Original airdate: May 16, 2021
The premise: After fifty years of searching, a British spy arrives in Springfield to unmask the Russian agent known as “The Grey Fox,” who he believes is Abe Simpson, enlisting Homer in planning his capture.
The reaction: There’s been a couple episodes this season where the lead character is a one-off guest star (Olivia Coleman in “The 7 Year Itch,” Ellie Kemper in “A Springfield Summer Christmas for Christmas,” Megan Mullally in “Uncut Femmes,”) and they’ve all come off very confusing and awkward. There’s varying levels of attempt to develop these new characters into someone you actually give a shit about following through a story, but this show can barely create engaging stories with its lead characters, let alone brand-new ones. Our focal point this time around is Terrence, an M15 agent who’s been hunting for a Russian spy for fifty years, finally arriving in Springfield to take down our very own Abe Simpson. First he must get Homer to help him, working to convince him his father is actually a spy, for reasons I’m not really sure about. How hard is it to apprehend a doddering old man like Abe? This is also one of those episodes where it’s treating its story a bit more seriously than most. Both acts end on dramatic moments with no jokes, there’s tense music as Homer considers whether his father is actually a spy, the two end up tied up in Terrence’s trunk and make tearful amends… but as usual, there’s literally nothing specific for me to latch onto to make me care. Terrence believes Abe, the Grey Fox, is getting nuclear secrets from Homer, but how? And to what end? He’s been doing this over fifty years and nothing of note has happened because of it? He implies that Abe’s influence is why Homer’s never been fired for his years of negligence, but how does that make sense? Also, Homer’s only worked at the plant for ten years, so what was Abe doing for the other forty? There’s no attempt to give us any information that might make us interested. Terrence gathers the barflies around to tell his life story, but then we just get a music montage of him talking. In the end, Terrence’s daughter reveals that his father is retired and is just deluded in his own senility, and Homer and Abe are saved before any tension can escalate or anything that might possibly be interesting happens. This one was a real snoozer. So many episodes feel like there was so little effort given in the writing, but this one seemed to completely fall asleep at the very premise. Abe is suspected of being a spy… that’s good enough, when’s lunch?
Three items of note:
– In the M15 flashback from fifty years ago, Terrence knows that the Grey Fox was part of the Flying Hellfish battalion and is in a small town with a nuclear plant. Wouldn’t there be some available recorded list of all the Hellfish soldiers? It’s not like it’s a secret. Springfield Cemetery has a Hellfish monument, that’s where they all were from. We also see from Terrence’s dossier that the Grey Fox is confirmed to be living in a town called Springfield. He doesn’t mention it aloud in the flashback, but it seems like this is the original report as the paper is all aged and ripped. So how many small towns with a nuclear plant are Springfields? How the hell did it take Terrence fifty goddamn years to find Abe?
– It’s really jarring anytime the show uses live action footage, which seems to happen at least once or twice a season now. In the Retirement Castle rec room, we see an old black-and-white live action movie playing on the big TV. I don’t know what it is, but I assume it’s some kind of old spy movie. Later, on the boardwalk, there’s a sign gag, “Joseph Cotten Candy,” featuring a real photo of old film star Joseph Cotten. I don’t know how many people actually know who Joseph Cotten is, but I’ll tell you what’s not going to help sell the joke: putting his actual fucking picture on screen. Was it worth it just to sell your awful pun? I guess he was in some old spy pictures? Both of these inclusions feel like another example of this show sometimes doing plot lines or extended references to source material that feels way too old for anyone in the audience to get. I really don’t know what the demographic breakdown of this show is anymore, but I would hazard a guess a lot more younger people watch it than senior citizens, who are the only people who could appreciate a Joseph Cotten reference, or a whole episode about the 1962 To Kill a Mockingbird film.
– Speaking of old references, Orson Welles (voiced by Maurice LaMarche, of course) makes an inexplicable cameo at the boardwalk getting on a Ferris wheel. I have no idea why he’s there. He just is, because why not. There was another recent episode within the last few years that featured Welles, and it feels weird that they’re still trotting this impression out. LaMarche’s Orson Welles is impeccable, without question, but both Pinky & the Brain and the infamous “green pea-ness” scene from The Critic are almost thirty years old. If you’re going to re-use the character so many times, you should have something new or interesting for him to do. The first time The Simpsons used LaMarche was in a Halloween episode fifteen years ago that recreated Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds broadcast, which was actually a pretty creative idea. Here, the joke is that Orson Welles was fat so they put a bowling ball on his Ferris wheel seat to balance the weight. Worth it!
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Mediocre episode. On a side note did anyone know why they cast Stephen Fry as Terrance, and his daughter? He did a horrible girl impression so the voice just sounds bad. I’d rather take the overused Tress MacNeille instead.
They cast Fry because he played one of the great comedic villains in Blackadder Goes Forth (almost 35 years ago, sadly) and has a marvelous voice. Casting him as a girl is a step too far though…
Fry is one of those celebs who feels quintessentially British, and needed a better showcase…
Well this was a worthless “Man from U.N.C.L.E.” ripoff but let’s be thinking positive here: Only one episode left, thank fuck! And who knows? Maybe it will be the token good episode of the season. Like “Thanksgiving of Horror” or “Bart vs. Itchy & Scratchy.” Right? Please?
Well, that was like Squidward’s clarinet playing…mediocre.
I could see the potential in a story like this, maybe have Abe’s ramblings be either a fake alibi for his real career and/or be the reason Homer doesn’t believe the guy- he believes all the other digressions, even the ones that contradict each other. But that’s clearly something more likely to be in a fanfic at this point, because the writers or the people at Disney clearly don’t care, as long as the money comes in, and COVID won’t change that, sadly.
Big film nerd here. Joseph Cotten,Orson Welles and the Ferris wheel are all references to the classic 1949 noir film The Third Man. It’s a great movie but I have no idea what connection the references have to anything else because it’s not a spy movie.
Does anyone else have an answers?
Writer Carolyn Omine on Twitter said the live action movie shown on the rest home TV is The Third Man, so this is all seemingly like a big tribute to that movie (including visual flairs like the episode’s use of Dutch angles, used a lot in the film, according to Wikipedia), but for myself and I imagine a huge chunk of the audience who aren’t familiar with the movie, what are we supposed to make of all this? And like you say, I don’t see any connection plot wise between the two.
Maybe this is their attempt at referencing old movies like Classic episodes. Basically saying “SEE?! WE REFERENCE OLD MOVIES JUST LIKE THE OLD DAYS! PLEASE WATCH US!!!!!!1!1!1!1”
Even if this were the Classic era, how many people would remember this movie? It’s good, yes, but nobody remembered it like they did The Godfather or Citizen Kane, to where you didn’t even need to see it, the signature bits were copied so often- here, they couldn’t be more assuming the audience would just get it immediately that it’s surprising they didn’t try to play more of the film over the credits with some disclaimer reading “HERE’S THE MOVIE WE BASED THIS ON, IF YOU’RE TOO ‘OUT OF THE KNOW’ TO KNOW WHAT WE WERE DOING.” The way the show runners have been callously responding to issues and controversy, it certainly wouldn’t be shocking. That’s what is truly killing the show- they’ve truly become so corrupted by profit that they go from nudging the audience with references to outright shoving them off a cliff with them. It’s as if the creators are those hipsters that ONLY listen to music that’s deliberately obscure and off key or only go to the worst clubs or bars because it’s more “authentic”.
I’m a little shocked you didn’t know ‘The Third Man’ even just by popcultural osmosis. It’s one of the most famous films ever made and a critical and commercial hit (though I will admit it might have a better name recognition now among cinephiles.)
Having said that the film’s plot and this episode have almost nothing in common beyond the theme tune, a general idea of ‘some you trust might be untrustworthy’ and a scene on Ferris wheel. ‘The Third Man’ isn’t even about spies!
I’ll admit, it’s not exactly a film I’ve had any history with, but in any case it’s not a film that’s mainstream knowledge. As mentioned, they’ve done parodies of The Godfather (the horse head scene in Lisa’s Pony, the snowball scene in Mr. Plow) and Citizen Kane (not only the plot for Rosebud, but the tribute song in Marge Gets a Job) in ways where even if the person NEVER SAW the movie, they’d recognize the reference. Even the Frank Grimes episode and the Rodney Dangerfield-as-Burns’-nephew episode had plots remarkably similar to then recent movies (Grimes to Michael Douglas’ character in 1993’s “Falling Down”, the Dangerfield episode to the 1997 flop “Excess Baggage”- though that’s more a coincidence than anything in that specific case). More often, their “parodies” consist of nothing more than pointing at a popular thing and saying “that exists. Please applaud.” Or kissing the ass of a product that just HAPPENS to have a similar name just one letter off (like having Mapple AND Apple).
I’ll admit I’m not a huge film guy, but I’m generally aware of most major/impactful films, at least through cultural osmosis. I know I have a lot of blindspots, though. Definitely never heard of that one.
And as many commenters point out, a good reference or parody works even if you have no familiarity with the source material. These are essentially saying, “Hey, we’re aware of this obscure reference. If you are too, you are cool and in the know like us! Laugh!” (This is also one of my many complaints about the few Family Guy episodes I’ve seen).
As I’ve said I may have overestimated how well known “The Third Man” is (it is really extremely famous in film buff circles). That said, even among the mainstream I don’t think it’s *that* obscure.
I do agree that the episode did a very poor job of actually working jokes from the film, or even parodying it generally. Like they remember Orson Welles was in it in (though not that he was young and handsome rather than old, fat and bearded) but no character in the film even remotely resembled his – or resembled Joseph Cotton’s character for that matter.
It’s just such a strange choice. Like they acknowledged the existence of the film and outright stole the music but there isn’t even a shallow parody of the plot or story… there’s just nothing.
I think it’s just another thing the show is failing at that it used to make seem effortless
The Third Man is one of the most famous film noirs ever made, and I wouldn’t consider it an obscurity. I think many of the individual moments (eg: the cat scene and the ending shot) are genuinely iconic.
At any rate, the way the series would parody movies in its earlier seasons wasn’t necessarily dependent on the viewer getting the reference. A lot of people picked up on the Godfather reference in Mr Plow, sure, but I wonder how many recognised the reference to William Friedkin’s 1977 film Sorcerer? That film was a critical and commercial disaster at the time (completely overshadowed at the box office by Star Wars), and while it has enjoyed a more favourable re-evaluation over the past fifteen years or so, back in 1992 it would have been a pretty esoteric allusion.
Yeah, but noir films themselves are a pretty niche genre.
I’m going to pile in on ‘The Third Man’ too. It’s a masterpiece, and it’s near-unanimously considered the best British film of all time (myself included, for what it’s worth). I agree with the other commenters here. The modern era lacks the subtlety to blend in small references and certainly doesn’t possess the nuance to take a story at large and work it into the Simpsons world. Imagine them trying to do ‘Cape Feare’, ‘the Shinning’, or ‘You Only Move Twice’ now. Also, though they’d probably argue otherwise, I don’t think they have the same deep-rooted knowledge of film the early writers did. Have the new writers seen as much? Are the directors as schooled in classical film technique? Or are they simply doing the surface level stuff, thinking it’s enough. I suspect I might know the answer…
I don’t know if it has to do with having the same knowledge. Back then, when the writers made references to films, it was easier to make them because of the lack of viewing options, so films stayed in the public consciousness longer and were more well-known. If you didn’t see The Godfather in theaters, there’s a good chance you saw it on TV. Same with Citizen Kane. Sometimes, the writers didn’t even know the source material. Bill Oakley had never seen Planet of the Apes, and Matt Groening had never seen The Shining. It all has to do with how you incorporate the reference.
I think Mike is wrong in that the references being old mean they don’t work. That’s not true. You can reference anything you want as long as you make it fit within the show’s universe. It has to be the kind of thing where casual viewers won’t even know you’re referencing something. Like in “Mr. Plow,” Bart getting hit with snowballs is funny because it’s parodying The Godfather scene where James Caan gets shot up, but if you’ve never seen the movie, it’s still funny because Bart is getting attacked at school for Homer’s new job. With episodes like this, or “The Computer Wore Menace Shoes,” they’re making direct references to things and expecting you to know what they’re doing. Even if you get the reference, you’re annoyed because that’s the only way to be entertained by it. Casual viewers won’t even understand what’s going on.
It’s funny because when Jon Vitti appeared on Talking Simpsons, he was talking about “Cape Feare” and how the writers made a huge mistake by basing the episode on a specific parody of something. That’s not what you’re supposed to do, and even though the writing for that episode didn’t go well because they were all exhausted and ready to leave the show, the episode still holds up on its own. It feels different from most episodes, but the basic story of Sideshow Bob trying to kill Bart is something that anyone can follow. They used the show’s history to take a parody of a specific film and incorporate it into the universe. Nowadays, they don’t put that much work into references and parodies. They paid tribute to The Third Man because they love The Third Man, and they just expect people to know what they’re doing while missing the steps needed to get there.
I don’t know if it’s a combination of the staff thinking that just mentioning the thing is enough, or if Family Guy proved that just going “Here’s that thing you may remember! That’s the joke, get it?” was enough to survive 2 decades on network TV, or what else, but there’s a difference between crafting a scene or a gag that was based off of something and merely calling attention to it.
You mentioned the snowball scene from “Mr. Plow” about how it pays homage to how Sonny Corleone got gunned down in “The Godfather”. If you knew the moment, it works, but if you don’t, it’s a funny visual cause it’s just a bunch of kids mad at the son of the guy who plowed the way for them to school when they could’ve had a snow day instead. There’s layers. 11 years later, the horrific “All’s Fair in Oven War” features the same scene, except it’s verbatim from the film, only replacing the mobsters with hillbillies. The only purpose of the scene was to just go “Hey, remember that scene?!”
One worked due to the film reference not being the focus of the joke, while the other doesn’t because the film reference *is* the joke.
“Family Guy” has been detrimental to writing since “Obvious References is Obvious” has proved to be fruitful in captivating the lowest common denominator, such as featuring 90 seconds of “Takin’ It to the Streets” or the intro to “Charles in Charge” with just mentioning those things being the point, even if most of their audience isn’t familiar with “Charles in Charge” or “Hee-Haw”. While “The Simpsons” hasn’t had as many blatant examples (though they have dabbled too much lately in featuring live action footage on the show, which I always find an animation no-no), this episode is just a couple of writers gushing about something they love, but ignore the fact that not everyone is going to understand what they’re gushing about. And, you don’t want to confuse or anger the viewers.
TL;DR, it’s better to use the reference as a base for a scene (even if the context is different) rather than merely to just call attention to it.
What is Modern Simpsons weird facstination with live-action cutaways? Those kind of gags work in SpongeBob or Chowder, but not The Simpsons!
Bringing up the Flying Hellfish at all is a bad idea, given that it’s a direct callback to World War II, which put Abe in his mid to late 70s in the 1990s, but has him pushing 100 today.