Original airdate: May 11, 2025
The premise: In the midst of distress over a lack of a legacy, Homer absentmindedly creates an engaging new, low-effort sport “noodleball,” which he helps popularize with Abe amongst the senior crowd. The town-wide fad catches the attention of a businessman looking to popularize the sport, but he wants Homer to toss his father under the bus, as they’re looking to exclusively target the Gen X crowd.
The reaction: There are some times more than others I find it a bit difficult to do these write-ups whenever there’s an episode that’s so low-impact it just bounces off me like Teflon. Or a ball in an empty swimming pool, in the case of this episode. It’s like they constructed a story out of overused plot elements we’ve seen in many a prior story: Homer fretting about his life’s purpose, him teaming up with his dad, a Simpson becoming an instant success, an amoral actor trying to manipulate the lead character, betraying a family member, I’ve seen all this shit before, and all of this wrapped into a story that I simply can’t bring myself to care about. Following an opening where Homer is found to be legally incompetent, he starts to worry that he has no legacy to leave behind (I’m okay ignoring all of the monumental achievements Homer has made in almost four decades, but it’s still a bit of an ask to do in season thirty-freaking-six.) Sulking in his self-made backyard pit, Abe finds Homer whacking a ball off the walls with a pool noodle, having invented his own game. The two end up having fun playing together, and it isn’t long before “noodleball” sweeps Springfield’s geriatrics by storm. Now Homer and Abe are working as a team, preserving the legacy of the Simpson name, I guess. Eventually the two are approached by Gabriel Razleton, some sort of business guy backed by big avocado, who wants to build a huge new noodleball stadium, but only if he can specifically cater the sport towards 40-60-year-olds (“The last generation that can afford housing.”) Homer buckles, of course, Abe feels betrayed, Lisa informs her father about the avocado company’s plan to use noodleball to distract from their many wrongdoings (I’ll be honest, this section, I really wasn’t paying attention to), and then Homer makes good with his dad in playing the sport against the famed sports celebrities, and they both hurt themselves, and that ruins the sport or something and the episode ends. I feel like it’s been a while since I’ve seen an episode that just completely washed over me. I felt absolutely no personal stakes for Homer or Abe, as all of their dialogue was very 2010s vintage “tell, don’t show” style (“Dad, maybe noodleball is what will make the Simpson name last forever!” “A legacy that we created together!”) As mentioned, the second half of the heartless company screwing over our leads has been done so many times over, and nothing about the avocado shit felt like it was unique or funny in any regard. Just an incredibly disposable episode. I can only hope the season finale will at least keep me awake.
Two items of note:
– The very opening features the Squeaky Voiced Teen in his first substantial role maybe ever, as he wakes up to be served with a jury summons to testify at Homer’s trial, thwarting his original intention to ask a girl out to the prom. We also learn his name is “Andrew,” so that’s something, I guess. It reminded me of that episode many episodes ago that started with a long introductory sequence with the Sea Captain, with both serving to reinforce, to me, anyway, that some of these joke tertiary characters don’t really need to be given this much screen time. I’m also really impressed that the 67-year-old Dan Castellaneta can still do that voice. I guess SVT really never sounded that much like a real teenager, but it’s still a fun performance.
– “Abe League of Their Moe” had a lot of sportscasters doing guest roles who I’ve never heard of, and this episode follows that up with having Blake Griffin and Megan Rapinoe show up and badly deliver lines since they’re not actors. In addition, we have travel writer Rick Steves (who??) who appears in Homer’s dream to grill him about his legacy, showing him statues devoted to Springfield’s most illustrious like Ned Flanders (for his good-natured philanthropy), Seymour Skinner (I guess for his commitment to education?), and also the town’s more famous celebrity residents (Drederick Tatum, Buck McCoy, Jay G). They make a joke about Lenny having a big statue for inventing invisible suspenders (???), but the whole dream kind of falls apart in trying to frame Homer as the only schmuck in town who’s done nothing with his life when Springfield is full of pathetic, do-nothing losers just like him. The biggest guest role goes to Robert Smigel, Triumph the Insult Comic Dog himself, voicing Gabriel Razelton. He’s kind of doing a normal voice in his performance, which makes sense for the character he’s playing, but part of me really wanted to hear him just talk like Triumph. Remember when he had a show on Adult Swim with Jack McBrayer for like two months? I’m still pissed that only ran seven episodes, it was so fucking funny.
Me Blog Write Good 
Man, what awful dialogue this has. I’ve described it as “on the nose” before, but I don’t think that explains it well. The classic era had lots of writing that could probably be described like that. Take this exchange from “Bart on the Road”:
Patty: Some days, we don’t let the line move at all.
Selma: We call those Mondays!
(Patty and Selma laugh)
Patty: …Good one.
This isn’t subtle, it’s very blunt commentary on the DMV. And if you’re judging it for pure realism, no actual DMV employee would sincerely say this. But it feels like a believable exchange in the context of the show. I can watch this and believe that the Bouviers would let the line stall out of apathy, that Patty would gleefully admit this to Bart, that Selma would joke about it being a regular thing, that both sisters would find it funny… there’s a lot of layers of believability here. At its core is just a political cartoon-style exaggerated strawman about how much the DMV sucks. But you don’t think of it like that watching the episode, because the writers clearly put a lot of consideration into how that was presented to fit naturally within The Simpsons.
By contrast, “Dad, maybe noodleball is what will make the Simpson name last forever!” had no consideration put into it. It feels like Homer reading the story outline instead of the script.
Good writing is sometimes obvious. Good writing is sometimes unrealistic.
But good writing is never lazy. And this shit is.
Remember when Abe was a piece of shit negligent father whom Homer barely tolerated, which went a long way in explaining Homer’s less-than-ideal parenting style? Now I guess Abe is a kindly old man and Homer is his thoughtful son. What exciting characterization.
If you’re a show that refuses to adapt or show long term consequences to actions, at least get your characters right. The cast is not meant to be malleable, having roles that work best for them, so depicting Abe as this kindly old man when we know he’s an awful father and just not a good person whose sympathy is tied to his age making him feeble and helpless against abuse (for laughs, obviously, as the writers are blissfully unaware of the fate that comes with aging without a support network) and Homer as his eager son worried about the family legacy despite his dozens and dozens of accolades makes no sense.
“Remember when he had a show on Adult Swim with Jack McBrayer for like two months? I’m still pissed that only ran seven episodes, it was so fucking funny.”
Oh hey, glad I’m not the only person who remembers that. Teen me loved the shit out of that show.
I’m so glad we’re only getting 15 episodes per year going forward, maybe that’ll be what finally destroys this show.