Kings of the Con (The Loud House)

"Kings of the Con" is the twenty-fourth episode of the fourth season, the one-hundred-seventy-third episode overall, and the ninth full-length episode of The Loud House.

Plot
Eager to be named Kings of the Con at the Ace Savvy convention, Lincoln and Clyde convince the sisters to go with them as the Full Deck. But the girls get more attention, leading the boys to do whatever it takes to gain focus.

Why This Episode Is Chock-Full Of Cons

 * 1) Almost all of the characters are unlikable in this episode:
 * 2) * Lincoln and Clyde, despite being sympathetic for the most part, are at their absolute worst in this episode, as they commit an act of selfishness by catnapping Kitty to get the role, which is animal cruelty, what's also not helping is that this episode also marked the start of Lincoln's flanderization, as he started to do more evil plans to benefit himself.
 * 3) *The Loud sisters are no better as they're just one-dimensional in this episode. They only initially go with Lincoln and Clyde so they could become famous, which is kind of selfish, but they are also just there for the Ace Savvy convention not just to be famous people, but also to be in an upcoming Ace Savvy movie which Lincoln and Clyde were talking about.
 * 4) **Even the nicer sisters, particularly Leni, Luna, Lucy, and Lily, also go against their character traits by being selfish towards Lincoln and Clyde, as they care about the fame of being in a movie, especially Lucy, whose flanderization has gone too far.
 * 5) **Lana, out of all of the sisters, is portrayed the worst, in terms of character derailment, as she acts more selfish than her other siblings, even though she is normally one of the kindest and most selfless sisters in the Loud family.
 * 6) *The judges are incompetent and unlikable, as they do not properly notice Lincoln and Clyde by treating both of them and the sisters as different groups, even though they're already in the same group (Full House Gang). Rather than encouraging them that they can do better, they keep discouraging them. In the end, when they notice that all of them have re-captured the Kitty, they initially choose only Lincoln and Clyde; but after Lincoln and Clyde confess their selfish acts, they later rightfully take them out of the role for the movie, but put them back in for only one condition within moments, proving the judges are inconsistent with giving people proper punishments. Aside from that, they are also completely biased toward the two boys, even if Lincoln and Clyde wanted to be in the movie to support their favorite franchise.
 * 7) This is the last episode to conclude the duo of Whitney Wetta and Sammie Crowley working on an episode together, but not a good note to end it.
 * 8) *It almost felt like this episode, along with "A Grave Mistake", showed that Whitney Wetta ran out of ideas and had to come up with a couple of stories quickly, but has lost her mojo as a writer since Season 4.
 * 9) The fight with Kitty is really stupid, and it also comes across as animal abuse considering they are fighting a dangerous cat! There are those that like animals in real life. Let alone some hypocrisy coming out from PETA if they really saw this episode.
 * 10) Similar to in "Brawl in the Family", both Lincoln and Clyde are incompetent and unfairly mistreated in the first half, although only Lincoln is unfairly mistreated in the aforementioned episode.
 * 11) *But another exception for this episode is that it goes from torturing Lincoln and Clyde unfairly, to making both of them act completely selfish and unlikeable at the end of the first act, as well as in the majority of the second act. Sure, Lincoln makes bad decisions sometimes, but not to the point of this.
 * 12) Rather than writing an original plot or making a plot where the show is set in an alternative universe, the writers simply reversed the plot of another fan-favorite episode, "Pulp Friction", and showed not a single bit of the charm the aforementioned episode does have. Shows the writers are too lazy to care about original stories at all, do they?
 * 13) The fact that the sisters seem to be very eager to win a cameo role in the upcoming Ace Savvy movie contradicts "Sleuth or Consequences", an episode from the first season, in which they criticized Lincoln for wearing the Ace Savvy costume.
 * 14) The first act had slow pacing and boring filler at first, then came with Lincoln and Clyde starting to act selfish, and the second act gets worse as the episode went on.
 * 15) Terrible ending: Lincoln and Clyde lose their dream after confessing their selfish acts, and after getting rightfully told off, the judges tell the two boys they only get to play as the role as the pooper-scoopers of the Kitty, while the sisters get off scot-free for their selfishness. Even if Lincoln and Clyde losing their dream after doing a selfish act was justified, this ending shows the convention judges don't even know how to properly punish people for their wrongdoings, as they think the two boys have learned nothing and still get what they want, despite being given a bad choice of a cameo role!
 * 1) Terrible ending: Lincoln and Clyde lose their dream after confessing their selfish acts, and after getting rightfully told off, the judges tell the two boys they only get to play as the role as the pooper-scoopers of the Kitty, while the sisters get off scot-free for their selfishness. Even if Lincoln and Clyde losing their dream after doing a selfish act was justified, this ending shows the convention judges don't even know how to properly punish people for their wrongdoings, as they think the two boys have learned nothing and still get what they want, despite being given a bad choice of a cameo role!

Redeeming Qualities

 * 1) Luna crashing through the wall was the only remotely funny joke in this episode.
 * 2) It's nice to see the Full House Gang again, and this episode has a very interesting concept, though they were both poorly executed in this episode due to bad writing and the poor portrayal of particular characters.
 * 3) The antagonist of this episode, Kitty, is the only likable character.
 * 4) * While mostly unlikable, Lincoln and Clyde, are for the most part, the most sympathetic characters in this episode.
 * 5) The first half was okay.
 * 6) Some people may like the battle with the Kitty scene. Also, Lincoln and Clyde apologize, and they are also allowed to get in the movie at the end.

Reception
Receiving a 3.9/10 on IMDB, it has been considered one of the worst episodes of The Loud House by fans.

Trivia

 * As mentioned in WIS#4, the episode's plot is a reversal of "Pulp Friction". In "Pulp Friction", the Loud sisters go out of their way to help Lincoln and Clyde with their comic book competition and, after Lincoln performs an act of kindness (combining their comic with one made by their principal, allowing him to share the credit), the boys win the competition. In this episode, the Loud sisters only agree to go to the convention for the sake of winning a cameo in the Ace Savvy movie, and after Lincoln and Clyde commit an act of selfishness (kidnapping the Kitty and staging a rescue), they are disqualified and are ultimately featured in the movie as the Kitty's pooper-scoopers.
 * This episode premiered on the same day as, and served as a lead-in to, the premiere of the spin-off series mh:besttvshows:The Casagrandes.
 * This is the third piece of Loud House media where all the siblings are seen in their Full House Gang outfits, the first two being "Deuces Wild" and "Pulp Friction".
 * The selfie the sisters took reveals Lori's "bad side", which was previously seen in "Room with a Feud".
 * Sammie Crowley confirmed on Twitter that this was the final episode where she collaborates with Whitney Wetta on writing an episode before working for Disney in the 2020s.
 * The second time that Lincoln feels overshadowed by his sisters. (The first time was in "Making the Case".)