User blog:AustinDR/Making the Grade.......

Yeah, I didn't really like this episode. To me, it was a pretty sour way to end the week of new Loud House episodes. I am nbot going to review the episode as CartoonFan14 beat me to the punch, but I will give some of my points. Yet again, this episode was what I call "Lincoln torture porn." In the episode, he convinces Lisa to change when she was ruining his reputation after being moved to his fifth grade class. She does, but her new "cool" self ends up causing her to completely overwrite her personality. As she was no longer little miss Einstein, this ends up causing more trouble for Lincoln. His sisters get mad at him, he gets kicked out of the family van, etc. I haven't made a retrospect on Lincoln, but I think I know why these types of episodes leave a bad taste in my mouth. In some ways, we are Lincoln. We all have moments in life where nothing goes our way, and how we have moments of self-doubt. So, seeing Lincoln suffering affects me, because I can't help but to see the events transpiring from Lincoln's eyes. Or maybe I overanalyze too much.

Now, I've already mentioned that I would do a Character Retrospect on Lisa at some point, but why not kill two birds with one stone? With that being said, I never liked Lisa too much. Now, her being a child genius is interesting, but my only gripe with Lisa is how she interacts with other characters. More often than not, she has this air of superiority around her that is insufferable. I also do not like how condescending she is whenever she speaks to her siblings. yes, I know that they are not as smart as you, Lisa, but that doesn't give you the right to consider them below you. Another thing I hate about her is that she is an utter killjoy. She's just someone you wouldn't want to be around. She's a party pooper of the highest order. I mean, look at several instances. Take "Sweet Spot" where she lists off several different problems that could potentially result in a car accident, or "Snow Bored" where she was going to melt the snow so that she and her siblings could attend school, she ruined a birthday party once in "Funny Business," etc. Frankly, Lisa just gets on my nerves often. I also don't like how she demeans Lincoln a few times: take "Trash House" in which she coldly tells Lincoln that they solved their problem when he left. Maybe she didn't mean to word it that way, but it just came off as heartless. In addition, I do get the feeling that Lisa may have Asperger's syndrome. I'm not saying that it is most definite, but she does have some traits that match. For one, she is fixated on science, and hardly seems to have any remote interest for anything else, she has no social skills, she seems to have difficulty with expressing emotion, generally keeping a monotonous tone of voice, etc. Again, I'm not saying that it is an absolute fact, but it could be likely. But anyway, I mostly dislike Lisa for being a killjoy who ruins other people's fun.

Now, for this episode, I found the episode as being one of her worst performances. The episode is supposed to make you feel sorry for Lisa, but I simply couldn't. Every time that she was asked to help with something academic, she would always say that that's no longer her, and that it was Lincoln's idea. I mean, just the way that she says that nearly made me toss my TV out the window. It's almost like she's saying "Yeah, that's right, I've changed, and Lincoln's to blame." This gets Lincoln into conflict with the other characters, which I felt was again, too mean-spirited. now, I'm not saying that a show shouldn't have some mean-spirited humor, but it is hard to implement it and still make it funny. If executed poorly, not only is it unfunny, but it also tampers with the quality of the episode. Yes, I know that Lincoln asked for Lisa to change for an entirely selfish reason, but I felt he was being unfairly punished here. I mean, throwing him out of the van thereby making him walk home is simply deplorable. Additionally, nothing in the episode made me laugh. I just ended up disliking Lisa more than I already did, and it paints Lincoln as being in the wrong even though it's not entirely his fault. At the very least, the episode isn't as bad as "Trash House." It's close, but it doesn't go that extra mile of vileness that "Trash House" thrives.

Final score: 2 1/2 stars out of 5