Making the Grade

"Making the Grade" is the sixtieth episode of The Loud House.

Plot
When Lisa is transferred to Lincoln's fifth grade class, after finding kindergarten too easy, Lincoln wishes for Lisa to tone down her smartness. As a result, Lisa becomes popular, and Lincoln's social standing is at stake.

Synopsis
Lincoln arrives to his classroom, where he is greeted by all his friends. The moment he sits down, Mrs. Johnson announces that their class is getting a brand new student: Lisa Loud. Lincoln is shocked at this, and Clyde doesn't take the announcement so well, since he has to change seats to let Lisa sit next to Lincoln. When Lincoln asks Lisa why she's doing this, she replies that kindergarten is too much of a waste of time. In a flashback, while the kindergartners were counting monkeys in a book, Lisa was working on an antidote for strep throat. When Lincoln questions why she chose his class, Lisa remarks that she originally wanted to go to medical school, but the principal suggested that 5th grade would better suit her. Immediately afterwards, Lisa's smart attitude begins to irritate the other students, due to her reading a whole chapter in her textbook in less than a second, taking pop quizzes earlier, and her robot (named Todd) destroying the other student's robotics projects.

At lunch, Rusty, Zach, and Liam refuse to let Lincoln sit next to them, due to his sister's bothersome attitude. Because of this, Lincoln is banished to eat at the messiest table in the cafeteria, nicknamed "The Sticky Table". At the Loud House, Lincoln tells Lisa that she should try to act more like an average kid. Lisa agrees to Lincoln's suggestion, saying that acting average is "an interesting sociological challenge", much to Lincoln's satisfaction.

The next day, Lincoln is shocked to see Lisa without her glasses and a new hairstyle. Lisa explains that she looked at different sources on how a fifth grader looks, and used laser eye correction surgery to improve her eyesight. Although she got the appearance down, the attitude proves to be a challenge for her, so she invents a correction collar that squirts her with water every time she acts smart. When Mrs. Johnson asks the class several questions, Lisa tries to answer, but due to the purpose of her collar, she instead make witty remarks, that the class enjoys, causing Lisa to get praised by her fellow classmates. When Mrs. Johnson proposes a quiz, Todd comes in and destroys the quiz papers, much to everyone's happiness. At lunch, Lincoln and Lisa are allowed to sit at the table where Rusty, Zach, and Liam sit, and Lisa declares a food fight, which leads to them getting sent to the principal's office.

At night, Lincoln discovers Lisa throwing away her science equipment, due to her finding more enjoyment hanging with the crowd instead of being smart, and littered her room with Boyz Will Be Boyz posters. Luna comes in and asks Lisa to help her with her test for tomorrow, but Lisa denies, claiming that thanks to Lincoln, she found the joys of being average, causing Luna to give Lincoln the death glare. At dinner, the sisters (except Lily) are disgusted with the food they're eating. When Lynn Sr. mentions that Lisa usually helps him with the cooking, Lisa again remarks that thanks to Lincoln, she no longer helps him with the cooking, leading to the sisters to give Lincoln the death stare. While Lori, Lola, Lisa, and Lincoln are on a drive, a radio host announces free passes for the Royal Woods Spa to anybody who can name the three classifications of rocks. Eager to win them, Lola quickly dials the number and tells Lisa to give the answer. However, instead of naming the three classifications of rocks, she instead gives off three types of rock music, which costs them their chance of winning the tickets. As usual, Lisa thanks Lincoln for this, which leads to Lincoln getting kicked out of the van, and get left behind. At the house, Rita is informed by Pop-Pop that he has been waiting at the train station for over an hour, and as usual, Lisa thanks Lincoln for helping her into no longer doing that.

At school, Lisa's kindergarten teacher, Ms. Shrinivas, needs Lisa's help, due to her students catching strep throat. When Lisa refuses to help out, Ms. Shrinivas calls out on Lincoln for leading Lisa down this path, but Lincoln says he didn't have a choice. Or he would turn Lisa into an average kid, or his friends would kick him out of the crew. Realizing what he has done, Lincoln tries to convince Lisa into going back to her normal self, but Lisa refuses to due so, due to her newfound popularity. Because of this, Lincoln reminds her that the world needs her when she's smart, due to her solving anything the others can't. Although hesitant, Lisa agrees to revert to her normal self, and confiscates her correction collar.

Later, Lisa successfully creates an antidote for the kindergarteners with strep throat, and miraculously cures them all. At lunch, Lincoln and Lisa are given access to sit next to the crowd. Although she enjoys the appreciation, Lisa decides to transfer back to kindergarten, because she has to pursue her own path and claims that kindergarten does have one advantage.

In the kindergarten class, Lisa decides to get involved with the activities the kindergarteners do, but warns Ms. Shrinivas that if she attempts to wake her up earlier than usual, she'll have to face her robot, Todd, much to Ms. Shrinivas' discomfort.

Cast
Lori, Luan, Lily, Andrew, Mollie, Girl Jordan, Joy, and Papa Wheelie have no lines in this episode, but the five students later mentioned were heared cheering. However, Lori and Luan can be heard groaning. Although being casted in the credits, Lynn, Lucy, and Lana also have no lines in this episode.
 * Collin Dean as Lincoln
 * Liliana Mumy as Leni
 * Nika Futterman as Luna
 * Jessica DiCicco as Zach
 * Grey Griffin as Lola / Cheryl
 * Lara Jill Miller as Lisa / Liam
 * Caleel Harris as Clyde
 * Brian Stepanek as Lynn Sr. / Robot Todd / Jay Rock
 * Jill Talley as Rita
 * Wyatt Griswold as Rusty Spokes
 * Susanne Blakeslee as Agnes Johnson
 * Angela Malhotra as Ms. Shrinivas

​Trivia

 * The title of this episode sounds extremely similar to the Season 1 episode, "Making the Case".
 * Coincidentally, both episodes are storyboarded by Darin McGowan.
 * This episode reveals that Liam has a younger sister, who's in kindergarten.
 * This episode hides the parent's faces, meaning that this episode could have possibly been in production before "11 Louds a Leapin'" was aired.
 * There was a deleted scene that involved Lisa changing from her new look to her old look as she headed back to her kindergarten class. The scene was most likely cut due to time.
 * This is Mrs. Johnson and Liam's first appearance in the second season. This is also Rusty's third appearance in the second season and Zach's second appearance in Season 2.
 * In this episode, it's revealed Lincoln's class has 14 members, including him.
 * This is the fifth time where all ten sisters appear, but most of them don't speak. The first was in "For Bros About to Rock", the second in "Two Boys and a Baby", the third in "A Novel Idea", and the fourth in "The Loudest Yard".
 * This is the second time Lisa made a robot. The first time she did so was in "Snow Bored".
 * Coincidentally, both robots have laser vision.
 * This is the second time Lori appears without any lines. The first instance was in "One Flu Over the Loud House", despite her groaning in that episode.
 * Rusty mentions having a date on Friday, meaning he could possibly be in a relationship with Polly Pain from "Dance, Dance Resolution".
 * At the dinner table scene, it shows all of the Loud siblings at the same table, and not half at the "Grownup Table," and "Kiddie Table," as shown in "A Tale of Two Tables". This could mean that all of the siblings might sit at the same table from now on.
 * Pop-Pop is mentioned in this episode, but does not appear physically.
 * This is the first episode where Lisa is shown without her glasses throughout the majority of the episode.
 * Luna and Lola were seen eating with their left hand.
 * Lincoln's nickname is "L-Train", according to this episode.
 * This episode takes place after "Making the Case", since Lincoln got his first trophy and made onto the loud case, and also because Cristina doesn't attend Lincoln's class (after finding out Lincoln had a crush on her in his video montage created by Luan).
 * It's also that Cristina just wanted to be friends with Lincoln, and It could also be possible she has a crush on a different boy instead of Lincoln (though that part (minus the just be friends part) hasn't been confirmed yet).
 * This is the fourth episode where Lisa is seen without her glasses, the other three are "Picture Perfect", "Cover Girls", and "Raw Deal".
 * Irony: Lincoln should've explained to his family it was simply Lisa's decision to become average, and he never told her to give up on what she did for them.
 * Moral:
 * Never change someone else for your own personal benefit.
 * People must make their own life decisions.
 * Don't fall into peer pressure.

Errors

 * Plot hole: In this episode, Lincoln says he knew Rusty for five years, despite meeting him for the first time in "Hand-Me-Downer".
 * In the scene where the Louds were eating their food (before they spit/spat it out), none of them had visible eyelashes.
 * In that same scene, Luan was able to chew her food, despite her buckteeth being exposed.
 * In the classroom, Joy once is present and once absent. She was also sitting in Clyde's seat.
 * In the scene where Lincoln is explaining to Lisa's teacher about being forced to sit at the sticky table, the closed captions say "stinky table".
 * Although, it's revealed that Lisa helps her father with the cooking, but in "Fed Up", he claims to work alone.
 * When Lisa reads her World History textbook, she flips through it backwards.

Running Gags

 * The Sticky Table being mentioned.
 * Situations going wrong due to Lisa helping and not helping, and Lincoln being blamed for it.
 * Lisa saying "Thanks to Lincoln, I'm out of 'the ____ game' (tutoring, conversion, geology, algebra, disease control)".
 * Robot Todd's moments.

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