Proud Family Louder and Prouder Season 2: Probably for the better I watched the whole thing!

Usually when it comes to shows like this, I have a rule. I either watch majority of the series, or I watch 13 episodes. Since Louder and Prouder currently only has 20 episodes, I could have watched just "Old Towne Road Part 2." Hell, if I wanted to be done with it (if the show is getting a third season), I could have watched "Grandma's Hands" and "Curved." It's probably really good I didn't do that because season 2 starts off pretty weak.

And I can't really blame any of these problems on the reboot because the show nonetheless stays seamless. Mostly.

I think the biggest difference between the original series and "Louder and Prouder" is that in the original series, I preferred Penny's family. Here, I think I'm starting to prefer Penny's friends, which may be due to "Grandma's Hands" and "Curved."

The former is absolutely distressing. Penny sneaks out a bunch going on dates with her boyfriend Kareem and spends a good half of the episode getting disciplined by her mother, Suga Mama, and to a lesser extent, Bobby. The second half of the episode turns things around a bit, showing Penny taking care of Suga Mama (and to a lesser extent Bobby), but it's upsetting to watch, and I do wonder if that was the point? I did notice Penny taking after Oscar a lot more this season, in terms of snark, wacky hijinks, and being the butt of the joke. Though I don't know if Penny has nearly as much hubris as Oscar does, especially in the reboot. Like she certainly has it. Even episodes like "A Star is Scorned" from the original series have it. But for Oscar, it's his core point. Penny it's just something we see in her from time to time. But "Grandma's Hands" did not give me good hopes going in, which were soon proven wrong.

Meanwhile, "Curved" is sort of the obligatory "Dijonay is a jerk" episode. It isn't nearly as bad, but it was incredibly hard to follow the initial plot of the episode. Especially when Darius came back as Dijonay's sort of recurring love interest. I'm still holding out for the bi Dijonay theory, but Proud Family already has a sizeable LGBT cast.

Speaking of the LGBT cast, Michael was a lot more fun a character this season, and I'd like to say he's no longer my biggest problem with the reboot. It feels like they extended his character a bit past the sort of stereotypical mean gay digs, and we get to see him be a bit more gender-non-comforting. I'm also not certain if Michael now canonically uses he/they, but I heard him refer to himself as they once, so if that was intentional, that's pretty cool.

This season also tackles race a lot. There's discussion about things like reparations (which is the debate topic in "Curved"), racial preferences, the history of racism in the US, descendants of slaveowners, police brutality, and Juneteenth. Honestly, the episode "Juneteenth" was by far my favorite of the bunch. We got to see Maya and KG a bunch (the latter of which didn't really show up much this season), and the episode really explored Maya as a character. In the episode, Maya meets a mysterious girl named Emily who leads her to find out the history of her town. Particularly that it used to be a plantation, and she finds out that her father (Barry, not Randall) was descended from him. You get some really good scenes within the family too and how they respond to it. I don't want to give too much away, but it's amazing. It has a great message, great comedy, and great character writing. Definitely the Proud Family at its best!

Some of the characters that were missing from season 1 show up as well. In particular, Omar and the Chang triplets. Really not of interest; they only get one line each. But what is of interest is how Penny and her friends basically have a completely different circle of guy friends they hang out with. While in the original it was Sticky, Omar, Frankie, and Duke, in this series it's Kareem, Darius, KG, and Billy. Also I think Michael is dating Makeup Boy? Idk I think he could do better. I guess Myron is there more in the main friendgroup in the reboot as well. 

The Gross Sisters also show up a lot less as well, only appearing in the bizarro episode "Us Again" (really crazy ret-conny episode by the way), where Olei (yes, Olei) tells Penny all about cryptocurrency.

I don't know how I feel about all these Disney cartoons where kids talk about cryptocurrency if I'm being honest, but at the same time, it is Disney, and this show had its episode about racial preferences and its episode about flaunting its Disney Princess IPs be the same episode. It's actually kind of crazy, coming from a huge Elena of Avalor fan, that the show kind of just paused for 9 seconds to play the Elena of Avalor theme song. But also, I don't think that should detract from how Zoey's ignorant to Noah's preference for white girls, and how that preference really upsets the other girls, especially Dijonay.

Season 2 didn't have as much of Maya and LaCienega being friends, or Oscar Proud selling Proud Snax at pride as I would have hoped, but I don't mind too much. The season was still really fun to watch, and honestly, I don't know if there's been a show as consistent in its reboot than this one!

Also they made BeBe autistic.

Overall Rating of the The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder: A Tier