The Loud House Encyclopedia
The Loud House Encyclopedia
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The Loud House Encyclopedia
Episode Information

"Better Together" is the seventeenth episode of the first season of The Really Loud House.

Plot[]

When Clyde finds himself in the BEST[sic] program at school Lincoln has to find a way to reconnect before the epic spitball battle they’ve been preparing for and Dad tries every trick in the book to get an annoying song out of his head.

Synopsis[]

Act I[]

At the Louds' garage, Lincoln and Clyde are designing an Infinite Spitball Super Cyclone 5000 to prepare for an upcoming spitball war at middle school. Their thirty-seventh test ends with their prototype having strong propulsion, speed, and adhesion, but terrible accuracy, and they decide to get a hydro pump from the dump to improve their Cyclone. Just then, Howard and Harold arrive, reminding Clyde he has to study for tomorrow's test. Lincoln explains that Howard and Harold have been trying to get Clyde into an elite middle school program, BETR, which is almost impossible to get in.

That night, Lynn Sr. visits an ill Lily in her room. She explains she wants to watch her favorite cartoon, Johnny Rabbit, and they listen to the theme song for so long, it ends up stuck in Lynn Sr.'s head. The next morning, Lynn Sr. complains to Rita that the song is stuck in his head, and Rita explains she does not let Lily play the song. He is shocked to realize they are allowed to say no.

At middle school, Lincoln and Clyde meet up with Rusty and Liam, who have been preparing for the spitball war their own way by collecting saliva from Liam's donkey. Their conversation is interrupted by Mr. Bolhofner, who reminds them of the test. As they enter the classroom, Clyde fails to notice he has let the Cyclone's blueprints behind. During the test, Clyde breezes through the questions while Lincoln is distracted by the Cyclone.

When the test is over, Clyde finds out he has lost the blueprints. Lincoln is worried they will be caught, just as Principal Ramirez calls Clyde into her office. There, she explains that Clyde has actually gotten into the BETR program. The next day, Lincoln invites Clyde to finish the Cyclone, but Clyde explains that his schedule has changed with the BETR program. Meanwhile, Lynn Sr. holds a meeting with Leni, Luan, Lucy, and the twins, explaining he is offering a week with no chores to whoever can remove the song from his head.

Later, after a virtual field trip to the Pyramids of Giza, Clyde meets up with Lincoln again in the garage and finds that the annoyed Lincoln has been waiting for two hours, and was attacked by a dog while he was at the dump. Clyde suggests that Lincoln, who had only worked on the first ten questions of the test out of 120, retake the test to get into the BETR program. The next day, an over-confident Lincoln finishes the test and boasts about his inevitable enrollment into BETR to Rusty and Liam when he is summoned into the principal's office. However, instead of the BETR program, Principal Ramirez declares that Lincoln's test scores are so low, he is to be dropped back into fifth grade until he can meet the standard requirements.

Act II[]

Lincoln is dropped back into fifth grade, where he is bullied by the local fifth-graders for being held back, while Clyde has a fun time during the BETR program. Meanwhile, Lynn Sr. offers money he was planning on using to purchase a pair of diamond earrings for Rita to whoever can knock the song out of his head. Lola's ribbon dance, Leni's deep breathing, Luan's jokes and Lana's wrestling all fail to remove the song from his head, and Lucy's attempt to exorcise it from his mind merely demonically distorts it.

As the fifth-graders line up for recess, Lincoln runs into Clyde and tries to go over their spitball battle plan, but Clyde is so busy he has to leave. Lincoln visits the emergency room, where he explains to Mr. Bolhofner he has to lay down for a while due to the struggles he is facing. He has a dream where he works as a janitor at a business firm where Clyde has become the CEO. However, Clyde fails to recognize him and fires him, causing Lincoln to wake up in horror.

Act III[]

With an epiphany, Lincoln hurries over to the BETR program and tells Clyde to drop out in favor of the spitball war. Clyde, however, dismisses the spitball war as pointless and fatuous, forcing Lincoln to try to win the spitball war himself. As Lincoln throws away Clyde's Cyclone into the trash, he is suddenly attacked by Rusty and Liam, and the spitball war commences. Clyde watches all this during a BETR lecture, and when asked a question, he recites his and Lincoln's creed of friendship and runs off to help.

As the spitball war rages, Lincoln is cornered by four kids and Liam when Clyde shows up with his Cyclone and saves him. Together, the two trounce the competition, and Rusty and Liam flee from their wrath. They congratulate themselves on their victory, but Mr. Bolhofner declares they are busted. At the principal's office, Principal Ramirez and the BETR professor, Dr. Harlow, instead congratulate the two for designing the Cyclone, and offer them to spearhead a new program for brilliant engineers, BEST. However, they decline the offer, declaring their friendship is all they need.

That night, Lynn Sr. is in bed and still has the demonically distorted song stuck in his head when it finally dissipates. He turns over to see the Little Baby Bunny itself, who says the song is no longer in his head. Relieved, Lynn Sr. thanks Little Baby Bunny and goes to sleep in peace, and the Bunny reveals itself to have been Rita all along, who declares she will get those earrings.

Cast[]

Guest roles[]

Co-stars[]

Stunt performers[]

Songs[]

Songs Featured[]

  • Bryan Adams - "Run To You"
  • Cyndi Lauper - "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun"

Physical distribution[]

This episode is available on the "Season One" DVD.

Trivia[]

  • Clyde mentions that to gain the "Sir" honorific, he would have to be knighted by "the king," revealing that this episode takes place on or after September 8, 2022 (i.e. the death of Elizabeth II, when her eldest son Charles III immediately became king).
  • In his dream, Lincoln references the events of "Ro-Bro", "Home Is Where the Hero Is", and "The Chore Thing".
    • Coincidentally, in the former episode, Lincoln also had a nightmare about being separated from Clyde against his will.
  • Howard and Harold read the book Wake Up Moon, which Lincoln offers to read to Lily in "The Princess and the Everlasting Emerald: A Royal Woods Fairytale".
  • Lynn Sr. is shown wearing his "Dad of the Year" shirt from "Heart and Soul".
  • This episode reveals the following:
    • Every year, Royal Woods Middle School holds a spitball war.
    • The Bright, Exceptional, Talented and Remarkable (B.E.T.R.) program is one of the hardest school programs to enter.
    • Lily's favorite song is "Little Baby Bunny".
    • The Loud family owns a lot of large, red balls (possibly Lynn's).
    • Liam is light enough to mount himself atop a donkey.
  • Lily's storyline slightly alludes to "The Crying Dame", in which the family (or just someone) listens to a catchy song she likes and ends up annoyed by it with the song stuck in their heads.
  • Clyde mistakenly addressing Lincoln as "London" is similar to Leni mistakenly calling him "Landon" in the Loud House episode "Sound of Silence".
  • Irony:
    • Lynn Sr. made Lily promise that they would listen to "Little Baby Bunny" only one more time, but they ended up listening to it for two more hours.
    • After realizing that the blueprints for the Cyclone fell out of Clyde's folder, Lincoln worries about the possibility of a teacher finding them, and Clyde immediately gets called to the principal's office. However, the reason Clyde was called to the principal's office was because he got accepted into the B.E.T.R. program, and the blueprints for the Cyclone were never brought up.
    • Lincoln believed Clyde when he told him he was just as smart as him, but he choked on the test and ended up performing so poorly on the test to enter the B.E.T.R. program, he was held back to fifth grade.
      • His intelligence level also allowed him to fall for Stacy's trick about his shoe being untied, despite Mr. Bolhofner having already pulled the same trick on him.
    • Lincoln tried to dismiss Wainwright's claim that Clyde would not participate in something as fatuous as a spitball war by claiming that there was nothing fatuous about it, only to learn that "fatuous" means silly and pointless, followed by Clyde agreeing with Wainwright that a spitball war would be fatuous.
    • Dr. Harlow's question regarding Mark Antony speaking out a "famous" quote witnessing the slaying of Julius Caesar before the Battle of Philippi mirrored Lincoln and Clyde's situation, as Clyde noticed Lincoln severely losing the spitball war. Seeing his best friend get his butt kicked out in public drove him to recite Lincoln's quote, "As balls of spit fly fast and sure, Clincoln McLoud will always endure" instead of the correct answer to the question about Antony's quote, "Cry Havoc, and let slip the dogs of war", although he did say the correct answer as he left Dr. Harlow's classroom.
    • Liam and Rusty fled when Lincoln and Clyde were about to pelt them with spitballs from the Cyclone, despite not having been exposed to it in action beforehand and therefore not knowing that while extremely powerful, it had poor accuracy.
    • Despite Mr. Bolhofner telling Lincoln and Clyde that they were both in a lot of trouble and the two of them being sent to the principal's office, Principal Ramirez and Dr. Harlow congratulated them on the success of the Cyclone.

References[]

Product placement[]

  • Subaru - Lincoln mentions to Clyde that he hid from a "bloodthirsty" dog by climbing on top of a totaled car made by this Japanese auto manufacturer.

Errors[]

  • The official plot synopsis states that Clyde gets enrolled into the BEST program. In reality, he is enrolled in the BETR program, and the BEST program is only brought up at the very end.
  • Lincoln is moved down a grade to fifth grade, but for some reason still attends Royal Woods Middle School.
  • Possible: Clyde, Liam and Rusty appear in Mr. Bolhofner's classroom, despite the fact that they do not have him as a teacher (aside from Home Ec Club, in Rusty's case). However, it is likely that they were testing in his room because they were assigned that room as their testing room for their opportunity to enter the B.E.T.R. program.
  • Lynn Sr. says "We're allowed to say no? I didn't know that was an option.", even though he said no in episodes like Yes Man.
  • When Dr. Harlow decides to start the B.E.S.T. program, he refers to it as the Brilliant Engineers, Scientists and Technicians program. However, the acronym shown on-screen says that B.E.S.T. stands for Brilliant, Exceptional Scientists and Technicians.
  • In the subtitles, BETR is sometimes spelled phonetically as "Better".

Video[]

Sources[]


v - e - d The Really Loud House episodes
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