L Is for Love
The Loud siblings track down a secret admirer.
"L Is for Love" is the 75th episode of The Loud House, airing as the second segment of the twelfth episode of the second season in production order.
Quick Facts
- Series
- The Loud House
- Season
- 2
- Episode
- 29
- Writer
- Kevin Sullivan
- Story
- Darin McGowan
- Director
- Chris Savino
- Production
- 212B
- Air date
- 15 June 2017
Facts from the source article.
Plot
After a love letter addressed to "L. Loud" arrives in the mail, Lincoln calls an emergency sibling meeting. The sender remains anonymous, signing as "your secret admirer. Lucy suggests the siblings send signals to their respective love interests, since any of them could be the intended recipient. A second letter follows, revealing the target has brown hair, narrowing the field to Luna, Luan, Lynn, and Lisa. Lucy then advises giving tokens of affection to each crush. The siblings go to Banger's & Mosh, the restaurant where the admirer asked to meet. They discover the letters were actually from their mother Rita to their father Lynn Sr., celebrating the twentieth anniversary of their first date. Though not the intended recipient, Luna is moved by her parents' story and gains confidence to express her feelings for Sam. The next day, the siblings send love letters to their crushes. Sam, Luna's blonde female bandmate, reads her letter and accepts it, leaving Luna proud.
Production
After introducing the series' first LGBTQ couple, Howard and Harold McBride, the writing staff discussed making one of Lincoln's sisters LGBTQ. Story editor Michael Rubiner later noted that with ten girls in the family, exploring one as LGBTQ seemed natural. Kevin Sullivan, who wrote the earlier episode "Overnight Success" that introduced the McBrides, was assigned to write this episode. To establish Luna as LGBTQ positively, the writers set three principles: give Luna's crush a gender-neutral name, include a male musician named Sully in every shot with Sam to hide that she was female until the end, and have Luna's family know she refers to a girl without any issue. Sam was originally named Max in earlier drafts. Nickelodeon did not bar Sullivan from using the term "lesbian" in dialogue, but he said they could not say those words due to the young audience, and he was proud the episode was not a coming-out story—the family simply accepted her.
Release and reception
The episode drew 1.89 million viewers on its first airing, slightly up from the 1.81 million of the prior episode "Potty Mouth." Some fans theorized Luna might be bisexual because a previous episode, "Study Muffin," showed her attracted to a young man named Hugh. Sullivan, who heavily implied Luna was conceived as a lesbian, responded that he refused to push LGBTQ-specific terminology into dialogue because Luna had become representative of many young people struggling with their identity. Without an explicit label in the episode, other viewers declined to definitively label her as bisexual or lesbian. The closing scene revealing Luna as queer received highly positive response, and the crew found the overall positive reaction to Luna and Sam as a couple emotional. Valerie Anne of AutoStraddle, who is queer, praised the depiction of Luna and Sam as a casual same-sex pair with crushes. Heather Hogan of AutoStraddle ranked the episode among the top 30 best animated episodes dealing with LGBTQ themes. Alex Bonilla of Overly Animated noted that Luna and Sam were one of the youngest animated LGBTQ couples at the time, with Luna aged fifteen, and contrasted their visibility with background or side-character representation in other shows.
Home media
The episode was first released on the A Very Loud Christmas DVD in the United Kingdom and Australia in 2018. In the United States, it appeared on the Relative Chaos DVD in 2019, then on The Complete Second Season and The Complete Seasons 1, 2 & 3 DVDs in 2021 and 2024 respectively. It was also included on the Chaos familial DVD in France and on the Intégrale de la saison 2 DVD, both released in 2019.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who directed L Is for Love?
L Is for Love was directed by Chris Savino.
When did L Is for Love first air?
L Is for Love first aired on 15 June 2017.
More in LGBTQ-related Animated Television Episodes
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