Background Blues

Darin McGowan

"**Background Blues**" is the first half of the fourth episode in the third season of *Lincoln Loud.*

## Summary

A class project gets the kids tracing their family trees. Will they turn out to be descended from royalty-or just from "plain folks"?

## Plot

Linkon was playing at the hologram with his robotic dog Harles when his sister Lonna came and destroyed his hologram. His mom told him to do some homework. Later, he does his homework, then Lonna shows up and asks Linkon to play with her, which he agrees to. They were still fighting while playing, so their mom asks them to watch a datagram.

After the title card, Mrs. Johnson teaches the students about her family. Later at art class, Luna and Leni begin to fight about their ancestors, but Lincoln and Clyde stopped them. Later at Clyde's condo, he discovers he has more family. The next day while Lincoln and Clyde were looking at their family history, Luna tries to find the Gerber section, but to no avail. Then Leni showed up and told Luna her grandfather owned a castle. Luna then told her the Gerbers are too important to be in the library. At Luna’s mansion, Luna’s father suggests she visit her aunt. The next day, Lincoln, Leni, and Clyde were chatting about their report when Luna showed up. Leni told her that her great-great grandfather was an advisor of Abraham Lincoln. Luna then tells her she's going to see her great aunt. She then thinks if her great aunt's a queen, then she's her princess. Later, she arrives at her great aunt's house, and she gave Luna a lawn gnome for her report. Meanwhile, Leni's grandpa gives her a picture for her report. Later at the Sugar Bowl, Leni and Luna were fighting which led Luna to admit her family were just plain people. That night, Leni was thinking about what to do when her grandpa showed up and encouraged her. The next day, Leni was about to give her report when her grandpa came in and told her she forgot her album. The report was great, then Clyde showed his 1955 sandwich, which grosses everyone out.

Back in the future, Linkon and Lonna were talking about the video, ending the episode.

## Characters

### Major

* Lincoln Loud
* Clyde McBride
* Leni Silverstone
* Luna Gerber
* Linkon
* Lonna
* Future Mom

### Minor

* Agnes Johnson
* Cheryl Turner
* Sean Gerber
* Gloria Gerber
* Wolf Blitzen
* Leni's grandfather

### Cameo

* Lana Loud  (title card only)
* Lincoln's great-uncle
* Ferdinand
* Edna Dawnson
* Liam Powers
* Ronnie Anne Santiago
* Molly Pappas
* Stella Zhau
* Rusty Spokes
* Zach Gurdle
* Future Zoe
* 3rd Grade Male

## Trivia

* The "DVD" that Linkon and Lonna watch is labeled "53B." Episode 53B is the previous one, "Stella and the Liamsaurous."
* Lana is absent from the episode, although she appears in the title card. Additionally, Lonna appears to be Lana in the future.
* Betty Johnson is missing from the family tree diagram that Mrs. Johnson presents to the class. She was most likely written into the show specifically for "Mrs. Johnson and the Special Someone," which was released over two decades after this episode.

### Cultural references

* In Luna's fantasy, her great aunt asks, "Is that you, Anastasia?" This is a reference to Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia, who was rumored to have survived her family's execution in 1918.

### Errors

* At the beginning of the episode, when Linkon and Lonna were watching Background Blues, when it showed the title card, the title "Background Blues" was in blue, but when it showed the title card to us, the words were red instead of blue.

## Home video

**DVD:**

* Lincoln Loud : The Complete Series 4