Original airdate: May 23, 2021
The premise: Moe participates in Homer and the gang’s drunken night out for the first time ever, breaking the sacred bartender-customer oath of the secret society he belongs to, resulting in every bartender in Springfield being out to get them.
The reaction: Season 28’s “Treehouse of Horror XXVII” featured a segment with Moe in a secret society of bartenders in a half-baked Kingsmen parody. Four years later, we’re doing John Wick, except it’s a normal episode and it’s three times as long. The concept of “The Confidential” is kind of interesting: a place where bartenders can share their woes, but always must keep the secrets told to them in confidence by their clientele. We open with Moe toasting to the grand institution, which begs the question, why is Moe such a lonely, miserably sad sack when he has all of these other bartenders who are open to talk with him? Instead, he’s touched that Homer and the guys ask him to drink with them, and they go all out on a raucous, drunken night, during which Moe blabs a bunch of secrets told to him by other bartenders (again, indicating he belongs to a social circle), breaking the Confidential’s code. Not only is Moe expelled from the organization, his best customers are being hunted by other bartenders to be injected with “anti-booze,” which will make them sober forever. All of this is absolutely ridiculous, and has the feel of an extended Halloween episode. It’s also a “parody” in the usual sense that it just recreates visuals and plot elements from a film without even trying to satirize it. Just as the Kingsman “parody” featured a sequence imitating the elaborate church fight scene from the first movie, this episode has Moe fighting like John Wick in the street against a bunch of bartenders, subbing a gun for his trusty bar rag. None of the fight choreography is particularly entertaining or creative, especially when stood up against the exhilarating and fun action sequences of the John Wick movies. Homer, Lenny, Carl and Barney all end up getting de-boozed, but flash forward three months, we see that they’ve all greatly improved their lives now that they’re sober. They track down Moe to gloat about it, but when they find him miserably working at an omelette bar, they make amends and return to Moe’s (which Moe still has, I guess), wanting him to be their bartender again, even serving just water. Then the Confidential head magically appears in the bar, offering them all an antidote to the anti-booze because the episode is almost over and we need to reset the world. For an episode supposedly parodying an exciting action film series, one that I very much enjoy, this felt particularly boring, and a really tired way to close out the season.
Three items of note:
– After the opening with Moe, Bart and Milhouse end up in the audience of Bumblebee Man’s late night talk show, an exciting affair filled with ridiculous game show segments and Horchata sponsorships. It felt kind odd that we get entire lines of dialogue from Bumblebee Man and the audience in Spanish with no subtitles. You can still follow what’s going on (and Milhouse helpfully shouts explanations to Bart from the audience when he’s brought on stage), but none of it felt particularly funny and was mostly just time wasting. Bart’s prize from the show is a crystal skull bottle of tequila, which Homer eventually gets his hands on (through a Raiders of the Lost Ark opening parody, inevitably reminding me of the superior “Bart’s Friend Falls in Love” sequence) and shares with everyone at the bar. A credits scene features the broken bottle magically regenerating and speaking ominously to the kids in Spanish. It’s not like a bilingual bonus joke, where you understanding the language is an additional joke. In the case of the Bumblebee Man scene and the ending, it’s just full Spanish dialogue and that’s it.
– Ian McShane voices Artemis, the leader of the Confidential, appearing in a similar role as his John Wick character. I really don’t even know how you would parody a series as ridiculous and over-the-top as John Wick. You could comment on its gratuitous, exaggerated violence, I guess, but it kind of feels redundant to what the series does anyway, and certainly not something you could do on a network show. Maybe something on Adult Swim could do it. Or maybe Robot Chicken will do a shitty John Wick sketch. They probably already have, but I don’t care to look it up.
– In the end, Homer is the only one who chooses not to take the antidote, prompting Artemis for some reason to put out a Confidential hit for him to be re-boozed. Sober Homer is shown to be a wonderful husband and father, fully functioning at work after his new promotion, noticeably thinner, with everything going great for him. I was expecting him to be as quick to jump on the antidote as the others and that being the tired joke, but him choosing to keep his new, better life, only to be doggedly chased down and forced to be an alcoholic again felt a little bit sad, even if it really doesn’t even matter.
And with that, that’s a wrap for yet another season, and boy howdy, can you believe it was a real stinker? This honestly may have been the worst season yet, but ranking anything within the past decade of this show feels so unnecessarily granular to me, since it’s all been pretty terrible. I always held season 28 to be the worst, with the ensuing few seasons after feeling not quite as bad, but looking back at the episode list this year, this felt like a particularly sorry crop. Season 31 had the surprisingly enjoyable “Thanksgiving of Horror,” while this season, I can’t point to one episode I even halfway enjoyed (the closest being “The Road to Cincinnati,” enjoying the impulse of an honest Skinner/Chalmers episode, but not the execution.) Meanwhile, my worst episode list is bursting at the seams (“The 7 Beer Itch,” “Sorry Not Sorry,” “Diary Queen,” “Yokel Hero,” “Do PizzaBots Dream of Electric Guitars?,” “Manger Things,” “Burger Kings,” “Mother and Child Reunion.”) But one thing I can say, I’m genuinely curious about the future of the show for the first time in years, only because of the world outside the show itself, thanks to their new corporate overlords. The Fox acquisition by Disney has been over and done with for a few years, and the upcoming 33rd production season is the first one actually ordered by Disney. Meanwhile, The Simpsons still airs first-run on FOX, who has no ownership of the show anymore, while Fox Entertainment, the FOX-owned media branch that formed after the Disney buy, is busy creating their own slate of new animated series, starting with Housebroken, which premieres next week, as well as Dan Harmon’s Krapopolis, and I’m sure more to come. Despite the dwindling popularity of The Simpsons and Family Guy, it’s probably still very important for FOX to hold onto them to anchor their Sunday nights, but I imagine their goal is to create their own new animated hit that they can reap all the financial rewards of. When (and if) that happens, they might see less and less need to air shows that their major competitor owns. Meanwhile, who’s to say that Disney might not want to move The Simpsons onto FXX? Or Freeform? Or cancel the series as it is and revamp it in a new streaming format altogether? I’m not aware of all the ins and outs between Disney and the FOX network airing the show, and at what point that might change, but suffice to say, I have to imagine sometime in this next decade, there’s going to be a major shift in the show for sure. Whether that be a channel hop, a new movie, or the end of the series, it all remains to be seen. And seen it shall be come this fall, when we dive headfirst into season 33. That’s right, for yet another year, it’s back into the toilet I go.
As for the blog, there’s the last few Revisited posts to come: the finale of season 11, The Simpsons Movie, and a small conclusion post for the 10th anniversary of the blog. Stay tuned!
Me Blog Write Good 
I didn’t think they could make a worse season than 31, but here we are. See ya in September, Mike (after you’re done with your season 11 revisit).
While we can all be like “Boo-Hoo the Simpsons was horrible AGAIN!” I’m a little optimistic. I loved the experimentation with characters like Skinner and Chalmers and Hoover and Wiggum which shows there still trying to flesh out their secondary/tertiary cast which can’t be said for another long-running shows *cough *cough Family Guy. While there have been so many horrible episodes this season that is mainly the result of Al Jean who just doesn’t know when to realize it’s time to retire. Matt Selman has made some of the best of the modern era “The Book Job” “Thanksgiving of Horror” “The Road to Cincinnati” and countless others. With Al Jean stepping down for a lot of the episodes of S33 to work on some of the new Disney shorts it’s going to be interesting to see a mostly Selman run season. As for the episode itself, I found it to probably be the best of the season. It definitely wasn’t perfect, and while we could nit-pick and be like “Oh this was stupid” I like to focus on the positive and it was a plot that was pretty original, and seeing a fit Lenny was enough to make me laugh. For the future of the Simpsons, Disney surely has something up their sleeve, and Mike can’t wait for the long-awaited Simpsons Movie review, and congratulations on 10 years of the blog!!
I like your perspective on this. Sure this season was a complete bomb, but who knows? Maybe both Selman and Disney will be able to give Zombie Simpsons a fresh new coat of yellow paint and perhaps Season 33 (WHY?!) will only be as bad as the early Zombie Simpsons seasons that were in 4:3. We can only hope.
Thank you. With all the negative Simpsons thoughts I like to stay positive even if there really isn’t a light at the end of the tunnel sometimes.
So the grand finale for the season is just a parody of a 7 year old movie… Yipeee
Well…. Lets hope for Disney to do something better … Pleeeeaase
Yay, Season 32 is finally OVER! Thank god, the nightmare is done. At least until late September 2021. Of course, let’s not forget this memorable season. I’ll give a brief restrospective of each episode as a way of kissing this season goodbye. So without further ado, here are 22 things I learned about 22 episodes.
– Alex Désert is the 4th most popular ice cream parlor in Lyon, France. The owner of the place is thinking of expanding to Paris by 2026.
– Ancient Rome was boring.
– The renaissance and impressionism were boring too. Plus, Bernie Sanders was able to travel back in time as a kid.
– Hans Moleman voted for Kanye West.
– Homer apparently has a fetish for croaky raspy gravelly old lady-like singing voices. Sorry, Olivia Colman.
– The Simpson family is too poor to afford airpods.
– That one kid’s blue irises STILL give me nightmares.
– A steamed hams callback was the best joke in the entire season.
– Zombie Simpsons does not know how to write for Lisa’s teacher.
– You can never have too many Christmas specials or disposable love interests when it comes to ZS.
– Comic Book Guy is apparently married to Marth’s sister.
– Edna Krabappel was a lovable, saintly woman, a great wife to Ned Flanders, and a great teacher to Bart Simpson. She will be dearly missed.
– I still don’t understand anything that happened in Wad Goals.
– Cletus Spuckler should be added to the “Creator’s Pet” page on TV Tropes.
– Sadly, Pizzabots do not dream of electric guitars. They do however, dream of JJ Abrams productions.
– This show has gone on for over 700 episodes. What in the name of Todd Homer Flanders.
– Zombie Simpsons does not know how to write for Mrs. Wiggum.
– Burger Kings and Diary Queen are planning to get married this summer. Wedding attendance costs one burger and 5 ounces of Marcia Wallace’s ashes.
– You guys sure Panic in the Streets of Springfield wasn’t a holdover episode from Season 27?
– I am so proud of the fact that I resisted mentioning the ALF episode that shared the same title as that shitty future episode. I’m sure Anne Meara is smiling down on me from heaven.
– Abe Simpson as a spy makes about as much sense as him being a German cabaret singer.
– It may have been called the “The Last Barfighter” but sadly, this is not the last episode. Would’ve been great if it was though.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to be living in my own happy imaginary world for the next four months where FOX announced that the 32nd production season would be its last and that two-parter coming next season would be the show’s finale. Peace out, Mike! Love this blog.
In MY happy imaginary world, The Simpsons ended after season eight.
In my world, it ended on Behind the Laughter or The Simpsons Movie.
I turned 35 this year, this friggin’ show is almost as old as me. I’m still trying to process how that is possible
I’m going to be living in my own happy imaginary world for the next four months where FOX announced that the 32nd production season would be its last and that two-parter coming next season would be the show’s finale
In my imaginary world, this show was canceled 23 seasons earlier.
If this episode taught me anything, it’s that Matt Selman is perfectly capable of making the type of crap that Al Jean normally offers. The show is in good hands at being irrelevant on TV as it has been for the past two decades.
I don’t know what else to say about this episode. The writers really loved running with the gag regarding the crystal skull tequila bottle, but they were too lazy to write proper Spanish subtitles and it was just a one-note bit about the bottle being ominous that non-Spanish speakers go “Oh, that wacky bottle!”
Also, the show once again proves that resetting the world is important as we see Lenny, Carl, and Barney are clearly much happier and better off sober, yet when given the chance to go back to being boozehounds, they instantly take the opportunity without a second thought, while Homer declines, yet instead of respecting his wish, make it an objective to turn him back into a drunk cause we want Homer back to being a degenerate lowlife that we know and “love”. I don’t know why the staff overall opposes change for the sake of development in favor of change out of necessity (i.e. somebody like Marcia Wallace dies but not Doris Grau). When you’re on the air for over 30 years, constantly doing episodes that must hit the reset button at the end feel less like a creative means to explore and more like a waste of time, since you can never do anything productive in the world.
However, the show is largely supported by folks who tell the staff they’re still awesome and this is still as funny as it was 25 years ago, so if you’re getting pablum, why change the formula? I do not see Disney doing anything different to upset the apple cart. The Simpsons is now known for being stale, predictable, and ancient, so to modify that in any way would be to upset those fans that enjoy that stuff.
Something else this episode (as well as most of Selman’s offerings within the last two seasons) taught me is that if your name is Matt Selman than your episode is guaranteed an automatic free pass almost 99% of the time the same way it wouldn’t if this were an Al Jean episode and completely disregard the fact that it’s no better (or in some cases worse) than something the aforementioned would put out as showrunner!
Definitely not true. Wad Goals and Do Pizzabots Dream of Electric Guitars were not received well by the fans and those were Selman’s efforts. I’m sick of people saying that Matt Selman just gets glorious praise because if you compare a Selman episode to a Jean episode there is a very big difference. I enjoyed this episode because while it had its faults it was very funny and had a good plot. The plot felt connective and reminded me of previous episodes in the Golden Era. Also as evidence that not all Selman episodes are not received well just check IMDb. (not a perfect site, but usually is a good way to show what people thought)
That’s why I said 99% of Selman’s episodes get that treatment because yes every so often you get an episode like the Pizza-Bots one or the Christmas one (Was Goals appears to be a little more positively received) which aren’t as widely received.
But more often than not, you get cases like this episode, Dad-Feelings Unlimited or last year’s Hateful Eight-Year-Olds which honestly feel the same as a typical Jean episode in terms of their quality and how bad they are yet this is the only place that doesn’t treat them with the bias of the fact that Selman’s name is the one attached which wouldn’t be the case if it was Jean’s name instead.
I’d take any of those episodes over the Jean blunders we got this season: Yokel Hero, Manger Things, Three Dreams Denied, etc. I’m just trying to say that I rate the quality and if Jean helped produce Halloween of Horror or The Road to Cincinnati I’d gladly say he did an amazing job. Selman definitely has some problems he needs to fix with his episodes but I’m glad they let someone else shown other than Jean all the time.
Ironic enough, I think John Wick 4 was originally set to come out around this time, before it got delayed. I’m absolutely certain, however, it will be nowhere near as ridiculous. What gives the Wick series it’s charm is that it has the unmistakable charisma of Keanu Reeves in the role. As it stands, when you replace him and the rest of the cast with severe alcoholics and the bartenders who serve them, it would immediately make anything look more ridiculous. Seriously, this was some Family Guy level of parody, except again, they do it their own way, and while people may not like it, there’s enough people that do to keep it going. Hell, even they did their own parody episode last week, focusing more on sports origin stories, that while admittedly an easy thing to do, did at least have some humor, certainly more than this. And they also did a much better Kingsman style fight in 2017, literally just after the sequel came out.
As for the future of the show, I’d say it’s still in a bit of a holding pattern. Considering they still hype newest seasons coming to Disney+, considering it was explicitly mentioned in a press release talking about it moving to a new production umbrella in 20th Television Animation… I doubt that’s gonna change, at least this year. As such, it’ll still probably be as blah as ever in September.
Honestly, for the crap that you tend to get regarding your current opinions on the show as if late, it’s actually very refreshing to see not just you but several others treating an episode that’s ran by Matt Selman no differently than one ran by Al Jean which for the most part can’t be said for another sit that I’m active in. People say that with this season the contrast between Al and Matt episodes are that different quality wise while I strongly disagree as the way I see it is that an episode’s good or bad based on the quality and not whoever’s name is attached as showrunner.
Until today, I was under the impression that this was a parody of something but couldn’t figure out what which I felt played into why I didn’t think this episode was all that great either and would honestly call it the worst in what was easily one of the show’s worst seasons in quite some time!
It’s already on FXX.
Know how I know? They keep airing reruns and the movie. Over and over.
Their “drunken nights out” usually begin and end at Moe’s, so what even is this episode
Is the title supposed to be a reference to “The Last Airbender”? Are the boomers who still write for this show that desperate to appeal to the millennials/zoomers who don’t even watch it?
It’s actually referring to the 80s movie The Last Starfighter.