(originally aired March 1, 2009)
Man alive, these last couple episodes have been quite boring, with no engaging or interesting stories to be found. Skinner and Chalmers put Springfield Elementary on alert of a government-mandated aptitude test that could get them much-needed funding, so to make sure they get as much cash as possible, they drill the answers into every kid’s mind by any means necessary. This conceit could be amusing satire, of educators teaching test answers rather than practical knowledge, but like most material on the show nowadays, it’s so ham-fisted and the jokes are made so blatantly obvious that it becomes groan-worthy. To better hedge their bets, Skinner plans on hiding all their more troublesome students, Bart, Ralph, and the bullies (“Whacking Day,” anyone?), and cart them off to Capital City. But Chalmers sweetens the deal and has Skinner exported too. Meanwhile, Lisa suffers massive test anxiety during the exam.

It really feels like nothing happens in this episode. Nothing. Skinner, Otto and the kids end up stranded in Capital City by means of stupidity, Ralph gets stuck on a barge and just sits there because he’s brain damaged, then Skinner must do a thing to save him that requires acquired knowledge and the other kids are instantly impressed. Everything is explicitly narrated so that the audience knows exactly what’s happening, and none of it sounds natural or makes sense. From this, Skinner realizes that kids don’t learn from tests, and rejects the national exam. What exactly did he learn? And how will this not affect Springfield Elementary at all in coming episodes? It’s all an exercise in futility, and I’m not even sure what the meaning of any of it was. Or if there was any meaning at all. Probably not, since we end with a minute-long recreation of the Footloose ending. No other jokes to go with it, they just do the ending with everyone dancing. Jesus Christ, and I thought the random dance ending of “Tales From the Public Domain” was intolerable. One of the emptiest episodes ever, completely bereft of any kind of… anything.

Tidbits and Quotes
– We get a minute-long clip package at the beginning of all the times Homer has gotten hurt on the series, and surprisingly most of them are from the classic years. Despite the show’s over-reliance on terrible physical comedy nowadays, whoever edited this still realized how much funnier it was done in the past.
– The VPAT is part of the No Child Left Alone Act… boy, that sounds familiar, doesn’t it? They’ve mentioned actual legislation like the Patriot Act before, why not just call it by the actual real name?
– There’s a B-story, kind of, involving Homer forgetting to mail out his insurance renewal, and upon frantically delivering it weeks later, he becomes a paranoid wreck, making sure no one is injured on his property until he becomes insured again. Or at least until he believes he will be. He envisions an insane bloodbath occurring at home during Marge’s book club, where everyone is killed by Marge and Lindsay Naegle… who then make out. Talk about cheapening your characters. Next they’ll have Marge pose for Playboy. …oh wait. We end with a knife pegging Mr. Burns in the skull, who for some reason was walking outside the Simpson house, followed by a great bit of blood spurting from each open orifice of his body. Later, Homer apologizes, but of course not only does Marge forgive him, but she acknowledges that it’s her fault (“Sweetie, at this point in a marriage, a wife should know what her husband can do and what he can’t. Who was I to think you could mail an envelope?”) That’s our Marge, spineless enabler to a reckless, irresponsible ape.
– Everything about the Skinner & company stuff is wrong. Everyone acts like morons, they all go into the bathroom with Ralph for some reason so they can not see the bus get taken apart, then of course Ralph can’t do anything he’s told because he’s mentally handicapped. Skinner slingshots a balled up note to a crane operator to help out, which flies through the window, hits the guy driving and knocks him unconscious. A paper ball. Then we get more shitty CG with the crane swinging the container ship around. Skinner builds momentum on top of it by running around in a circle, and the kids are learning! How do I know? Because they openly say it (“Learning can teach you things!” “Education rules!”) Fuck.
– The paranoid Lisa stuff sucks too. There’s a joke that I really hate where she comes to the first problem, but all four possible answers appear correct (“That can’t be. In life, everything only has one answer!”) The joke is about narrow-minded institutionalized teaching… but it’s coming from Lisa’s mouth. They could have done this joke earlier and had Krabappel or Chalmers say it, but why Lisa? Speaking of Chalmers, he’s completely apeshit in this episode. During his loud panicked tirade to the kids, Hank Azaria is really straining his voice. I guess we’d never heard him get loud before, but he doesn’t sound right at all.

(originally aired February 15, 2009)
So the show finally makes its leap into high-definition widescreen, and wouldn’t you know, it’s just as shitty as ever. Springfield honors successful businessman Vance Connor, and Homer recalls how he was their class president in high school, back in… 1974. I was willing to accept a floating timeline for that goddamn 90s show last season, now Homer and Marge’s past is in the 70s again. Come on, you guys, what the fuck? So the episode is about how Homer laments having lost class president to him, which I guess he wanted. What? Homer was a lazy smoking slacker in high school, why would he want to run in the first place? Anyway, turns out Principal Dondelinger rigged the election, and Homer actually did win. He had Lenny and Carl bury the ballot box, instead of just throwing it out for some reason. Apparently it was to protect Homer, as the jocks pulled off a mass vote for him so they could ridicule him. But even after hearing that, Homer still believes his life would have been amazing if he had been class president. Why?

Turns out there is a way for Homer to see what could have been… by way of some weirdo cook at Luigi’s, who can show you alternate futures in his special sauce… okay, this totally makes sense and is completely believable. We see that Homer would be a great class president and go to prom with the head cheerleader, but drop her the instant he laid his eyes on Marge, who is basically falling over herself to be with President Homer. So much more romantic and satisfying than “The Way We Was,” huh? Mr. Burns gives him a high-ranking plant job due to his position, and now he lives in a gigantic mansion with no children. What? How the fuck could he afford that? Oh whatever, it’s just a pasta sauce hallucination. So Homer bemoans his current life and his family, and the others try to cheer him up and reward him in spite of his selfishness. Hey, it’s happened before. He said awful things about his wife and kids, they send him to go play with the Rolling Stones at rock ‘n’ roll camp. Here he wishes his kids were never born, we install a plaque for him on the town wall of fame, and apparently pay some father and son to take a picture of him, because that’s the only reason that makes sense. The first episode in HD and this is the slop you start off with? How embarrassing.

Tidbits and Quotes
– Okay, so here it is: the show is finally in HD, and it’s as stiff and lifeless as ever. High-definition worked for the movie because it had a budget, and David Silverman directing, so it actually looked pretty sharp for the most part. Now, the clarity makes the un-detailed backgrounds, unmoving extras and rough drawings stand out even more. There’s also the matter of the new opening. I could dissect it scene by scene, but why bother? My thoughts can effectively be summed up in this heavily passed around gif. Just look at the old version. The arc in Marge’s hair as she turns, and her look of relief that her baby is safe. The stretching of the cashier’s arms, bounce of the bag and how Maggie pops out, all of it so visually appealing. And look at it now. Marge rotates her head at a perfect angle, and smiles. Maggie emerges from the bag and shakes her fist at Gerald in a manner so empty and soulless it defies description. There’s also a blog post by an animator who worked on several shots, and his frustration of having being told repeatedly to tone his work down and make it “less cartoony.” Astonishing. The only connection the show used to have to its classic era was the opening titles, and now that’s long gone too. I remember after seeing the new opening and this episode, it was the first time I seriously started reconsidering watching the show. I just felt so bewildered by the whole thing, but I figured I’d give it until the end of the season to decide. The show’s new HD beginning was the beginning of my end…
– In addition to the new opening, we have the new four act “structure.” I hate it. Act one, act two, act three. It’s a natural order of storytelling, used in every film ever made ever. Now everything’s all mixed up.
– The episode is immediately annoying from the start with the Springfield Wall of Fame, which honors Hank Scorpio, who isn’t from Springfield, Poochie, widely reviled cartoon, and Lisa’s dance instructor, Chazz Busby, who for some reason is now in the opening titles. Who the fuck cares about that guy?
– Al Gore is at Moe’s bar, and no one acknowledges a fucking ex-Vice President sitting there until he opens his trap. This is the world this show exists in now.
– Homer announces his revenge on Principal Dondelinger (“I know what he did last summer… twenty-two years ago!”) From 2009, that would make Homer’s senior year 1987. Which we see it’s not. Come on, you guys. What the fuck.
– We see teenage Maude asking Homer out in high school, despite a few episodes ago we see her and Ned as adults picking up a twenty-something Homer and Marge. Oh, whatever. Also, I’m shocked at the attention to obscure continuity with showing us Debbie Pinson, who Homer got a call from way back in season 10’s “Homer to the Max.”
– The alternate future of everyone loving Homer and him being amazing makes no sense whatsoever. Suddenly Patty and Selma are taken by him, and we get this gem (“Who’s that side of beef munching on our sister?” “I don’t know, but in this reality, I am not gay! Hubba hubba!”) Ugh.
– My God, I fucking hate the ending (“Dad, do you think I could be elected class president?” “Well, we can’t all be Homer Simpsons, son.”) Where did this father and son come from? It’s so pathetically saccharine with no attempt at irony or jokes or anything. This show used to tear this kind of cloyingly phony material apart, now it’s what we settle for an ending.

(originally aired January 25, 2009)
I’ve been pretty confused about what the deal is with this episode since it first aired, and now I see it’s a parody of the film Heavenly Creatures. From what I can be bothered to read, the film is about the obsessive, borderline sexual relationship of two girls who immerse themselves into their own fantasy world. And in the end they kill one of their mothers. That sounds like perfect fodder for a story about eight-year-old girls! At a rec center art class, Lisa meets Juliet, a bright English girl who she quickly develops a friendship with. Should I mention the girl in the movie is also named Juliet, and her father is also a professor who just moved to a local university, and the girls met in an art class where they were being stifled creatively? The two create their own girly fantasy world Equalia, and end up getting more and more distanced from the outside world and other people. At first it seems like Lisa will realize that Juliet’s gone mad, seeing fantasy creatures outside her mind, but then it turns out Lisa sees them too, the two of them having a mutual hallucinogenic trip. What’s going on here?

As to be expected, Juliet has no real character and is boring. Emily Blunt is beautiful and a great talent, but a little girl, she ain’t. There are moments in this episode that really feel quite disturbing, where the girls talk about how much they mean to each other, they hold hands, and in their fantasy, they slow-dance to a romantic Josh Groban song… Like, what am I supposed to think here? The movie seems to be a lesbian romance, and it looks like there’s a lot lifted from it in this episode, like Lisa and Juliet sitting in one hammock mirrors a shot where the two girls are naked together in a bathtub. What the fuck is this? The turning point in this episode, I feel, is when it’s quite clear that Juliet is crazy. She tells Lisa she sees her fantasy world in her backyard, Lisa looks concerned, we hear dramatic music… then all of a sudden, Lisa is insane too. Couldn’t they turned the source material on its ear and had Lisa concerned for her friend’s sanity, Juliet could have snapped and she would have to talk her down from doing something drastic? Instead, they run away together, escape from the bullies, and stop being friends on a dime, with Juliet chastising Lisa for wanting to live in reality. A very frustrating… confusing episode.

Tidbits and Quotes
– So the scene with the art teacher criticizing Juliet’s work and Lisa coming to her defense is apparently right out of Heavenly Creatures. With all of these flagrant similarities, I don’t exactly know how this can be considered parody, it’s bordering on plagiarism. I hope one of my readers has seen this movie and can comment on this, I know very little about it.
– We kill thirty seconds by having Lisa and Juliet sing a Josh Groban song. I guess that means they’re bonding. Also, I hope Groban sent a gift basket or something for all of the name drops in this show. Also, this sequence is awful. There have been several instances of late of characters singing padding out shows, but this is the most blatant I’ve seen.
– Lisa is nervous about having a first date… er, play date (“Not that I couldn’t get one if I wanted…”) Later, Marge forbids Lisa from seeing her girlfr… I mean, friend (“There are limits on how much two people should be together!” “Well you can’t keep me and Juliet apart!”) Then Juliet urges Lisa to run away with her (“Equalia needs you! I need you!”) There’s so much of this kind of stuff in here; it’s not even lesbian subtext, it’s the actual dialogue.
– The ending is so unbelievably sloppy. Lisa and Juliet escape the bullies by wooing Kearney over with their stupid story, who then proceeds to fight with Jimbo and Dolph so they can get away, to the tune of another goddamn motherfucking Josh Groban song. Also, there are holes in their cages for some reason so the girls could hold hands. Identical cages, with one having the hole on the left side, and the other on the right. Good thing they made those cages like that. Then Juliet leaves when Lisa says she wants to live in the real world (“The real world? The real world is for people who can’t imagine anything better. Goodbye, Lisa.”) It would have been good if they had addressed Juliet’s psychosis earlier in the episode instead of brush it off completely.

(originally aired December 7, 2008)
Of all the episodes this show is rehashing now, did we really need to retread “Monty Can’t Buy Me Love”? And it can’t even focus on that premise, combining it with another boring Lisa story fighting for a new cause… yawn. Mr. Burns wins the Austin Celtics basketball team in a bet, and now finding himself figurehead as their manager, he decides he wants to be a respected icon to the masses. Like in “Love,” this comes from nowhere and makes absolutely no sense. Burns is a greedy, self-serving, manipulative old bastard, and he loves it. That’s what makes Burns Burns, and why we love him so much. Now, randomly, he wants to cut loose, have fun and try to cater to these penniless lowlifes who couldn’t be more beneath him? I can’t possibly buy this premise any less. Alongside of this is Lisa discovering that bees all over the world are dying due to the lack of a suitable habitat. Wow, this is almost as exciting as when she took up astronomy! She becomes their keeper when a healthy queen bee latches onto her and she forms a bee beard. We’re not even at act two and I’m slipping in and out of consciousness.

The two stories collide when Burns decides to build a brand new stadium for his team where Lisa has set up a new bee sanctuary in an abandoned greenhouse. She is easily bested in a town hall debate by Burns’s newfound showmanship, and becomes depressed over the impending death of her beloved bees. Homer finds out that Moe is harboring African bees (“I saw this ad in a gentleman’s magazine for excited African honeys, and that’s what they sent me,”) so cross-breeding them with Lisa’s bees makes them more agitating, attacking everyone at Burns’s stadium and making that their new home. This episode could not be more lifeless and boring. We got more neutered Burns, who is cloying and nonthreatening in every way, combined with another boring Lisa-takes-up-a-cause story. And we have another Lisa episode coming up next! This is like four-in-a-row, what’s up with that?

Tidbits and Quotes
– Burns is unable to comprehend the concept of fun, yet he seems to be having a lot of it at the billionaire’s camp, starting a food fight and skinny dipping. Also, I hate all of that shit. The only time Burns should be laughing giddily is if he’s thinking of that crippled Irishman.
– I hate Willie’s little bee graveyard, all named after celebrities with “B.” or “Buzz” in their names! Among those listed is Gordon Sumner, but just so the audience doesn’t have to do any thinking, “Sting” is right under it. Not that I know Sting’s actual name, but it’s like, why bother writing it all out that way when you could just write “Sting”?
– Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, appears to give two throw-away lines. Mark Cuban has a larger role, basically filling in for Arthur Fortune as the affable billionaire Burns “aspires” to be. I don’t really know him very well, but I did enjoy his enthusiasm, especially in his last scene, driving off a cliff and dying in Burns’s thoughts (“I’m out of my mind!!” “Well, that’s not much help.”)
– I like Homer’s very cavalier attitude preparing Marge for the sight of their daughter covered in bees.
– Burns is an old man, but apparently he thinks Austria took over America, and doesn’t remember anything past the 1910s. The scene of Smithers repeatedly whispering the events of the 20th century to him is endless.
– I really like the timing of the peaceful tranquility of the thriving greenhouse… until a giant wrecking ball smashes through, nearly hitting Lisa and discombobulating her. It’s a rare ruthless act by Burns.
– Lisa is at the bar when Moe asks her what’s wrong, even though he must know, since he was at the town hall meeting, and better yet, he voted for Burns’s stadium. I don’t think the writers notice these things.
– Moe whispers Homer the plan about having the two swarms of bees mate, which he mishears (“You and me?” “No, the bees!” “Oh yeah, that’s what I meant too. I have no… inclinations.”) What’s with all these jokes about Homer wanting to be gay? It’s just like the gags that imply that he does drugs, or has drugs stashed away somewhere.
– I like the one bee calling Bumblebee Man an Uncle Tom, and the bee bloopers, which are kinda dumb, but I still chuckled.

(originally aired November 30, 2008)
This episode blows my mind, it’s the most offensive, uncomfortable show I’ve ever seen. Bart befriends the new kid Bashir and his Muslim family, and Homer succumbs to his bar buddies’s insistence that they might be secret terrorists. All the racial stuff is amazingly embarrassing to watch, it all feels so wrong. Homer’s latent homophobia in “Homer’s Phobia” came from an understandable place, reflecting the ignorance of the common man. Here, Homer is representing racist asshole Americans who assume all Muslims are terrorists. It reminds me of a similar instance in South Park where Cartman is instantly averse to the new Muslim kid in school (similarly named Bahir, I might add), but there it works because we know he’s a bigoted racist dickhead and is treated as such. Homer is supposed to be our hero, and in episodes like these, I just want to strangle him to death. The final act begins with Homer eavesdropping at Bashir’s parents’s window and mishearing the father announce he’s going to blow up a building… because he works in demolitions. How did Homer miss that part of the conversation? By ducking down and leaning forward not even a foot away from the window. How could he not hear him? You gotta be fucking kidding me with this nonsense.

This episode also has the Mapple B-plot in it, which is only saved in that I find the main story so much more infuriating. So yeah, Mapple, myPod, Steve Mobbs… How much do these writers get paid? At least when Futurama did their Apple episode, they called them eyePhones because they were literally installed into your face. This episode attempts to mock hardcore Apple fan boys, making Lisa one herself, but overall the tone just couldn’t be more fawning and favorable toward the company. It doesn’t feel so much like a parody than more promotion and screen time for Apple products, with Lisa being so enamored by everything (“Such beautiful packaging. I never thought a company could be my soul mate!”) By the end, we see Mobbs in his underwater Mapple base, an all-knowing diety who offers Lisa great compassion. Isn’t Apple… I mean, Mapple, so great? There’s so many things you can poke fun with involving Apple and its crazy fanbase, but the episode doesn’t seem to want to bother. Again, it just feels like an exercise in saying how fucking cool Apple is. One of the worst episodes of the entire series.

Tidbits and Quotes
– I chuckled at the beginning with the mall worker throwing a reindeer in the wood chipper, and the Meet Santa stand being replaced by Meet Martin Luther King, Jr. (“Lunch time!” “Free at last! Free at last!”)
– I’ve mentioned this before about the show ripping on brands and how it used to be more encompassing. Duff represents all alcohol. Krusty Burger mocks all fast food. Mapple is just… Apple. It makes the jokes and the material so limited. Duff Beer is a parody beverage, but has become an original icon and time-honored staple of the show, while Mapple is Apple with a fucking “M” in front of it.
– For once, I actually liked the way the bullies were handled in this show, ragging on the new kid, until Bart comes to his defense and points out all of their differences, ending up in them just beating themselves up.
– Like most of them of late, the Itchy & Scratchy cartoon runs twice as long as it needs to, and is unfunny.
– “So, now that we’re alone… death to America, right?” Homer’s behavior is downright despicable in this episode, the worst he’s ever, ever acted. Along with his intolerant and offensive comments, he neglects to tell Patty and Selma to vacate the mall he thinks is going to be demolished, then later he dives underwater to rescue a truckload of beer, but leaves Hans Moleman to his watery grave. Also, he apparently put poison in the American flag cake, so he was going to kill Bashir’s parents, I guess. And he’s never held to task for blowing up the newly constructed bridge, of course. How in the ever loving fuck are we supposed to support or like Homer in any way?
– It’s funny that Dan Castallaneta voices the Genie in Homer’s dream, having voiced him for the Aladdin TV series and in the Return of Jafar direct-to-video movie.
– As if the ending isn’t aggravating enough, they have the old mall right across the street from the new one? A mall we’ve never, ever seen before? We’ve always seen the same Springfield Mall for the entire series, now all of a sudden there’s an old one? Maybe at the beginning of the episode, the family could have gone there, acknowledged it as a dump, and they could have made a joke where they walk across the street to the newer, better mall, which has the Mapple store in it. But now I feel I’m putting too much thought into this. Why should I think when the writers clearly didn’t?