(I paused at just the right frame to catch this animation mistake. Creepy eyeless Marge grabbing a scared Bart, that sounds like an interesting Treehouse of Horror.)

Original airdate: April 19, 2015

The premise: After a rampage with a bulldozer that Bart may or may not have been responsible for, Marge takes to watching her son like a hawk, following him everywhere he goes. Meanwhile, Flanders gets a new dog.

The reaction: This has got to be one of the worst episodes in a while. It’s one of those shows where it feels like literally nothing is happening, because literally nothing is happening. The story is so razor thin, I can’t believe they managed to stretch this shit to twenty minutes. We start with Chief Wiggum laying blame on Bart for a bulldozer rampage with no reason or evidence. Marge asks what happened with the bulldozer. Bart deflects and doesn’t commit to an answer. That exchange is repeated, no joke, at least seven times through the episode. And neither party really pushes past this, especially Marge, who you think would be more proactive in asking for an explanation or figuring out through other means what happened. But if she did any of that, we wouldn’t have our hilarious story where Marge follows Bart to school, to his hiding spot in the woods, when he sneaks out at night, all culminating in her asking about the bulldozer over and over. By the time she throws her hands up and says she’s done with Bart, we’re fourteen minutes in, and we’ve gotten absolutely nowhere from minute two. After the act break, we see Bart is scheming to “prank” the Springfield sign rechristening by tearing down most of the letters with a bulldozer. So, after setting that up, we should be wondering whether or not Bart was guilty or not, but then they just openly show you he is. But maybe he’s not? Surely this is some kind of bait and switch? Maybe? Also, what kind of a prank is this? He’s going to change ‘SPRINGFIELD’ to ‘FIE,’ as in the olde English term for expressing disgust. What a stretch. At the event, seated in the bulldozer, Bart has a change of heart, reunites with his mom, and then finally admits he did the bulldozer thing. And then he gets arrested. I can’t even call this storytelling lazy, because it literally didn’t even try. Was it too much to ask for some kind of twist, like Bart was forced to do it, or he was protecting someone and didn’t want to say, or some kind of subversion as to why he was so guarded and didn’t want to admit it. But why bother doing that? The first two-thirds are positing whether Bart did something, then we immediately are told visually that he did it, and then at the very end, he admits he did it. Rousing, isn’t it? This one isn’t as aggressively terrible as other episodes we’ve seen, but it’s definitely going to stick in my mind as one of the worst just from a complete lack of giving a shit.

Three items of note:
– Because Marge can only ask Bart about the bulldozer so many times, we have a B-plot to pad things out. Flanders gets a small little dog, but is saddened that the pooch seems to have a greater bond with Homer. When he sadly gives the dog away to him, Homer refuses, seeing that his neighbor could really use the pick-me-up. And that’s it. Just as bare bones as the main plot. This applies to a lot of the episode, but especially this B-plot, there didn’t even seem to be a lot of jokes in it. Like, not even failed attempts at jokes (see: 98% of the show’s humor now), just bits of the dog being cute and Homer having fun with it, and then at the end, Homer has an internal monologue explaining why he won’t accept the dog. We just saw that with Lisa in “Pay Pal,” and I think one or two other times, even in situations where a character can’t talk out loud to themselves to describe what they’re feeling and are about to do, the writers still find a way: if they can exposit it out loud, they can just think it! Brilliant!
– Bart dons a ninja outfit to skateboard in the middle of the night, and Marge follows suit in her own ninja outfit. As does Maggie. Then we get a boring chase montage, that for some reason, is set to what sounds like a rearrangement of the theme from the Simpsons arcade game. We also get a lame joke of Bart skating by the cast of characters he does in the opening titles (almost) every week, and after he leaves, Moe gives the all clear and they all funnel into Moe’s. Never mind why all these characters would be there at night. Who cares? Are you feeling serviced, fans?
– The ending is such fucking shit. Right before he’s about to pull back on the bulldozer, Bart finds a tupperware of chicken and a sweet note from Marge, making him reconsider his plan. But just seeing that isn’t enough. We get a thought bubble of the two hugging before the Springfield sign, then the letters drop and Marge is devastated. Did we really need to be told that Marge wouldn’t like that Bart did this “prank”? So instead of just not doing it, he changes plans, instead leaving only the letters “FD,” which the mindless crowd ends up thinking is for the Fire Department. Why is that any better? If anything, it destroyed even more letters than “FIE.” And a giant letter also crushed Mayor Quimby. But Marge is still pleased anyway. She’s pissed when Bart admits the truth, but is placated by a hug anyway. My God, this episode is a huge piece of shit.

One good line/moment: That screenshot above. One single frame, that’s all this episode is good for.

Original airdate: March 15, 2015

The premise: Homer is chosen to be the new Duffman. At first he is shocked to find that he’s not allowed to drink in his new title, but after seeing the detriments of alcohol abuse sober, he crusades to get people to quit drinking.

The reaction: Pretty surprised it took them this long to do this idea. I feel like it was already done in the comics years ago. So following an injury, the old Duffman is forcibly retired, and the Duff company is on the hunt for a replacement. So Homer is among a bunch of finalists for So You Think You Can Duff?, a competition reality show thing, because those parodies aren’t completely played out at this point. We also get the reappearance of Stacy Keach as the Duff CEO from “Hungry, Hungry Homer,” an episode I recall being one of the only bright spots in a dismal twelfth season. He’s fine here, but as with any guest voice, he has very, very little to work with. When Homer is picked, he is devastated to learn he can’t drink on the job (and suicidal in a “hilarious” sequence involving him repeatedly trying to kill himself after learning the news), and then later rallies against drinking when he realizes how much damage alcohol addiction creates. So the last half is kind of like if you mashed “Duffless” and “Lisa the Beauty Queen” together, made them more incoherent and added a bunch of bullshit on top. There’s a kernel of an idea here about the Duff company being surprised that as a big fat guy, Homer is a more relatable Duffman to their consumer base, but it’s just one line that comes up fifteen minutes in. We see Homer at a ribbon cutting and in a commercial, but because the reality show crap took up so much time, we barely have enough time to see how Homer feels about his new position before we have to pivot to his anti-drinking crusade, which is squeezed into the final minutes. He incites a riot at a racetrack where they flip over the car he’s in, but then they literally just stand around and watch as the Duff boss recaps what’s happening (“Homer, now listen to me, you’re in a stadium surrounded by people who want to kill you. There’s one way out of your hell: prove you still love beer.”) Homer then drinks himself stupid, and then we cut to him at Moe’s being proud of being a has-been. So I guess even though he did as they asked, he still got fired? There wasn’t even a scene explaining what happened, or why Homer all of a sudden switched gears to drinking again. This seems to happen a lot, where these stories just sort of stop with no clear resolution. Surely the writers must notice they have no ending, right? …right?

Three items of note:
– Marge is a bigger doormat than usual in this episode. She astutely points out that Homer only wants to be Duffman to get blasted, but then he fires back with some bullshit about wanting to be remembered for more than just being a husband and father. You’d think Marge would be slightly hurt by that statement, but instead she gives Homer permission to try out for Duffman, like a mom allowing her kid to go out and play. Later, Marge seems completely won over by Homer’s bullshit lies about wanting to be Duffman for the responsibilities and social good he can do. Or whatever. At the climax, when Homer is deciding whether or not to drink, from the crowd, Marge reassures him (“Whatever you do, you’ll be my hero.”) Someone should do a supercut of all of the times in the last fifteen years Marge has said “I’m so proud of you,” or “You’re my hero,” without any rhyme or reason as to why she would say that. It’s just empty sweet nothings that don’t mean anything. Why would she be proud of Homer in this situation?
– Our second act begins with them recreating the Game of Thrones opening again, like they had done previously for a couch gag, except this time it’s for a commercial advertising Homer as the new Duffman. Again, there’s no parody element to this, it’s just recreating elements of the show, but with Duff wallpaper over it. Afterwards, Homer gets sworn in as Duffman and has to take an oath inside a church. It’s a dramatic recitation that takes almost a minute and is completely joke-free. Later, we get a glimpse of an old-time 50s Duff commercial, featuring a Yogi Bear-type soothing his bear trap-snared leg with a cool refreshing Duff, and later joining a bunch of other animal heads on the wall. How bland and boring. Compare that to the commercial in “Duffless” with the doctor’s recommendation and Duff being proud sponsor of The Amos ‘N’ Andy Show. That bit was actually saying something, and being funny all at the same time. This new commercial, I guess it’s funny because the cartoon bear got killed. It’s like what the show thinks Itchy & Scratchy is now, violence for its own sake is good enough!
– More bizarre fan service: Bart and Lisa dig into Homer’s Duff swag and are playing with T-shirt cannons, leading Homer to comment, no one’s ever been killed with one of those! Now, I’ll be honest, if it was just left there that that actually is a clever, if somewhat ghastly, in-joke. But let’s go one further. A T-shirt gets lodged through Ned’s bedroom window, smacks right into a picture frame of Maude, causing it to break and fall off the wall. Then Ned looks to the camera for a second or two before we cut. Now, why exactly is this scene here? If you’re a fan of the show, surely you’ve made the T-shirt cannon connection. This show once prided itself on rewarding viewers for paying attention, with its sign gags and quick multi-layered jokes. Now, everything is so over-explained and labored over, as well as straight up elongated to make the show longer, the show just repeatedly saying, “DO YOU GET IT? DO YOU? DO YOU?!” Also, how fucking sad for Ned, especially at this point being a double widower. What exactly is funny about him being specifically reminded of his first wife’s death?

One good line/moment: Airing a week after his death, the episode ends with a small little tribute to Sam Simon, with a clip of him talking about how much he loved what he was working on. Reading up on the history of the series, as well as John Ortved’s unauthorized history book, it’s clear just how much of the foundation of the world of the show really came from Simon, and without him, The Simpsons would definitely not have been as amazing as it was. Of course, he left the show after the fourth season, and while I could ruminate on that, or make some snarky comment about how he probably hated what the show had become, but I don’t wanna. Between being a driving force on the greatest show of all time and his charitable efforts over the past few decades, from all accounts, he just sounded like one helluva guy. We Simpsons fans can’t thank you enough, Sam. Peace and chicken grease.

Original airdate: March 8, 2015

The premise: When the church is destroyed by a freak accident, Marge and the other churchies raise the money to rebuild by counting cards at the local casino, under the tutelage of their learned accomplice Apu.

The reaction: Uggh, these are kind of the worst kinds of episodes, the ones that think they’re making a point about something, but they’re just as inept as any other episode. Religious commentary used to be a firm strong point for this series, so seeing something like this is pretty pathetic. The church gets destroyed by stupidity, and for whatever reason, Apu offers up a solution to Marge, that they play the casino for cash to pay the reconstruction costs. So theoretically, the episode is about a crisis of conscious if what they’re doing is morally right; counting cards is not technically cheating, but gambling is a sin, I think, so that’s an issue. There’s also the fact that Marge has a gambling addiction, which I thought was going to crop up at some point, like she would get too obsessed and end up losing all their money, but that never happens. Anyway, they pray before and after every big score, so they’re relying on staying in God’s good graces, but when Homer is kidnapped by the casino, Marge rebukes this reliance on miracles and vows to take matters into her own hands to save the day. But… isn’t this whole casino scheme them taking charge of their own fate and raising the money themselves? If the “point” is supposed to be them going from passive to proactive, this doesn’t make any sense, they were already embroiled in a huge plan in the first place. So Marge goes to the casino, gets down on her knees and prays, which gets the attention of everyone around her. There’s an inner monologue about the function of prayer and what it means, which I guess is supposed to be the “meaningful” part of the episode, but it’s so empty and hamfisted. Again, this show used to be the king of injecting thoughtful, poignant messages without interrupting the comedy. Now if they try to do something similar, not only is it poorly written, you can hear the gears screeching to a halt when we get a scene like this. We end with the Simpsons looking out at the rebuilt church at sundown (“Homie, after all this, do you still believe in God?” “On a beautiful night like tonight, how could I not?”) Just terrible. This show has gone long past the point of having its cake and eating it too, we’re down to microscopic crumbs now.

Three items of note:
– Here’s my biggest gripe: why the hell is this episode entitled “Sky Police”? The church is destroyed by a mishap by Chief Wiggum and his fancy new jet pack, after an opening involving him as “Sky Police,” but that’s over after the first four minutes. Toward the climax, Marge makes an off-handed remark about God not being like a sky police and they can’t rely on him, but that seemed like a feeble way to actually tie that back around.
– There’s a lot of small moments in this one that reminded me of classic episodes. Apu talking about his past attending MIT (the Mombai Institute for Tantric Sex) is just a worse version of the joke in “Much Apu About Nothing” with CalTech in Calcutta. But why is it a sex school? Is it funny because Kama Sutra = Indian = big laughs? Homer running around the casino desperately looking for Marge was just like the end of “$pringfield,” except without the actual emotional investment or the jokes (no Homer randomly hanging up some guy’s pay phone, “Can’t talk now!”) And Marge thanking the casino ceiling camera as a higher power was like the gag from “Viva Ned Flanders” (“Keep gaming. It means gambling. Keep gaming.”) Repeating types of jokes is fine, but when you do, it helps to make them actually funny, or different from what you did before.
– The Lovejoys grow attached to their costumes, and start using it for roleplay sex, which Marge catches them in the middle of. Hearing a woman at the door, Helen calls from inside to invite her in, which causes Marge to vomit on their doorstep. But she recovers instantaneously so she can continue repeating exposition to Timothy. Maybe it was just a dry heave. Or just like a little throw up. Just some light spittle.

One good line/moment: I actually kind of enjoyed the opening with Wiggum’s jet pack shenanigans. It’s ridiculous and crazy, but I almost prefer stuff like that at this point, especially compared to the rest of the episode attempting to have a message and failing miserably. Plus there’s a kernel of satire there of local police being given military armament and technology. There’s not really much satire there, but it still added another layer to it. And seeing “Sky Police” return over the credits was a welcome surprise. Really, I’d have preferred to have a whole episode of just that, “Chief Wiggum, P.I.” style.

Original airdate: March 1, 2015

The premise: While Mr. Burns makes a deal with a Nigerian king for his uranium, Homer is tasked with watching over the royal daughter. Wanting to experience America firsthand, the princess ends up forming an unusual kinship with a smitten Moe.

The reaction: As simplistic and transparent as this show has become, sometimes there comes an episode where I really am not sure what the point of it is. This one is about Moe finding love, except not really, because she’s not attracted to him, so he’s comforted that he found kindness in a platonic friend, I guess? Again, not really sure. We start off with Take Your Daughter To Work Day at the plant, featuring Lisa going to work with Homer, which only makes me desperately yearn for the sweetness of “Bart on the Road.” She’s effectively used as a prop so Burns can pick Homer to watch after the king’s daughter after scanning the monitors and seeing him hugging his daughter. So Burns has Homer watch the princess (I have forgotten her name, don’t think that matters much) at her hotel. She convinces him to take her out, so they go to Moe’s, where Moe proceeds to repeatedly say strange, awkward, but mostly innocent things, and the princess laughs and finds it all charming. But while Homer and Moe talk about stupid shit in the back room, the princess leaves, Homer goes off to find her and is conveniently arrested, then the princess returns, so I guess that was the best way they figured they could get rid of Homer for the time being. The princess hangs out, tolerating Moe, and then later in the evening, she falls asleep in the back room. Surely this woman wants to see more things than this gargoyle’s disgusting bar. Now we get sad pathetic lonely Moe as he goes to sleep on the bar and does a weird “Goodnight Moon” thing (“Goodnight beer, goodnight mice, goodnight princess who treats me nice.”) The princess had gotten up to leave, but then decides to stay upon hearing this. Ehhhhhh, let’s skip to the end. When all parties finally meet back up, Moe is shocked to learn the princess doesn’t have the hots for him, but just enjoyed his company, which he later seems to be fine with. And that’s it, I guess. Our happy ending is a flash forward to old future Moe, who reflects back on his one comforting memory of a woman actually being kind to him. Or feeling sorry for him, one or the other. Whatever.

Three items of note:
– In the first act, there was a pretty solid string of crazy Family Guy-esque cutaway gags one after another: one featuring a line-up of frozen Burns clones, showing Richard Branson is Burns’s neighbor, and then Smithers fantasizing about being in an island paradise with Burns. This last one turned out to be plot relevant, as Smithers goes along with having Homer watch the princess hoping he’ll fail and Burns will run away with him, with the Nigerian deal being critical to keep him from financial ruin after Elon Musk fucked him over, which is really, really weird to see this being a running reference, being mentioned here and in “My Fare Lady.” At the very end, we see a despondent Smithers walk out of Moe’s and come upon a couple of the escaped Burns clones and he feels happy again. Or something. Whatever.
– They had Jon Lovitz play a paparazzi guy who takes a photo of the princess kissing Moe on the forehead, and he has one line. Plus, it’s not even the same guy he voiced in “Homerazzi.” Did they just forget who that character was? Or is it just a big coincidence?
– The ending is just awful. Everyone is gathered around Burns’s office, including the Simpsons for no reason, as we painfully go through the plot beats with characters just openly saying what they feel and what they’re going to do, standard procedure at this point. I honestly can’t get over how terrible the writing on this show is sometimes (“I am not convinced.” “Because you want them to grow?” “Still not convinced.” “Because you can’t strangle a girl.” “That makes sense. Come here, daughter.”)

One good line/moment: Homer makes Lisa a replacement lunch out of a montage of increasingly elaborate trades in the plant cafeteria. It’s a bit dumb, but also kinda sweet seeing him do something nice for Lisa.

Original airdate: February 15, 2015

The premise: After accidentally getting the bar completely wrecked, Homer, Lenny and Carl get Moe a job at the nuclear plant, but tensions rise when he is quickly promoted. Meanwhile, Marge becomes a driver for a ride sharing service, which ends up running her ragged.

The reaction: Two bland tastes taste bland together… bleh. Marge is convinced to becoming a not-Lyft driver, considering she drives around doing chores all day. Nothing really comes of this plot whatsoever. She quickly finds herself exhausted from doing it, but it’s not even like they set up that she needs the money, or that she wants to do something different with her life. She randomly meets another driver, he asks if she wants to be one too, and she says yes. Meanwhile, Moe has the regular gang watch the bar when he goes to see some old Hollywood dame perform, who after looking it up I guess is an Elaine Stritch parody, and somehow he is about to score with her? Unfortunately, Homer and company’s ladies night scheme to drum up business for the bar fails when the women start a destructive bar brawl for some reason, trashing the place and ruining Moe’s shot at getting laid. This making sense so far? At this point, thanks to an extended opening and the Marge story, we’re halfway through the episode, so we quickly get Moe into the power plant, where as a janitor he manages to shoo away some safety inspectors, and Burns promotes him to supervisor. This is all condensed in the last few minutes, so I’m not exactly sure what Moe’s new job entails or why he would like it, but when his old customers shun him in the cafeteria, he just wants to go back to the bar. Marge picks him up for a ride, crossing the two plots, where we get some weird musical interlude where someone sings the dialogue and stage direction (I have no idea what this is supposed to be a reference to), and Marge and Moe decide to give up their new jobs. Or rather, Marge says that verbatim. Two “someone-gets-a-job” episodes for the price of one! What fun! Or lack thereof.

Three items of note:
– Even though an extended opening sequence killed almost two minutes (see below), we follow that up with even more padding, a recreation of The Jetsons opening theme. The pay-off of space Homer going to work under glass in a public display labeled “Why Humans Failed” is kind of cute, but everything else was just boring, just flatly recreating the original source material, tweaking a few small elements and putting in sign gags. Compare this to “Marge vs. The Monorail” and their Flintstones opening with Homer jumping into his car seat, breaking the window in the process, and his jubilant song about himself ending in totaling his car on a chestnut tree. Actually doing something creative with the material vs. just playing it straight and hoping people slap their fins together because it’s funny when one pop culture thing meets another pop culture thing!
– Once again, I have to bitch about the exposition shit. Carl has the idea to promote a ladies night at Moe’s and hangs a sign up. But, I guess in case you don’t know what a “ladies night” is, and I don’t see how any mentally capable adult wouldn’t, Lenny and Carl helpfully explain it thoroughly to you, the audience (“How does Moe make money if ladies drink free?” “That’s the beauty part. This place is about to be filled with guys buying beers hoping to meet ladies!” “Brilliant! And thanks for telling me what the beauty part of it was.”) It’s like I’m listening to a bar owners instructional tape.
– Surely they could have written some better jokes about ride sharing, there’s so much comedic potential to be had. Instead, once Marge starts driving, the Moe story takes almost all of the screen time. We see the cab drivers of the city are annoyed with Marge in particular for whatever reason, complete with awful, awful dialogue (“We used to get Uber amounts of work giving people Lyfts!” Yah get it?) We also have Christopher Lloyd, I guess playing his character from Taxi, but I’m too young to have any appreciation for that. For me, he’ll forever be Doc Brown. The two plots intersect at the end when the cab drivers corner Marge to beat the shit out of her, I suppose, and Moe scares them off with a shotgun. I guess that’s one way to connect the two.

One good line/moment: An entire guest opening title this time, a pixelated visual masterpiece animated by two fans. The timeline on this was pretty quick too; the video was posted February 1st, it took the Internet by storm, and just two weeks later, it actually got used by the show itself. That’s pretty fantastic, those two should be very proud of themselves. Not only is it incredibly inventive and uses fan service appropriately (nothing past season 10, of course), even using pixel art, the animation is more fluid and lively than what we see in the show itself. If you haven’t seen it (though I can’t imagine if you’re reading a blog like this that you haven’t), it’s well worth your time.