A Grave Mistake (The Loud House)
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A Grave Mistake is the first half of the eighth episode of the fourth season of The Loud House. It aired in the United States on September 2, 2019.
Plot
Lucy and Haiku compete to be the new president of the Young Mortician's Club at school.
Synopsis
At the Royal Woods Cemetery, the Mortician's Club is holding a meeting, where the leader, Bertrand, states that he must step down because his father has gotten a job as a lifeguard on a cruise ship and has to leave to join him. Before he steps down, he states that he needs to appoint a new leader for the club, and he immediately chooses Haiku. Lucy, feeling underappreciated, bemoans to Lincoln that she should have been appointed as the leader instead of Haiku, and Lincoln states that tomorrow, she should go up to Bertrand and state her thoughts on why she should be the leader, and Lucy accepts Lincoln's idea.
The next day, Lucy tells the Mortician's Club members that she should be the leader, since she made several accomplishments in the club. Seeing her point of view, Bertrand decides to hold a vote: whoever gets the most votes from the club will be appointed the new leader. Throughout the day, Lucy and Haiku try to convince the other members to give them their vote, which results in a tie with three votes each. Needing a way to win the election, Lucy manipulates Lincoln into joining the club, and Lincoln, wearing a goth-punk outfit, immediately places his vote on Lucy, and Bertrand is forced to accept the vote since he's in the club, making Lucy the new leader.
The next day, as Lucy ponders what to do with her role as president, she hears Clyde (later Principal Huggins) crying in the bushes because the school's mascot, Ricky the Rooster, had died. Lucy sees Ricky's death as the perfect opportunity to hold a school-wide funeral procession. Arriving to the cemetery, Lucy discovers that no one but Lincoln is present. Her brother presents her with a scroll saying that because she was appointed the new leader, everyone quit, making them the only two members of the club. Thinking that she doesn't need them, Lucy proposes that they will hold the funeral themselves.
Lincoln and Lucy attempt to hold Ricky's funeral, but things go awry very quickly. The ice sculpture Lucy commissioned has nearly melted due to how hot it is (because she did not check the weather forecast), the food served by Lincoln is chicken nuggets, which is relatively inappropriate, football players are tackling people because of the funeral taking place on a football field (which Lincoln and Lucy failed to reserve due to one believing the other was going to do it), and when Lucy attempts to give Ricky a proper send-off by flinging him into the sky via trebuchet, Ricky's coffin ends hitting a passing airplane. As everyone in the audience boos at Lucy, the Mortician's Club's former members leave because of the atrocious service. Lucy catches up to them and apologizes for her selfish behavior, and the members, feeling bad for Lucy and because she was only doing what's best, decide to step in and fix things.
Sometime later, another funeral service is being held, and the Mortician's Club manage to make things work by sending Ricky off by tying several balloons to his coffin, which floats him away, while crows form a heart around the ascending coffin, and Luna singing a song to honor Ricky's legacy. With the funeral being a success, Lucy states that Haiku is the better leader and deserves the role more than her, but Haiku states that it would be better if they ran the club together, a proposal that Lucy gladly accepts.
Why This Episode Is a Grave Mistake Indeed
- Like Family Guy's "Life of Brian" and The Simpsons' "Homer Simpson in: "Kidney Trouble"", this episode suffers from an identity crisis. Realized whether an emotional and mature-felt part or a comedy-based part succeeds at neither. Instead, it never sticks with one side or the other, and it just feels like this episode would not be out of place in the later seasons of Family Guy, and not in a silly slice-of-life comedy cartoon-like The Loud House.
- Not helping is that for the first half, the episode takes the subject of a deceased pet as a joke, and then later in the last with almost two minutes, it takes itself seriously, which shows this episode is also unaware of how to be consistent either.
- The emotional tone is somewhat nonexistent here, as this episode relied on making mostly poor attempts at humor instead of making itself seem relatable to those that grieve over the loss of their pet (see WTEIAGMI#3 for an example of an unfunny joke). Even though the Rugrats episode "I Remember Melville" was filled with mourning and sorrow, it stuck with feeling more emotional-felt and never went as far as to mishandle the concept of grieving and mourning the loss of an animal or a pet. In the case of The Loud House, doesn't seem to try doing that at all. It showed several times they add something saddening into an episode of the series, but here, nothing. In other words, the episode's title was not joking at all because they made a "grave mistake" by handling serious topics as silly humor that young audiences can enjoy.
- This episode marked the start of Lucy's flanderization as she started to turn more selfish by using much of her siblings to get what she wanted.
- Aside from the humor, this episode tramples all over the concept of comedy, making you realize that death is not the topic you want this show to cover seriously since all they'll ever do is just make a joke about it and with this episode, they did:
- Lincoln, while likable, stupidly serves chicken nuggets for funeral food leftovers, which is oh-so one of the stupidest things to come from an eleven-year-old boy (later 12-year-old boy as of "Present Danger"-onward) who is the smartest in the Loud family aside from Lisa, but of course they had to write him this stupid in the latter half of the episode.
- One infamous scene where Lucy decides to catapult the coffin containing Ricky inside and flies it up into the air at an airplane with a trebuchet.
- Relying on mishandling the concept of deceased animals is one thing, but relying a little more on goths and emo stereotyping comes off as meaning the episode looks uncanny, dull, obnoxious, disrespectful, and bland at the same time.
- Clyde’s crying is reasonable, but at the same time, his crying sounds annoying and grating.
- The way the episode has Lincoln playing the emo stereotype is generic and bland. A better episode, "Space Invaders", to handle made sense. In said episode, Lincoln did this stereotype to get Lynn and Lucy to make up again, which of course does come off as stereotypical to emo people, but it made sense and was funny. But here, the way presented is bland, one-dimensional, and forced to the point where it is unfunny.
- Either before or after this episode aired, it gained controversy on Twitter from critics of Nickelodeon, fans of the Nickelodeon and the show, and the show itself for the infamous "Goth E-Boy" tweet which the crew at Nickelodeon posted.
- The way Lucy wants to be club president is understandable, but the way she makes up her mind to be a president instead of having Haiku being president comes off as somewhat shallow and selfish of her. However, Lucy getting to be club president along with Haiku, in the end, is satisfying because, while she already screwed up the funeral the first time, she does set things right to make it up, redeeming herself in the end.
- The part of the episode's plot is arguably one of the worst so far. While "Brawl in the Family" may have had an even more appalling plot with sexist tropes and unreasonable torture for Lincoln to go through, at least there were some aspects mentioned in the redeeming qualities of that episode's page; here, nothing about this episode's plot is any good, so even the story of this episode was this bad from the start, worse than the plot "Brawl in the Family" given.
- The closing song from the same episode ending does nothing to make up for all that the funeral scene has done unnecessary wacky shenanigans the song also sounds as if Luna secretly doesn't want to be here.
- The design of Ricky the Rooster may look disturbing.
- Overall, this episode started the decline of the show with "Schooled!" officially starting the downfall of the show.
Redeeming Qualities
- The Morticians Club agreeing to help redo the funeral is heartwarming and satisfying.
- There are a few chuckle-worthy jokes in this episode.
- The rest of the characters apart from Lucy are likable in this episode.
- Lucy gets punished for her actions as the crowd boos at her.
- As mentioned above, Clyde's crying is reasonable.
- The nostalgic scene where Lincoln was humming the show's theme song while he was taking his books out of his locker.
Reception
With a rating of 5.0/10 on IMDb, this episode is considered one of the worst episodes of The Loud House.
Controversy
A day before the episode's release, Nickelodeon promoted this episode by posting a tweet on Twitter that read "the goth e-boy we didn't even know we needed" with a picture of Lincoln wearing his goth punk attire. The tweet was heavily lambasted by users, who criticized Nickelodeon's use of the term "e-boy" as a poor attempt to be trendy with their audience. A day later (the day of this episode's release), Nickelodeon deleted the tweet.
Trivia
- The title of this episode is a reference to the fact that it's about the Mortician's Club and their fascination with the dead.
- According to Darin McGowan, the cemetery gate is modeled after the gate of the cemetery where his grandmother is buried.
- Lincoln hums the theme song when he is getting his books out of his locker.
- The mascot of Royal Woods Elementary is revealed to be a rooster named Ricky.
- According to Lincoln, Lucy has been planning funerals since she was only 2 years old.
- This episode reveals that Haiku converted to a Gothic lifestyle one year ago.
- The timecards in this episode were designed by David King.
- This episode takes place after "Absent Minded", since Clyde is revealed to still have his position as the school's junior administrator.
- This is the only Season 4 episode in which Stella has a non-speaking role.
- Innuendo: Lincoln serves chicken nuggets at a rooster's funeral.
References
- A Grave Mistake - The title of this episode is a phrase that means a really bad mistake.
- The title also shares its name with the 2018 song by Ice Nine Kills.
- Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis - According to Darin McGowan, the funeral outfit Lucy wears in this episode is based on the funeral dress worn by the late First Lady of the U.S. following her husband President John F. Kennedy's assassination.
- Edward Gorey - According to Darin McGowan, the time cards in this episode were designed after the illustrations of this writer and artist, whose pen-and-ink art style was known for its unsettling appearance.
- Keep Calm and Carry On - According to Lucy, she was the one who came up with the Mortician's Club motto "Keep calm and embalm," a reference to this motivational phrase used by the British government to keep their citizens calm in the impending World War II.
Errors
- Lincoln's height throughout the episode is shown to be inconsistent, with some scenes showing he and Lucy are the exact same height, while others show him to be a little taller than her.