Original airdate: October 4, 2026
The premise: Bart and Lisa bring home a baby chimp and they discover the ups and downs of co-parenting. Meanwhile, Homer worries for his safety when he discovers that as they grow, chimps will instinctively become violent to whoever they perceive to be their tribe’s alpha male.
The reaction: Last week, I talked about how I wished this show would be more ambitious with its storytelling after eighty-seven years on the air, even though not every episode can be fourth-wall-breaking experimental like some of the more recent stand-outs from the last decade or so. But then along comes this second episode of the season, a very simple and straightforward premise executed in a mostly engaging way, and I start to feel that if this show had a healthy mix of stuff like this and crazy crap like “Bart’s Birthday” or “Lisa the Boy Scout,” that would be a mighty fine balance. I certainly didn’t have my hopes up when the “plot” started to unfold. Bart and Lisa get a chimp. Oh, that’s it? But then the character turns crept up. Lisa, inspired by the parenting books Homer and Marge never bothered to read, decides to adopt a hands-off approach to stifle the chimp’s own decision-making, while Bart is surprised to find himself become an overly protective parent (in talking to Lisa, “I’m new to being an annoying control freak like you! You must be exhausted all the time.” “I am!“) When Homer and Marge finally accept that the kids aren’t losing interest and are stuck with this ape, they research the best way to care for the animal, where Homer is shocked to learn that grown-up chimps are drawn to being violent and attacking any male threats, leaving him the sole Simpson in danger. The Bart-Lisa differing parental dynamic and the Homer side story felt interesting enough to keep the plot chugging along, as the kids go to couples therapy with Nelson and Homer buys protective gear for his face and groin, it was all pretty basic stuff, but it was all working. Eventually, Bart and Lisa work together to save the missing chimp from a weirdo wild animal reserve (inspired by the HBO documentary series Chimp Crazy), and the episode culminates in an absolutely wild finale where in order to save the kids from a gang of hostile adult chimpanzees, Homer drops his pants to reveal his (pixelated) junk, prompting the enraged apes to chase after him to the tune of Phil Collins’ “You’ll Be in My Heart” from Disney’s Tarzan. It’s the first time I’ve been totally floored by a sequence on this show in a good way, it was like the more accelerated and extreme version of the end of “Homer’s Phobia.” I’m a bit dumbfounded how I ultimately found myself liking this episode. Last week’s premiere had a simple premise, but I think the difference is that it set up a premise with the school needing to be saved that didn’t really make sense and ultimately didn’t matter, with an emotional resolution that felt lame and overly familiar. This episode kept things small with basic character personality flips and an A and B story operating side-by-side until the final set piece, simple story beats that were executed pretty effectively. It’s not a masterpiece, but it’s not aiming to be. If this show must still exist in 2026, I wouldn’t mind seeing more episodes of this caliber on the schedule.
Three items of note:
– Before the crazy ending, I was also pleasantly shocked by Homer’s nightmare involving his face getting ripped off, going to the hospital, only to find that his face has now been sewed onto his groin by a team of chimp doctors. Funny and disturbing? When did the show remember how to do that? Should I elevate my expectation for this year’s Halloween offerings? Is this false hope I can smell?
– The opening three minutes felt like one of those completely unrelated first acts of yore: Krusty is horrified to find unofficial Itchy & Scratchy cartoons are being made due to them falling into the public domain. To prevent his show’s IP suffering the same fate, he needs to modify his characters to newly recognizable forms. So Krusty does what he does best: rip off someone else, with Krusty Babies, featuring real babies and a baby chimp as Mr. Teeny. The production goes nowhere fast, as Krusty angrily hands the ape off to a grip to get rid of. This kind of made me want an episode about Itchy & Scratchy becoming public domain and the kids dealing with all of the authentic/non-authentic imitators. Krusty’s lawyer (who has the same character model as the lawyer who helped Homer sue the church in season 14’s “Pray Anything,” a piece of information I’m so glad my brain is wasting space remembering) shows him other classic characters who have fallen into fair use: Babar, Popeye the Sailor Man, and Winnie the Pooh. Many people have commented how the show under Disney is more reticent to bite the hands that feeds versus when they were under Fox’s roof, which I mostly think is exaggerated, but I feel like the powers that be would have killed any attempt to allude to the Steamboat Willie rip-offs for this joke. Winnie the Pooh feels like the compromise, since Disney never owned those characters, just their own versions of them.
– There’s some pretty impressive camera tricks in this episode. We see the one wildlife woman filming herself in front of the school, then whip the camera around 180-degrees to shoot her husband, and the school facade changes perspective pretty damn effectively. Later, we see a slow wrap-around move on Bart and Lisa surrounded by the gathering of chimps. I’ve bitched about some of the modern visual elements of this show in the past, but obviously there are many talented artists who work on this show, and it’s nice where even in deceptively simple moments like these like animating 2D elements as if they’re in 3D space, they manage to pull it off.
