an average girl to act that way, yet so hilariously typical for Lynn. Even the fart joke involving her wasn’t overly cringeworthy in this instance.

Still, the comedy that actually works is limited, while the comedy that doesn’t is crucial to the episode’s success. I can’t call it truly bad. It’s not on the same level as Brawl or NSL. Those stories were not only unnecessarily mean towards the main protagonist, but they also portrayed the entire leading cast in a rancid light, contained many unfortunate implications and bad messages, were incompetently written in more ways than one, and just reached levels of suck beyond the realm of averageness (though I STILL wouldn’t quite call them as bad as everyone says they are). This episode really only suffers from one major fault, that being the inability to justify the tactic of telling a story that is all about making some of the Louds deal with hardship for no particular reason, with no satisfying payoff or conclusion.

I will say it wasn’t completely predictable. I thought the story would contain a lot more of Aunt Ruth and Pop Pop, but they really only appear to act as hosts for their respective residences, and then are just seen in the background. Most of the screen time goes to Lynn Sr’s group. As far as the characterisation itself goes, it is handled quite well. While Lynn Sr’s group do scheme to make things better for themselves, with the intention of the other group being placed into their less fortunate situation instead, their motivations are understandable, since they do constantly receive the worst deal by far and simply wish to have decent conditions to reside in. Plus, they do nothing truly devious or underhanded to achieve those means. They simply opt to bargain with the other family members, openly and honestly, in order to convince them to agree to switch places. Nothing more. Rita’s group is also completely innocent in the whole ordeal. Leni only angers them because she is lovably oblivious to the fact that the other group is suffering when she speaks with them over the phone. They do nothing to make matters worse for the other group nor rub it in their faces, they are just having a good time and are enjoying themselves. Honestly, the characterisation is handled quite well in spite of the questionable storytelling choices.

But that’s just it. That’s the episode’s biggest problem. If it were to serve a meaningful purpose, like to enable the leading characters to grow or develop or learn a lesson, or even just to provide the audience with true comedy gold, then I would allow all the mean-spiritedness that the plot brings. But just to be harsh to the main characters of the story for the sake of it, without any worthwhile reason for it… that doesn’t bode well in my book. The episode also suddenly just ends, and with no satisfying resolution. It just concludes with Lynn Sr’s group continuing to suffer and that’s it. It’s not bad, and it has some positive factors, but overall, I give this episode a…

Final Rating: 5/10