(originally aired March 2, 2008)
I have not seen The Departed. It’s one of those movies that’s been on my watch list forever. Apparently this is a parody of that movie, which I shrewdly figured out by decoding the title, so I can’t really comment on its connection to the film. As an episode, it feels like yet another bland outing. Springfield Elementary gets a new cool kid, Donny, who Bart is initially jealous of. But when he inexplicably takes the rap for one of Bart’s pranks, Bart ingratiates him into his gang of schemers. But unbeknownst to him, Donny is actually working for Skinner and Chalmers, who want to take Bart down. I know the basic premise of The Departed, so this all seems to line up, but what doesn’t work here is its new setting at the school. The stakes are set super high at the start when Skinner mentions the highest punishment they can levy against Bart is a ten-day suspension. Bart would love that, so why should I care about the premise? Then at the end they say they’re sending Bart to a juvenile center, so I guess they forgot they had that power. Except they don’t.

This story doesn’t seem to translate well from the source material. Skinner and Chalmers want to bust Bart for all of his shenanigans. Fair enough. What’s the plan? Host a casting call and adopt a tough-looking orphan to go to school, gain Bart’s trust, have him sabotage his schemes until Bart gets fed up and tries to pull off a humungous prank, then bust him. This is insane. Who’s this Donny kid? How did they adopt him? Does he live with them? What will become of him now? Oh, who cares. Donny is voiced by Topher Grace, who is very believable as a ten-year-old and doesn’t sound like an adult man coming out of a child’s body. Ultimately, this episode suffers the same fate of “The President Wore Pearls,” where the show tries to adapt source material with young kids and makes it too absurd. Skinner and Chalmers are stuck in bizarre villain mode with this overcomplicated plan for something so stupid and insignificant. It’s just kind of hard to suspend one’s disbelief regarding the plot, especially when they throw in jokes that undermine said plot even further. Bart discovers there’s a rat in his operation, but who could it be? “My best friend, my other best friend, or a kid I just met?” He ends up targeting Milhouse. Bart’s pretty street smart, but when we need him to be, he’s a big dummy. Another worthless episode to the pile.

Tidbits and Quotes
– Marge accidentally rear-ends Hans Moleman’s car. The airbag goes off and Moleman is smothered, passing out, seemingly dying. It’s like the writers know that Moleman inexplicably getting killed was a funny joke in the past, but don’t realize that the gag here is more disturbing than amusing.
– Homer laughing at the auto shop guys about giving him a new rental car is unbearable. What a fucking asshole. Oh yeah, that’s a subplot. When his car is being fixed, Homer gets comfortable driving his fancy rental car, but when the repairs are done, he doesn’t give the new car back. Instead of going after him, the auto shop just puts Homer’s old car up for sale. The plot ends when Homer drives by and is horrified that rednecks are going to buy the car to shoot it full of holes, and then seemingly sexually violate it. He panics, hops in the car and drives off. Awful.
– The explanation at the end that Skinner and Chalmers adopted Donny is infuriating enough, but now the fact that Skinner explains his plan to Donny at the start of act two makes no sense because of it. He should know the plan already, shouldn’t he?
– During the prank montage, Bart gets his ass stuck to the copy machine and seemingly can’t move. Pan over to Skinner laughing holding a glue bottle. Then we cut to a close-up of said bottle so we can see it says “GLUE.” Is that in case people didn’t realize what it was? What the fuck else could it have been?
– Lunchlady Doris has another speaking part, again by Tress MacNeille. Here, they don’t even bother having her sound like Doris Grau. It’s doubly insulting.
– I looked up that The Departed ends with a rat appearing on screen, as does this episode, where Ralph pops up to comment, “The rat symbolizes obviousness!” Is this garbage show really trying to jab at an Oscar-winning Scorsese film?

(originally aired February 17, 2008)
This is another anthology episode. We have at least one of them a year to pad out the season, because why come up with an original story when you can lift ones from elsewhere under the guise of parody? They were kind of cute in the era of “Bible Stories” and “Tall Tales,” but now they’re the most disposable types of episodes there is. They make so little an impact, and I’ve run out of things to say about them. So let’s blow through this quickly. First is Bonnie and Clyde, played by Marge and Homer. It’s boring. Second is Lady and the Tramp, again played by Marge and Homer. It’s boring too, albeit with a slightly interesting art style. Lastly is Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen, played by Nelson and Lisa. It’s the least boring, if only because seeing this Sex Pistols drug romp with children as the leads is a bit disconcerting to watch. Does anyone like these episodes? Honestly, it’s complete dead air.

Tidbits and Quotes
– The second segment recreates the famous spaghetti scene from the movie, but in half the time, “Two Dozen and One Greyhounds” parodied it more expertly: with Luigi’s quick “It fell on the floor” line and the dogs fighting over the one remaining pasta strand as dogs would do. Here, Homer sucks up Marge’s head because he’s a food monster! And Luigi gets arrested for serving animals or something. Whatever.
– I had to fast forward through that song. I could not sit through it. And the second part of the story is confusing to me. Homer’s singing about wanting to settle down with Marge, and he doesn’t appear to be perturbed by her having puppies as he was before. So many months go by and the puppies are born, and Homer is still a no-show. Then the cute little Bart and Lisa puppies go and search for their Daddy, and Homer hides cowardly in the shadows. Then Willie the dog catcher snatches the two up, even though they’re clearly wearing collars, and locks them in the pound. What?
– Putting Goofy to sleep, who keeps asserting he’s half-human, is kind of a funny, grisly joke, but then they completely ruin it when he walks out of the gas chamber (“This place is no picnic, but it sure beats working for Disney!”) Oh snap! Sick burn, you guys!
– I smirked at CBGB’s: Comic Book Guy’s Bar. Yawn.

(originally aired January 27, 2008)
So, this episode. Let’s talk for a second about what I believe to be the show’s moving timeline. Homer and Marge’s senior prom was in 1974, but that was depicted in “The Way We Was,” which aired in 1991. With the show still running, being set in modern day, and with the characters not aging, time shifts forward, so at the point this episode aired, Homer and Marge would have graduated high school in… 1991. Weird, huh? So in this episode, we get to flash back to the crazy nineties where Homer and Marge are young twenty-somethings. It’s rife with comedy potential! Except the show’s golden years ran through the 1990s, so what is the point of this episode? It’s just a bunch of wall-to-wall references and bland, uninteresting conflict. We see that Marge gets accepted to Springfield University, and Homer takes up a job at his father’s laser park (what?) to pay for it. At school, Marge falls for a smug, self-righteous professor, and due to his heartbreak over it, Homer inadvertently pioneers grunge music.

People fucking hate this episode, and I absolutely see why. But I can’t summon that much ire for it just because I can’t get over why this episode even exists. It’s just completely unnecessary, attempting to serve as this weird 90s time capsule, when we already have the actually good tenure of the series to look back on for that. Flashback shows in the past were about exploring the believable past lives of our characters with pinches of 70s and 80s nostalgia sprinkled in. Here, it’s literally nothing but name-dropping. Beanie Babies, Zima, Seinfeld, The Bridges of Madison County… remember all that stuff? Also, all these recent flashback shows seem to be about periods of strife in Homer and Marge’s past, because we don’t have enough episodes where their marriage is in crisis. Do I even care? Then Homer basically becomes Kurt Cobain, has numerous hit records and is a national sensation, almost instantaneously, I guess. We had a whole episode devoted to the rise and fall of the Be Sharps, while here, Homer’s meteoric rise and fall from fame lasts roughly three and a half minutes. I guess the family’s penchant for instant success carries over to the past too. So yeah, this episode sucks big time, but it really just baffles more than angers me. Like, what the fuck am I watching? And why?

Tidbits and Quotes
– Flashback shows used to involve Homer and Marge telling the kids about how they were born and their carefree younger days. Now they just wantonly tell them stories about how they broke up and got back together, with tales of debauchery and drug addiction. Just doesn’t seem very appropriate. It’s like “Another Simpsons Clip Show” where they openly talk about their almost affairs with their children.
– In place of Apu, Skinner and Barney doing barbershop, which originally was such a great gag in itself, now we have Homer singing Boyz II Men, and then grunge, with Lenny, Carl and Lou. Ugh. What’s funny about hearing them sing parodies of Nirvana songs?
– Professor August is such a boring character. And his absolute ease with manipulating Marge into breaking up with Homer makes her seem like a mindless pushover. Marge was, and still is, quite smart, I don’t see why she’d be that easily messed with.
– The timeline within the episode itself doesn’t even make any sense. Homer references the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld from an episode that originally aired in 1995. Meanwhile, he beats Kurt Cobain and Nirvana to the punch, who were in full swing by the beginning of the 90s.
– Homer and Marge divide up their possessions, where Homer takes the LPs, typewriter and Enron stock, and Marge gets the CDs, computer and Microsoft stock. Get it? Hilarious in hindsight! References!!
– Homer performs “Shave Me,” a parody of “Rape Me,” dressed as Kurt Cobain in Little Seattle, where there’s a mini Space Needle and it’s dark and rainy. This couldn’t be more on the fucking nose…
– Similar to “Three Gays of the Condo,” the only light in this episode comes from “Weird Al” Yankovic, who shows up in a video parodying “Shave Me,” still rocking his old 80s/early 90s look. And if nothing else, this episode gives us the immortal quote, “He who is tired of ‘Weird Al’ is tired of life.”
– “At least we know there’ll never be a President worse than Bill Clinton. Imagine, lying in a deposition in a civil lawsuit. That’s the worst sin a President can commit.” “There’ll never be a worse President. Never.” “Never.” Too subtle. Also, between this and last episode where Burns mentions how they rigged the 2004 election, all of a sudden now the show has the balls to attack George W. Bush when he’s got one foot out of the office already. And the jokes suck anyway, so it doesn’t even matter.
– The episode ends with younger Homer and Marge going to that fateful windmill on the mini golf course where Bart was conceived, except now it doesn’t make any sense. It was bizarrely sweet in “I Married Marge” since Homer worked there, but now they just randomly drove out to the mini golf course at night, snuck in and decided to fuck. Why would they do that? They spent the whole episode altering the entire timeline, but for some reason, the location of Bart’s conception is sacred ground that they dare not change.

(originally aired January 6, 2008)
Whelp, one step forward with “Eternal Moonshine,” two gigantic steps back with this episode, a disjointed, truly pathetic attempt at political satire with a mind-bogglingly nonsensical third act and no ending. Let’s begin with some Homer antics, because those are always enjoyable. Dreading the first day of his new diet, Homer drives down “Fast Food Boulevard,” sampling their many disgusting wares. He disposes of all the trash from his car at a Krusty Burger disposal, including a leaking car battery, which hits a main gas line. Lighting a cigar and tossing the match down the hole, he triggers an explosive reaction that decimates the entire block as he drives away puffing his cigar, completely oblivious. Is Homer ever held accountable for all this wanton destruction? Not at all. His arrogance was slightly annoying in the movie when he polluted the lake, but at least there he was brought to task for his actions. Here, either nobody knows or gives a shit. In the next scene, he’s rallying everyone at town hall to rebuild the entire area that he effectively destroyed, and to get the initiative passed quicker, Quimby moves up the presidential primaries, making them first in the nation.

This announcement sparks a media circus to convene to Springfield, with pundits and lobbyists poking their noses into everybody’s lives. All attempts at satire are so amazingly paltry, ground this show has covered so much better in older episodes. We also get references to then-current political figures like Fred Thompson and Dennis Kucinich, which definitely dates this episode. At the end of act two, Homer once again opens his fat fucking trap to encourage everybody to nominate the stupidest possible candidate to get everyone out of town. Who could it be? Ralph Wiggum. But this only causes both Democrats and Republicans to go after the kid, trying to get him on their side. The third act is so unbelievably bizarre, which I guess is what the writers were going for, but stretched to fill the entire six minutes, it doesn’t feel so much as a goof. And while we’ve seen the Republican Party Headquarters as a spooky castle many times before, now we see the Democrats HQ: at the salad bar of a whole foods store, populated with women (Lindsay Naegle), minorities (Bumblebee Man), and gays (Patty, and Julio, who holds up ass-less chaps he plans to wear to Ralph’s inauguration. This is your representation on the show, gay America. I’m so sorry). The episode ends with a political ad for Ralph’s candidacy… and that’s it. Well, I guess since the episode had no real story, then I guess it doesn’t need an ending, does it? What a piece of shit.

Tidbits and Quotes
– Lenny, Carl and Homer wait desperately for Burns to get in his car and drive away so they can leave, but he gets caught up talking to the mail room guy. So Homer calls the guy’s phone, tells him he has his wife and/or brother held hostage, and will release them if he steps back from Burns and does a little dance for his amusement. What a likable guy!
– Homer drives up to every fast food place on the block during one meal time. They roll a gigantic sub sandwich in his mouth as he eats it in one go. He douses fries and a lobster on top of a pizza, closes the box, shakes it up, then takes a bit into the box. It’s Homer the food monster!
– We get another nod of awareness with the Jerk-Ass Homer brand of cigars Homer smokes. And the fact that they make this “joke” during one of the most thoughtless, stupid and, yes, jerkass-iest things he’s ever done, is basically like the writers unzipping their flies and pissing in the fans’s faces.
– Jon Stewart has a completely disposable cameo. The joke is that Krusty tries to steal jokes from him, but it, like many jokes of the modern era, lasts twice as long as it needs to.
– Here’s a perfect example of the show over-extending a joke. A panel is being held for one of the debates, with someone from CNN, slate.com, and “Ron Laharr, a print journalist from the Washington Post.” The moderator says it with distinct disdain, you already get the joke, and it works. But then it’s ruined with Nelson and Skinner unnecessarily adding onto it (“Ha ha! Your medium is dying!” “Nelson!” “But it is!” “There’s being right and there’s being nice!”)
– I honestly don’t even feel like discussing the third act. It literally is the dumbest thing the show has ever done. Am I supposed to take it the least bit seriously? Should I care? Lisa voices her legitimate concerns as the only sane man, only to be immediately swayed when Ralph gives an unusually coherent, out-of-character rhetoric about what he “plans” for his “Presidency.” “Maybe you wouldn’t be such a bad President, Ralph!” Get the fuck out of here.

(originally aired December 16, 2007)
As I mentioned before with “Moe Baby Blues,” this is one of the very few episodes that panicked new Simpsons supporters point to, screaming, “See! The show’s still good! See?!” And as with “Blues,” yes, this is a pretty good episode. It apes its premise from the great film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but only as a plot device, crafting a believable and mostly investing story around it. One winter morning, Homer wakes up face down in the snow after a seemingly drunken night he can’t remember. He returns to an empty home, and he struggles to put the pieces together as to what happened. Only uncovering bits of Marge reacting resistant to him and getting a black eye, he fears the worst. The first act keeps us in the dark as to what happened, and of course we know there was no foul play, but we really feel for Homer in his confusion and disbelief over the situation. He knows he would never do something so horrible… but could he? It’s a rare, truly emotional portrayal from the dumb fuck caricature he’s become in recent years.

To jostle his memory, Homer visits Professor Frink, who has a device that allows one to search through their own memories. Act two has some great stuff in it within Homer’s mind, with him whizzing past thousands of frame grabs from past episodes to him attempting to physically alter his memories to get more information about what happened. When he uncovers what he thinks to be Duffman having an affair with Marge, he’s crestfallen, and decides to commit suicide (this’ll be attempt three of the series, for those keeping score). This leads to the only big issue I have with the episode, where Patty and Selma appear at the bridge Homer’s standing off of to insult him and push him off. Homer realizes the truth about what happened as he’s falling, that Marge was planning a surprise party for him, right before he lands on a moon bounce on his party ship down below. That’s some amazing timing, but I’m willing to overlook it. Then we get the kicker where we find that Homer purposely wiped out his own memory after feeling so bad about spoiling his wife’s surprise, in another strangely thoughtful move from him. A truly odd character turn for Homer, where it’s almost like he’s being portrayed as a… empathetic, likable person. A rare great one, especially considering the shit from the season so far.

Tidbits and Quotes
– The episode may have lifted the idea of its memory device, but how Homer blanked out in the first place is their own clever creation: Moe’s Forget-Me-Shot, a concoction designed to wipe out the last twenty-four hours of one’s memory, comprised of triple sec, quadruple sec, the red stripe from Aquafresh, and the venom of the Louisiana Lobotomoth. For once, a bit with a character listing off shit is actually funny.
– Speaking of moths, using them as a wistful transition into Homer’s slowly recovering memories is a pretty neat idea.
– Homer sledding with Bart and Lisa is a sweet moment. Where did asshole Homer go? And can he never come back ever again ever?
– Scanning through his memories, Homer goes through a vortex populated by screen grabs of episodes over the past eighteen years. Now because I’m a nitpicky asshole, there’s pictures from Treehoue of Horror shows, “Behind the Laughter,” and also moments in episodes where he was not present, like Bart’s trip to France in “The Crepes of Wrath.” Then again you could make the argument that his “memories” would have to be from his POV, so none of the pictures make sense. But if I were to go that far, I’d look like an even bigger douchebag.
– Homer, Bart and Lisa stomping about the house to get Homer’s memory going, causing Homer to get a nose bleed in real life is a pretty great gag.
– As he falls to his presumed death, Homer’s life flashes before his eyes, in the form of a parody of that YouTube video of a guy taking a picture of himself every day for six years. It’s a neat sequence, but it’s a full minute and basically feels like them just taking that idea and using it as a “tribute.” Though there’s a great reference within a reference when the mold in young Abe’s shitty apartment grows into a sentient gator and walks up the walls, a reference to the graffiti artist Blu.
– The cop-out that the squeaking Homer remembered hearing was actually a dried up marker, and Duffman was actually giving an ice pack to Marge (“I’m just giving it to your wife! She’s gonna be sore tomorrow!”) is so cheap, but unlike similarly ridiculous instances this season, I accept it here because I feel everything around it was good enough that they earned it.
– All of Homer’s closest friends are at the party: Mr. Burns, Smithers, Nelson, Mr. Largo, Martin’s dad, Lurleen Lumpkin, Blue-Haired Lawyer, Sideshow Mel, Mrs. Krabappel… Huh?
– Duffman storing beer where the life vests should be is pretty great.
– Though it’s a bit schmaltzy, I do like the very end, because again, it feels like the episode earned it (“Aren’t you going to drink?” “No, this is a moment I want to remember.”)