When Lincoln ends up separated from his friends on their first day of middle school, he tries to rejoin their classes but accidentally ends up attending a school in Canada. Meanwhile, Lori struggles with choosing the right dorm in college, and Rita and Lynn Sr. have to potty-train Lily for preschool.
Tropes:
- Artistic License – Law: It should go without saying that declining syrup for your pancakes is not illegal in Canada, much less an offense deserving of the ban hammer.
- Bait-and-Switch: After the Loud kids take literally one minute to enjoy the breakfast their father made for them before running off to school.Lynn Sr.: [sighs] Those kids...
Rita: [exasperated] I know! Sometimes they can be—
Lynn Sr.: So ding-dang thoughtful! [breaks into happy tears] - Big "NO!":
- Mr. Loud does this after Lily destroys the potty training bot.
- Rusty does this after his mustache hair freezes off.
- Bittersweet Ending: Lori's now away from her home and is having trouble fitting in for now, Lincoln won't be seeing his friends as much since he's in a different homeroom class, and Lynn Jr. and Mr. Bolhofner never got punished (but Chandler did). However, Lori chooses to stay and endure, and Lincoln and his friends manage to return to Royal Woods Middle School. While Nothing Is the Same Anymore, the show is far from over.
- Book Ends: The episode starts with Lincoln doing his pre-first day of middle school preparations. Near the end, he does them again for the start of his second week.
- Butt-Monkey: Lincoln, his friends, Lori and the parents are all this to varying degrees.
- The Cameo: When Lincoln is running his friends down a hallway in their new school, Girl Jordan can briefly be seen in a Freeze-Frame Bonus. She is looking at her phone, and is seemingly saddened for some reason.
- Can't Get in Trouble for Nuthin': Lincoln's attempts to get kicked out of his Canadian school fail, such as melting all the ice with hair dryers to stop an important hockey game, only for the school principal to thank him because he too wanted to stop the hockey game and even demonstrates a heating system they could've used. It's only when Lincoln politely declines putting syrup on his pancakes that he gets kicked out of Canada.
- Coming of Age Story: Specifically, for Lori, Lincoln, and Lily.
- Costume Evolution: Now that Lily is two years old, she's gone from wearing a white diaper to a white t-shirt with lavender-colored shorts.
- Disturbed Doves: Parodied. After Mr. Potty-Bot's "death", Lynn Sr. screams in anguish as a murder of crows take off from a nearby tree.
- Dodgeball Is Hell: Lincoln's friends have to play dodgeball during their first gym class without Lincoln, and find out their usual defense formation no longer works without Lincoln. They end up getting thrashed.
- Empty Nest: Mr. and Mrs. Loud (the former especially) are hit with this, with their oldest child moving out to leave for college and their youngest child finally going to preschool. But they quickly get over it once they realize that, with Lily finally old enough to be a in school for a large part of the day just like her older siblings, they finally have some time to themselves for the first time since before they had Lori.
- "Eureka!" Moment: When Lynn Sr. mentions that Lily was kicked out of pre-school, Lincoln gets the idea to get out of his Canadian school by getting himself kicked out.
- Exact Words: Rita tells the kids to spare a minute to enjoy the big family breakfast Lynn Sr. made. They do...for exactly one minute.
- Extra-Long Episode: The first episode to be an hour long.
- Facepalm: Clyde responds with this after Rusty boasts that his new "mustache" makes him look like he's thirty.
- Failed a Spot Check: Lincoln thought that he was assigned into the same class as his friends, but it turns out that his checkmark was a Flippee stain, which would end up leading him to Mr. Bolhofner's classroom, instead.
- Felony Misdemeanor / Serious Business: Canada, being Canada, absolutely loves their maple syrup. When Lincoln (politely) turns down the offer of having syrup on his pancakes at a local restaurant, the Canadians are so offended that he's banned from Canada for three years and sent back to Royal Woods Middle School.
- Flashback Cut: When Lincoln's friends talk about how things are thrown off without him in their class, Liam says that he should've seen them trying to make papier mâché. Cut to Lincoln's friends with their heads all glued together.
- Four Lines, All Waiting: There are many plots going on at the same time —
- Lincoln's accidentally transferred to a middle school in Canada when he tries getting into the same homeroom class as his friends.
- Lori has moved out and is off at college, but she's having trouble finding a dormitory hall that fits her.
- Mr. and Mrs. Loud are trying to get Lily fully potty-trained so she can go to preschool.
- Clyde and the rest of the gang try handling not having Lincoln around all the time.
- Leni's accidentally sent to preschool.
- Garbage Hideout: Lincoln hides in a trash can to avoid Lynn Jr.
- Got Me Doing It: After finally accepting having to go to school in Canada, Lincoln starts ending his sentences in "Eh".
- High-Pressure Blood: Downplayed. Lincoln makes Mr. Bolhofner's pet piranha Hank bite his finger so he can excuse himself from his class. One of the Hank's teeth ends up stuck in Lincoln's finger, causing blood to spurt out when he pulls the tooth off.
- Human Popsicle:
- Lincoln gets frozen in a block of ice as soon as he enters Canada. This happens to him again later on in the episode.
- Rusty returns from Canada frozen in a block of ice. This unfortunately causes his one strand of facial hair to fall off.
- Hypocrite: Lynn bullies her brother Lincoln on his first day of middle school, despite her trying to prevent that from happening in the season 3 episode "Middle Men".
- I'm Taking Her Home with Me!: Liam bonds with a moose he finds while in Canada—he adopts her and names her "Ellie Mae."
- Inelegant Blubbering: Lynn Sr. does this after he has finished cooking for his kids, knowing that Lori will be moving off to college soon.
- He does this again after letting Lily go to preschool.
- Lori also does this when she can't handle the quiet floor in Fairway University.
- I Choose to Stay: Lori, inspired by Lincoln's words, decided to stay in college.
- Karma Houdini: Mr. Bolhofner and Lynn Jr. receive no comeuppance for their mistreatment of Lincoln. The former for being a Sadist Teacher, and the latter for abusing her power as hall monitor. She even gets away with locking Lincoln's friends, Rusty and Zach up and giving Principal Ramirez herself a warning pass. Later episodes show that Lynn's still hall monitor, confirming that she got zero repercussions from her actions.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Chandler spends the entire episode giving Lincoln grief and blaming him for it, and gets attacked by Liam's new moose for his troubles at the end.
- Lesser of Two Evils: Lincoln hates being in Mr. Bolhofner's classroom, but he ultimately accepts that over going to school all the way over in Canada, because at least he's still able to hang out with his friends, albeit in smaller doses, such as during lunchtime.
- Living Emotional Crutch: Lincoln turned out to be this for his circle of friends, to the point the group nearly falls apart in his absence. Without him they lack group coordination, not even on tasks as simple as distributing the bus seats (resulting in all five cramming in one seat), or as complex as a rescue mission.
- Luminescent Blush: Hank the piranha gets this when Lincoln calls him his favorite class pet.
- Manchild: Both Lynn Sr. and Rita do things like slide down the bannisters, play loud music, and eat ice cream during their alone time.
- Mistaken Identity: Lincoln gets a horde of snowballs thrown at him by Zach, as he mistakes him for a Yeti due to Lincoln coming out of the mist, along with Lincoln having his hood on.
- Moose and Maple Syrup: Lincoln's accidentally transferred to a middle school school in Canada, so naturally the residents there talk like the stereotype. There is even an entire song dedicated to showing Lincoln what Canada is like, including several uses of "Eh" in a row at the very end of the song.
- Nails on a Blackboard: Mr. Bolhofner does this to get his students' attention on the first day of school.
- Not Where They Thought: Leni accidentally goes to preschool and spends most of her time thinking she's still in high school. Even after she figures out the truth, she ends up going back to bounce on the trampoline.
- Nothing Is the Same Anymore: Lori's off at college, Lily starts preschool and is potty trained, and the rest of the kids are now a grade higher than they were in the first four seasons—their parents, especially their father, gets hit with this feeling pretty hard.
- One of the Kids: While at Lily's preschool, Leni bonds so well with the toddlers that Dr. Shuttleworth mistakes her for a volunteer who relates to the toddlers on their level. In fact, even after she figures out the truth, Leni goes back to bounce on the trampoline.
- Operation: [Blank]: Lincoln's friends come to Canada to help him with "Operation: Stop the Hockey Game and Get Kicked Out of School So That I Can Finally End This Frozen Nightmare and Also Think of a Shorter Name for This Operation". He has to take a breath once he's done saying the name.
- Pep-Talk Song: When Lincoln's friends are having first day jitters, he encourages them that they'll get through middle school just fine with the song "We Got This".
- Persona Non Grata: When Lincoln politely declines having syrup put on his pancakes, this results in him in violation of the Canadian Syrup Code, and thus he's banned from Canada for three years.
- Pet the Dog: After Lincoln is kicked out of Canada for politely refusing maple syrup, the border patrol officer gives a sincere apology to him.
- Lynn Jr. does give Lincoln a one-time escort and wishes him luck when she finds out Mr. Bolhofner's his teacher.
- The Pig-Pen: Mr. Bolhofner is this in spades, having a rugged look, foul breath, and an overheated classroom.
- Put on a Bus: Sort of—Lori will continue being a character on the show, but now that she's done with high school and is finally off at collegenote , she won't be appearing as frequently as before.
- Rummage Sale Reject: Leni spends part of the episode wearing a mismatched outfit. Justified as she usually relies on Lori to figure out what to wear, but since Lori's out of the house and off at college, Leni now has to try choosing her outfit on her own.
- Running Gagged: Since Lily becomes potty trained at the end of this episode, the Running Gag involving her running around naked, and pooping in her diaper has been dropped.
- Sadist Teacher: Mr. Bolhofner. He's mean, irritable, and takes great glee at torturing Lincoln with his terrible breath. As a subversion, the only reason his classroom is so hot and steamy is because no one ever asked him to turn the temperature down. This, in spite of being presented as a hard, but fair teacher when he appeared twice, 2 seasons before.
- Single-Season Country: Canada is depicted as a snowy country where Lincoln has to wear his winter clothes, even though it's the start of the school year (late summer/early fall) and the school is in South Canada, just across the river from Royal Woods.
- Small Role, Big Impact: Leni unknowingly attending Lily's preschool. While this plotline has the least amount of conflict and distress and the least screen-time compared to the others, her sharing her experience there is what leads Lily to finally get excited about attending preschool after she previously faked her lack of potty-training to get kicked out.
- Split Screen: Lincoln and Lori share one when they declare in unison that they have to get out of their respective schools.
- Stealth Hi/Bye: Lynn tells Principal Ramirez that she needs a hall pass to be allowed in the corridors, then goes into a locker and slams the door shut. When Principal Ramirez angrily opens the locker again, Lynn is gone, much to her confusion.
- Stuffed into a Locker:
- Happens to Zach on the first day of school.
- Lynn stuffs Lincoln in a locker at one point for running in the hallway, which makes him late for class since he was getting late for in the first place, and later does the same to Rusty and Zach.
- Tempting Fate: After everything has gone wrong for Lincoln's friends since their group dynamic has been ruined, it looks like they've made it to the ferry to Canada without mishaps, and Stella optimistically says that maybe they aren't as hopeless as they think. Then it turns out that none of them got tickets for the ferry.
- That Poor Cat: When Lori accidentally falls down the stairs due to her heavy luggage, Cliff can be heard yowling in pain as a result.
- Third-Person Person: Lily speaks like this now. note
- Toilet Training Plot: One of the requirements at Lily's preschool is that students have to be fully potty trained—she gets kicked out of her preschool after pooping her pants. However, near the end of the episode, it's revealed that Lily is actually fully potty-trained—but, not feeling ready to start school and leave her parents, she deliberately pooped her pants to make it seem like she wasn't fully potty-trained yet and thus get kicked out of preschool. But Lily ultimately changes her mind when Leni shows her all the fun things that the preschool has to offer, like finger-painting and trampolines.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: Mr. Bolhofner originally appeared in Season 3 episodes such as "Middle Men" and "Hero Today, Gone Tomorrow", showing how he was a stern, yet fair teacher to his students. Come this episode, he returns with a much more cynical outlook on life, becoming dirtier, grosser, and outright torturous to Lincoln and the rest of his students in a less-than-ideal trailer of a classroom compared to where he was before.
- Chandler has already been a Jerkass in the past, but he's even worse here, harassing Lincoln in class for no reason.
- True Companions: While Lincoln's gang can't hang out in the same classroom anymore, they remain as close as always. The gang's tentatives to help Lincoln and stay besties despite the new status quo compensate in the end. Most heartwarming Group Hug ever!
- Wacky College: Lori's golfing college of Fairway University is full of floors that have something bizarre happening in them based around its sport, such as the Sand Trap Floor, which is full of sand, or the Water Hazard Floor, which is inexplicably flooded (including having a crocodile in it).
- What Could Possibly Go Wrong?: Lincoln's "We Got This" is pretty much this whole trope in the form of a song, singing how there's nothing for him and his friends to worry about in middle school. But then again, this episode's plot wouldn't have happened if that really were the case, now would it?
- Yellow Sash of Power: Lynn Jr. is revealed to be the hall monitor of Royal Woods Middle School, and she is shown to be very aggressive at her job, as well, even giving the principal, her own superior, a hall pass.
- You Never Asked: When Lincoln returns to Mr. Bolhofner's class, he asks for the heat to be turned down (having gotten used to the cold weather in Canada). Everyone expects Mr. Bolhofner to blow up at Lincoln, but he complies and remarks that no one ever asked him to turn the heat down. This gets his classmates to cheer him on except Chandler since he is Lincoln's Arch-Enemy.
- You Need a Breath Mint: According to Lynn Jr., Mr. Bolhofner's breath reeks of sardines with a hint of red onions and farts. Bolhofner himself is completely aware of his horrible breath, and it's implied that he gets it from eating tuna casseroles, but he enjoys torturing Lincoln with it whenever it seems the latter has stepped out of line.
- Your Makeup Is Running: Happens to Lori when she thinks she's not ready for college.
