Today’s ep takes place in late season 2. As mentioned in the “Brave the Last Dance Review’ the series had some growing pains before it got to it’s current shape: the series largely focused on lincoln at first, but as season 2 went on the show slowly eased off him. While he still gets plenty of episodes focusing on him, and still gets the ocasional weird zach morris talk to the camera moment when the episode calls for it, the show wisely decided to make itself into an ensemble piece. INstead of being about the one boy navigating a big house it became about 11 children and their parents navigating being a big family and the perils of adolsence and what not.
As such today’s ep , while focusing on the kids as a whole, evnetually zeros in on my faviorite Loud child, Luna. Luna, as you probably know but what the hell, is an aspiring rock star, most of the time fairly chill and using the word dude a lot but not afraid to get loud, pun intended, or throw up the devil horns at a moments notice. She’s also a loving big sis, cares about her siblings, and is in short a wonderful character that season 1.. really didn’t give much focus. Season 2 rectified that to my delight, giving her a focus episode early on, Roadie to Nowhere, which revealed that she also has some confidence issues that are brought to the forefront here and go on to be a vital part of her character. I also admitely was delighted to see her voice actress, Nika Futterman, in a major role again, and she’s delightful in the role and even does luna’s singing. And this ep while being an “all hands on deck’ episode about all of the siblings, does have a major focus on luna as it goes, and thus I jumped on it immidetly.. that and you know, the fact it canocially made her bisexual, making a headcanon I had about her canon and being something they actually hinted at back in season 1. But we’ll get more into that later. For now, L is for love, lunacy and luna after the cut!
We open with Lincoln getting the mail and then gasping in shock at one letter, before calling an emergency sibling meeting. The sibling meetings are something that had been set up before with Lori,a s the oldest, leading them, and a thing I like: it makes sense with this many kids to have some sort of internal way to solve problems with them or vote on things as a group when needed. Simple, makes sense and i’m glad it’s stuck around.
After dealing with the previous meetings minutes, Lincoln reveals what rattled him a bit: A mysterious love letter adressed to “L.Loud”. And it’s a nice way to use the series cute naming gimmick as a plot point: ONE of the siblings has a secret admirer,a nd while Lori, being lori, assumes it’s her boyfriend bobby, sh’es quickly shot down. And that.. makes sense. Bobby is a romantic, and a great character who I love dearly and will watch the spinoff soley because he’s in it.. but it’s been shown before this ep that bobbi’s a big romantic gesture guy. The boy put himself in a giant present and nearly suffocated to death to surprise his girlfriend for Christmas and went above and beyond for their anniversary. The guy’s a peach.. but he’s also not subtle. He’s also, while not lacking in cleverness as his later career as a bodegaman shows, not very bright so if this was him, his name would probably be crossed out somewhere on it.
But each of the louds have their own crushes... which is a problem with the ep. Now to the shows credit, besides the obvious of having Sam come back, two of these characters DO come back later: Chaz, Leni’s crush, ends up mentioned in season 3, and Luann’s crush Benny ends up the focus of a spotlight episode for her in late season 3, voiced by another one of my boys (and girls) stable of voice actors Sean Gambone later on. However even with that in mind this disconnect is the episodes biggest issue: outside of sam, since we see Luna visably struggle in a bit and we’ll get into that then, we have no real investment in seeing the louds get together with most of those people other than because the episode tells us to. It didn’t really help that Lincoln and Lucy HAD love intrests in previous episodes. And sure Ronnie Anne had moved at this point, but Lincoln had a previous crush before her Cristina to use, and we had an entire episdoe about Lucy having a crush on rocky. And somehow Rocky still hasn’t come back, but his dumbass brother is a recurring character, which if nothing else is my proof that god hates me specfically. Also yeah.. while the crushes all have names I’m purposfully not looking them up as most of them are nondiscrept at best, and the only notable one is LIsa’s crush who looks like a tiny Doctor Octopus..so apparently Otto cloned himself and gave his son black hair? I mean that’s what i’m going with it sounds like the kind of contingincey he’d do and he did die for a while. Twice. Oh and the fact Lily is crushing on a teddy bear which is just really cute.
That being said, the episode DOES get something big right: Doing this kind of stock plot right. I mean “everyone thinks a romantic letter/card/card and flowers’ is for them is a stock sitcom plot and an annoying one at that half the time as the person who sent them comes off as super dumb, or the card has to be smudged or it has to be a nickname or something something, etc etc. Here... while they all think it’s for them, it makes perfect sense for once: They ALL have the same initials, so not knowing which ones which, aside from not Bobby because of reasons I mentoined already and Bear because AS FAR AS WE KNOW he’s not alive... I mean they do live in a house with a 4 year old who tampers with the natural order as part of her to do list every day, so it’s really a matter of when not IF with that.
It also avoids: “Everyone fights and gets petty over it” .. which itself the series has botched at times for other plots, so instead while they all want it to be them and breifly get agitated over it, they instead all work together using the same tactics to try and suss it out. It’s a nice change of pace and part of why this episode works despite the repettition.. more on that later.
Anyways of all of them it’s Lucy who offers the easiest way to narrow it down, knowing how secret admirers work because she reads a lot of vampire fiction and vampires , while inhumanly goregous are also deeply insecure which, having watched all 5 seasons of angel.. yeah that tracks good work. As such she suggests they all send a signal to gage their intrest and if their intrested, they’ll send another letter.
Shenanigans insue, my faviorite being Leni pretending to be a manquin and scaring the shit out of Chaz. Not bad jokes, but we’ll get to more about it later.
The plan actually works and the next poem has a rose and-mentions the targets brown hair, so our bachlerottes are down to Luna, Luann, Lynn and Lisa. It’s also a nice clue for the reveal later. Naturally their all stoked.. except Luna who looks visably depressed. Turns out she never GAVE her signal because she talked herself out of it, thinking Sam’s out of her league. But her siblings quickly all jump in to encourage her.
It’s a nice scene. Starting with the easier part to talk about I do love the siblings comradere. Sure they fight, scheme against one another, ocasinally encourage one of their siblings to date a bully or throw him out of the house.. okay the last ones aren’t as typical or easily forgivable but still, the point is despite it all.. they love each other and when it counts, their there for each other. Hell here Luaan, Lisa and Lynn are all directly against Luna, hoping the letter we’ll be there’s.. yet they have nothing but support for her. The rest of her siblings just found out this wasn’t about them.. but the instant they realize Luna is so down on herself she thinks she’s out of the running, they change from disapointi to being her cheer section. It’s really sweet and it’s this among other moments that helps boost the episode up. I also like the special touch of Lori chiming in at the end, not to be lost in with the rest of her siblings, knowing likely that being both the oldest and the only one there having been in a relationship for a while, her words likely carry some weight.
The other thing.. is Luna’s character, and how this episode cements self-doubt as a major part of her character. And i’ts a part I really like, a nice contrast from her usual confidence, and most episodes about her afte rthis would zero in on this aspect for good character growth.
So since Lucy was already right, they follow her advice for round 2: Give there crush a token of affection, and wait for at third letter. Which honestly aside from actually giving signals back, she’s not entirely wrong: most “love letter plots” have this sort of rhythm.
Speaking of rhtyum.. yeah this sequence is basically the same one as before just with a diffrent goal in mind.. however I do give the episode credit. In my previous review I spoke about my annoynce at the series love of repettion, and while this episode does suffer for it.. I inflated it in my head that it was worse here. Here the jokes land enough and it does work to the episodes benifit to repeat stuff. Plus here it ends up being plot relevant: After gifts of a pie to the face (Luann), a literal hart (Lisa) and a jock strap (Lynn), Luna has a decidedly less psychotic gift in mind: Her faviorite guitar pic, which even has a heart within a heart and is a very cute gesture... but she once again backs out and accepts not being that lucky. But I also like it because it cleverly shows that it’s not Luna herself that’s the problem: out of the 4 remaning siblings she’s the only one with a valid gift, and it make sense given both her personality and her siblings inexperince. It’s jsut she’s so scared of rejection she can’t bring herself to try.
So the family is familing in the living room when Leni comes in with the final letter from the mail man... and with the final letter admitting to a love of their sounds and all things british, yeah it’s gotta be Luna? So the secret admirer has set up a meting at bangers and mosh, a place that serves british food and is a rock venue. Luna is shocked but happy and the family carry her off.. minus Leni who being Leni wants to make sure the mailman is okay since she tried letting him down gently thinking the letter was from him.
The kids arrive, all coming with for moral support apparently.. only to find their parents. Wah wah wah! In all seriousness, this twist works. With the episode geared towards Luna, most fans probably woudln’t think about their parents or this being some wacky sitcom solution, but the episode gives decent hints: Brown hair, a love of british things , an established trait for Luna as much as Lynn senior, who spent a year abroad, ironically enough revealed in the same ep Luna hinted was bi and all the girls stalked an innocent british person because of course the head writer with a history of sexual harassment would think that was a good idea. Anyways, he also was established to have a band in “House Music”, luna’s other spotlight ep from season 1, So it’ a really good use of continuity, and if you were a diehard fan of thes how or rewatched those two eps a lot, you’d probably be able to figure it out. To their credit though I did not.
Anyways Leni gives out an amaazing line “Sam likes dad?” , Rita, after a bit of confusion at her daughter’s hilarous dumbassery, explains she sent the letter: As it turns out it’s how they met. Now granted you’d think they would’ve told the kids this before but I brush it off as the kids simply not thinking of that: It was a resonable assumption the letter was for them, and none of the letters had anything about Lynn Sr. That didn’t apply to his kids. Anyways, thinking Lynn Sr out of her league, much like her daughter’s current delimma which is a nice touch. ON the third note she asked him to meet her at the very restraunt they are now, celebrating the 20th anniversary of their first date. And to me this little story is just.. really fucking adorable, as is Rita’s love of Lynn Sr.’s pisstake british accent.
Rita, being a great mom, does try and comfort luna hoping she’s not disapointed. However while Luna was at first... her story inspiries Luna to take a risk. After all it worked for her parents, she and Sam could work. She just has to make that move and rallies her family to do the same. We also get one more fantastic gag before we get to the end montage:
Lynn Sr: This calls for a celebration! Meat pies for everyone!
Restraunt: Yay!
Lynn Sr: Actually I just meant my family
Restraunt: (grumbles)
Lynn Sr: Oh come on theres 13 of us!
So we end on one last montage as each loud kid gives their crush a note, some seeing it some not, and for Leni does the manquin bit again, which is adorable. Also the otto kid is apparently not named otto, but in my defense.. I don’t care. So after some genuinely cute bits, we get one last one as Luna leaves a note for sam.. and you see, as you probably know for most of the episode the show hadn’t been specific on which one Sam is, so when it turned out to be one of the girls, it’d be a twist. Of course it isn’t NOW: I called this a saluna trilogy after all and really most people hearing about the loud house probably know about her and Luna but at the time it was a smart twist.
And I loved it. WHile i’d headcannoned her as bi, there were hints after all, it was, much like the korassmi ending of legend of korra , a plesant shock to have it be REAL. And the ending shot, of luna simling at the above from behind the lockers, is really sweet.
But I also give Nick and the Loud House credit where it’s do. While they weren’t the first children’s cartoon to have an out and out gay/bi/pan protaganist, they were one of the first to not only have a bi protagnist during the context of the show, but to have it be visable.. it was really nice. Even if I do wish they’d use the term bi i’m not greedy and the show to it’s credit, while giving moments like this florish, dosen’t go out of it’s way to pat itself o the back about it’s represenation. The characters who are queer or disabled or POC are just.. there , with enough prominence to be proper representation while not letting that be ALL they are. Now sure at the time of this writing Representation, even within the Loud House itself as it followed up on this, has taken even greater leaps: In Adult Animation we have Harley Quinn having the last act of it’s second season be dedicated to Harley’s emotiona turmoil over being in love with her engaged best friend and said best friend, for now NOT wanting more, a pairing fans had wanted to see played out since the two first met. She Ra had two LEADS angished declartions of loved save teh unvierse and be the emotional climax of the finale. And netflix has gone on to have several gay characters in it’s childrens show on top of that, all leads. But while I think all of tihs would’ve happened without L is for Love, I do still applaud it as a good step forward. Sure the show had Clyde’s dads’ before, and they are good characters don’t get me wrong, but this was something else and as Bi person myself.. I really welcome it.
Final Thoughts:
Not much to say I haven’t, but overall a realy damn good episode with a hell of an ending that makes use of the repetttion rather than usingit because “Oh shit we have a lot of episodes to get out this season”. Of course we’ll be getting back to sam and luna soon enough with season 3′s followup racing hearts, and with me knowing it’s pride I have tons of review ideas a coming, but for now, reblog this review if you liked it, or just like it if youd ont’ feel like that, send me an ask if you have any other episodes i’d like to cover, or comission one if you wnat to make SURE I cover it, and i’ll see you next time. Later days.
