User blog:AustinDR/Thoughts on City Slickers and Fool Me Twice

In "City Slickers," Lincoln and Lori go to visit Ronnie Anne and Bobby at the Casagrande household. When they arrive, Lincoln notices that Ronnie Anne is acting strangely. So it turns out that Ronnie Anne had made some new friends, but she is pretending to have been from some upper city rather than from the small town of Royal Woods. Meanwhile, Lori tries to adapt to city life, much to comedic awry. This episode was really good. The moments that Lori was trying to fit into the big city were humorous, and it's also great to see the Casagrande family again. However, we end up getting the same regurgitated message of "being yourself." I honestly am getting slightly annoyed by the same message being applied to an episode. I mean, we get it: just be yourself, and if no one accepts the real you, it's their loss. We don't need about 4 or 5 episodes restating the same moral over and over and over. Though that's just a minor gripe of mine and I can't deny that it was executed well for this episode.

Onto "Fool Me Twice." With April Fools' Day on the horizon, the family decides to hire stunt doubles to take out all of the hardcore pranks that Luan would dish on them. With this episode, Luan's prank was honestly pretty tame. Though it's mostly because she figured out what the family's plans were so she decided to exploit that, but after she made that vow in "Fool's Paradise" that next year's April Fools' Day would be more worse than usual, it seems pretty underwhelming that she doesn't fall through with her threat. Though at the same time, I am legitimately scared as to what her original plan was prior to discovering about her family's scheme. And YMMV of course in regards to this, but I felt that the pranks this time around weren't as life threatening, but they honestly came off as just cruel than funny. Even with the two previous April Fools' Day centered episodes while they were over the top, they were still slightly humorous because of the exagerration. But this prank basically has Luan force the family into watching their stunt doubles ruin their lives. Don't get me wrong, I do like some mean-spirited humor when executed well, but here, it feels as though Luan was really going too far with this one. Besides that, the scene where each family member proceeds to collapse onto the floor after seeing what their double's up to was a little too played out. Each family member collapses in the same fashion, and it's only really alleviated because Lori grabs the television and throws it before fainting as well, but it's really stretching a gag beyond belief. I did like how the family one ups Luan again by making her believe that they were moving because of her, but at the same time, it was a little mean for them to place her possessions into the moving truck thus causing her to run after the truck, but considering the prank she pulled on them earlier, it was a little understandable.

Final score for City Slickers:

4 stars out of 5

Final score for Fool Me Twice:

3 1/2 stars out of 5