(originally aired May 4, 2008)
The Simpsons take on Sundance! Too bad South Park did it over a decade earlier sharper and smarter, and that episode ended with a tidal wave of human feces. So, yawn, Lisa takes up filmmaking, a hobby she becomes enamored and proficient with instantaneously, but this phenomena is nothing new. Encouraged by Principal Skinner, who lets her use the high-tech editing bay I guess the school can afford, Lisa gets to work on a full film, a documentary about her dysfunctional family. She submits it to Sundance, it gets accepted, and her film becomes a big hit, although its depiction of the family is not so favorable. Along the way, Skinner and Chalmers masquerade as movie big shots for no explainable reason, and independent director Jim Jarmusch appears to namedrop some of his movies that most of the audience hasn’t seen, and read lines on a script page to help Lisa with the dilemma she created for herself, leading to yet another non-ending.

So what’s our commentary on Sundance? They’re snooty, anti-Hollywood folks who appreciate what’s off-brand and bizarre for its own sake… s’about it. The end result is Lisa’s film ends up being way too personal and depressing, depicting the Simpsons as a ridiculously broken family. Every time the show tries to paint them this way, it’s usually only showing Homer being a raging madman, one you can’t believe that Marge and the kids haven’t run away from years ago. Lisa put together and edited the film without her family’s approval, and she feels guilty about making them feel bad. But Jarmusch appears, praising her work, and ultimately shows her that there are families that are far worse off than hers, so she shouldn’t feel so bad. Was that the conflict? The episode was never really about Lisa’s tumultuous family life, so it doesn’t make much sense. Another failed attempt at satire.

Tidbits and Quotes
– Lisa starts filming at a tailgate party, seeing the beauty of everyday life. It’s her eye-opening realization of the creative possibilities of filmmaking, but it feels so sterile and lifeless… much like the rest of this show.
– We get more annoyingly smart Lisa here, but I guess since the writers acknowledge that, it makes it okay (“What comes to mind when you think of drama?” “Well, according to Aristotle, drama contains six elements: plot, theme, character…” “Not the smarty-pants answer, I mean the drama in your life.” “Okay, but can I please finish the smarty-pants answer?”)
– Skinner concludes that Lisa’s family is the source of drama in her life as he peruses through her files (“Your brother is Bart Simpson, one of Mrs. Krabappel’s 4th graders…”) What, is he reading official documents verbatim? Bart is the bane of Skinner’s existence as we’ve seen in episode like “The Debarted,” but for some reason here, he speaks about him, and Edna too, like he doesn’t even know them. If anything, having Skinner exhibit a negative emotional reaction to Bart would help sell Lisa’s fractured family life. It’s such a bizarre choice to go with such a sterile read.
– Chalmers urges Skinner to submit Lisa’s film to Sundance (“The preeminent independent film festival held each January in Park City, Utah?”) Thanks for filling us in. They could have filtered that information and told it in a more natural way, or made a joke about the exposition drop, but y’know, coming up with jokes is really hard work. Bad writing is a lot easier.
– The Sundance entry judges scene is the only moderately clever bit in the show, where they scan through submissions (“Paul Giamatti… is the world’s greatest super spy… who only exists in the mind of an overweight, agoraphobic jazz musician… played by Martin Lawrence in a fat suit.”) They gasp so loudly at Lisa’s entry that at with the summit at such a high altitude, they all pass out, with some even needing to be brought out in body bags.
– There’s a Shining shot as the Simpsons drive to Park City with ominous music… but there’s no payoff to the joke. It’s like they cut something out and forgot it left the joke hanging.
– Homer randomly knows who Jim Jarmusch is, and his gag involves being unable to eat an onion without crying. Funny?
– There’s lots of small moments in this episode that are just awful, over-explaining jokes making them even less funny. Marge deduces that Sundance movies with innocuous titles like “Regularsville” contain racy content, so she must love “Chernobyl Graveyard”! She dashes in, and exits looking frazzled. That should be enough. Oh wait, she says, “I didn’t.” Really? I couldn’t figure that out, thanks for that. Later, Lisa tries to defend her film to the family saying it got butchered in editing. On screen, we see “Edited by Lisa Simpson.” But just to drive this home, we have a voice-over of her reading, “Proudly edited by Lisa Simpson!” This ruins the joke, and also vilifies Lisa even more.
– I honestly do not understand the “ChalmSkin” “subplot” where they’re approached by producers and end up acting like snobby big shots in front of John C. Reilly (yet another great talent wasted in a nothing part). If someone wants to decipher it for me, be my guest.
– Jarmusch’s dialogue is dreadful (“My movies, like Stranger Than Paradise and Down by Law, are also about social misfits experiencing the dark side of the American dream.”) He’s not a very good actor, which is fine, but in that case, don’t give him a large amount of dialogue. I chuckled at his pathetic “Ow! That hurts!” when he literally fades out of frame at the end.
– “Life Blows Chunks,” Nelson’s film, is wrong in many regards. Firstly, Skinner trusts Lisa with his AV equipment, but Nelson? But most importantly, it’s nothing but a pale, empty imitation of “Pukahontas,” Barney’s film from “A Star is Burns,” which both depict tragic characters communicating their sorrow in film. But while “Pukahontas” was a brilliant send-up of art films, a logical, sorrowing, but ultimately hilarious character study, Nelson’s film just ends up feeling sad and hackneyed. The series seems to love making fun of Nelson for being poor and having a deadbeat mother, two unfortunate factors out of his control and I’m sure mirrors the situation of many, many kids out there. Barney’s alcoholism is a problem he created himself, and it’s a much different situation. A line like “Don’t cry for me, I’m already dead” is a certified classic, being self-consciously cliched, tragic and hysterical at the same time. But something like “I like to cry at the ocean, because only there do my tears seem small” is just lame.

(originally aired April 27, 2008)
Some commenters have suggested that it seems like the writers come up with the stupid episode title “parodies” first, and then write the actual episode tenuously based on said title. In this case, I honestly believe the inception of this episode was, “Bart says, ‘Don’t have a cow, man,’ so why don’t we give him a cow! Man!” So they did, and then cobbled together a bunch of stuff that can barely be considered a plot. Upon seeing Martin driving a cool harvester, Bart joins the 4-H club to drive one too, and ends up getting invested in doing farm work. Real exciting. He’s tasked with raising a calf to full health, and his reward in the end is seeing his full-grown bovine be first in line for the slaughter. This episode has shades of “Lisa the Vegetarian” in it, where Bart grows remorseful for this creature he’s eaten dozens of before, but he shakes off any dietary qualms he may have in one infuriating scene with li’l preachy Lisa. It’s also akin to “Bart the Mother,” where Bart is in namby-pamby wimp mode, moping about the cow and its plight. It’s yet another example of how the writers seem to have no idea how to write Bart anymore.

Bart rescues the cow and offers it safety at Cletus’s farm, in the care of one of his daughters Mary, also a 4-H member. Unbeknownst to him, giving a young lady a cow is considering a marriage proposal to hillbilly folk, so to keep his cow safe, Bart must go along with this marriage, which neither he nor Mary want to go through with. Could he not explain the situation to Cletus? Nah, forget that. Plus, the marriage is in no way legally binding considering how young they are, so I’m not quite sure what the stakes are here. It’s all just a stupid farce that I could care less about. Then we cap things off with the cow being sent off to India thanks to Apu, and a high-larious sequence of Homer trying to escape the slaughterhouse factory floor. This episode is just completely empty. Empty of any believable character actions, clever jokes or commentary, interesting stories… it’s just a big, big vacuum of nothing. But it’s no different than most of the episodes nowadays.

Tidbits and Quotes
– Trans-Clown-o-Morphs has nothing on the Mattel and Mars Bar Quick Energy Chocobot Hour
– Bart drives over a pile of manure with his harvester, and it spits out DVDs of Pirates of the Caribbean 3. Zing! I’ll say once more, this show has lost its right to decry someone else’s quality. They’re probably just bitter that it made more money over the summer of 2007 than their movie did.
– Zooey Deschanel voices Mary, who I can commend for actually giving an honest performance with a Southern accent, and also because she’s Zooey and she’s adorable. Of course now they’ve brought her character back since she’s under the FOX umbrella with New Girl. Mary was once Cletus’s hick daughter, but now she’s a trendy New York musician! Or something! Whatever, who cares, fuck you!
– Bart hears animals moaning in pain in his sleep, but what he believes to be his conscious is actually just from a stereo Lisa planted under his bed to make him feel bad. Remember the end of “Lisa the Vegetarian” when Lisa learns that she shouldn’t browbeat or vilify others for having different beliefs? Well fuck that, now she’s a loud and proud vegetarian, and wants everyone else to be too! This scene made me want to rip my face off.
– The only bit of the episode I liked is when Homer and Marge do a little sock puppet show to get Maggie to eat her spinach. It has nothing to do with the story, but it’s a nice little scene. When Lisa runs in so the plot can continue, Homer’s sock does a spit take. That sentence totally makes sense.
– I feel like we haven’t seen Apu in a long time. But in the one scene he’s in, he’s nothing more than a prop. Once the plane takes off, he just disappears when Marge calls Homer.
– Why the fuck didn’t Homer get out of that cow costume the second he was put on the conveyor belt? There are countless opportunities he could have escaped on his own, the entire ending is just fucking stupid.

(originally aired April 13, 2008)
In a feeble attempt to try and tie themselves back the classic era, the show in later years featured the re-appearance of many classic guest stars: Rabbi Krustofski, Artie Ziff, Mona Simpson (with her third outing in a few episodes), and now, Lurleen Lumpkin. This episode stands in stark contrast with “Colonel Homer,” and does all it can to tear down any emotional resonance from that show and replace it with incomprehensible nonsense. We start with Quimby announcing the town is broke after discovering the town vault is completely empty, something he must have known about. At a town hall meeting, Lisa walks in announcing she’s gone through the town financial records, as an eight-year-old would do, and proposes a solution: reign in on everyone’s owed back taxes. Everyone agrees, but the only person they can’t track down is Lurleen Lumpkin, who has been missing for years. She hides out with the Simpsons, just ’cause, then they reunite her with her deadbeat father, just ’cause, who then steals her new song and sells it to the Dixie Chicks, just ’cause. I can’t even write out plot points anymore without them seeming like jokes.

There’s so much I can tear this episode down for (and I will!), but here’s what absolutely kills it for me. Lurleen mentions she’s been married thrice before, showing off photos of various men who all resemble Homer. Then at the end of the episode, we see a boorish Homer-like roadie Lurleen’s shacked up with, who gruffly asks her for beer money. So the gag here is that she’s attracted to men like Homer, except here, it’s retconned. She fell for Homer because he was kind and helpful, and selfless for helping her with her career, a real sweetheart. But modern-day Homer is none of those things: he’s a selfish, self-absorbed asshole. So all of Lurleen’s newly discovered failed relationships reflect this. Plus, her long lost father apparently destroyed her faith in men, which I guess is what drove her to be with these dickheads in the first place, which now includes the current incarnation of Homer. It might seem like I’m over-extrapolating off of small jokes, but this episode’s full of stuff like this, and it all adds up. These episodes where they dig up the past really bother me. It’s like throwing an old friend into a lion’s den and seeing how badly they get mauled.

Tidbits and Quotes
– This episode opens with one of the most distasteful things the show’s ever done. We see Abe driving Homer at night when their car is cut off the road (by Patty and Selma, who are quite happy with this) and tumbles down a cliff. Abe is seriously injured, and informs his son he’ll need to take care of him during recovery. Instead of call for help, Homer proceeds to smother his own father to death. And of course it was all a dream, a wonderful dream that Homer bemoans waking up from. I think this is a Sopranos parody, right? But parody or not, this is terrible. There’s a bit from one of the Family Guys I had the misfortune of watching where Peter has an elaborate dream sequence when Lois is talking to him of killing and burying her, but this scene is handled in such a dramatic and intense way, followed by Homer’s satisfaction of it that it seems so much worse. Why should I sympathize or relate to Homer one bit after something as horrible as this?
– At the town hall meeting, Homer suggests the town fake a natural disaster and have FEMA fit the bill for helping them rebuild. This episode aired only a year or so after Hurricane Katrina. Does this seem… kind of terrible to anyone? Am I being too sensitive?
– Things turn sour immediately after Lurleen is reintroduced on TV, where Bart summarizes the back story of her trying to seduce and screw his father. Why the hell would he know that?
– Beverly D’Angelo certainly sounds fifteen years past “Colonel Homer,” but in this episode she’s still 34, even though in-show they talk about how she’s been missing for years. Whatever. I still prefer when Doris Grau voiced her for one immortal line: “I spent last night in a ditch.”
– Homer speculates twice in this show about how he could get away with ditching his family. I’m just getting pummeled this episode with Homer hatred. Why would he want to run away from his family? He loves them… doesn’t he?
– So Lurleen’s got a deadbeat daddy she hasn’t seen in forever. When we see him, what’s written on his shirt? “No Child Support.” Little on the nose, huh? Then when they’re reunited, for some reason both of them start living with the Simpsons. That motherfucker has a house, we saw it, why doesn’t Lurleen go live with him?
– During Lurleen’s song, we run through things that run with “patri-otter,” including Lisa saying she’s reading Harry Potter. In the last episode, we had “Angelica Button.” Writers, you need to pick one and stick with it, please.
– Lurleen’s father makes off with his daughter’s song, and over an unspecified amount of time, he contacts the Dixie Chicks, pitches them the song, they like it, they fly him out to wherever, edit the song, record it, release it, and it becomes a big hit. How did all this happen? Who the fuck knows. And it’s funny because they’re singing an ultra-patriotic song and praising FOX News following controversial comments they made… five years ago. The lyrics suck, but melodically the song, and them performing it, is the only good thing in the episode.
– When Colonel Homer stepped up, followed by “Major Marge,” …uggh. Fucking terrible. Terrible.

(originally aired March 30, 2008)
Another stupid episode with two stupid stories: one an absurd over-exaggerated repeat of a theme we’ve seen before, and another that’s just… stupid. Marge is inspired to take up ballet by a commercial for a new dance academy, having done so in her youth. Despite having not done it in decades, she seems to be quite good, until she gets one cramp and her instructor tells her to get lost. Lisa chews him out, and he notices that she, for some reason, is standing feet out with perfect posture, and accepts her into his program. So Lisa’s a dancer now for some reason… haven’t we seen this before? But the bigger story is Marge living vicariously through her daughter, which we’ve seen before in “Bart Star.” As coach, Homer pushed Bart hard and showers him with praise, wanting him to be the star athlete who has his father’s support that he never had (“You shouldn’t pressure Bart like that.” “Well, if you know a better way for me to live through your son, then I’d like to hear it.”) It was done very believably and subtly. But now, we get dialogue like this (“The important thing is someday I’ll be watching my little Marge dancing at Lincoln Center.” “Lisa, Mom. I’m Lisa.” “Of course, you’re Lisa. Lisa the dancing Marge girl.”) Has she gone insane?

So in the academy, Lisa finds that the other dancers get their grace and slim frames from smoking, and she discovers that inhaling second hand smoke benefits her as well. So I guess this is sort of like their very special episode about smoking, but since Lisa’s only eight, and the writers love to write the kids older, this was their way of getting around it. It doesn’t even matter, since in the end, it all devolves into a gigantic farce. Speaking of, the B-story involves Homer’s homemade stockpile of jerky getting ransacked by a couple of raccoons, and his efforts to capture them, all with “hilarious” results. He only calls off his attack when he sees their little raccoon family, and look! They all look like the Simpson family! And if you didn’t get it, Homer names each one! And we see the little Homer raccoon strangle the Bart raccoon! This is shit I’d expect from a Saturday morning cartoon, not the fucking Simpsons. The two plots “cross” when Homer lets one of the raccoons loose to steal the dancers’s cigarettes, causing them all to completely lose their shit after intermission. It’s insane and weird, Lisa quits ballet, and the episode’s over. Yet another stinker.

Tidbits and Quotes
– The episode begins with the Simpsons attending the midnight release of the final Harry Potter... sorry, “Angelica Button” book. When was the last Potter book released? Oh yeah, two years ago prior to this episode. Each family member gets a book, Lisa skims through the entire thing on the car ride home reading out the main plot beats, finishes, and they all throw their books out the window. Then they go watch TV. Totally in-character for Lisa to do.
– I like Hank Azaria’s voice for the dance instructor. He’s kind of funny. I guess.
– A disturbing bit where Marge mentions she fell out of ballet when her breasts off-set her balance, because they came in one at a time.
– More compare and contrast: in “Last Tap Dance in Springfield,” Lisa wants to give up dancing. In this episode, Homer wants to pull Lisa from the class because of the second hand smoke thing. In “Tap,” Homer and Marge lavish Lisa with praise and happiness over their “little Broadway baby.” It’s laid on a bit thick, but feels very real, two parents who are just in awe of their little girl’s supposed talent. In this episode, Marge is a crazy person, making a gigantic ballerina cake and acting like without her daughter fulfilling her dream, she’d just up and die. She’s just way, way, way too into it.
– The ending is just batshit insane. Without cigarettes, the dancers go a little nutty. And by nutty, I mean fucking bonkers. One tries to smoke her finger. One suckles on a No Smoking cigarette sign painted on the wall. One smokes a program. One rips hair from her head to smoke that. They hadn’t smoked for about an hour, and they’re doing this. But that’s the joke, right? The problem here, and it’s a consistent problem with the show now, is their penchant for over-exaggeration. It just becomes too much, it becomes too absurd to be funny, and makes the show feel less real to me.
– I did like the dance instructor’s dramatic exit, continuing all the way down the block and onto the bus. That’s about the only thing in this episode I liked though. Then it ends with Homer forcing Bart to train to be a luchador for some reason.

(originally aired March 9, 2008)
I thought an episode revolving around a now completely forgotten character would be kind of interesting… but nope. It’s a thin, ultimately boring premise that gets its air time cut in half to service a bizarre and disturbing B-story. Bart pulls a prank on Martin in the woods that gets him accidentally thrown over the railing of a steep cliff, plummeting to his supposed death. Fearing her flawless reputation, Lisa demands that Bart hush up about it, but his conscious slowly begins to eat away at him. I kind of like this role reversal, though it’s played a bit extreme with both parties, but I’m willing to buy it. What I don’t buy is Nelson inexplicably playing Columbo and trying to piece together what really happened. He just literally is Columbo, complete with “oh, there’s just one other thing…” I don’t quite understand how that fits with his character. By the end, we find out that of course Martin’s alive, having survived the fall in the most preposterous way possible. Also for a whole episode about the fallout of his death, we never see his parents once. And why did it take him so long to get home? Oh, whatever.

The other story involves Marge contacting the TV show Cheaters... I mean, “Sneakers” to follow Homer around to see if he’s cheating… on his new diet. The gag is Homer’s sneakiness in covertly devouring fatty foods behind Marge’s back is analogous to him having an affair, and it’s basically that joke through the whole episode. That and the “Sneakers” creator reveling of breaking up families (“There, there… no, I mean, cry to the camera over there… there.”) This all leads up to one of the most disgusting things to ever appear on the show: Homer taking a rack of lamb to a motel room to furiously devour as if he were fucking it. He rolls around the bed with it, slams it against the wall, then disrobes and chows down on it nude in the shower. I mean, he might as well be fucking it. It’s absolutely nauseating, and pushes this already strained joke way too far. Also this stupid plot really undermines any seriousness the grade-schooler’s-potential-death A-story had. In the end, Marge confronts Homer, and gets mad at the “Sneakers” guy for trying to push them apart. Okay, but that doesn’t excuse Homer from continuing to be a fat fuck, since the beginning of the episode involved Marge being concerned about his health when he couldn’t even muster the energy to have sex. “I’d rather have a chubby hubby than a sexy ex-ie!” Ugh.

Tidbits and Quotes
– The montage of Homer eating all those bell peppers means nothing in the end, since the episode is about him not sticking to his diet. So he’s basically gorging himself twice as much, I guess. Then he taunts Marge to her face when she can’t find proof of his transgressions. Again, what a likable guy.
– We barely see Martin anymore, but it seems that all the gags with him as of late involve him saying offensive or giggle-worthy words in an academic context (“a mighty faggot,” “it could be one of the major homos!”) and being naive in regards of its other meaning. We had Wang Computers in the past, but Martin used to be a much richer character. Then again, so did every other character. Sigh.
– Wiggum reports and seemingly confirms Martin’s death, then suggests he give the tattered remains of the boy’s shirt to his son (“Chief, that’s evidence.” “I know. But after it’s evidence, it’s a shirt again.”) Everyone is just so damn callous about this ten-year-old boy’s death. His funeral at school involves kids in bleachers holding up cards showing a gravestone, then of Martin’s head with Xs for eyes, and Skinner reads out many of Martin’s humiliating nicknames and the bullies yuck it up. This is even more tasteless than Maude Flanders’s funeral. And again, where are Martin’s parents? This episode could care less. The best part of the episode is the clip montage where we see short Martin bits from “Treehouse of Horror III” and “Three Men and a Comic Book,” since then I was able to remember great moments from those episodes.
– As if the whole lamb thing wasn’t disgusting enough, act two ends with Homer calling it on the phone as if it’s his lover. We see the lamb rack sprawled on a bed in a bedroom, as the answering machine goes off next to a photo of Homer. Where is this? What’s going on?
– A truly lame fake-out where Bart appears to almost hang himself (“You said you wanted to end it all!” “By which I meant bring Martin’s butterfly project to completion!”) Totally makes sense.
– I like Martin quoting Mark Twain’s “Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated.” It felt very Martin of him to say.