Original airdate: December 7, 2025
The premise: Skinner discovers a boy named Hub has been living in the school library. Unable to determine if the kid actually has parents, he has Hub stay at his house during spring break, at first finding it difficult, but then forming a bond with the boy.
The reaction: As was the case last week with Patty and Selma, Principal Skinner is definitely a character I would love to see explored more. The moments he got in the limelight in the classic era were definitely highlights for this rich character: an incredibly boring and lame man who revels in his position of authority, yet completely out-of-step with modern day kids (because, of course, it’s the children who are wrong.) Making him a surrogate father to a troubled kid, his own Bart Simpson, feels like an easy story line to land upon, one I’m kind of surprised never came up before this point, but I guess we had an entire decade of Homer-gets-a-job episodes to burn through before we got here, so there’s that. Unfortunately, like last week, I feel by the end of the episode, I’ve learned absolutely nothing new about Skinner, and even worse than last week, we have an unbearably schmaltzy ending, maybe one of the worst this show has ever pulled. After a field trip goes sideways thanks to shenanigans spearheaded by Bart, Skinner viciously chews out Homer and Marge (“All you parents are the same! Take credit when your kids succeed and make excuses when they fail! It’s disgusting! It’s because of parents like you that I hate kids!”) Late one night at the start of spring break, as we see Skinner is so pathetic he’s spending his time off still at the school, he finds out a boy is living in the library, a smart aleck little snot named Hub, voiced by Kieran Culkin. The kid gives Skinner a joke answer about how his parents are dead when asked, and we hear him say several different joke answers at different times. I dunno, but if this were me, I would lock this kid in a room and not leave him until he gave me a straight answer as to where his parents were. Initially Hub drives Skinner nuts, but then he saves him from drowning in a ball pit and the two start to bond. When school starts back up again, Skinner encourages him to try out of the school musical, which turns out so well that Skinner forces Mr. Largo to re-write the play to start him. Eventually we have Skinner sub in for Miss Peyton’s parent-teacher conference for Hub, and Skinner blows up the slightest criticism over his precious not-son, and yeah, it’s completely obvious what’s happening here, he’s becoming the blind-sighted parent he claimed to hate. Also, Miss Peyton is like a super teacher that we should love for being so great, but she should be the first person to be asking where the hell this kid’s parents are, not indulge Skinner by pretending he’s his guardian for this meeting. The night of the play, Hub’s parents are revealed and we learn what the hell happened: he was sent away to boarding school, but he ran away and hid in Springfield Elementary, I guess because he wanted a normal, stress-free life, fading into the background and not being noticed, until Skinner came along. Before leaving, Hub returns to the stage to give a speech about how he learned to open up or be himself or something (“Now the little mouse has to leave, and he’ll never forget the kind older mouse who believed in him, allowing him to see more.“) Skinner and Hub’s parents are touched, and the entire audience applauds. These are the worst kinds of endings for these episodes, where it just devolves into a big schmaltz fest that’s devoid of any real meaning. “Bad Boys… For Life?” was a similar case, but the whole “women running Springfield until the men return” aspect was so under-examined that it felt more random to bother me that much. Here, it’s the resolution of the actual story, of this kid who learned to believe in himself because of Skinner’s encouragement, and the whole audience is moved by it because that’s just what this show is now. We should be moved to! We should be crying that Skinner forged this relationship with a little kid! But no! It sucks! There’s no real tangible connection to hold onto between Skinner and Hub that makes me feel like I should give a shit or believe they mean anything to each other. Skinner has an overbearing mother, the easiest thing in the world could be him warming up to this kid who clearly is resistant to talk about his parents. Have them bond over their mommy issues, give me something, anything to give a shit about this. But as usual, we get nothing. You’re meant to be touched because the tender music starts, someone gives an ostensibly moving speech and that should be enough. It isn’t. It fucking sucks.
Three items of note:
– The “official” episode count for this show is kind of askew, but by my personal count, this is the 800th episode to be released. But I think the “true” counter doesn’t include the three episodes released to Disney+ (which is technically four, as “O C’mon, All Ye Faithful” is double-length.) We apparently are getting another double-length episode for the official 800th episode to air on FOX, which will be four episodes from now. Three have already been scheduled between now and the beginning of January, so there looks like there’ll be a gap between then and the “800th” airing in February. There’s also rumors that that might be the season finale, so we’ll have to see about that too. It would bring the season count to fifteen episodes, which corresponds with the new episode count for the latest four-season order, so it seems likely that that’s how the rest of season 37 will go.
– We get the grand reappearance of Groundskeeper Willie’s wife, played by Karen Gillan, whose name I forget. I also forgot that episode happened. It was also two seasons ago. Does it matter at all that he got married? This woman is apparently totally happy to have moved to America to live in a fucking shack behind an elementary school. Multiple seasons from now, we may or may not get Moe and Maya’s wedding, as a seemingly normal woman will pledge her eternal love to a disgusting gargoyle who waters down booze at a shitty bar. I’d be fine with putting these characters in relationships if I understood why. Instead it genuinely feels like we as the audience should love that Willie or Comic Book Guy have loving wives because we love the characters and will feel good about seeing them get happy endings.
– Speaking of unbearable schmaltz, I stumbled on a promotional piece for the upcoming James L. Brooks film Ella McCay, a new animated promo featuring Marge and Lisa walking out of the movie, with the latter gushing about how much it moved her. The joke here is that Lisa is overwhelmingly positive and optimistic about the film, while Marge is more neutral, but then her light cynicism is stripped away by her daughter’s enthusiasm, as the two lovingly recite the ending of the film and decide to watch the movie again. Not only is this so painfully saccharine, it also follows in the footsteps of all those Disney+ specials where we have Lisa gush over Billie Eilish or our characters showcasing how much they love Marvel and Star Wars. The specificity here is this is being done out of goodwill for Brooks, trying to give a movie that will surely under-perform any possibility of a boost it can get, so why not flex that Simpsons muscle a bit to see if that moves the needle even a tiny bit? I understand that film advertising has to be fundamentally positive, I don’t expect to see them shitting on the movie, but that there’s barely any joke to the piece felt so inauthentic to the spirit of the show. Or at least what was the spirit of the show, as this latest episode is almost a reaffirmation to myself that, yes, this is what the show is. Even if they were extra neutered and sanded down in this portrayal to help push a movie by Big Jim, it really isn’t dissimilar to what I just saw in the end of this episode. I know that there are fans that genuinely like this show’s latest direction of being unironically sincere and genuine without any subversion or blending in humor, but I watch stuff like this and it feels like the furthest thing possible from what the show means to me.
Me Blog Write Good 
This season is ending on February 15, I believe I shared a link to the confirmation post in here recently.
And man…. I don’t know which “X hundredth” episode is worse, this or the one where Marge rapes Homer.
Honestly I’d say this. Hell, I’ll also go as far as saying that this might be the worst milestone yet whether it’d be through airing, marketed or production order.
The Marge one at least was alright until she got buffed. This one on the other hand has both of it’s main characters being ones you don’t give a shit about because Skinner kills any sympathy you’re supposed to have for him early on with his ‘I hate children!’ line, and Hub is random guest voicing kid character #330 and he does nothing to make you give a crap about him!
Marge raping Homer, full stop. She committed sexual assault after Homer clearly said no and it’s treated like a joke. Men can be rape victims too IRL even if it’s not as common.
I think Marge the rapist is the worst thing she’s done and Homer framing her for a DUI is his worst moment. Maybe I’m forgetting some other monstrosities but those are both awful acts that could and should have been catalysts for divorce or at the very least apologies and marriage counseling.
I hate this episode too. Skinner is way too mean for me to even care that he is saddened when Hub leaves. What he said to Nelson was horrifically cruel. It reminded me of some terrible moments from my childhood and I don’t want to relive trauma when I’m watching a frigging cartoon.
Speaking of kids’ parents, what’s the deal with Nelson right now? Didn’t Flanders adopt him? Or Homer, or Moe?Moe’s?? Did I just fever dream that?
You’re thinking of Better Off Ned, in which Nelson was desperate for a father figure and finds one in Homer, while Bart bonded with Flanders.
It was a terrible demake of “Brother From The Same Planet.”
It was so bad in fact that it made Mike get rid of the “one good line/moment” section for good:
“One good line/moment: Can I just retire this section again? I think I’ve threatened to do that a few times, but I may finally do it for real-sies. If there’s something truly of notable quality in an episode, I’ll make a point of mentioning it, but otherwise, there doesn’t feel like any real point in doing this part anymore.”
My expectations for “Ella MacCay” are tempered, but it’s nice that James L. Brooks won’t now be ending his directorial career with “How Do You Know”. All “Ella MacCay” has to do is not be total nothingburger to be a step up.
Ouch: “On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 26% of 35 critics’ reviews are positive.[24] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 39 out of 100, based on 20 critics, indicating “generally unfavorable” reviews.[25] The Guardian called the film “a sorry mess of a movie”,[26] and The Daily Beast called it an “epic flop”.[27]“
Yeah, it’s not looking good for “Ella MacCay”, is it? All signs are currently pointing to Brooks going back to director’s jail (which is a shame, for a guy who once made great films like “Broadcast News” and “As Good As It Gets”).
Still, if it at least fails in an interesting way, it’s got the edge on “How Do You Know”. “How Do You Know” is interesting for being uninteresting and costing $120 million in spite of how little actually happens on-screen.
This reminds me of how the Simpsons writers (and some cast) seem to think of review outlets as scathing, unfair negativity factories. All because… the reviewers kept rating their extremely middling episodes as “good”, not “great”.
Apparently, anyone who criticizes Ellen McKay’s is just being negative and nitpicking! Why, the movie is actually so great that most people will want to see it in theaters twice! Doesn’t matter if it turns out to be terrible, because Simpsons-connected people made it, and anything they make deserves special praise!
Mike, I know this is a random question, but do you remember the last Simpsons episode you thought was really funny? One that had you busting a gut?
I bet not since season 8.
Addendum: I genuinely cannot think of a single episode past season 9 that has more than a few choice chuckles. Most ZS episodes are lucky to have even that.
95% of post-classic Simpsons is worthless, but the Scully era still has a lot of good jokes, it’s everything else that’s the problem. Granted, it’s not as funny as the classic era, but few shows are. It dries up quickly under Jean, but I might name Al Brooks’ appearance in season 16 (The Heartbroke Kid) as the last hilarious episode, because Brooks’ improv didn’t go through the writers’ room and back then he was still very funny.
any reason why the kid looks like a great value jimmy neutron?
LMAO!