(originally aired January 28, 2007)
Sigh… Another fucking anthology episode. The Rich Texan cuts Homer off and he swears revenge, sparking three stories with a theme of vengeance. Here once more, Homer’s “character” is cemented as an out-of-control blood thirsty wild man who should be locked away somewhere far away from Marge and the kids. First is the Count of Monte Cristo, which involves Moe stealing Marge away from Homer, which at this point we’ve seen twice already in these trilogy shows. The stories are different, but the character dynamics are all the same shit we’ve seen before, wrapped up in the most tired French jokes imaginable. The second is not a parody, just some nonsense where Milhouse gets a magic weapon to enact payback on the bullies. These episodes where characters randomly retell these famous stories are strange enough, and here we have Lisa telling this tale that she seemingly just made up on the spot. Lastly is Bartman, reenacting the Batman origin story, except it defies the source material since it involves Bart killing people. I won’t belabor these points further. These anthology episodes are just plain lazy, and I very much dislike them.
Tidbits and Quotes
– “Revenge never solves anything!” “Then what’s America doing in Iraq?” Great political commentary, guys!
– Burns for some reason helps Homer escape from prison, then admits he’s doing it because he sexually assaulted him several times as he slept. Because as established in “Strong Arms of the Ma,” rape is funny, right? So gay rape will be even funnier!
– The crazy Rube Goldberg killing machine at the end of the first segment is so random. What does this have to do with the story? Then Marge spells out the obvious moral, and we go back to reality to find Homer wasn’t paying attention and is still a sociopath. He’s tracking down this old man to beat him within an inch of his life, what else can I call him?
– So Homer admits to framing Maggie for shooting Mr. Burns, in basically yet another big middle finger to the fans. It’s this odd scorn where the writers are annoyed, seemingly angered that viewers care about this show and want it to be taken at least somewhat seriously, and then they give us episodes like this.
– The second segment is incredibly thin, clocking in at barely four minutes. Then it becomes almost like a Halloween show with decapitating Willie, which they comment on at the end, because we all know that if one points out their shitty writing, it completely absolves it, right?
– Speaking of… “Hey, jerk! Puns are lazy writing!” PLEASE STOP, YOU FUCKING HYPOCRITES.
Me Blog Write Good 
The second segment is a parody of Revenge of the Nerds, rather than just a made-up original story. Not that it improves the quality of the episode, but hey.
Unlike the previous trilogy episode, which I sorta liked, this one was just terrible. The wraparounds were somehow even more flimsy than ever for setting up these stories, and there was no consistent tone or setting to any of them. It just felt like a bunch of random material to fill 22 minutes. In the vast Simpsons filmography, this is an episode which will be easily forgotten.
Speaking of… “Hey, jerk! Puns are lazy writing!” PLEASE STOP, YOU FUCKING HYPOCRITES.
Just wait til you get to that horrendous (m)apple episode and it’s a shame your stopping at 444 because that awful not-the social network episode deserves your review on it.
I second that regarding Mike’s 444 reviews. I wish there was more of these great reviews to come after that. Sigh.
Who knows he might sacrifice just for our sake 😉
I thought the Social Network episode was pretty enjoyable. At least, the 12 minutes of it and not the 9 minutes of pointless crap.
Yeah, when it got to “Hey, jerk! Puns are lazy writing!” PLEASE STOP, YOU FUCKING HYPOCRITES.” I was like, ‘So… the creators are jerks then?!’
No comment about this little exchange?
Texan: Look at all them stars How many do you think there are?
Homer: Two.
I think that’s the moment I figured how unbelievably stupid this new Homer really is. He was always a bit of an airhead, but not at this level of preschool child-like stupidity the writers clearly mistake as being funny.
More like mentally retarded. Or simply deranged.
Totally agreed even Peter Griffin’s not that fucking stupid and that’s saying something…
I actually watched this episode, unlike most post-season 12, but I cannot for the life of me remember the final two stories. I remember the Count of Monte Cristo, and that’s it. That’s how utterly forgettable these really are. I remember shitty episodes like Homer vs. Dignity and Saddlesore Galactica, but only a third of this one.
One of my biggest complaints with the show post-season 8 is how they start putting words in Homer’s mouth that he would never say, simply because they have some BRILLIANT commentary that needs to be made. Like his line about America in Iraq. There was another episode where Homer used the word “unilateral” as well. Who’s speaking here, Tim Long or Homer Simpson?
Bartman looks so horrible. I get the “fake spandex muscles [like in the movie thing]” but god it look horrible in the show.
The only thing I liked about this episode was POISON LENNY. Which isn’t even clever or very funny as an idea but just to see Lenny dressed as Poison Ivy made me chuckle.
This version of Homer is one who would frame Maggie for shooting Mr Burns just as he framed his own wife at one point for impaired driving.
Zombie Simpsons is at its best when it’s like Itchy and Scratchy… what with the decapitations and people being flambeed and all that.
They’re Monte Cristo skit went on for way too long. I feel like it was a good 10 minutes before it ended as it just kept going. It wasn’t even all that funny. I mean, I did laugh when Homer swam back into his cell, but that was it. It was a complete insult to Dumas.
I also didn’t get the Revenge of the Geeks skit at all. What was it even trying to tell? Lisa claims it’s supposed to be revenge does no one good, but it doesn’t make any sense as it was just random shit happening.
As for Bartman Begins, does it want to be Batman Begins or the Adam West Batman crap? It needs to make up its mind and pick one to parody. Of course, I don’t even get why they couldn’t just have Bartman look normal.
The crap that is meant to tie the stories together is just that too, crap. The blaming of Maggie is such a dumb one liner and is trying to call back too hard to the good stuff. UGH!