Original airdate: October 16, 2016
The premise: “Dry Hard” is a Hunger Games “parody.” “BFF R.I.P.” features Lisa’s imaginary friend killing people out of jealousy. “Moefinger” is a Kingsman: The Secret Service “parody.”
The reaction: Treehouse of Horrors nowadays are usually just condensed would-be parodies of non-horror movies, but now we’re at the point where they’re a hodgepodge of multiple movies at once. The first segment features Lisa as Katniss in a Hunger Games-style Springfield fighting for natural resources from the all-controlling tyrant Burns. This show already did a parody of this franchise back in the LEGO episode by mocking the love triangle, and they do it again here too, and it’s just as limp (“My name is Pita, like the healthy bread!” “My name is also Peta, like the animal rights organization!”) When Lisa convinces everyone to just go after Burns and reek hell, then it becomes Mad Max: Fury Road with everyone in their souped up vehicles and people tied to those waving staffs. References! The third segment puts Bart in Moe’s secret service society, a la Kingsman. I guess if they consider Mr & Mrs. Smith rife Halloween material, why not this? The first half consists of Moe expositing endlessly to Bart about who they are, what they do, what their mission is… yawn. Then Homer turns out to be the villain, he looks like Blofeld from James Bond, and Bart engages in a big action set piece with him killing a bunch of people. I guess they’re trying to riff on the showstopping sequence from the movie, but does “parody” mean you take an amazing scene and make a worse, less engaging version of it? The second story actually had some potential in its idea: people closest to Lisa getting killed and her being under suspicion for the murders. But any tension or intrigue is ruined by overexplanation per usual (“Oh, no, she’ll kill Mom! What do I do?”) These specials were once so imaginative, a once-a-year respite from the normal series to try something different. Now, they’re filled with the same debilitating problems as every other episode. But this isn’t new. None of this is.
Three items of note:
– The opening features the Simpsons being faced down by their various arch rivals: Sideshow Bob, Kang (or Kodos), the ghost of Frank Grimes and the crazy leprechaun for some reason (how random, they haven’t used him in almost a decade.) I’ve talked before about how lame and cartoony it feels for the Simpson family to have arch nemeses, but I guess this is what counts as fan service these days, milking another laugh out of Homer not remembering who ol’ Grimey is. Maggie immediately kills the three live bodies because that’s her schtick, and Grimes watches in horror as the screen fills with all 600 episodes playing at once (“In hell, they make you watch all of them in a row!”) The latter two-thirds, yes. Then we get a second intro, our couch gag, “Planet of the Couches,” which I feel like the show has done already. Ah, whatever.
– The first segment features authoritarian Burns hoarding all the water for himself, and during his broadcast to his lowly subjects, he continually wastes it in a multitude of ways, culminating in him doing an extended tribute to Flashdance with him dousing water on himself leaning back on a chair. I liked it better when Willie did it. I feel like this is going to be a very shitty season for Burns.
– The episode ends with a rearrangement of “Goldfinger” called “600,” as the show flaunts its latest meaningless milestone (remember when they used to make fun of those?) It ends with a scroll of shows that were “so very bad” over their lifetime on FOX, ending with The Critic and Futurama just to get people’s dander up. Al Jean’s credit warns, “You’re Next, Gunsmoke.” The Simpsons is currently the longest-running primetime series, but it needs to get past show #635 to have the most actual episodes, which they will hit come season 30. My thought for the last few years is that would be when they would finally stop; 30’s a nice round number, and they’d have finally beaten that last record. But, really, why stop now? FOX seemingly doesn’t see the need to quit at this point, so I honestly don’t know. As grim as it may be, part of me feels the only thing that would halt the show now is the death of one of the core six cast members. I mean, how much worse can this series sink? Once I think it hits bottom, it keeps plumbing those depths. Well… I guess we’ll find out, won’t we?
One good line/moment: The second segment actually had a few alright lines (“The only invisible killer I believe in is God,”) and Lisa’s imaginary friend suffocating Milhouse with his plastic baggie was actually kind of disturbing, which happens very infrequently in Halloween shows of late.
Me Blog Write Good 
Word is they were perfectly willing to recast Harry Shearer. Would it be totally insane to think they could dump the entire voice cast in a few years, replace them with scabs, and then keep this inanity going for another decade plus?
I honestly think if they try to replace the entire cast that might finally be the last straw for the audience. About the only thing Simpsons has going for it is the near-perfect cast of actors for their various roles. Trying to find replacements who can do those voices while still putting on a crowd-pleasing performance would be nearly impossible.
Agreed. Apart from the 1-in-50 chance that one of the current writers of The Simpsons has a good idea executed well and gives a care, all of the voice actors they had since the early 1990s are the only people keeping The Simpsons alive at this point. The same goes for everyone on Spongebob.
BFF R.I.P. is very good, Moefinger is one of the worst THOH segments and Dry Hard is nothing. The opening sequence is depressing. At least THOH XXVIII will not be written by Joel H. Cohen (someone let that guy write two Treehouse in a row!).
There have been a lot of dreadful THoH episodes over the years, but none of them even come to the sheer quality of dogshit as this special does. It makes XII look like a masterpiece by comparison and that is a saying a lot. I’m not sure which piece of this episode is the worst part about it, but good god does it stink. From the obnoxious opening segment to the parodying garbage like The Hunger Games, only to go Mad Max on it, then to some stupid tale about a ghost of an imaginary friend, and ending with an insult to the Kingsman and Bond makes this whole thing atrocious.
Every person that worked on this travesty should have been fired for offending my intelligence with such tripe. If you want to see the very definition of what is wrong with The Simpsons today, look no further than this steaming piece of garbage shit that even Oscar the Grouch would refuse to touch.
> It makes XII look like a masterpiece by comparison and that is a saying a lot.
???
What an odd episode to compare it to. Are you trying to imply that all the Jean treehouse of horrors are better than Hex and the City/House of Wacks/Wiz Kids? What was so horrible about those?
Until last year, XII was my most hated THoH episode. It was the biggest let down of the entire franchise for me. I thought the story about the house security system falling in love with Marge was the biggest crock of shit to have ever hit TV and then that insult they called a Harry Potter spoof was insulting and I’m not even a HP fan.
Sure, I knew the magic was over when Starship Poopers premiered two years prior, but I had never felt so insulted until that episode. As such, I thought no THoH could ever insult me as badly as that and it didn’t for 15 years. No matter how bad they were I was always like, “That sucked, but oh well.” Last year though, my thoughts were, “Well what the fuck was this piece of horseshit I just wasted my time with?”
“As grim as it may be, part of me feels the only thing that would halt the show now is the death of one of the core six cast members.”
Yeah, even if all the cast left Fox would just find replacements. The only thing that’ll kill the series is when the property as a whole is no longer profitable.
Troy McClure’s prophetic words haunt us to this day…
I was unfortunate enough to catch this one when it
first aired. We missed the first part (lucky us), and came in right as Lisa’s friend started killing people. I asked myself, “When is this gonna get scary?”, because, if I’m not mistaken, these specials are supposed to be scary.
Actually, it might not even be just the latter two thirds of 600 episodes you have to watch in a row. It might have to be ALL 600 if they want to force you to see how creative The Simpsons was for 200 episodes before it gradually degraded in 400 episodes.
If you thought that Treehouse of Horror XXVII being the 600th episode wasn’t scary enough, Treehouse of Horror XXX will be the 666th episode.
Honestly, the only thing I got out of this was “In Hell, they make you watch all of them in a row,” which is a pretty terrible punishment.