User blog:AustinDR/Thoughts on Sounds of Silence

So, this was one episode that I had seen being listed as one of the worst episodes of the show. Having watched it myself, I feel that it's okay, really. Not a bad episode, nor a good episode. It's just okay. In it, Lincoln decides to order himself some earplugs because he was wanting to read his comic books in peace. It works, albeit too well.

Let's start with one thing; as much as I love to paint Lola as a sociopath, I don't hate her. She's my least favorite of the sisters for various reasons, but I certainly find her more tolerable than Lynn. It's hard to say why I exactly like her. Honestly, she plays the role of the spoiled brat so well, she reminds me of my baby cousins at points. I also love her "evil" moments in which she is devious and calculating. But mostly, I'm entertained by her antics, and I will acknowledge that she has moments in which she is genuinely decent. They're few and far between, but they're there. However, it seemed that a lot of people hated her after this episode, well more than they usually do. With Lincoln getting made to do those demeaning tasks for his sisters....yeah, that was bad, but I wouldn't call it "torture." Really, this episode didn't invoke disgust from me like "Brawl in the Family" did. Don't get me wrong, the reason for this treatment is simply idiotic, but at the very least, it didn't feel as spiteful as later episodes. There's also the fact that nothing that the sisters said Lola did actually happened, and yet some still think they did. Take Lola burying Lana's frog. Clearly she didn't, but some still hold that against her. If anything, I liked the episode mostly for how cunning Lola can be.

As for the frog thing, it did remind me of myself when I was younger. I admit that when I was younger, I used to kill smaller animals. I would crush ants between my hands, feed bugs to fire ants and spiders, I would drop small animals into motor oil (I was trying to make some tar pits), or there was that one time I beat a toad to death with a shovel. The toad didn't bother me in anyway, but I decided to do so anyway. Of course, I eventually grew out of that, but around that time, I remembered lacking some empathy for what I was doing. I was mostly distant from people, even my own parents, and yet I never understood why I was fascinated with killing smaller animals. Thankfully, I didn't become a sociopath, but I still somewhat struggle with expressing empathy and compassion at certain points.

With that disturbing point aside, I personally didn't find myself hating "SoS." My only real issue was the reason behind the acts that Lincoln was made to do, but other than that, it was passable.