(originally aired December 29, 1996)
Tone is an important thing to establish and maintain throughout your story. This series is primarily comedic, of course, but has expertly pulled off episodes with a greater dramatic and serious slant with assorted jokes peppered in. The subject matter of this episode is particularly grave, almost too much so at times, where the humor is sometimes a bit too wacky for its surroundings. Take the first act where Springfield is buckling down in preparation for a big hurricane. There’s some jokes about crowd hysteria in preparation (Hurricane Chow is a great gag), but when the storm hits, it’s pretty severe, or at least treated as such, with the Simpson family huddled worriedly in the basement. Then Homer walks out in the eye of the storm and the family gets blown around and swirled around back into the house. It almost seems too cartoonish given the established gravitas. It’s not too egregious, but it doesn’t really click the right way.
The hurricane spares the Simpsons, but absolutely decimates the Flanders house, leaving Ned almost like a modern day Job, now homeless and jobless due to the Leftorium fallen victim to rampant looting. Watching the eternally optimistic Ned slowly lose hope is kind of interesting, but almost goes too far. The scene where he prays to God at night is pretty melodramatic for the purposes of the show. A miracle seems to have happened when he finds the townspeople have banded together to rebuild his house, until he sees it’s so completely ramshackle that it collapses after the grand tour. At long last, Ned reaches his breaking point, chewing out all of the Springfield residents, then calmly drives himself to the town mental hospital to commit himself. There he is reunited with child psychiatrist Dr. Foster, who illuminates his repressed childhood memories. Turns out that li’l Ned was an uncontrollable hellion to ineffective beatnik parents. An aggressive spanking therapy managed to keep Ned’s violent outbursts suppressed, almost to a fault, where he now is physically incapable of expressing any negativity.
I’m kind of torn when it comes to examining the origins of secondary characters. On one hand, the backstory here is kind of interesting, giving a bit more reasoning to Ned’s character and his kooky catch phrases. But on the other hand, it leaves this dark under hanging to him that is going to stick with me. I didn’t remember this episode too well, but I think it’s more damaging character-wise than “The Principal and the Pauper.” So Ned has this seething anger that he feels all the time but can’t get it out? And he really does hate Homer? Is his faith a bizarre way of channeling his emotions? It kind of taints his perfect saintly neighbor archetype he’s meant to be. But it’s something that really could have built and went somewhere… except they rush through it within the last five minutes. Ned and Homer have a back-and-forth at the asylum, Ned admits he hates his parents, he’s cured, end of episode. When the revelation and the resolution occur within two minutes of each other, it doesn’t quite feel worth it. But despite my questions on the worthiness of this character exploration, it was somewhat intriguing, and where there were jokes that didn’t go too far, and even those that did, they were funny. It’s a flawed, but still mostly satisfying episode.
Tidbits and Quotes
– Great bit involving Kent Brockman’s latent sexism (“If you think naming a destructive storm after a woman is sexist, you obviously have never seen the gals grabbing for items at a clearance sale”) and Marge’s diminutive response (“That’s true, but he shouldn’t say it.”)
– Classic Homer thinking, having ripped the backdoor of the house off to board up the back window.
– Despite the hurricane, the state has decided it’s the perfect time to execute someone, but the roof rips off and the convict is sent flying out of the electric chair, much to everyone’s disappointment. But the convict ends up lodged in a telephone poll, electrocuting him, and the crowd cheers. Grisly, but funny.
– Great bit with Marge and the Rubick’s cube and the other family members barking ridiculous orders at her, like to use her main finger and turn a side “topwise.” She eventually gets fed up (“Now I remember why I put this down here in the first place!”)
– The treacle is laid on pretty thick as Marge prays for an end to the hurricane, followed by the family surprised to find it over, but Homer finds a way to cut through it by basically calling God a sucker (“He fell for it! Way to go, Marge!”)
– Very clever that we don’t see the complete wording of Todd’s “Butthole Surfers” T-shirt. I also like Rod’s innocent glee over the naughty apparel (“Look, Daddy, Todd is stupid and I’m with him. And now Mommy’s stupid!”)
– Ned comes to Lovejoy with his Job analogy, but the Reverend dismissively informs him that Job was right-handed. Ned then asks if God is punishing him, prompting Lovejoy to take a deep breath before answering, “Short answer: ‘yes with an ‘if,’ long answer: ‘no,’ with a ‘but.'”
– Entering his new house, Ned snags his sweater on a loose nail. Homer comments, “One out of twenty five ain’t bad!” The load-bearing poster and electricity room are good gags, but I think they went too far with the tiny master bedroom. It’s still funny, but come on.
– Harry Shearer gives a powerhouse performance when Ned finally snaps. My favorite outburst is probably the one directed at Bart (“Okay, duuuuude! I wouldn’t want you to have a cow, maaaan! Here’s a catch-phrase you better learn for your adult years: ‘Hey, Buddy, got a quarter?'”) Bart is stupefied (“I am shocked and appalled.”) Moe comes in a close second (“You ugly, hate-filled man!” “Hey, hey, I may be ugly and hate-filled, but I… um, what was the third thing you said?”)
– Other familiar faces at the mental hospital include Ms. Botz, John Swartzwelder and Jay Sherman (“It stinks! It stinks! It stinks!” “Yes, Mr. Sherman. Everything stinks.”)
– I love Homer’s flat reads of the cards meant to agitate Ned (“Past instances in which I professed to like you were fraudulent.” “I engaged in intercourse with your spouse or significant other.”) I also like their back and forth as Homer tries to find something Ned genuinely finds annoying (“What about fluorescent lights?” “They hum like angels! You’re never lonely if you’ve got a florescent light!”)
– I really don’t get the ending. So Ned’s going to be more open with his feelings… except he’s not. That and he’s a maniac. Oh well. Ned, you so cra-zay.
Me Blog Write Good 
Yeah, the ending leaves me perplexed too. I guess the joke is that Ned’s not completely cured after all – he’s still nuts, just in the opposite direction. Which is a rather morbid note to end on.
Fans have accused Bill and Josh of trying to rewrite their own canon to the show during their tenure as showrunners. With episodes like this, I can sort of see what they mean. Everything we’ve seen of Flanders before this suggests that he’s just a naturally nice guy, with a healthy mental state and no real problems to speak of. We’ve even seen him get angry before in episodes like “Dead Putting Society” and “Homer vs. Lisa and the 8th Commandment” – and, most significantly, “Homer Loves Flanders”. Now all of a sudden, he’s physically incapable of expressing anger? And on top of that, his trademark “diddily-doodlies” are a result of his rage suppression? It is pretty hard to buy.
I think it’s a perfectly logical ending, actually. Ned is still crazy — though at this time he wasn’t the God FREAK he later became, he still clearly turned to religion to cater against his feelings of anger/resentment/insanity, just like lots of people do. That doesn’t mean those feelings don’t still exist, it just means that he tries to think, uh, “What Would Jesus Do?” … now, obviously, later characterizations of him make him just go “GOD! GOD! GOD!” but it’s not like it was ever in the background here. I appreciate that they explored his personality a bit, and gave him some complexity. It’s a depressing note to end on, but I am pretty certain that Flanders is a smart guy, and anyone with some intelligence is going to be angry in life, even when they don’t want to be. His “coping mechanism” is God, I guess. “Faith”, if you will.
The spanking thing was a bit weird though.
the comment about Bill and Josh is spot on, I think. It wouldn’t be so egregious if they hadn’t stated outright that they thought the show was being held back by the very loose amount of canon the show has and that they wanted to branch it out. principle in the pauper is a fucking travesty, in how it treat the characters and the characterizations, and also how it treat the audience with such dripping contempt. A show that hates its audience does not deserve them.
This episode feel the same way to me. If you don’t think about it it seems like another romp, but this changes things fundamentally. There’s not actually a resolution at the end, so for all the hand wringing we don’t even get a suitable excuse as to why any of it mattered.
I like most of this episode, but I agree that the reason for Ned’s good-natured, repressed personality is pretty odd (he was spanked nonstop for a year? Whuh?). And it does seem incredibly quick for him to be cured, just because he said he hates his parents.
Still, it’s worth the watch just for Ned snapping at the town, which is still one of my favorite Simpsons moments. “You! I don’t know who you are, but I’m sure YOU’RE a jerk!” “Hey, I just got here! What’s going on?!”
“ok duuude i wouldnt want you to have a cow mann”
I have always loved this episode, though Homer Loves Flanders probably explored Flanders’s angry side a bit better. I guess this one explores his questioning of God a bit (in a better way than the “WHY DID YOU KILL MAUDE” stuff his character went through for a bit, which was, uh.. for a lack of a better word… a bit… MAUDLIN, eh?) but you know. Anyway, angry Ned is funny.
…….One thing. SPRINGFIELD BUILT THE FLANDERS A HOUSE. I know it was shoddy and shitty but jesus. This stupid, hateful town built them a house in a day! That must have taken lots of time, energy, money, etc. Even if the thing fell apart, it seemed a bit much for him to go completely insane over. If I had even a few friends fix my fucking roof over the course of a summer — for free, no less — I would probably cherish those people forever, even if the job wasn’t “professional” or anything. Seemed a bit much. I know the house fell apart, and that was the joke, but at least they TRIED. Jesus!
“I don’t quite get why they get Homer in there at the end; he’s never overtly annoyed or agitated Ned”
…hmm, I’m not sure if I agree with this one. “BREATH YOUR DAMN MOUTH!” / “CAN’T YOU SEE THIS MAN IS ANNOYING? HE’S VERY VERY ANNOYING!!!!!!!!!” seems to suggest he’s overtly annoyed AND agitated Ned.
As for everything else… Ned’s a smart guy. He’d been angry, just repressed it. Repressed anger is still anger, so…
“Homer Loves Flanders” is one of my favorite episodes ever; I always see it as Flanders only starts getting genuinely annoyed at Homer when he starts being nice to him. His friendship is much more aggravating and dangerous to him than his mild scorn, and it just eats away at him. Normally, when Homer insults and disregards him, I think Flanders just perceives it as joking around, not wanting to really accept any negativity coming his way. I don’t know if I like the idea presented in this show that he’s been suppressing all of this rage toward everyone in town. It’s interesting, but not something I try to regard with Flanders in future episodes.
The way it was cut implies that Ned suggested Homer anyway. Dr. Foster said, “Is there anyone who particularly annoys you?” then we cut to Homer getting the call.
I watched this one again last night and in true Simpsons fashion, found a hidden gem of a joke I have missed for fifteen+ years, and it happens when they show the tape of Ned acting up in the waiting room….
“I’m Dick Tracy! Take that Prune Face! … Now I’m Prune Face! Take that Dick Tracy! … Now I’m Prune Tracy! Take that -” and then is intercepted by the doctor before he gets out the next set of words: Dick Face.
along the same lines of “Sneed’s Seed and Feed (Formerly Chuck’s)”, the writers placed the fans and viewers of this show on a higher pedastal than “regular” viewers, and rewarded us with treats such as these. I miss the intellectualism that used to be associated with this show. the current writers have turned this show into the very shows they mocked in Deep Space Homer. When are they going to get the toilet next to the couch installed?
I agree with Mike: this is a very good episode, with great gags and an interesting story. But the problem is how Ned turned out to be; it really destroys his wonderful character, in a worse way than “Principal and the Pauper” for Skinner(that episode was clearly a joke-plot to me, and I never seen that so offensive; only uninspired)
The idea of testing Ned’s faith by reversing the standard formula of “Good things happen to the Flanderses while the Simpsons struggle” has a lot of potential and could be a great way to explore the character.
This episode failed in the way they did it and, in my view, ruined Ned as a character. The idea that’s he’s seething with repressed rage, rather than a good natured, a bit too Jesus-y, guy who takes Homer’s abuse but still wants to help him and be a good neighbor? It demonstrates the writers fundamentally did not get how the earlier show runners defined Ned.
It only gets worse as he becomes asshole judgmental fundamentalist Ned.
I don’t care for this episode very much. Sure, it isn’t the worst episode of the show ever, but it would probably be in the top 5 of the worst episodes from the classic years.
The first half is down right hilarious. I am laughing a lot, but the second half just feels kind of meh. It’s got some great moments, but I wasn’t enjoying myself as much as I was with the first half. However, the worst part is how rushed the ending is. It’s just, “He hates his parents? He’s cured, the end.” It just doesn’t work, especially when nothing ever came out of this afterwards. They either needed to have cut down on the time spent on the hurricane act (regardless of what was funny) and added more to the ending, or just cut out the last bit altogether.
It also does feel out of character for Ned regardless of what the intentions were. I mean, we already saw Ned get frustrated in Season 5 and it worked. Here, it just feels disingenuous.
I don’t bear ill will toward this episode, I like it if only because it shows what makes someone like Ned Flanders tick. The backstory to his saintly behavior isn’t really too well explained, but I like expecially when he tries to keep it cool between the badly-rebuilt house crumbling and him lashing out at everyone present – another moment I also liked, but I’d rather that he delivered a vicious tirade at Homer, rather than just saying he’s the worst person Ned’s ever met before storming off. It ends up making Homer’s response quite accurate, regardless of how lackadaisically he takes it (“Hey, I got off easy.”).
This isn’t a terrible one, and it has some great moments. But I just don’t like its attempt to “explain” Flanders’ behavior. I kind of like him just being a naturally kind and optimistic person to a fault. To quote Ned himself, the whole origin story seemed like the answer to a question no one asked.
I love this episode and appreciate that the writers wanted to explore Flanders character more. He is a human being who deals with his anger by suppressing it. The idea that Religion could also be somewhat of a coping mechanism for him makes him that much more of a person and gives him more depth overall.
Everything with the Hurricane was gold too along with the ridiculous re-building of the house. A solid season 8 entry.
This episode is a very weird breed of episode. It’s an episode that to me has many glaring issues, but I can’t bring myself to hate it because it has too many funny bits. There are many moments that I laughed at, such as Kent Brockman’s report (“it’s true, but he shouldn’t say it”), the criminal being electrocuted on the power lines, “He fell for it! Way to go, Marge!”, “Look, daddy, Todd is stupid and I’m with him!”, yes with an if, no with a but, the electricity room, some of the moments where Flanders flips out (great moment, as well… you can hear how pissed he is, and they still throw some comedy in there, too, such as with Lenny (“I’ve only been here for a few minutes. What’s going on?”) and Moe (“I may be ugly and hateful, but I… uh, what was the third thing you said?”)), “Yes, Mr. Sherman, everything stinks.”, “Past instances in which I professed to like you were fraudulent.”, “We’ve tried nothing, and we’re all out of ideas.”, and a few other mild bits I’ve forgotten. It truly is a funny episode.
However, the way it handles Flanders’s character really kills the episode. The idea that Flanders has this secret anger that he can never let out adds an undertone to his character that I just don’t like. It doesn’t make any sense, either. We’ve seen before that Flanders is capable of expressing anger, such as in “Dead Putting Society” and even more significantly in “Homer Loves Flanders”, so this plot makes very little sense in my opinion. I do like the concept of Flanders’s parents making him into the way he is, but the way this episode showed it just didn’t work. It’s not a terrible episode overall, but it really does put a big dent on Flanders’s character.
I’m really surprised to see people not liking this one. I absolutely love this episode and consider it one of the best Simpsons ever. The idea that Ned’s been suppressing his rage makes perfect sense to me, and the fact he’s not totally cured at the end makes it feel more realistic. I don’t even think of it as ruining Ned’s character. I find it totally consistent with what was established in the past, and whilst he would go on to become a weak imitation of himself – so do ALL the characters. Seems unfair to pin his regression on one episode.
It’s clumsy for sure, but I don’t think any of the direct contradictions really count. It’s not like he can’t still express a little anger in past episode and still have a problem expressing it in large amounts. Plus I think the outburst scene was more him railing at God, via criticizing his creation. And honestly, who wouldn’t, living in Springfield? And while his mental state would be different going forward, that does kind of track with him having a breakdown like this.
I loved when they gave him the option of going quietly or kicking and screaming, and he chooses the latter. I mean you might as well, how often do you get the chance?