713. A Serious Flanders (Part Two)

Original airdate: November 14, 2021

The premise: Ned must grapple with having to sin in order to save Homer’s life from the bad guy, as things barrel onto their climactic conclusion.

The reaction: Of all the format-bending episodes this show has experimented with in recent years, this certainly feels like their most ambitious, and the one I have the most amount of respect for. In this second half, we get an extended flashback sequence, and a third act taking place after a three-year time jump, both segments expanding the world of their time periods and the characters within it, all within a short period of time. More thought went into these episodes than most of the typical Simpsons fare, I can at least lend it that. Whether it’s entertaining or not is more subjective, of course. This second half feels like it leans even stronger on peak TV tropes, as the aforementioned first and third act at times are attempts to write in that style and not differentiate much from it. Like I talked about in act one, this feels like an earnest effort to try a different style of TV writing, but what’s missing to me is any kind of Simpsons stamp on it, or an attempt to buck these conventions in a way that’s unique to the Simpsons world. The only emotional carry-over from last week was Ned’s wrestling with his own sense of pride, not wanting to accept credit for his donation to the orphanage. He idolized his lawman grandfather as a virtuous man, but the flashback in act one reveals that he was as crooked as they come, shooting a man in cold blood in order to take off with the ill-gotten sack of money, only to get killed himself by the Bad Guy. At the very end, Ned tearfully admits to Homer that deep down he wanted to take credit and he feels shame for it, and when the Bad Guy reveals to him his beloved grandfather was a murdering sinner, Ned flips out and fights back. As much of this two-parter seems to be about Ned’s crisis of faith on whether he should sin to do good, it never really hits home for me as anything really interesting character-wise. Probably because there’s so much other shit going on in this story that feels like flashy padding. The two assassins have an all-out brawl as the house burns down around a captured Homer. The first act flashback, which really could have been done in half the time if you shaved off all the needless drama. This two-parter was split up into six self-titled “chapters,” and it felt like each chapter was treated as if it would be a full-length 42-minute episode of the “A Serious Flanders” mini-series, but in the end, I just didn’t find the story being told all that compelling. Or funny, as was my complaint last week. At least this episode acknowledges that, with the “Serious Flanders” streaming page listing it as containing “Brief Comedy.” By the time we got to the final act, I found myself thinking back to my “What even is The Simpsons now?” question. I’m all for experimenting and trying new things, but I feel like a fundamental bedrock of the series is the subversion and re-contextualization of media stories and tropes. “A Serious Flanders” is a card-carrying riff on “peak TV,” but there’s nothing in it that I would say is a true parody. Even the lame on-the-nose dialogue ripping on tropes from part one is absent in this one, save one gag at the very end when the unseen streamer fast-forwards through the Bad Guy’s super long monologue before he goes to kill Ned. Unlike the godawful “Warrin’ Priests,” I have some degree of admiration for “A Serious Flanders,” but I can’t in my heart of hearts say I enjoyed it. But I was intrigued by it, and that’s more I can say for the bulk of the series these days.

Three items of note:
– I honestly kind of liked the Szylak brothers in the act one flashback. It felt like a believable expansion of Springfield lore that Moe’s family would be small town reprobates like him. I guess they were added so there would be at least something recognizably Simpsons-y going on in the flashback, but it worked well enough. Also I think the barber was a young Crazy Old Man. Or Old Jewish Man, as they’ve re-dubbed him.
– There’s moments in this second part that definitely stuck out to be as direct lifts from other series. The motel where the shootout occurs in act one is based on the motel featured from season three of Fargo. The motel sign reads “Free Peak TV in Every Room,” which doesn’t make much sense given it’s set in the 1970s. Ned’s abandoned and desecrated house and his off-the-grid cabin are clearly based on the final episodes of Breaking Bad. And the ending showdown on the ice was reminiscent to the ending of the first season of Fargo. Again, though, these are all references, and there’s no real jokes associated with them. There’s also the moment where Ned and Homer drive past each other and we get shots of the two turning their heads to acknowledge each other in the cars, which I’m sure is a direct reference to something, but I don’t remember what. Also, Homer’s various disguises to throw off his trail on his way to Ned’s cabins must also be references. Him in the biker getup at the diner might be Sons of Anarchy? I dunno. Again, par for the course with this series, it’s not actually funny, but it’s like a homework assignment to the viewer to find the source of all the references.
– The flash forward seeing a 13-year-old Bart and 11-year-old Lisa for one scene almost made me want to see more of them, but this series has had a pretty shit track record recently with future episodes. Honestly though, I think an episode about Bart and Lisa in high school has potential in the right hands, but I’m not gonna be holding my breath about that.