Original airdate: January 5, 2014

The premise: Irritated with the noisy theater experience, Homer takes up pirating movies and screening them in his backyard, but Marge’s guilty conscious ends up getting him in hot water with the FBI.

The reaction: Internet piracy wasn’t exactly a new, hot button issue when this episode aired. Hell, South Park did their Napster episode over a decade before this, and their take felt more biting and was funnier than this. But most importantly, it had a point of view, whereas this episode dances around the issue and ultimately crumples, culminating in a parade of celebrity guest voices taking good-humored jabs at each other and the entertainment industry. Homer is sick and tired of people using their bright tablets and being loud at the movies (all while being incredibly loud himself), and starts a movie screening club in his backyard. I thought the point was to avoid noisy people? If the show had developed this argument, or any salient rationale to defend Homer for what he’s doing, there might have been a point to all this. The middle part of the show is a countdown to Marge admitting that she unintentionally ratted on Homer, and I guess we’re supposed to feel bad about it. But why? Even if there were emotional weight to this, it still would stand in stark contrast to all the other nonsense of the wild, incompetent FBI agents and the family hiding out at the Swedish consulate. Homer’s trial features Judd Apatow and Seth Rogan to deliver some Hollywood insider jokes, right before we get to our big dumb conclusion. Homer pleads his case by talking about being an underdog, working against all odds to fight the man, a hackneyed plot conceit that the Hollywood bigshots immediately lap up and throw themselves on Homer for the movie rights. First, if they framed this better, and by better, I mean at all, this might have worked, but I was never clear on Homer’s motivations and why he cared so much about this, that his speech is just hollow. Plus, the show does what it always does now, like we saw with Lovejoy’s speech last episode, we have to keep cutting away to people saying their reactions in between Homer talking. Writing dialogue that is convincing and makes sense is too difficult. Let’s half-ass it and have other characters react to blatantly fill in the blanks for the audience. It’s just that easy!

Three items of note:
– The opening features Homer desperately trying to avoid spoilers for the new Radioactive Man reboot. Making fun of comic book movie plot twists is fair game and all, but it was just scene after scene of the same joke. It also felt weird that we got barely one line out of Bart for this whole opening, considering he’s the one that reads the comic books. They could have used him to comment on bringing “nerd” culture mainstream, with him being an old guard fan and Homer being the ignorant mass media consumer who looks down on him or something. Later, Homer gets set off into his movie theater tirade after reacting angrily at a scene in the movie ending up becoming a giant advertisement. Is this supposed to be a take on all the product placement from Man of Steel specifically? Surely there were dozens of jokes they could have made about the look, structure and plots of superhero movies, it felt weird that they went with that one.
– The scene on the prison bus of all the other prisoners reacting gravely seriously toward Homer for his movie piracy crimes felt the most analogous of South Park‘s piracy episode. In that show, the police chief takes the boys to celebrity homes a la A Christmas Carol telling them their tales of woe, of Lars Ulrich having to wait a few months to afford a gold plated shark tank, and Master P being unable to buy his son his own Polynesian island (“I see an island without an owner,” a brilliant driving home of the Carol connection). In this episode, it’s pretty much what you’d expect, except nowhere near as funny or clever as South Park did over a decade prior.
– Judd Apatow takes his lumps, kind of, as Homer introduces “Life is Funny,” clearly taking on Funny People (“It’s based on his life, starring his family and ad-libbed by his friends. So for the next three-and-a-half hours, enjoy.”) It honestly feels like a line an actor would read off of a cue card at the Oscars. Bringing in Apatow, as well as Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann (Apatow’s wife) to voice a “joke” scene from the movie, is basically the show making sure there’s no hard feelings. We didn’t mean it, look, you’re in on the joke! Funny People was an overindulgent, bloated snooze-fest, so seeing this kiddy glove take on it was particularly annoying to me.

One good line/moment: As Bart is about to give his father the step-by-step to downloading movies online, we cut to the FOX logo, with an announcer saying they have to censor this part of the show to prevent people from learning how to pirate, and instead show some NASCAR footage. It was a little over-explained, but it’s a cute idea. It reminded me of hearing about how super paranoid FOX was about the medical marijuana episode, and that they were forbidden from showing Homer actually placing the joint to his lips; it could be an inch away, but it couldn’t make contact, otherwise, kids would know how to smoke pot! As with all actually humorous things this show manages, they bring it back a second time, at the ending to cut off Lisa when she tries to weigh both sides of the argument and make some sense of what the fuck the episode was even about. That reminded me of the stupid surfing ending of “The Great Money Caper,” not the best episode to bring up memories of.

Original airdate: December 15, 2013

The premise: When Springfield is overrun by tourists seeking out the only town in America having a white Christmas, Marge looks to make some extra cash for the holidays by renting out the house. Meanwhile, Lisa attempts to buck the crass commercialism of the season by giving gifts from the heart.

The reaction: Another one of those episodes with no real plot or conflict; it’s just a bunch of stuff that happens. A flurry of out-of-towners causes all the local stores to inflate their prices, which worries Marge, but opening her house up to paying tourists will give her the dough to have a merry Christmas. That’s her motivation for doing it. Do we see her do anything with the money? Nope. Not at all. The house guests, none of whom are characterized whatsoever, are just a bunch of nags. She ends up having a minor blowup at them, then she apologizes before they all leave. And that’s it. Midway through the episode, that story kinda gets nudged aside as we see Lovejoy perform a stirring Christmas sermon, inspiring Lisa to buy gifts for her family that actually mean something. Or something. What eight-year-old goes out by herself to buy presents? She gets Bart the book Treasure Island, which he is incensed by (“You’re smart! Why would you give me a book?”) Giving Homer a bunch of radish seeds and Maggie a kit to wean her off her pacifier, Lisa’s plan is not so much to reject commercialism, but to buy gifts to try to help her family be who she wants them to be. But in the specific case of her brother, why in the world would she think that Bart would react any differently? The conclusion to this story is that Lisa gets Bart a tablet instead, which you can use to read books, as well as play with stupid apps. Which of these do you think Bart will spend 99.9% of his time? I’d say this feels like a bunch of Christmas skits, but it really doesn’t. It’s so hard to tell nowadays when a plot starts, where it’s going, or even when it’s over. Nothing feels like it means anything. Merry Christmas, everybody!

Three items of note:
– The Lovejoy scene is just horrible. He stresses out about writing the perfect sermon to wow the out-of-towners, has a stroke of inspiration, and then we go to his big performance. At this point, I thought this was going to turn into an episode about him, but I guess it didn’t. Instead, he just delivers a very generic speech about the season being about love and generosity, with repeated cuts to the crowd murmuring and shouting what they’re feeling (“You’re losing us!” “Wow! What a showman!”) There’s no reason the crowd should have that big of a reaction. It’s like watching a show featuring a stand-up comic and everyone’s laughing, but you have no idea what the fuck they’re cackling at.
– They give a joke to Marge where she gets irrationally agitated when people get to the second verse of Christmas songs and they get too religious-y for her. They even end the episode on it; her family and the house guests are having a good time singing as she blocks it out with blender noises. I get the joke they’re going for, but it seems very weird coming out of Marge.
– There’s a sequence where a kid is playing a video game that ends with a homicidal snowman slashing away at a rack of Christmas videos. Each time he swipes, two or three videos fly at the screen, the frame holds for two seconds, and then they go away. This happens ten times. Ten. What an insane exercise in excess. I’m sure some of those were kind of amusing, but they went by so quickly, I couldn’t read any of them. I understand these are freeze-frame gags, but I should have enough time to read at least some of them. The best counterexample I could think of is whenever the family goes to the movies, we see the marquee. There might be eight titles listed, but it’s up long enough that you can read two or three, thus motivating you to pause to go back and read the others. With these tapes, they move in place and leave screen so quick, I just can’t register the jokes that quickly.

One good line/moment: We see a montage of out of state license plates over the end credits that are kind of amusing. The only thing this show seems to semi-consistently excel at are one-off sign gags.

Original airdate: December 8, 2013

The premise: Principal Skinner barters a field trip on a nuclear sub off to the most well behaved students. When Bart tries and fails to pass his overly strict criteria, he teams up with Homer to get revenge by making Skinner think he killed his mother. Meanwhile, Lisa saves Krusty from bankruptcy by convincing him to license his show out to foreign markets.

The reaction: Boy oh boy, what a spectacle this was. Skinner starts the episode drunk with power as he spends over a minute on this belabored setup: he’s giving all the students a clean slate to get a chance to take a trip on a submarine, but one slip-up and you’re out. While an actually authoritative Skinner is at least a little pleasing to see, it all feels pretty meaningless. Bart pathetically sucks up to him, but Skinner busts him for a small transgression anyway, and no amount of sad puppy dog eyes from Bart will sway him. It feels so vindictive for no real reason; even if Skinner had said this was to stick it to Bart for the years of torment, it would be flimsy. So Bart wants his revenge, and boy does he get it. Skinner awakens one morning to find Agnes lying on the kitchen flood in a puddle of blood and a giant combat knife lodged in her back. Homer and Bart arrive to witness the scene, so now they’ve got him by the balls. I’ll say this plot twist certainly jolted me from my usual state of half paying attention to these episodes. Good thing Skinner didn’t bother to check if his mother was still breathing, or touch the body at all, or be able to tell the difference between blood and jam, or any of the multitude of things that one would do to be able to easily tell that she’s not dead. Also, why does Skinner automatically assume he did it, and not think his mother was murdered? I assume the combat knife may be from his army days and that his prints are on it, but why do I have to make that assumption? The episode feebly attempted to set this up with an earlier phone call where Skinner angrily hangs up on his mother and stares daggers at her picture (“Some days I wish I could just kill you.”) But these are like the tinest of breadcrumbs I’m lapping up here. A better twist would be that Skinner is thrilled to be rid of his mother, and gleefully assists Homer and Bart with the disposal of her body, throwing them off guard. Maybe that would be too grim, but when you’re at episode 537, why the fuck not? Instead, Skinner becomes the spineless limp noodle he’s known for nowadays, going along with the stupid scheme, wearing a crazy disguise and being carted off onto a bus in a potato sack. He returns to face the music for his crime, but Marge randomly puts a stop to the whole charade and reveals Agnes is alive. Agnes first appears heartbroken, but it was actually just a setup for a joke to end the show on (“But when I just heard you say you were glad to see me dead, I thought now I’m gonna be meaner than ever!”) Nothing gained, nothing lost. What an insane episode. Sorry, that’s one letter too many. Inane episode. That’s it.

Three items of note:
– The B story starts when Lisa just so happens to ride her bike by Krusty’s mansion, and Krusty just dumps all his financial problems onto this little girl she doesn’t recognize. Lisa gives him the idea to sell his image to overseas markets, because of course she would know about that, as she handily whips out an iPad that had a foreign version of SpongeBob set up and ready to play, a time-killing segment which I don’t even really understand. This would almost be a rip-off of “Homie the Clown” if the plot were developed further and I could understand what was going on. We get a tortuously long section devoted to Jamaican Krusty and their Itchy and Scratchy equivalent, The Itchem & Scratchem Blow, complete with a whole new theme song. I don’t even need to tell you what the new lyrics were, or what the content of the cartoon was, I’m sure you can make an educated guess. The ending is almost an afterthought, played at the very end of the episode. And it’s not even an ending, the foreign Krustys chase Krusty and his lawyer in a golf cart and that’s it.
– We open with a daydream of Skinner as a Wild West sheriff, complete with his own theme song that plays throughout the episode. Just over and over again. Between this, the Jamaican Itchy & Scratchy theme, “You Only Live Once,” Burns’s song from the wrestling episode… songs on this show used to be so damn catchy and memorable and funny. Now it’s just like, where are the jokes? Plus, it was a little disconcerting seeing Skinner dream about blowing up the heads of his students (graphically and on screen), and then seeing Sherri and Terri in saloon girl attire, and have one faint at the sight of Skinner. Weeeeeeiiiirrrd and creeeepyy.
– There were a few small jokes at the beginning that bothered me, so I’ll condense them here. First, the submarine video ends with a context-free “YVAN EHT NIOJ” on the screen, one of the most transparent instances of fan service the show’s ever done. The joke is, “I remember that episode!” At the end of the assembly scene, Bart aborts mission on his prank by freeing his piloted drone. Then we see it flies all the way up to space somehow, passing by Sandra Bullock, George Clooney and the busted space station from Gravity (“Help! I’m trapped in space with a man I don’t like!”) As the movie had just released this fall, it felt like the show trying to quickly crowbar in a topical reference last minute. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was animated well after the fact of the episode itself. And it’s not even a joke. That line feels more like giving context to make sure the audience recognizes that it’s Gravity and not just two random astronauts in space. And again, this is fucking Family Guy level shit. I KNOW WHAT GRAVITY IS SO I CLAP NOW. Lastly, Homer goes to Moe’s after dinner, but can only leave if Marge blows into the breathalyzer for him. What a sad, sad scene. This poor, poor woman enabling her husband to drive drunk to a bar where he’ll get even more drunk, and then drive back. This is like frat boy shenanigans, not something I would expect Marge fucking Simpson to put up with.

One good line/moment: Irish Krusty got a chuckle out of me (“Me ma, she had twelve children, but only three lived, then they closed the mill. …hey hey.”) But then they use him two more times and the joke gets less and less funny. But that’s standard procedure with anything halfway decent nowadays; if it worked once, it can work five or six more times!

Original airdate: November 24, 2013

The premise: Lisa befriends new student Isabel, but is horrified when she discovers that she’s a conservative. The two run against each other for 2nd grade representative, which the Springfield Republican Party tries to rig in Isabel’s favor.

The reaction: A big part of Lisa’s character degradation was when the writers seemed to forget she was a child. She became the show’s liberal mouthpiece, the smug, self-satisfied voice of reason on a number of political and social issues that no eight year old should have any concern over. But over the last few seasons, I feel like her character has taken a different turn that feels just as aggravating to me: her desperation for attention. Lisa is now a sad, lonely nerd girl who craves recognition from her classmates, even if it’s on a superficial level. We’ve seen it a few times lately, particularly in the Facebook episode, of her bending over backwards to be included by bitchy girls like Sherri and Terri. Lisa was always a loner, but she was never pathetically yearning for any kind of interaction. At the start of the episode, she mournfully sings the Harry Nilsson song “One” to herself (forty whole seconds of it, without music), then she gets hit with a spitball, and coos, “Well, at least I’m getting some attention!” What’s that about? Anyway, this episode merges these two awful characterizations with Lisa’s pity party being broken thanks to her instant kinship with Isabel, a new student, but she quickly is disturbed to find out she is a Republican. There’s nothing more natural sounding than two eight-year-old girls discussing their political views, is there? But they don’t really even do that; when they do talk at all about their beliefs, it’s very vague and surface-level tropes of liberal and conservative mindsets. The episode is mostly focused on their school election, with Springfield Republicans courting Isabel to indoctrinate young minds with their platform. Seeing their castle headquarters, Dracula being used for gag after gag… everything just feels so much more blunt and less inventive. Or fun. This is another episode where it seems like nothing really happens. In the end, Isabel wins (though, as she’s a guest voice, she’ll never appear again), but Lisa still feels vindicated by the feedback by her classmates, rhetoric that sounds eerily familiar to our last election (“53% of people said they’d vote for a liberal. Just not you.”) A meaningless election with a meaningless new friendship featuring a meaningless one-off character. Next!

Three items of note:
– Lisa’s first meeting with Isabel is so bad (“That’s a reference to the Bronte sisters!” “You got my reference to the Bronte sisters?”) They agree to do their presentation on FDR together, where Lisa first finds out about Isabel’s viewpoints. So, what, did they write two separate papers and neither of them talked about them at all? Terrible, terrible writing.
– This episode is seemingly political, but, like I said, it’s really not saying anything. We get two giant time-killing chunks indicative of this. First, Marge tries to placate her daughter by taking her to the attic and revealing that in the 80s, she went through a Republican phase as a Reagan supporter. But then it just becomes a minute of I Love the 80s where Homer and Marge play around with their cassettes and VHS tapes and old classic music. And whatever the Super Bowl Shuffle is. The second time-killer is later on with Lisa’s nightmare about Democratic losers featuring Bill Clinton and John Kerry. I’m not even sure why it’s there story-wise. They predict Lisa will lose, and then she does. Just an excuse to trot out a Clinton impression again, I guess.
– The Republicans take Isabel to Phineas Q. Butterfat’s, a classic show location that hasn’t been seen in ages. Isabel is firm in her beliefs (“You couldn’t buy me with a wheelbarrow full of ice cream!)” Pimply Faced Teen, wheeling said barrow in the background, immediately turns around and walks off. That was the Mt. Bellyache, of course, from “Lisa’s Pony.” I was wondering, does that count as fan service? What a stretch. But the scene ends with her leaving, and Teen returning with an entirely different ice cream concoction. He drives in on a little Zamboni, and it’s called the Yum-boni. You see? So what’s the joke here? The parlor is seemingly known for their elaborate and huge sundaes? It just felt like another example of the show not only feeling disjointed from scene-to-scene, but in same scenes themselves. It’s just throw whatever you want at the screen, regardless of what came before or after it. Gotta fill twenty minutes somehow.

One good line/moment: A two minute opening sequence paying homage to the classic Silly Symphonies Disney cartoons, featuring our Springfield cast as living instruments. I feel like David Silverman had a sizable hand in this one, and it’s a really nice piece of animation isolated from the terrible episode.

Original airdate: November 17, 2013

The premise: Homer helps deliver a baby in a broken down elevator, and forms a special bond with the child in secret. Meanwhile, Lisa takes on the Rich Texan in helping a band of cheerleaders unionize.

The reaction: This show continues to baffle me in its incoherence in its stories. I simply cannot believe the writers can watch an episode like this and not realize how little sense most of it makes. Homer’s out playing poker with the guys, and heading home, he shares an elevator with a pregnant woman, who does nothing but spout cliche lines (“The most beautiful moment of my life is happening now!”) In the end, Homer manages to deliver a perfectly clean, umbilical cord-less child. Over the next few days, or weeks, he ends up going back to this woman’s house to spend time with the child, Homer Junior. Now, what do we know about this woman? Homer addresses her as Gretchen when he meets her the second time, though neither of them told each other their names. Later, she needs him to babysit as she leaves to an undisclosed location. Does she work? What’s going on in her life? What’s the deal with the absentee father? Isn’t this information we should know at least a little bit about? Or that Homer would bother to ask? But no, she’s barely involved in the story, it’s all about Homer and the baby, and him keeping it a secret from Marge. The excuse for this is that he would have to admit he was playing poker instead of staying late at work when this happened, but this was such a huge event, I feel Marge would be sympathetic about it. When the truth is revealed, Marge seems uncomfortable about it, which is understandable given her husband has also been spending a ridiculous amount of time with this child. As we round toward the end, we finally get to the point (?) that Homer is spending more time with this baby than his own children, particularly Maggie. Then we get a scene of Homer taking the four kids to the zoo. Where’s Gretchen? Why didn’t Marge ask this woman any other questions, like why are you relying on my husband to take care of your kid, what’s the deal with your living situation… nothing. In the end, Gretchen’s boyfriend returns, having finished his tour of duty. Homer didn’t know that. He didn’t even know his name. This character of Gretchen is effectively an empty vessel, so what does that leave us? A show about Homer bonding with a baby that’s not his, then at the very end, the dad comes back, and he has a quick scene with Maggie to make it all better. What?

Three items of note:
– I don’t have much to say about the B-plot, mostly because the main story used up the majority of my anger. Lisa is enamored by a troupe of cheerleaders after they bring her onto the field during a packed game, magically put her in a midriff-exposing outfit and make her cheer along with them to the leering eyes of the crowd. Later, Rich Texan shows up to give the ladies their meager paychecks personally for some reason, and appears again on the field when Lisa rouses them up to strike. Then we get a boring montage featuring the scab replacements of Patty, Selma, Nelson’s mom and Crazy Cat Lady. Guess we have to make use of our limited, unmarried female cast. It’s funny because they’re wearing skimpy outfits and they’re unattractive! The plot ends when Rich Texan shows up at the Simpsons door and flat-out concedes. Wow, that was easy. I guess it was absolutely impossible for him to find more hot twenty-somethings to exploit. What the hell was the point of all this?
– No one in this series talks like a regular person anymore. Instead, they’re just joke machines, spewing out the most inane, senseless dialogue to get out as many hacky goofs as possible. There’s two scenes here that exemplify how fucking bad this is. First is the birthing scene; rather than act uneasy or worried as anyone would be when a woman is going into labor right in front of you, Homer instead yammers on and on about the movie Alien and lists off his favorite lies for some reason. Having just delivered a new life into the world, he comments, “It’s a dude! And he’s uncut! Very Euro!” He was there when Marge delivered Bart, does he not know how circumcision works? The second scene is even fucking worse, maybe one of the absolute worst scenes ever. Marge tracks Homer down outside Gretchen’s door, where we get the shitty gag of him overhearing him playing with the baby, but it kind of sounds like he’s messing around with another woman (“Oh baby, shake it! Homer like!”) So she catches Homer, Gretchen is also there for some reason, and she says Homer Junior’s name, which only makes things appear even worse. So here’s the dialogue that follows (“You have a baby together?” “Oh, it’s cool, we did it in an elevator!” “I’m a Schwarzenegger wife!” “But you’re also the housekeeper, so it’s all good!” “It’s not good! None of it’s good!” “I haven’t had a drink for a week!” “That is pretty good.”) Act break. This scene is thirty seconds, but it felt torturous. It’s so fucking dumb. Homer could have explained what was happening in one sentence. As dim a bulb as he is, even him at his dumbest in the classic years would understand how bad this looks, and come clean to Marge and tell the truth. But as I said, these characters aren’t people anymore, they’re all about saying and doing dumb, goofy things, so Homer and Marge just go into a little comedy routine. I hate it. I fucking hate it.
– Homer takes Bart, Lisa, Maggie and Homer Junior to the zoo. By the way, he calls the baby Ho-Ju, which is annoying that they co-opted the great joke from “Marge vs. The Monorail.” Anyway, apparently Homer Junior is a little asshole, stealing bites off Maggie’s ice cream cone, despite her shoving him to stop. Then he ends up pushing Maggie’s stroller away. One push from a newborn sends the stroller careening through the whole zoo. Also, Homer Junior is able to ably stand up. He’s got to be close to a year old for that, how long has Marge allowed this shit to go on? So instead of running to help Maggie, Homer, Bart and Lisa just stand there and shout at her. When Maggie manages to save herself, Marge randomly appears to pick her up. Where the hell was she? She angrily tells Homer that’s the last time he can see “that elevator baby.” Should we feel sympathetic toward Homer at all? Beyond this whole situation being so insane, we now see that Homer Junior is a little jerkoff that tried to off Maggie. Thinking about this whole thing just makes me madder and madder.

One good line/moment: For some reason, over the credits, we get a montage of images of the various pieces of Atomettes merchandise. I don’t know why, but there are a few amusing items, like the book “Doorways of Cheerleaders’ Homes” and Ra Ra Raw Cookie Dough.