The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder walks a narrow tightrope as a series, acting as both a continuation of the Disney Channel series and a modernization. It largely maintains the continuity of the original while also bringing teenager Penny Proud and her friends and family from the early 2000s into the 2020s to face the new challenges of the digital age. Suga Mama, Penny’s grandmother, is largely unchanged by the jump; she’s still that mix of feisty but loving, sassy but wise, and always quick to put her mouthy son Oscar in his place. Instead, Louder and Prouder decides to dive into Suga Mama’s backstory and learn just how she became the way she is.
In the Season 1 finale, “Old Towne Road,” Suga Mama’s daughter-in-law Trudy decides to look into the family history on a genealogy app. After a night of extensive research, Trudy learns that Suga Mama’s birth name is Charlette Towne and that she hails from a small city in western Oklahoma. However, when Suga finds out about Trudy’s project, she ardently refuses to talk about it and ignores the rest of the family.
Soon after, the Prouds get invited to the Townes’ annual family reunion and drag an unwilling Suga Mama along to the Sooner State. There, they learn the Townes are a prosperous family of farmers and ranchers for whom the city was named. We’re introduced to Suga’s extended relatives, including her brothers Charles, Charlie and Chuck and her father, Pa, who clearly has some bad blood with his daughter. Later, during dinner, Oscar demonstrates an unrealized talent for lassoing and the Townes quickly embrace him as a member of the family, much to Suga’s consternation.
During a montage set to Lil Nas X’s biggest hit — the rapper himself guest stars as one of Suga’s nephews — the Prouds and the Townes get along quite well. Even Suga, who reignites her sibling rivalry with her brothers, manages to have a good time beating them in various competitions. However, when Suga announces she’s entering the Towne Family Rodeo, Pa is quick to remind her that the same rule from when she was a child applies in the present: No girls allowed. Suga is angry at this, but more than that, she’s heartbroken, in a rare moment of vulnerability for a character defined by her unshakeable confidence. “Old Towne Road” ends on a cliffhanger, a first for The Proud Family, with Suga’s relationship to the rest of her family in peril.
“Old Towne Road” not only gives Suga Mama a real name and a backstory, it also helps inform her character in the present. One of the Proud Family‘s most reliable gags is the petty bickering between Oscar and Suga, who clearly favors Oscar’s brother Bobby over him — despite the fact that Bobby is an unmarried, unemployed musician who still lives with her. “Old Towne Road” shows that this blatant favoritism among a parent and their children didn’t come out of nowhere. Pa clearly had more affection for his sons than he did Charlette, and whether she’s aware of it or not, Suga is putting her youngest son through the same cycle of mistreatment and scorn.
These revelations show that the team behind Louder and Prouder are putting thought and effort into better understanding their characters and situation, and in doing so making the series one of the stronger reboots the streaming era has to offer.
The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder is available to stream on Disney+.
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