A Grave Mistake (The Loud House)

A Grave Mistake (The Loud House)
Eleven flesh-crawling minutes of children's television paired with an absolute godsend of a episode afterwards? Where have we heard of that combo before?
Part of Season: 4 Episode Number: 8a Air Date: September 2, 2019 Writer: Whitney Wetta Director: Darin McGowan Previous episode: Any Given Sundae Next episode: Leader of the Rack

"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.

Why This Episode Is A Grave Mistake

1. 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.
2. 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 WIS #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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. Clyde’s crying is reasonable, but at the same time, his crying sounds annoying and grating.
7. 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.
8. 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.
9. 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.
10. 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. But 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.
11. 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.
12. The design of Ricky the Rooster may look disturbing.
13. Overall, this episode started the decline of the show with "Schooled!" officially starting the downfall of the show.

Redeeming Qualities

1. The Morticians Club agreeing to help redo the funeral is heartwarming and satisfying.
2. There are a few chuckle-worthy jokes in this episode.
3. The rest of the characters (except for Lucy) are likable in this episode.
4. Lucy gets punished for her actions as the crowd boos at her.
5. As mentioned above, Clyde's crying is reasonable.

Reception

With a rating of 5.0/10 on IMDb, this episode is considered one of the worst episodes of The Loud House.

Trivia

• This episode goes down after "Absent Minded" since Clyde revealed his position as the school's junior administrator.
• According to Lincoln, Lucy has been planning funerals since she was only two years old.
• According to Darin McGowan, the cemetery gate is modeled after the gate of the cemetery where his grandmother buried.
• The title of this episode refers to the fact that it's about the Mortician's Club and their fascination with the dead.
• The mascot of Royal Woods Elementary was revealed to be Ricky the Rooster.
• This episode reveals that Haiku was converted to a Gothic lifestyle a year before the events of this episode.

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