I am AstonLevy, aka... BlackMoonPaladin, the reviewing warrior of the night... And as for me, I've made mistakes on DA, that's also inescapable... and I want to fix one of them and in the future do a better job on some of the reviews that I'm not proud of... (Including a couple of my early Star vs. Reviews) So as a start... I've decided to correct one of the Loud House episodes I've reviewed back in August... April Fools Rules! With Fool Me Twice approaching quickly, I've decided to revisit my 4th least favourite Loud House episode and re-examine it... I think my original AFR review was a fairly decent one... but I do acknowledge that it could've been better... You gotta understand, this was during the time when the worst list project was really, really, creatively draining me... The depression hit its zenith on that day... the day I wrote that particular segment was the worst possible day for me to write... at that point, the project went on for far too long, I was procrastinating on my writing because I couldn't stand watching so many bad Loud House episodes back to back... I hit burnout... and because I wanted to get the third journal out to you guys soon, I forced myself to write the AFR passage when my heart wasn't in it... That was a mistake... it made me rush, it made me miss things while proofreading... and instead of explaining its problems more clearly, I got too fixated on the problems of Luan Loud herself and neglected certain other things that I should've mentioned... I feel like I could've done a better job describing what I didn't like about it... I made it all about Luan and I treated her like she was the only thing that was holding it back... that wasn't fair... it's not just Luan that makes this episode bad... She's part of the problem... but not the whole problem... in fact, I'll be upfront and say that there was another problem with April Fools Rules... One problem that was just as fatal to the episode as Luan was... And I don't want to leave any regrets behind, so I'll explain it to you... I'll take off my rage-goggles and be as analytical as I can possibly be... even though I still don't like Luan Loud or this episode. But there's nothing wrong with an opinion, the only bad thing about an opinion is how its presented.
April Fools Rules is a very divisive episode, and now that I have a longer max word-count, a sharper mind, a more relaxed attitude and a much firmer grasp of what makes the episode my definition of terrible, I can finally give it the review it deserves... A smart one!
Allow me to bring a brand new background tune for you all to follow along with as you read! Or if you prefer the one from my original AFR Review... fret not... You have the option!
So let's begin! This is the return of April Fools Rules! And this time I didn't use the transcript or the image gallery, I gave it a fair shot and a fair rewatch...
Okay... so where to start? Because there is quite a lot to say...
Like the title suggests, this is an episode about Luan pranking everybody on April Fools Day, and I want to repeat one thing that I said in my original coverage of the episode in my worst list, I like this concept... I like the idea of Luan trying out a bunch of new jokes on her favourite holiday... it seemed ripe for exploration and it fit Luan's character... We've already seen her pulling pranks in episodes like Project Loud House and expanding her pranks felt like a natural step forward for her. The problem with AFR is that the execution fell short in a myriad of ways... the most notable thing about it and the sticking point that makes it such a divisive episode in the community is the fact that Luan's cruelty gets ratcheted up to 11. This was the point that I hammered home in my original review, I mentioned more than once that Luan puts her siblings through a bunch of painful and horrible pranks and showing not only a complete lack of remorse for physically hurting her family but a sense of glee, anticipation, and even nostalgic pride in making her family (and any other unfortunate person who passes by the Loud House) suffer through one painful prank after the next...
The episode made her cruel and heartless, and that turned some of the fans away from her... while other fans ate it up and begged for seconds. But why does the cruelty bother me? Why does cruelty bother me in shows at all? Well... let's delve right into that! Because I like MLP's 28 Pranks Later, which is in and of itself a divisive prank episode... and I also like Sound of Silence... which is a Loud House episode that's despised for most of the same reasons that April Fools Rules has, only Lola's cruelty was seen as too far instead of Luan's... so why does AFR fail and these episodes work? Well, let me explain.
The thing about cruelty that you have to understand is that it doesn't always make a character inherently unsalvageable, a villain character like say... Dabi from My Hero Academia is the right kind of character for something like cruelty, he was built to be evil... but he also has a strong, devil may care personality... he was laid back, he was cunning, he was unpredictable, he had a hidden agenda... and the manga implies that he sees problems with the world and its law... there were facets to him besides just being cruel... Any villain can be a dick but there's got to be more to it than just that... Like I said when I tackled No Laughing Matter, no character should be just one thing... It makes them seem shallow and boring... that's a problem that Luan has but the problem's a bit deeper than that... I'll get back to that in a minute...
When a bad guy is a cruel character we expect them to get defeated/arrested by the hero or we expect his crimes to be avenged... because they're horrible people who shouldn't get away with things... if a good guy or character on the hero's side is cruel and sinister, the general rule is to have them either learn their lesson or receive consequences for their actions... That's a given... we want these things because we feel a sense of catharsis from the bad guy getting his comeuppance... and that's a natural human feeling... we don't want bad guys to go off unpunished in real life, and we don't want bad guys to go unpunished in cartoons either...
But there's another thing that comes from cruelty... and that's how it affects the hero of the story... let's go back to Dabi... In Volume 10 of My Hero Academia, Dabi kidnapped Katsuki Bakugo, who is one of Izuku's closest friends... and Izuku and Shoto (Who was there at the time along with a few other guys) had put in tons of work to save him from the League of Villains (Including fighting this scary-ass motherfucker)
and at the denouement of the confrontation, Izuku and Shoto barely miss their chance at rescuing him, they end up failing, and the League spirits him away to their hideout and beyond their reach... Dabi notices Shoto's pained face and mocks him for his failure, needling him at how close he was before departing... and it ends with Izuku crying out in agony... and naturally, I sympathize with both of them... and that's the lighter side of cruelty... it paves the way for sympathy for the people facing said cruelty. Shoto and Izuku tried really hard and lost a trusted ally... so I ended up feeling bad for them...And Sympathy is a powerful tool that can be used to make stories all the more better... with sympathy, we grow to like a character, it can be used to help us understand a character, sometimes we relate to how their feeling, we know their pain, their emotions, we get their struggle and what they believe in or fight for... and all these things breed empathy and makes us like the character... but sometimes sympathy can have the wrong effect on a show or episode... sometimes sympathy can turn me away from a character... case in point, we're back to April Fools Rules... and this is one of the problems that bothered me a lot during the episode on my rewatch of it...
Lincoln is too likeable...
I know, right? That's a rather odd complaint, isn't it? But it's what stops me from laughing at the episode or rooting for Luan. They made Luan too cruel... and they made her too sadistic, that's a problem... but it's not the whole problem... the thing is that because they made her pranks too extreme, I don't feel like laughing with her... I don't find innocent animals getting shaved to be very funny, I don't find her throwing shit at her parents and a 4-year old to be very funny... because it's going too far... and instead of making me laugh with Luan... it's making me sympathize with her family instead... Like, let's think about what Lincoln does in this episode... His goal was just to not get pranked... and when he found out that Ronnie Anne was in danger, he selflessly sacrificed his body and his ambition of safety to protect her... it makes Lincoln look good but it goes too far... and so when he gets rammed against the stove... or when he gets mauled by Raccoons, or slammed against the ceiling... I don't find it funny... I feel sorry for him... because he's doing this to protect someone he cares about... and I connect with him on that... so it makes it crushing to see him get abused like this by a madwoman who's getting off on his suffering and drinking his tears... it makes me connect with Lincoln and it makes me want to root for him but in exchange it turns me away from Luan. Instead of laughing with her, I'm disgusted by her heinous actions... and when a character I like is getting shit that he doesn't deserve from a character who's happy that he's getting shit... it makes me mad at the character who's giving shit.
Picture this scenario...
A little girl (Who's about 7 or so) is frolicking through the snow and having a good time... out of nowhere, a teenaged boy whose name she doesn't even know comes out of fucking nowhere, with a snowball in hand... and starts violently mashing said snowball in her face, not throwing it at her, pressing it maliciously in her face while she's pinned on the ground... would you find the boy's actions funny? Would you like the boy for that? No... it's not funny. It's fucking sadistic, you'd get mad at that little shit! Because what asshole teen would pick on a little kid he doesn't know for fun?
And that's how Luan's actions make me feel... She's the asshole teen mashing snow in a helpless child's face... And I end up feeling sorry for everyone involved...
Other shows offset this problem of making the victim too sympathetic by making the victim of cruelty unsympathetic as well... or the victim gives the person being cruel a reason or motive to be cruel... like if the victim did something cruel first, the cruel person can retaliate to give consequences or teach the victim a lesson.
Case in point... Sound of Silence.
In Sound of Silence, Lincoln thought that the house was too noisy, so he bought noise-cancelling headphones... at first he was justified in doing so... but he overstepped his bounds... and cancelled out everything, including his sisters who were simply trying to converse with him and not bother him at all... he got arrogant and thought "Fuck it! Why should I listen to my sisters at all? I can just ignore them as much as I want!" making him unsympathetic, it's one thing to want quiet but another thing entirely for him to ignore everything his sisters say... he started out wanting silence but became a recluse... So when Lola and everyone else gets even, it's cathartic... because first off, he brought it upon himself... and second... he learned that ignoring people has negative side effects... and that it's not fair for him to ignore his family altogether... That episode made him deserve what came to him.
April Fools Rules doesn't do that... it makes Lincoln a kind man out to save his family and ending up with a shiner and his eyebrows gone... but Let's get to that summary first, sorry to keep you waiting with all that technical talk...
So the episode begins with Lincoln literally expressing that "Every year my sister Luan creates a prank apocalypse and no one is spared!"
And what follows is about three minutes of the show explaining exactly why Luan celebrating April Fools Day is a bad, bad thing... they establish that she shaves her pets, they establish that she plucks Lori's eyebrows and that it took a month to grow back... they establish that she traumatized Clyde with birds when he just wanted to visit Lincoln... they establish that she almost drowned them in Jell-O, and they establish how fucking scared each and every Loud is of Luan's pranks... and I feel very sorry for them, they didn't do anything to deserve this either, they're scared kids, they never hurt Luan nor did they commit any kind of sin in this episode. (And yes, I'll get to the cage-scene, don't worry about that!)
And Lincoln, the man with the plan decides to hide in his room and avoid getting hurt, which after what I've seen in the flashback, is the correct decision... the only problem is that Ronnie Anne is coming over and Lincoln rightfully fears that she'll get hurt if Luan pranks her... and he also fears that Ronnie Anne will attack him just because someone else inconvenienced her...
Quick rule of thumb... don't make a character that needs to be saved out to be some asshole or dick... it kind of defeats the purpose of wanting them to be saved... because if a character is unsympathetic or unsavory, why should you want them rescued?
So what Lincoln does is that he asks Clyde for ideas, and one of Clyde's suggestions is to in the episode's own words... "Appeal to her humanity. Beg if you have to!"
So Lincoln does just that, he literally begs Luan for help and tries to appeal to her generous nature...
Her response? Well...
Lincoln: Luan! You gotta call off Prankageddon! Please! Ronnie Anne is coming over tomorrow and I can't let her get pranked!
Luan: Okay.
Lincoln: Really! Wow that was easier than I...
Luan: APRIL FOOLS PRACTICE! Lincoln, you know the April Fools Rules. Anyone who sets foot on our property is fair game. Speaking of which, is Clyde coming over? 'Cause I'd love to just say HAY!!! [chuckles insanely]
So not only do they make Luan to be a character who's happy that she flat-out traumatized Clyde... but now they're establishing her as someone who's completely unreasonable... Lincoln tried to appeal to her and failed... and now she's gonna prank Ronnie Anne knowing full well that it will bother Lincoln... in fact, if we jump to the ending for a bit, we learn that she set all this stuff with Ronnie Anne up just so she can prank him and concoct a situation where she forces him to sacrifice his body and physically hurt himself...
And it makes me wonder... why?
Why go to the trouble? Why is Luan doing this at all?
And I think that this was the missing piece that should've been in my first review... I don't get why Luan is even going this far... I get why she likes to prank people... because it's April Fool's Day and she likes to celebrate it... but why is she shaving the pets? Why is she proud of siccing angry birds on Clyde, who she barely interacts with? Why is she happy that she scared her own six-year old sister into peeing herself? And why is she pulling this elaborate convoluted prank to make Lincoln hurt himself for Ronnie Anne? Her intensity and clear lust for pain are never explained in either installment of the April Fools duology... and I feel like that's what makes Luan all the more frustrating, I don't feel like her "Getting carried away" is the answer, nor do I think that "Because it's fun" is a viable answer either... You don't shave pets for fun... if you delight in traumatizing people and manipulating them for fun, then you have a serious problem... the problem with Luan besides her cruelty is that they give her no reason to be cruel to begin with... if she was carried away, she wouldn't be sadistic and angry, she'd be overexcited and bouncing off the walls happy... she clearly knows that she's hurting people... and she's fine with that, but I don't understand why that makes her happy. It makes her motivations feel inexplicable, especially considering how her character up until this point, was very soft, kind and easygoing... which makes the whole plot feel contrived... which makes Luan feel Out of Character as a result.
And that is not a nitpick... Character motivations are important as fuck... Why? I think my Bounce Lounge review sums it up best... Take it away, me from July 2017: "If the character motivations don't feel real, then naturally, I don't find anything believable. Without proper motivations, I can't suspend my disbelief to believe that the characters would even be in this situation... because none of it adds up."
Those are my thoughts on Luan's sadistic attitude, I don't see why she would be so cold and cruel to her brother, and I don't see why she would be happy about hurting people, or what she would gain other than a sick thrill that she theoretically shouldn't be enjoying... she seemed like a nice girl in other episodes, and she wasn't built to be evil like Dabi was... she was built to be a sister that Lincoln could count on... she was fine with helping Lincoln in Project Loud House, she wanted to protect him in Heavy Meddle... those episodes show that she cares about him...so why is she so mean and insensitive to him here? What kind of sense does that make that she's willing to fight for Lincoln in Heavy Meddle yet she'll manipulate his emotions and bully him in this episode? It's confusing enough to make me...
And now I'm dead... not really, that was a joke.
They try to give her a reason for being a dick... (Emphasis on "try") but it ultimately falls flat on its fucking face.
So seeing that Luan is beyond talking to... Lincoln and the sisters decide to trap her in a cage... and after shoving her inside, they then proceed to laugh at her and use her puns against her, Lincoln even throws her own words back at her...
Luan: LET ME OUT OF HERE!
Lincoln: Okay.
Luan: Really? Wow! That was easier than I...
Lincoln: APRIL FOOLS! We aren't letting you out until April 2nd!
And it's cathartic... because she's getting her just desserts... but not really... she gets punished... but then she breaks out and proceeds to prank them anyway... and it causes another problem...
You see, going back to that thing I said about Lincoln deserving what came to him in Sound of Silence, the thing is... is that this scene fails at making the other Louds deserve what comes after they trap Luan in a cage... yes, they laughed at her... but does that make them worse than Luan? No... and that's the problem.
When two cruel characters are being cruel to each other, we naturally root for the lesser of two evils... and they fail to make the Louds bad enough to make Luan justified in pranking them... Because the Louds only did what they did to protect themselves from physical harm at Luan's hands... not to mention that Luan presented herself earlier to be completely unreasonable, as shown when she refused Lincoln's pleas for mercy... and when words can't dissuade someone from doing bad things, the only logical step is to use force... this scene justifies the Louds instead of Luan, instead of feeling sorry for Luan, they make her too mean, which means I find catharsis in her getting mocked... which makes me root for the Louds, who only did this out of desperation and fear. The cage scene also comes too late as well, if they showed the Louds being cruel to Luan from the start and got me to sympathize with her, then I'd feel sorry for her and want her to get back at them... but they made her too caustic and unlikeable at the start... which makes her punishment feel deserved, so it completely fails at giving her a good motive for being nasty the next day... because instead of justifying her, it justifies the Louds... and even worse, she'll go on to punish the innocent Louds for trying to defend themselves from harm!
Also, this scene is kinda pointless when you really stop to think about it, Luan was already going to prank them the next day... and if the text that Lincoln received is any indication, she already was going to manipulate Lincoln before the Louds fought back... so the cage-scene doesn't really have any impact on Luan's behaviour... because she was going to prank them anyway. If the cage scene was at the end, it'd be a happy ending... because she gets her just desserts... but she got punished too early, making her renege on what should've been a lesson.
So in conclusion, the cage-scene was too early to be the catalyst for Luan changing and too late to be the inciting incident for Luan's cruelty.
Then the pranks happen, leading to the things I said about feeling sorry for Lincoln being manipulated and beaten black and blue... and the pranks aren't funny either... mostly because they interrupt the action periodically to have Luan make a pun... the scenes were fast and fluid but then the flow is halted for an unfunny joke. Comedy is built on speed and surprise and the pauses take me out of the action, interrupt the fast pace, take away the surprise because her puns are predictable and divert me away from what's supposed to make me laugh... it's a hindrance more than an asset in my opinion.
There was one funny joke... to be absolutely fair... it was when Leni was an idiot and says "Thank you, sign!" as she walks into town... but that joke has horrible implications, I'll get to that part.
Then Luan revealed that she set all this up just to laugh at Lincoln for being selfless and kind... and once again, it's horrible, random and feels out of place... and that doesn't sound like something that Luan would laugh at... and it bothers me that she would be so heartless towards Lincoln for no apparent reason... (Remember, she set this up before the cage-scene) and I end up hating her because I feel too sorry for Lincoln.
But I will give credit where it's due... Ronnie Anne throwing the pie at Luan was a nice gesture... and it does vindicate Lincoln's turmoil... but only like 1% of it... I say 1% because it doesn't bother Luan at all... she doesn't learn from it... she's not even inconvenienced by it... she's chill... and instead of learning how much she hurt her family, she's still sadistic and cruel, which they showed me in Fools Paradise, where she proclaimed she'll make next year even worse.
The ending fails because it only solves the immediate problem of Lincoln suffering on that day, not the larger problem of Luan being sadistic for no reason.
Let's compare that to MLP's 28 Pranks Later... in that episode, Rainbow was on a rampage similar to Luan's... only she wasn't sadistic about it... she was being a smug dick... and she was hurting her friends... they tried to talk to her, but she wouldn't listen, and while her friends tried to tell her what she did wrong... she took it the wrong way and began to prank everyone, including innocent bystanders... they tried to talk to her three separate times but she wouldn't listen to reason... and she kept on compounding her crimes by pranking everyone in sight... not to mention that she used children for her own gains and point blank lied to Rarity's face... naturally, they dropped the hammer on her, it wasn't out of evil, it was to teach her what it felt like when she pranks people cruelly... The other 5 Mane 6 did what they did out of necessity, Rainbow was unreasonable, so they used force, and when shown the error of her ways, Rainbow apologized, made amends and even demonstrated that she learned her lesson. 28 Pranks Later solved the long-term problem, not the immediate problem... and the Mane 6 were justified because they only wanted to help Rainbow and not hurt her...
Luan on the other hand, was shown the error of her ways and learned nothing... she was shown that her siblings hated her pranks and wanted her to stop... instead of evolving and learning, she continued to be a heartless person at the end...
Like, the last thing I see in this episode is Luan making this smug, satisfied, and totally carefree, shit-eating grin... immediately after ruining the inside of the family's own car with paint... (That's not gonna come out of the upholstery easily by the way) pranking people who weren't even trying to punish her... all they wanted was to find Leni... their missing sister/daughter, who could be god-knows-where by now... and once again to reiterate, the last thing to cap off the episode is the person who caused all the problems making a snide, shit-eating grin and having herself a good old laugh...
And that's supposed to be a satisfying ending? It ends with Luan coming out on top? After the episode did everything in its power to make her least likeable person in the experience? After she failed to learn a lesson? After she manipulated Lincoln's emotions, gave him a black eye and instilled fear in the hearts of her siblings at every possible turn? And after the episode completely fails at providing any sort of motive for her doing so?
Not a chance! She's the farthest person from deserving it in this episode. I get what they were trying to do... I understand what this episode was going for... they wanted to end it on a joke... but in this case, the joke of Luan pulling pranks has run its course... and it doesn't do anything to alleviate the staleness of prior jokes because they cut the flow... once again... for another unfunny pun... and it effectively showed me that Luan has learned absolutely nothing from the entire adventure. The whole adventure felt more or less pointless to me... because, what was accomplished in this episode? Nothing much, in my opinion... Luan didn't learn anything, clearly... She didn't do what she did for Lincoln because that doesn't explain why she was a dick to everyone else if she only wanted to make him look good in front of Ronnie Anne, especially to the parents that didn't do anything to her... nor does it explain her cruelty in previous April Fools Days (Like, I said... what the siblings did was justified and only to protect themselves and she was gonna prank them anyway, regardless of whether they retaliated or not) Ronnie Anne had one moment that worked... but did it improve her character? Not really... It's kind of hard for me to forgive her when her very next episode has her admitting point blank that she would blow Lincoln off directly after calling him out on doing the same thing in Dance Dance Resolution, making her a dirty hypocrite... and several things that bothered me in Shell Shock... and making Lincoln wait several days outside her house just to prank him and laugh at him in Back Out There.
And as for Lincoln... well, he didn't really learn anything or develop either... He was already selfless when the episode started... He technically has a happy ending, sure... but the very next year, he's running for his life in a ghost motel from his own sister, so in the long run, he didn't really gain anything either... all he got was a pyrrhic victory, his eyebrows shaved off, his foot jammed into a bucket (I mistakenly thought he had a limp in my original review) and a black eye... while the person who inflicted said black eye and stuck foot ostensibly gets off scot-free.
The ending itself bothers me because they don't explain what happened to Leni, that might actually have been a really funny joke if they showed her in a silly place thinking it was the kitchen... but instead of joking about that, they waste 5 seconds on Luan asking me if I get the joke of feeling blue after painting a car's insides blue... but instead of a funny joke, it just makes me worry about Leni... because who's to say that Luan didn't have yet another horrible trap waiting at the end of her signs? And once again, instead of making me laugh at Luan luring Leni into the city, I just end up sympathizing with Leni and feeling worried about her... because Luan's treatment of Lincoln tells me that Leni isn't safe... and that's not including the fact that Leni's own idiocy is now in a wide-open space with no one to keep it in line... Meaning she could inadvertently fuck herself up.
My mind hasn't changed... this episode maintains its 0/10... and I still consider it one of the most depressing lowpoints of Season 1. I understand the episode's appeal... I really do... It's eclectic and fast paced, (at least to everyone else) it gives Luan screentime and it has some sadistic atmosphere to it... and for some that could come across as refreshing... but what good is atmosphere if I don't like the story? What good is comedy if it’s too uncomfortable to make me laugh? What good is Luan's portrayal if the entire episode turns me away from her?
I hope Fool Me Twice is good, I really do... I never want to hate a character... I never wanted to reject Luan... not even after April Fools Rules, she has potential, she even had one good episode... (Funny Business), but what's she's doing right now isn't working... her jokes are getting old, her episodes are becoming samey and they're reusing the same concept as this episode in Fool Me Twice... this is her fifth episode and instead of going somewhere new, they're reusing the same concept from her first episode... and if you have to reuse the same concept three times in your fifth episode... your character is doing something wrong...
I hope you enjoyed my re-review of April Fools Rules! And I hope you all at least understand why I consider it to be my fourth least favourite Loud House episode... And if you like AFR, that's fine, too! Tune in next time for when I explain why I like MLP's A Royal Problem!
See you guys then!
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