1. Who Shot Mr. Burns? (Part Two)

• The opening misdirect of Smithers’ dream is another great example of the show making cultural references that work without knowing specifically what they are. Hell, “Who Shot Mr. Burns” itself was directly inspired by Dallas’s “Who Shot J.R.,” and now the beginning of this episode where Smithers finds Burns alive and well in the shower is a reference to an infamous season premiere of Dallas where they brought back Patrick Duffy’s character after killing him off, effectively erasing the entire previous season where he was dead as just a dream. Speaking of which, considering how “Part One” ended, it’s easy to interpret that Mr. Burns might actually be dead, with some online and print speculation from fans at the time before “Part Two” talking about the identity of Burns’ “killer” rather than the “shooter.” But whether you know about Dallas or not, it’s still funny how quickly the opening descends into fantasy madness (Speedway Squad! In Color!) before revealing it’s actually a dream, and it’s kind of cool how they dance around the question of whether Burns is actually dead or not for a few minutes before finally revealing he is in fact alive.
  
• I don’t think the rickets gag works. Lack of sunlight apparently gave Homer a bad case of rickets, but it’s been just one day since Burns activated the sun blocker. Also, am I dumb for not automatically knowing rickets is caused from a lack of vitamin D? It’s a bit too much to put together for a joke where Homer walks funny.
• I guess this episode shows why we don’t see much of Dave Shutton: he’s an awful reporter, even compared to Kent Brockman (“Dave Shutton, Springfield Daily Shopper. Who are you? Where are you going?” “Oh, do your research, Shutton!”)
• Smithers is obviously the most likely suspect, and I like how the first act works as quick as it can without feeling rushed to cross him off the list. It’s great how the episode itself remarks on this too with Marge and Lisa (“I guess it’s never the most likely suspect.” “Actually, Mom, in 95% of cases, it is.”)
• Lisa’s given titles on her suspect list are a great touch. It’s odd hearing Moe being called a “nightclub owner,” but Barney as “liquor connoisseur” is just perfect.
• Tito Puente’s “Senor Burns” still really slaps, as the kids say. And the MVP of this episode is unquestionably the guy at the condom machine.
  
• All the other characters’ alibis are fantastic, from Skinner’s awkward bathroom encounter with Chalmers, Willie’s Basic Instinct nod and Space Invaders obsession (“That was a pretty addictive video game.” “Video game?”) and, of course, Moe’s polygraph test, which is the subject of, you guessed it, another amazing Dankmus remix.
• Just like the Dallas opening, Wiggum’s Twin Peaks dream still works without knowing the source material. Twin Peaks is a show I’ve been meaning to watch forever, and even though the dream scene is incredibly specific to the series, I still think it plays if you see it as just a weird, cryptic dream Wiggum is having, which makes it funnier when Lisa ultimately breaks and tells him the information point blank when Wiggum fails to pick up the clues.
• Gotta love the DNA guy who’s easily bribed by a carton of cigarettes.
• Even though Homer obviously wouldn’t be our shooter, I like how there’s still credible evidence that must be unraveled. Sure, someone could have planted the gun in the Simpson car, but how did the fingerprints get there? It’s enough to keep the audience thinking until the final reveal. Going along with that, I love how Homer continues to get more erratic to the point he threatens Burns and points Wiggum’s revolver point blank at his head in impulsive rage. Again, he’s not our man, but I love how dramatic the ending gets.
• Finally it’s revealed that it was Maggie all along, the perfect fuck-you ending that still doesn’t feel like an insult whatsoever, especially since Burns’ desire to take candy from a baby was set up in “Part One.” That the whole thing was just a complete accident “caused” by an infant is a great ending, but as one commenter previously mentioned, it did set the stage for a whole lot of future jokes involving Maggie being an expert marksman or weirdly violent (like breaking a bottle to threaten Mr. Teeny in the movie), completely missing the point of the joke.
• During my rewatch, I’ve been using the Simpsons Archive to help copy-paste quotes. As a young fan, it was always one of my favorite sites, I’d look through all their different lists and guides for hours. The episode capsules were their crown jewels, especially in an era before the DVDs were released. A curious time capsule to look back at now is their reviews section, featuring fan reviews of the episodes as they aired, and it’s really intriguing to hear negative feedback for episodes most fans would consider bonafide classics. The archived reviews start at season 5, when the show was getting a bit wackier, and clearly there were some fans that were absolutely not having it. If you’re curious, pull up the capsule for your favorite episode that you consider a flawless peak for the series, and you’ll find two or three people who just fucking hated it when it aired. Y’know, I think I’ll feature one negative quote per episode for novelty purposes. I might even retroactively do it for seasons 5 and 6.
• Simpsons Archive retro review: “That was the worst Simpsons ever. I would’ve rather seen an old repeat.  If you hadn’t figured it out before, you can figure it out within the first few minutes. I would’ve expected more from the talented Simpsons writers.”

2. Radioactive Man

• The hats flying into the air gag really feels like it shouldn’t play, but I still laughed at it anyway. This episode actually has a lot of cartoony gags in it, like Homer running so fast it leaves a Homer-shaped dust cloud and Bart looking at the six corners of the treehouse before seeing Milhouse, an especially brilliant and mindfucky gag.
• Comic Book Guy’s waddle over to the computer is such a funny piece of animation. This scene is a fascinating look at the dawn of Internet nerds circa 1995, back when they were stuck on landlines staring at gigantic monitors. I still don’t understand the joke where the last nerd shown is an incredibly tiny Prince. Is that really Prince, or just a nerd dressed like him? And yeah, Prince is short, but he’s not like a little person.
  
• It’s so great how Quimby effortlessly goes from sucking up to the film production (“We’ll blow up our dams, destroy forests, anything! If there’s a species of animal that’s causing problems nosing around your camera, we’ll have it wiped out!”) to relentlessly bleeding them dry once they’ve set up shop. The whole town is on the same page about sucking Hollywood ass to drain as much money out of them as possible (as seen from the great signs around town, “Welcome Hollywood Money” and “We LOVE Phonies.”)
• It’s very funny to me that Fall Out Boy, a hugely popular band still to this day, is named after one of the most obscure Simpsons characters ever. Not even a character, a fictional sidekick in Bart’s favorite comic book.
• I love the moment where Nelson laughs at himself in the mirror after whiffing his audition, finally realizing how demoralizing his catchphrase is (“Ohhh, that hurt. No wonder no one came to my birthday party.”) It’s a brief and humorous moment of clarity that holds more weight than any of the countless future subplots featuring Nelson the poor little dirt urchin. Also, I previously talked about how the show was already mocking its own catchphrases and tropes by season 5, but “Haw haw!” still plays if they can find an applicable situation.
• “George Burns was right: show business is a hideous bitch goddess.”
• Bongo Comics published a dozen or so Radioactive Man comics over its lifespan, which is really interesting on several levels. First, the idea that you can read a fictional comic book from a fictional TV show in real life is novel in and of itself. There’s not a ton of Radioactive Man lore from the show, so the writers pretty much had to create their own superhero canon for the most part. Also, the comics spanned over Radioactive Man’s fictional run as a comic, so issue #1 “released” in 1952, while issue #1000 came out in the then-current day 1995. The rest of the comics are issues scattered between those years, and they would parody different comic book tropes within those decades. For instance, issue #679 “released” in 1984 featured a more gritty tone, clearly referencing the likes of Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns. One of the final issues released was the comic book tie-in to the Radioactive Man movie, featuring the likenesses of Rainier Wolfcastle, Milhouse and Krusty in the roles in the film. It’s a really neat read, as you get to see how the isolated snippets we see in this episode were retrofitted into an actual narrative in the comic to make a complete story. I’d highly recommend seeking it out.
• Even though this episode is mostly goofy, I like the throughline of Milhouse the tortured child actor. Pushed into the job by stage parents who cared only for their own potential windfall, he has absolutely no interest at the start, which turns into bitter, seething resentment by the end. Pamela Hayden kills it with Milhouse’s acid-tinged disdain for the “jiminy jilickers” scene.
• “My eyes! The goggles do nothing!” is a bonafide classic scene, but what exactly was the outcome going to be had Milhouse been on set? Was a ten-year-old boy expected to swoop across the chasm and hoist Wolfcastle away before the acid hit? 
• Slot car racers really feel like a thing of the past. I’m sure kids don’t play with them anymore, but do any nerdy adults? I never had any race tracks of my own, but friends of mine did when I was a kid. Spirographs, on the other hand, I was all over.
• Like Tito Puente, Mickey Rooney randomly appears as characters shout his name aloud, but he’s so damn funny and it makes story-sense for him to be there, a former child star hired by Hollywood suits to talk sense into Milhouse. Then he tries to take his job, right before his next big break subbing for a little girl in a Jell-O commercial (“I could play that!”)
• Having lived in Los Angeles for many years now, I have to say the ending depiction of Hollywood is 100% accurate.
• Simpsons Archive retro review: “Yeesh. That was about as subtle as a LAPD interrogation. Only not as funny. Is it too early in the season to choose a ‘worst episode this year?’”

3. Home Sweet Home-Diddly-Dum-Doodily

• Cute touch of Maggie karate chopping her toast before eating it. Also, I always thought Marge said that she “marbleized” the toast, but she was actually saying it was melba toast, which I never heard of until this moment.
• Marge is in prime characterization in the first scene, the ultimate super mother holding the household together. She works her ass off for her family, but she loves to do it. It’s sweet that Homer goes out of his way to secure a gift for her in the form of a trip to the spa, but because this is the horrible world of The Simpsons, one half-day off for Marge leads to complete disaster. How the perfect storm is set up from the start with the old newspapers, Bart and Lisa’s troubles at school, the “Stupid Baby” prank, this entire first act is just perfect.
• “Stupid babies need the most attention!” is a line I think of all the time.
• Skinner is quick to call CPS on the Simpson house, but still uncaring enough to send Lisa home wearing garbage bags on her bare feet and Bart wearing an onion sack.
• Great work from the audio department adding whistling noises to Lisa’s dialogue when she loses her tooth.
• “Oh bitch bitch bitch!” is another line I think of all the time.
• Of course the one episode of Itchy & Scratchy Rod and Todd see is the most traumatizing short of all time. A seemingly innocent “baby” Itchy stabs Scratchy twice with a broken baby bottle. I love how slowly he pulls the bottle out of Scratchy’s bright red wound makes it feel extra painful, and that he runs out with Scratchy’s TV, which really feels like pouring salt into the wound, making it feel even more scornful that he’s robbing him versus just the usual cartoon violence. As Scratchy weakly chokes out, “Why? My only son?” and dies, we roll credits, and Rod and Todd are scarred for life.
  
• The emotional scenes in this episode are incredibly potent, with Homer and Marge despairingly walking by the kids’ empty bedrooms to Bart and Lisa fondly swapping memories of their parents. These are tender, heart wrenching moments, particularly the former, as the kids’ absence have left gigantic craters in Homer and Marge’s lives that they’ll do anything to get back.
• Alongside the already emotional premise, I really like how the emotional stakes of this episode is the fate of Maggie’s soul. As Lisa helpfully explains, she hasn’t been a Simpson as long as she and Bart, as the impressionable young Maggie becomes more and more comfortable with her new adopted parents. It may be incredibly silly when Maggie does a Linda Blair-esque head turn after saying, “Daddily-doodily,” but seeing her lovingly reunited with Marge at the end, reaffirming her identity as a Simpson, still feels like a powerful moment.
• We get not one but two great drug jokes with Marge: first when she and Homer return from the spa, the CPA officials overhear her incredibly unfortunate comment, “It’s like I’m on some wonderful drug.” Later, at the Family Skills graduation, Marge gets an erroneous fail on her drug test, which she confidently rebukes (“The only thing I’m high on is love. Love for my son and daughters. Yes, a little LSD is all I need.”) I feel like if I came up with that line in the writer’s room, I would be so damn proud of myself.
• Only on this show could the third act ticking clock be to prevent a baptism, but it’s not played as cynical or ripping on religion at all. The happy ending of the Simpsons reuniting is played straight, and feels completely genuine without being saccharine. It seems so effortless how the show manages to toe that line.
• Simpsons Archive retro review: “Does anyone else agree that there is something missing this season? It seems like the voices are a bit different and that the plot lines have a horrible Critic-esque quality. They just aren’t as good as the weekday reruns.”

4. Bart Sells His Soul

• I definitely watched this episode before knowing about “In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida,” so I didn’t quite get Bart’s prank. He picked an extra long hymn and that’s his fault? Though to be fair, surely one member of the congregation had to recognize the song after ten minutes of singing before Lovejoy, right? (“Wait a minute, this sounds like rock and/or roll!”) But who cares, it’s great. They included it on one of the soundtrack CDs, but considering it’s just a reorchestration of another song, did Iron Butterfly get paid royalties for that?
• Milhouse’s innocent question as to why organized religion would manipulate or obfuscate the truth (“What would they have to gain?”), followed by the immediate cut to Lovejoy’s loud money-counting machine is so damn good.
• Bart’s cheeky “Any time, chuuuuuuuu-mp” always makes me laugh.
• It’s always funny when we see Dr. Hibbert’s children, reminding you that he and his whole family are basically just references to The Cosby Show. I don’t know the last time they’ve been seen on the show, but they certainly are an out-of-time parody at this point. I’d say a Dr. Hibbert episode could be kind of interesting, but… you know. Also, I’d love to go eat at Professor P. J. Cornucopia’s Fantastic Foodmagorium and Great American Steakery.
• I love that Bart’s turmoil through the entire episode is completely internal. He didn’t “lose” his soul, but his uncaring attitude to his sense of self led to this weird crisis within himself that he’s unable to make sense of. It’s sort of similar to the show’s early morality play episodes like “Homer vs. Lisa and the 8th Commandment.”
• I really like how this episode features Milhouse finally getting one over on Bart. After being used and abused as a second banana for six seasons, he’s now in the position of power over a subdued Bart, and he knows it. I love this little bit of animation (and Pamela Hayden’s performance) of Milhouse’s smug “yeeeeessss” as Bart walks up to him. Milhouse coldly demands fifty bucks for Bart’s soul back, and cackles like the dork he is as he somberly leaves. So great.
  
• The ending of the Uncle Moe’s commercial was cut in syndication, but I love how dumb it is. The uncreative simplicity of the extended jingle (“It’s good good good good, good good good!”) as Moe struggles in vain to keep a big grin to the camera, twitching wildly. Watching this silly subplot also reminded me of the Playmates Simpsons action figure line, and one of the dozen or so planned figures that was cancelled when the line ended was an Uncle Moe variant. That would’ve been a neat collectible, with a little Million Dollar Birthday Fries hat to put on his head. What a shame.
• The scene where Marge naturally senses something is wrong with Bart is really, really sweet, further emphasizing that this is Bart’s mental struggle, so of course an obsessively loving mother like Marge would see something is wrong… but not quite know what (“It’s not fear of nuclear war… It’s not swim-test anxiety…”)
• The little girl with the cold teef that causes Moe to lose it looks a lot like Samantha Stanky. I also love the ominous reprise of the Uncle Moe’s jingle right before everything goes to shit, it’s a really great music cue.
• The street sweeper running down Bart is a fantastic double joke, where it looks like it just thoroughly cleaned Bart’s bike, but then it quickly falls apart. Then the street sweeper is apparently a madman who drives down the subway stairs and crashes.
• Speaking of madmen, Dan Castellaneta gives a dynamite performance as the homeless man Wiggum attempts to placate (“Who’s been stealing your thoughts?”)
• Gotta love those ALF pogs. Speaking of ALF, if you think my episodic reviews are humorous and thorough, I’ve got nothing on Philip Reed’s ALF project, a writing exercise where he exhaustively reviewed every episode of ALF, as well as bonus articles about the characters, other ALF media, and so forth. I remember watching ALF reruns when I was younger and liking the show, but looking back on it now, it really was quite terrible, and Philip digs into why in an exhaustive (and hilarious) amount of detail. I’d say even if you haven’t seen ALF, they’re still really engaging in how in depth he goes into explaining every part of every episode and why it’s shit. I’ve read the entire thing several times at this point, I’d highly recommend checking it out.
• I love Bart’s desperation by the third act. The time lapse shot of him sleeping all night in front of the Android’s Dungeon is pretty sad, all leading to his final desperate moment of prayer, with an absolutely fantastic performance by Nancy Cartwright. It’s probably the most vulnerable we’ve seen Bart in the entire series.
• Lisa buying Bart’s soul back for him feels like a thank you for Bart buying the Bleeding Gums record in “‘Round Springfield.” Funny how there’s two endings where a Simpson sibling saves the day by buying something from Comic Book Guy. 
• Simpsons Archive retro review: “This was one of the stupidest episodes I’ve seen. It was corny and predictable and it had the humor of Erkle’s show. I don’t know what the hell is wrong with the writers of the show, but I think the good ones have been replaced with nephews and beer buddies of the show’s producers.”

5. Lisa the Vegetarian

• The sound design in Storytown Village is really strong, from Mama Bear’s busted speaker to the axe cutting off Mother Goose’s head. That latter gag is executed absolutely perfectly, together with the timing, the animation of how swiftly the axe goes through the goose, and the sound effect.
• The Simpsons returning home with their busted up back window is such a wonderful joke in how it’s not even highlighted. It’s a great coming back to earth after the sweet bit of Lisa bonding with the lamb, where right as the gruff voiced “Mother Goose” comes on the PA system (“The following cars have been broken into,”) we cut right to the Simpsons pulling up the driveway with a busted back window. Like, of course they were among the unlucky ones, why dwell on the joke any further?
• Gotta love Lord Thistlewick Flanders. And hey, have I mentioned Dankmus recently?
• The Independent Thought alarm is a perfect Springfield Elementary feature. I also love Willie’s vindication at Skinner’s order to remove all the colored chalk (“That colored chalk was forged by Lucifer himself!”)
• The Itchy & Scratchy in this episode really is one of the strangest, where Itchy serves Scratchy his own bloated stomach on a plate at a fancy restaurant. Even when he repeatedly eats a piece and it flies back out of the hole in his meal, he’s completely none the wiser. It feels so gross, with Scratchy’s shaved pink belly and the sound effect of it flopping onto the plate. Of course, Scratchy only dies when he receives the exorbitant bill and his head explodes. Brilliant.
• I’ve definitely thought “Yo, goober! Where’s the meat!” at least a few times waiting for my food at a restaurant. 
• “A certain… agitator… for privacy’s sake, let’s call her Lisa S. No, that’s too obvious. Let’s say L. Simpson.”
• “Meat and You: Partners in Freedom” has got to be the best filmstrip of the entire series. Every moment in it is classic: Troy forgetting the kid’s name, sliding a finger on the cow’s back and tasting it, the “kill floor,” the “science-tician” who gets cut off, the very memeable shot of the shark eating the gorilla, and of course, the very helpful diagram of the food chain.
  
• The gas grill gag is great by itself, but made even better for knowledgeable fans who recall “Treehouse of Horror.” While Homer’s excessively doused grill caused a mini-mushroom cloud to erupt in that episode, here, he lights a match and the grill lights up like normal. Really great bait-and-switch.
• Barney’s “Go back to Russia!” in response to Lisa’s gazpacho always makes me laugh.
• Paul and Linda McCartney’s appearance skews very close to the impending deluge of guest stars who show up just to be fawned over, or worse to hawk their own images or wares, but their interplay with Apu ends up mostly saving it. I love that being an eight-year-old girl, Lisa’s initial reaction to seeing the vintage rock star is, ”I read about you in history class!”
• I feel like some might complain about Lisa’s actions and behavior in the third act being too mean and spiteful, but that’s kind of the whole point. She’s really devoted to this new cause, but, as a child, she ends up getting too wrapped up in it and ostracizing herself from the family. Homer is equally as petulant, being a dimwitted man child. The ending when the two reunite is beautiful (I absolutely love their back-and-forth “you looking for me?” dialogue. Both know they have to apologize, but have to muster up the courage to do so) is so very, very sweet, topped off with Lisa getting a veggie-back ride.
• Simpsons Archive retro review: “Kind of a disappointing episode. It seems like a WSB episode where every character is given a few token lines to say. Only Apu brought any sensibility to the show. And a message to the writers. Please do not devote entire episodes to your celebrity guests’ pet causes.”

6. Treehouse of Horror VI

• Pimply Faced Teen shouting “You don’t scare us!” when Homer storms out is so funny.
• Homer steals the Lard Lad donut entirely out of spite, but seems to be having a grand old time lying in the donut hole in his underwear drinking beer. Never mind how he got that thing in the house though.
• “Panic is gripping Springfield as giant advertising mascots rampage through the city. Perhaps it’s part of some daring new ad campaign, but what new product could justify such carnage? A cleanser? A fat-free fudge cake that doesn’t let you down in the flavor department like so many others?”
• The captain of the high school basketball team that Wiggum shoots dead is literally taller than the building he walks out of. He’s got to be over ten feet tall. Forget what Lou says, that kid is a monster.
• Lard Lad’s giant angry face through the door frame is such a memorable image to me. I always think of Lard Lad’s as one of the most iconic stores of Springfield, but I think this is its first appearance. I just love Lard Lad, he’s such a great design. I wish they had like a little statuette of him, I’d love to have that on my desk. Though maybe one does exist, there’s endless amounts of Simpsons merchandise out there.
  
• I love Harry Shearer’s performance by the head of the ad agency, with his warbling attempt to sing the anti-monster jingle (“Don’t watch the mo… don’t watch them… mon-steeeeeeerrrrrssss…”) 
• “Children, I couldn’t help monitoring your conversation. There’s no mystery about Willie. Why, he simply disappeared. Now, let’s have no more curiosity about this bizarre cover-up.”
• Truly disturbing performance by Russi Taylor doing Martin’s death screech before he falls to the floor getting killed by dream Willie. It’s so genuinely horrifying, but in classic show fashion, it’s immediately followed by Nelson’s “Haw-haw!” and the great scene of Martin’s twisted corpse being exposed to the class, and then rolled into the kindergarten.
• I got Simpsons calendars for a few years when I was younger, and I remember more than one year had a thirteenth page for Smarch, which featured a bunch of fake holidays on the calendar. It was a really nice touch.
• While “Nightmare on Evergreen Terrace” plays the Elm Street premise mostly straight, I like how Willie’s origin story is almost like the inverse of Freddy Krueger’s. While Freddy was a school groundskeeper who murdered and/or molested children that the parents burned alive to protect them, Willie senselessly dies due to ignorant and uncaring budget cuts made by the parents (“Recharge fire extinguishers? Now, this is a free service of the fire department…” “Nay!”) Also, there’s a shot of the parents toward the end of this scene that always stuck out to me. I know the kids’ desks are low to the floor, but jeez, look at those guys. The shot also makes poor Ned and Martin’s dad look as fat as Wiggum.
  
• Willie’s “compost-mortem” line is some damn good writing. I also like how he takes a bunch of different (tartan patterned) forms before he sinks down into the sandbox. I don’t exactly know why he does it (the rocketship makes sense for him trying to get out, but the elephant and tank would serve more to weight him down), but I still think it’s cool.
  
• I’m certain I mentioned this the first time around, but Homer³ always reminds me of Cyberworld 3D, an IMAX film from 2000 that acted like an anthology showcase of different early CG animation: shorts films, music videos, a sequence from Dreamworks’ Antz, and what I cared most about, the Homer³ segment. Getting to see the Simpsons in IMAX was a real treat for my young self. I really wish the film was available in some form so I could see it again, but given the different rights holders of the different segments, that’s never gonna happen.
• Even though it’s very rudimentary, I think the 3D animation holds up in the sense that Homer has basically been transported into an early 3D demo reel, walking past primitive CG assets and first-pass water effects. He’s trapped inside the concept of 3D, so if this were some crazy, elaborate 3D environment, it would kind of sully that idea.
• Can you believe there are actually people out there still excited for a Tron 3? Takes all kinds, man…
• The meta aspect of Frink explaining the concept of three dimensions is so great. I love that the characters are all completely befuddled by the concept of the z-axis, which pairs nicely with the x/y/z directional sign 3D Homer walks up to.
• Simpsons Archive retro review: “I thought this Simpsons episode sucked. I mean, did it suck or what? And Homer³ was just trying to camouflage the fact that…it sucked! And you know, what a way to cap an episode. Homer’s in the real world and goes into Erotic Cakes stores. So? What happens next. Credits…It sucked.”

Original airdate: January 3, 2021

The premise: Comic Book Guy’s wife Kumiko gets baby fever, but he isn’t crazy on the idea of having kids. When the pressure gets to be too much for him, he retreats to his childhood home, forcing Homer and Marge to convince him to come back.

The reaction: Season 25’s “Married to the Blob” introduced Kumiko, the love of Comic Book Guy’s life, whom he married by the end of the episode. In the seven years since then, we’ve only seen her a small handful of times. Much like Selma’s daughter Ling or Ned Flanders becoming the new fourth grade teacher, this “big change” ended up barely being addressed in the years following, in this case, a new character to easily be discarded if need be (as we just saw this season in “Three Dreams Denied.”) Kumiko is a manga artist whose biggest turn-on is American sarcasm, but we basically know nothing else about her, so reading the synopsis to this episode was kind of laughable. How can I give a shit about whether CBG and Kumiko have a kid when I barely even understand them as a couple? That being said, I was willing to push all of that aside. If this episode wanted to retroactively develop Kumiko’s character and her relationship with CBG, I’m fine with that. But of course, that didn’t really happen. Kumiko is basically an otaku’s dream girl, as she and CBG spend their Sunday having tea service and attending a Miyazaki film marathon. This changes once she gets to hold Maggie for the first time, awakening her desire to have a child of her own. This change of heart doesn’t reveal any new info about Kumiko and her hopes for a family, never extending any further than her just being baby crazy, like all women get, amirite, guys?! CBG is blindsided by this, as they had bonded in their mutual disinterest in having children. This scene contains a nugget of actual character work, as CBG explains that his years of minding the comic book store have given him a natural disdain toward children, never imagining he could ever be a father. Marge (and begrudgingly, Homer) stick their noses in their affairs by trying to push CBG in the right direction, pawning Bart and Lisa on them during an outdoor film screening of a Back to the Future “parody.” Having never seen it before, Bart and Lisa are enchanted by the film, getting CBG incredibly emotional, watching this favorite film of his through new eyes, regaling the kids with trivia and factoids. Although over-explained through the dialogue, this feels like the perfect inspiration for why CBG would ever consider procreating, so kudos to the writers on that. When Bart and Lisa get frightened as their parents have seemingly gone missing (they’ve run off to have sex, obviously), Kumiko continues to try and get CBG to emotionally open up and comfort the kids, but it proves to be too much as he flees the scene. Despite Kumiko still not being a real character, things seemed to be going in a promising direction with seeing the couple actually acting and reacting back and forth with each other, but it was over far too soon.

Kumiko knows where CBG has run off to, but she demands Homer and Marge go after him, because God forbid she actually take agency in her own story, lest we actually learn something about her. CBG’s childhood home is an old, pretty lavish mansion, and from this point, we’re regaled with CBG’s origin story of his youth via a quirky, narrated flashback with picture book-esque visuals. These sections are clearly referencing the style of Wes Anderson, and even though I’ve only seen a couple of his movies, I still got what they were going for. CBG grew up in a house full of childless relatives, each with their own obsessive collections, too busy to pay attention to him. When his father missed his big baseball game, he retreated to the world of comic books. All of this is not very funny and pretty underdeveloped, and it all feels like it would hold a lot more weight if CBG had actually narrated his own story, or if it unfolded over time as CBG and his father talked about it. Instead, it feels like Tell, Not Show again, almost intentionally, as the book closes on the flashback and we see the title, “Great Expositions.” But what specifically about comics was CBG drawn to? The escape into fantasy? How there’s always a status quo in long-running comics, so there’s no permanent emotional pain? Also, it’s unclear what CBG’s relationship with his father is. His father lets him back into the house, no problem, but then CBG just goes to his room and it seems the two don’t even speak to each other. Ultimately it’s revealed that CBG’s father missed his son’s big game in order to buy a baseball signed by his favorite player, but ended up not going (“I was afraid if you lost, I wouldn’t know how to comfort you.”) I guess they’re showing how CBG got his stunted emotional growth from his father, but there’s way too much open-endedness to this story. What happened after the game? Did CBG and his dad just never speak again? His father says he expressed his affection with collectibles, so did he buy CBG his comics when he was younger? Their story is so underdeveloped I just don’t know what to make of this ending. Despite my initial grumblings, a story about CBG and Kumiko planning a family could work, and a few pivotal moments here do, but it’s mostly just severely undercooked and rushed to actually feel like a meaningful story.

Three items of note:
– Continuing this season’s recasting, Jenny Yokobori is the new voice of Kumiko, replacing Tress MacNeille. I actually enjoyed her performance, though it’s hard to directly compare to MacNeille, since the material here is more emotional and substantial than any of Kumiko’s other appearances, where MacNeille just did a generic Japanese girl voice. Hopefully they don’t rope Yokobori into voicing Cookie Kwan. Best to just let that horrible character stay dead.
– CBG, Kumiko and the Simpsons all attend the movie screening at Springfield Forever Cemetery, inspired by similar events hosted at Hollywood Forever Cemetery (yet another example of Springfield basically being Los Angeles, Jr. now.) There, they watch the classic sci-fi film “Forward to the Past.” Sigh. We see scenes of the movie featuring not-Marty and not-Doc and their time traveling steamboat. I honestly don’t get why they do these almost-but-not-really parodies. Am I supposed to think it’s funny that you took a famous movie and just changed some words around? Why couldn’t they have just been watching Back to the Future? Earlier, Kumiko cosplays as a character from Gremlins 2, which CBG mentions by name, so what the hell’s the difference? The fake movie scenes aren’t commenting on Back to the Future in a funny or interesting way, it just feels pointless.
– In our last scene, CBG returns home and tells Kumiko he’s a changed man. Kumiko is thrilled (“You are ready to make a baby!”), the two don their cosplay and share a romantic dance as the Faces song “Ooh La La” plays. Curtains close as the credits start to roll (this song was also used in the Wes Anderson film Rushmore, most likely why they used it here.) It’s all just so sickeningly sweet. This is another Matt Selman-produced episode, and all of his episodes seem to have these incredibly saccharine conclusions, emotional endings that are 100% played straight. They always feel like shit the show would have made fun of in its prime. During my Revisited series, rewatching seasons 6 and 7, there are plenty of examples of genuine, heartwarming moments, but they’re always surrounded by absurdity, or have some kind of undercutting joke or weird element to them that make them simultaneously funny. Here, I guess we’re supposed to laugh that CBG is in a beaver costume, but it’s just not enough. It’s just a schmaltzy final shot that feels absolutely unearned.

19. Lisa’s Wedding

• Pretty cute detail of Maggie giving the thumbs down to Ned and Smithers’ knight battle.
• My wife has gotten into looming over the past year. I’m hoping at some point I walk in on her and she’s made a tapestry reading, “Hi Mike, I am weaving a loom.”
• Last time I watched this episode, we were just one year beyond the fantastic far off future of 2010, and now we’re almost a decade past that point. Regardless, this is still easily the best depiction of the future the series has ever done, seamlessly combining plausible predictions (video phones, overcrowded schools with corporate sponsors, the death of the environment) and purposefully silly gags like the old-new planes and exploding robots.
• It’s funny hearing that Lisa has taken up vegetarianism in the future, seemingly predicting “Lisa the Vegetarian” one season later.
• The digital Big Ben flashing “12:00” is my favorite future joke in the entire episode, as it’s the perfect representation of a technologically advanced future that is still plagued by human error. It reminds me of the pilot of Futurama where we first see the futuristic splendor of New New York, featuring a floating billboard where the panels rotate, but one of the sections is broken and doesn’t rotate when the board switches. It’s such a great touch to signify that the future ain’t all it’s cracked up to be.
• Hilarious performance by Yeardley Smith giving her awkward, unsure laugh at Hugh’s father’s pithy remark (“Should I laugh? Was that dry British wit, or subtle self-pity?”) Mr. Parkfield is pleased, delighted to hear such a “boisterous” American laugh.
• Every other future episode after this depicts an older Bart who is basically acts like his ten-year-old self, which always feels very sad and uncreative to me. For me, I think the most plausible fates for Bart is either he gets his act together and thrives, as we see him in “Itchy & Scratchy: The Movie” as a Supreme Court Justice, or in this episode, where he’s a normal blue collar guy working construction and going to strip clubs. He’s still immature, but it feels more believable than him just being a man child in later episodes.
• Nice touch as we pan by executives Lenny and Carl, they appear to be taking a meeting with the Germans from “Burns Verkaufen der Kraftwerk.”
• Poor Milhouse, bald like his father at the age of 25. I also love seeing him as a teenager getting easily shot down by Lisa. Future future episodes would depict the two of them as married, which always felt wrong to me, but I can easily imagine Lisa go on a pity date with him to be nice, but turning him down before he gets his hopes up.
  
• The gag with Maggie always getting cut off before speaking is pretty funny in this episode, which they would of course repeat in every single other future episode. But what is Maggie’s personality? That would actually be interesting to see. How does she get along with the rest of the family as a kid? Or a teenager? The show has done two episodes featuring Bart and Lisa’s adolescence, why not go three for three and characterize Maggie? I’m sure it’ll be terrible, but why not give it a shot?
• Kent Brockman reporting for CNNBCBS (a division of ABC) is definitely the most eerily predictive joke in this episode.
• Gotta love Marge and Lisa laughing about how Milhouse “doesn’t count” in regards to Lisa still wearing white. Poor, poor Milhouse.
• I absolutely love Homer in the third act. He feebly tries to relate to Hugh’s parents (“You know what’s great about you English? Octopussy. Man, I must have seen that movie… twice!”) It’s silly, but he’s really trying. Later, he timidly explains to Lisa why he still has the cuff links (“I found them on the nightstand this morning and… well, I guess they weren’t his cup of tea. Don’t worry about it.”) You can see that he was actually hurt that Hugh left them behind, but he doesn’t want to cause a fuss because of Lisa. It’s kind of a sad moment, and it perfectly tees up Lisa’s ultimate defense of her family to Hugh.
• “You know, I’ve attempted to enjoy your family on a personal level, on an ironic level, as a novelty, as camp, as kitsch, as a cautionary example… nothing works.”
• Another sweet detail that when Lisa returns to the faire tent at the end, we see Wiggum leaning against it, taking a nap. Awww.
• Simpsons Archive retro review: “Last night’s episode was among the most disappointing displays I’ve ever witnessed. Everyone’s already seen Back to the Future, guys. We don’t want the Simpsons version.”

20. Two Dozen and One Greyhounds

• Santa’s Little Helper chasing Snowball II with a knife in his jaws is a pretty insane gag
• Wonderful animation of SLH pulling the “precious cable TV cable” all through the neighborhood. Great touch as the mailboxes get knocked over as the cable hits into them.
  
• I don’t know if I ever really put it together, but I love the touch that She’s the Fastest is the new #8 at the dog track, seemingly having filled Santa’s Little Helper’s old number.
• The staging of SLH humping She’s the Fastest on the track is so damn funny. It’s completely unnatural, with him rising up in frame while still running and mounting at the same time, but who cares, it’s great.
• The newborn puppies are so fucking adorable, with their half opened eyes and the little puppy whimpering noises.
• Hilarious read by Dan Castellaneta’s “GET THAT CAT OUT OF THE WAY,” followed by the entire family staring daggers at the damn cat.
  
• The sitcom scene is just fantastic, a perfect display of on-the-nose hacky writing of the very important dinner where nothing can go wrong, and everything goes wrong. And “See you in hell! …from Heaven” is a hall of fame line for Lovejoy.
• “See My Vest” has got to be in the top 5 songs of the series, a peppy, upbeat, Disney-inspired showstopper that’s all about murdering two dozen puppies for their pelts. What’s not to love? Plus a cameo by human Mrs. Potts, informing Burns he should save two to kill to make matching clogs. Once again, this dog-killing episode is available to stream now on Disney+.
• The door knob jostling and eventually turning all the way around is another of those ridiculous gags that I love just because of how impossible they are.
• Bart’s plan of pulling the clothesline to get all of the dogs to stand on their hind legs prompts Burns to spout some purposefully on-the-nose dialogue (“This can’t be happening! They’re all standing. I can’t tell them apart!”) Normally I’d admonish the show for something like this, but the third act paints Mr. Burns as basically a cartoon villain, about to murder a bunch of puppies point blank with a gun, so I think dialogue like that almost plays into that angle. He then proceeds to try to murder all the puppies, then Bart and Lisa, but in the end, he just doesn’t have the heart for it.
• The fake-out of Homer “hanging himself” at the end is absolutely my favorite bait-and-switch of the whole series. It’s so stupid, but that just makes it all the better. Homer bats the basement light bulb to make him feel better. Sure, why not?
• Simpsons Archive retro review: “This episode had the potential to turn into something absolutely awful, and it did. Puppies? I’m supposed to laugh about puppies? I haven’t seen so much commercialized cuteness since the Care Bears. I think we were all rooting for Burns.”

21. The PTA Disbands

• The gag with the cannon at Fort Springfield is so great. I love any joke where the thing you expect to happen doesn’t actually happen, which this show does a lot of. Pamela Hayden’s matter-of-fact read of the tour guide just totally sells it.
• The Diz-nee takeover of the historical park is such a scathing gag (Sorry, But There’s Profit to be Had), making it all the more inappropriate given the show’s new owners.
• It’s pretty wild seeing Uter get left behind and the camera cuts away just before he’s beaten mercilessly by a bunch of adults with the butts of their fake guns. Not only that, but Krabappel and Skinner don’t really seem to be that bothered by it (“Because of your penny-pinching, we’re coming back from a field trip with the fewest children yet.” “God bless the man who invented permission slips.”)
• I like that in her going head to head with Skinner, Mrs. Krabappel does seem to actually give somewhat a shit about her responsibility as a teacher (“Our demands are very reasonable. By ignoring them, you’re selling out these children’s future!”) Unlike someone like Miss Hoover, it seems like there is a genuine core to Krabappel that wants to be an inspiring educator, but years at a hellhole like Springfield Elementary have worn her down to a nub, and Skinner repeatedly failing to meet her and her fellow co-workers halfway have finally gotten her to the breaking point.
• The band playing “the forbidden music” might be the lamest syndication cut joke. It feels like such a long scene devoted to a joke that’s not even funny. The little girl stuck hanging from the gymnasium rings, a casualty of the teacher’s striking, the dramatic event ending our first act, really feels much more appropriate as an act break scene.
• I like how Bart’s weekday shenanigans feel a bit more wild and reckless than his normal fare, fucking with people at a construction site and causing a pandemonium at the bank. It all signals how without any boundaries, he ends up pushing things a bit too far, like flying a kite at night (“Hello, mother dear…”)
• Conversely, I love how Lisa falls apart because of her desperate need to be validated. It’s not so much the learning as the reinforcement that she’s doing a good job, which feels very believable for a young child to feel. Her desperate pleas to Marge to give her any sort of grade, prompting her to scribble an “A” on a piece of paper and hand it to her, is a great scene.
• Dan Castellaneta’s ADR in the crowd during the PTA scene when Skinner and Krabappel shoot back and forth at each other is really funny. (“Taxes are bad!” “Children are important!” “The taxes! The finger thing means the taxes!”)
• Bart’s “prank” of an enormous log embedding itself into the chalkboard, and presumably the new substitute’s head, is so wild. It’s one of the few times I actually created a shitpost of my own.
  
• In another instance of the show mocking TV conventions, we have Skinner and Krabappel trapped in a small space to figure out their problems (“Me? Go to my office? Well, it’s highly irregular, but alright!”) They then proceed to bang on the door to be let out for hours and hours on end, and eventually when they do get to talking, we get our grand resolution: occupied jail cells in the classroom (“It’s all right, children, just ignore the murderer.”)
• Simpsons Archive retro review: “Improbable, poorly scripted, and lacking in all respects. Lisa was completely out of character throughout — proof positive that Jennifer Crittenden must go. An utter disaster and total failure from start to finish. 5/10.”

22. ‘Round Springfield

• I love how awkward the big TV set looks wedged between the counter and the cupboards as the family apparently hauled it into the kitchen to watch during breakfast.
• “Who was George Washington Carver?” “Umm… the guy who chopped up George Washington?”
• What the hell kind of prize is a jagged metal Krusty-O? It’s not a toy of any kind, and the fact that it’s literally a dangerous lookalike of the actual food product hidden in the bag of cereal itself rather than in the box makes it even more on-the-nose stupid… but in a good way.
• Great performance by Marcia Wallace humming “Stars and Stripes Forever,” really milking it before she finally lets a clearly pained Bart go see the nurse. I also never noticed how this “foreshadows” the band concert later where they play the same song. I imagine this wasn’t intentional, but it’s kind of neat.
• “Cheese-eating surrender monkeys” has its own goddamn Wikipedia phrase, as the joke was co-opted by overpaid columnists and blowhard reactionaries to admonish the French for being cowardly or some shit. I remember it came into resurgence leading up to the Iraq War when France decided to opt out of helping us. What a blunder, huh? Almost twenty years later and that occupation’s going just great!
• I really wish we’d gotten at least one other major reappearance of Bleeding Gums Murphy. He was such a fascinating and engaging character out of the box, representing both a dour and optimistic future for Lisa the jazz musician. At least in this episode, we give him a decent amount of background, which is interesting to learn, while also feeling like a nice little send-off.
• Great animation of Krusty’s pained overreaction to the (regular) Krusty-O. It feels a little reminiscent of his on-air heart attack from “Krusty Gets Busted.”
  
• I guess there’s not really much point in knowing exactly why Bleeding Gums is in the hospital and what killed him, since it doesn’t really matter. I love how him giving Lisa his sax reads like him knowing he’s on his way out, and he might as well give his prized possession to someone who will use it and appreciate it.
• I love the irrationally angry crowd at the school recital. They give the band not even five seconds before they start vehemently booing these eight-year-olds, including Abe, yelling at his own granddaughter (“This sucks!”)
• Alf Clausen’s jazz motif after Bleeding Gums dies that plays throughout the rest of the episode is a really beautiful piece of music. It really just emphasizes and enhances Lisa’s emotional state.
• I’ve always appreciated how the two plots come together at the end so effortlessly, where Bart uses his settlement money to buy Lisa Bleeding Gums’ record, with the very reasonable and believable explanation that she was the only one who believed him when he said he was hurt. Plus, he has his back-up plan with the newly issued Krusty-O’s, featuring flesh-eating bacteria in every box. What could go wrong!
• And of course, obligatory shout-out to Yeardley Smith’s wonderful rendition of “Jazz Man.” Just great.
• Simpsons Archive retro review: “I thought this episode was just plain awful, the only really funny part being the end cloud scene with James Earl Jones voiceovers. I was offended by the sappiness; I like cutting satirical humor. That’s why I watch The Simpsons and why I don’t watch dumb sappy sitcoms.”

23. The Springfield Connection

• The Springfield Pops is a great opening set piece, with Homer’s bizarre indignation toward the “butchering” of the Star Wars score (“They’re butchering the classics! Could that bassoon have come in any more late?”)
• Marge’s passion for law and order being sparked by Snake’s crooked card game definitely feels appropriate. She reprimands him like a moralistic housewife wanting clean streets for herself and her children in a perfect motherly scolding tone (“How dare you prey on the greedy and stupid like this!”)
• Lisa getting Bart in an arm-lock in the kitchen is pretty adorable, both seeing her easily manhandling an emasculated Bart, and her enthusiasm over her mother’s exciting apprehension.
• The sound effect of the shopping cart disappearing in the gigantic wheel of cheese is just… [chef’s kiss]
• Each magazine cover in the “Death Sports” section is better than the last. I really want to read that glass eating article.
  
• Wiggum’s “What-what-what-what, this better be about pizza!” makes me laugh every damn time.
• Marge really is a badass during her training, especially on the shooting range. Her whole build-up through the first act is great. She’s a character with a lot of pent up frustration and energy, finally getting an outlet.
• I love the Hill Street Blues motif played throughout the episode, and the end credits version where it’s blended with the usual Simpsons theme. I love that version, it’s probably in my top 3 favorites.
• Trigger happy Marge pulling out her gun at the hair salon isn’t quite as “funny” watching it nowadays… Also, the joke where Lisa rightfully questions the police’s focus on mass incarceration to maintain the status quo of the privileged rather than systemic or societal changes to benefit all rings truer than it ever has. And McGruff the Crime Dog! Did I mention he had a music album?
• The altercation between Homer and Marge at the end of act two is great, as Marge tries harder and harder to give Homer a way out, which then turns into embarrassment and an attempt to save face after Homer takes her hat. The emotions are played so well, thanks to a great performance by Julie Kavner.
• Hans Moleman’s execution is definitely one of the show’s grimmer jokes. Lovejoy’s “From this point on, no talking” is hilarious, but even darker is the following scene of Homer and Marge in the bedroom, the lights flicker off for a second. RIP Hans.
• Herman’s only had a handful of appearances over the years, which is why it’s always interesting whenever he comes back into view. Here, he’s perfect as the understated culprit, the liaison to a smuggling ring under everybody’s nose. If they wanted to write Herman now, he’d basically have to be an insane online QAnon supporter, which could either be hilarious, incredibly depressing, or both.
• There’s a great piece of ADR toward the end that I don’t know if I ever noticed, where everyone’s out on the front lawn with the police, and in the background, Abe complains, “That’s my ambulance! I called for it four hours ago!”
• Simpsons Archive retro review: “Tonight I did something I haven’t done in a long, long time. I actually turned off an episode of The Simpsons before it was over. It seems like the good episodes only come every other week these days. The portion that I saw: D-.”

24. Lemon of Troy

• I love Bart’s fantasy of the future, a technological wonderland that can bring him back to life out of thin air, while simultaneously being absolutely fascinated by his simple yo-yo tricks (“What’s normal to him amazes us!”)
• I feel like I’ve given Tress MacNeille a bit of a hard time on this blog, as she would be somewhat overused in later seasons, but she’s undeniably an incredible talent, appearing in this episode as Bart’s county line doppelgänger Shelby. Tress is excellent at voicing kid characters, and Shelby is just such a gutsy little shit, the perfect annoying foil for Bart.
• “Hey, everybody! An old man’s talking!” is another line that makes me laugh every single time I hear it.
• I love Milhouse’s slowly building rage at Shelbyville through the first two acts, threatening to kick their butts… at Nintendo, getting more and more incensed at their “thievery” of wearing your backpack with one strap or his famous catchphrase of “radical.” But of course, upon meeting another Milhouse, he melts like a pat of butter in the sun.
• Marge’s phrasing of “a violence gang” is just wonderful.
• Luann Van Houten reveals she was born in Shelbyville (a point that enrages Kirk), but it certainly seems like quite the coincidence given how Kirk and Luann most definitely look like they’re related…
• The Nelson/Martin team-up (Team Discovery Channel) is so fun to watch. I love that Martin takes it upon himself to rough up the poor little kid peddling lemonade (“Okay, piglet, start squealing!” “This is Country Time lemonade mix! There’s never been anything close to a lemon in it, I swear!”) Then only when the kid’s bigger brother emerges does Martin unleash Nelson, who awkwardly knocks the kid out, but not before attempting to justify this bizarre pairing (“Aww jeez, I never hang out with him, normally.”) Episodes in later seasons would depict Nelson and Martin as equal chums to Bart, which always felt wrong, making me always think back to this episode.
• This episode perfectly displays Springfield and Shelbyville as two towns filled with the same ignorant loudmouths engaging in a pointless rivalry (“Sounds like Springfield’s got a discipline problem.” “Maybe that’s why we beat them at football nearly half the time, huh?”) This becomes even more absurdist during the skateboard chase when we see all the bizarro mirror-image establishments like the Speed-E-Mart, Joe’s and femme Groundskeeper Willie. I think more than one later season episodes would depict Shelbyville as a more highbrow, enlightened town that looks down at the dirt urchins of Springfield, an extremely strange re-characterization.
• It’s funny that Bart’s eureka moment of knowing Roman numerals is from Rocky movies, when my base knowledge of Roman numerals comes from Treehouse of Horror episodes.
• It’s great that Homer’s Shelbyville double is basically Hank Azaria doing his take on the original Walter Matthau-inspired Homer voice (“Get out here, son! There’s a doin’s a-transpirin’!”) Also, fantastic animation of him attempting a smug face after taking a huge bite out of a lemon.
  
• Simpsons Archive retro review: “Well, it was an okay episode. A little on the stupid side (at points, so stupid, it was funny). I better see some improvement to the show, or it will be history soon.”

25. Who Shot Mr. Burns? (Part One)

• I’m not quite sure why Willie is digging Superdude a grave in the basement. Wouldn’t it be easier to just do it in the yard? He needs to strike oil in the school itself, that’s why.
• The bit where Homer ignorantly returns Burns his own important envelope is fantastic. I love that he actually was trying to do a good job, which makes the scorn from Burns sting even more. The chip on Homer’s shoulder just gets more and more unbearable as the episode goes on. He’s just a poor miserable schmo working a job he hates for a mean old codger, and all he wants is to just be recognized by name, and he can’t even get that.
• Great sign gag at the Executive Spa: Physical Fitness for Better Tyranny.
• Some of Skinner and Chalmers’ back-and-forths in the first act definitely feel like forebears to “Steamed Hams,” particularly the Awful School is Awful Rich headline, which I always laugh at (“An unrelated article? Within the banner headline?”)
• Tito Puente’s impromptu appearance is almost like how celebs would randomly show up in future seasons, but it still works because his arrival in Springfield is immediately (and humorously) explained, as Lisa basically tricked him into becoming her new teacher (“Lisa has told me all your students are as bright and dedicated to jazz as she is!”)
• Skinner confronting a poorly disguised Burns is such a great scene. It’s so much fun seeing him actually with balls. His flat “Please don’t waste those” at Smithers shooting staples at him is so funny.
• What the hell is a sour quince log? A quince is apparently some kind of fruit, but a sour fruit chocolate doesn’t sound very appealing to me. Burns was right to dispose of it. Poor Homer.
• Burns’ master plan to block out the sun couldn’t be more perfect. A scheme that would be absolutely devastating for the town, representing Burns’ absolute dominance over them all. In addition, it’s the perfect move for an ultra-capitalist to concoct a way to charge people for what nature provides them for free. You think if big business could figure out a way to monetize sunlight, they wouldn’t be all over that shit?
• This might be the greatest script ever written for the show in terms of its story. The potential suspect list just grows and grows as Burns’ oil drilling continues having new natural repercussions to the town. Smithers is shown as getting more and more worn down by Burns’ over-the-top villainy that even he can’t take it anymore. By act three, literally everyone in town is out for Burns’ blood, but he just revels in their hatred. He’s won, at least for now. It’s just an absolutely compelling ramp up for the entire episode.
• God, what a beautiful camera move when Homer finally snaps and runs across Burns’ office.
  
• Quimby’s plan to confront Burns is right out of the establishment Democrat’s playbook (“I have here a polite but firm letter to Mr. Burns’ underlings, who with some cajoling, will pass it along to him or at least give him the gist of it.”) His follow-up line is also fantastic (“Also it has been brought to my attention that a number of you are stroking guns. Therefore I will step aside and open up the floor.”)
• Smithers shamefully admitting he spends his days drinking and watching Comedy Central is a joke that didn’t quite age well. I have no real memory of a Comedy Central pre-South Park and Daily Show, was it really so bad?
• The only real clue about Burns’ true assailant is really brilliant; after Burns confidently asks, “You all talk big, but who here has the guts to stop me?,” we get a pan across all our characters, all of whom lose their nerve and look away. The only one who doesn’t? Maggie, who stares straight ahead.
• I actually watched something I’d never seen before for this rewatch, the “Springfield’s Most Wanted” special that aired before Part Two in the fall of 1995. An obvious parody of America’s Most Wanted hosted by John Walsh, it goes over the case details of Burns’ shooting, identifying the most likely suspects, and getting thoughts and predictions from guests such as Dennis Franz and Chris Elliott. It’s a cute piece, definitely a product of its time, but feels basically like pointless fluff, considering it aired right before the season premiere. I was originally going to ponder why the special never got released on the season 6 DVD, but looking back, it actually was included as an extra. I poured over those DVD sets so many times, how in the hell did I skip over that feature for so many years?
• Simpsons Archive retro review: “I really liked this episode. The sense of drama was skillfully created, and the jokes largely character-driven instead of merely surreal. A promise of improvement for the next season?”

And that does it for me for 2020!  The Revisited series will return in 2021 with season 7, as well as the triumphant return of season 32! Oh boy! Although keep your eyes peeled, there might be a special Christmas surprise coming just in time for the holidays…

Original airdate: December 13, 2020

The premise: A “Heartmark” film producer is called to Springfield to assist in the filming of their new Christmas movie, where she instantly clashes with their small town ways, particularly with Skinner, but the two slowly start to fall for each other.

The reaction: So, I have to watch a lot of different shows and movies for my job, and one of our recurring clients is Hallmark. As such, I have seen a lot of Hallmark movies, including their never-ending supply of Christmas movies. One might think that doing a parody of a Hallmark movie is way too easy a target, but in all honesty, having seen them, it’s an impossible task. I don’t know if there’s a way you could parody them. They are so vacuous and paint-by-numbers, they’re basically already parodies of themselves. But despite that, this episode is basically trying to be one big Hallmark movie parody, but it basically ends up becoming just another Hallmark movie story, albeit with a meta twist. Big city, no-nonsense film producer Mary Tannenbaum (get it?), played by Ellie Kemper, is our focal character for most of the running time. To secure her promotion to head of the network, she must supervise the shoot of a new Christmas movie in Springfield. She’s dreading this, having a clear aversion to Christmas movies, something that predictably will be revealed as to why later in the episode. Mary is written like the one of two basic types of protagonists in Hallmark movies: the working woman from the big city who needs to learn to slow down and appreciate the simple things, preferably from a small town she’s stuck in and with a handsome country boy who can bring her down to Earth. In this episode, that role is filled by Skinner of all people, who butts heads with Mary instantly, as her filming is standing to interfere with Springfield’s annual Lettuce and Tomato festival. The story beats predictably go from here: the two agree to help each other out, grow more fond of each other, they have a brief falling out, Mary’s fiance gets into the picture, yadda yadda yadda… The entire town turns on Mary when her negative view on small towns is exposed, but she later admits a change of heart. After that, the whole town comes together to decorate the town square for their big shoot, including Skinner. It’s just like something out of a Hallmark movie! Because it is. Yes, there’s the meta aspect of them actually shooting a Hallmark movie, complete with the director talking about how pointless and disposable they are, and Mary has her share of self-conscious lines (“Christmas movies are the best movies, because everything always works out, no matter how contrived,”) but everything about the episode itself is playing out all the tropes of these movies completely straight. Like I said, it’s basically just like watching a terrible facsimile of a Hallmark movie, with no significant twist or subversion to it to make it interesting or entertaining. Parodying such a softball target in a unique or significant way is possible, even with the meta movie-within-a-movie angle, but per usual, the show chooses to go with the easiest, blandest route possible. What a shocker.

Three items of note:
– I know I already mentioned it at the start of the season, but man oh man does Julie Kavner sound bad. Her screaming at Homer to take Mary’s bags at the start made me incredibly sad. I have to assume that Kavner is in no pain while recording, and that the producers make sure their talent isn’t being pushed too hard, but this poor woman sounds like her voice is going to give out at any moment. They certainly aren’t going to recast Marge, but it’s getting to the point that it doesn’t even sound remotely like Marge anymore.
– Through the whole episode, we’ve been waiting for the explanation as to why Mary hates Christmas movies (both act one and two end with her grumbling, “It just had to be a Christmas movie…”) She finally spills the beans to Marge: her father was killed on set as an extra for Jingle All the Way. Yawn. Maybe this feels especially lame since I just watched Gremlins, where Phoebe Cates’ story about her dead father feels much more shocking and impactful. Also, if Mary’s father died while filming a movie, why on Earth would she want to be in the entertainment business? She calls it her dream job, but wouldn’t she want nothing to do with a company whose crown jewel are their Christmas movies? This aspect could have been highlighted as ironic, but instead, they do nothing with it. Again, what a shocker.
– So this episode is basically just a condensed Hallmark movie, but there are some details they get wrong. First, Hallmark movies are 100% sexless. Everything is building up to the completely chaste kiss at the very end, and leading up to that, there is absolutely nothing sensual or titillating at all, no intimacy, no discussion of attraction, nothing. The episode mentions this, with the director enforcing a closed-mouth kiss between the leads, but between Skinner and Mary, there’s a bizarre cheesecake shot where Skinner pours water on himself, revealing his muscular physique and Mary gets turned on a bit, and that would NEVER happen in a Hallmark production. Later, Mary mentions how she can’t wait to get back to the big city, her surgeon fiancé and her gay best friend. The gay best friend is a common trope of romantic comedies, but in Hallmark World, homosexuality does not exist. I think they might have broken the mold this year by having one gay minor character, but normally their movies feel completely lost in time (which I guess is part of their appeal). They actually use the black best friend trope a lot, which felt played out in most media by the end of the 90s. I wish I didn’t know so much about this shit, but if this show is gonna take on Hallmark, they should do it right. Maybe the reality of a grungy Springfield could have clashed with the saccharine, whitewashed world of a Hallmark story. Instead, all the Springfielders are cast in the small townie roles of the story, congenial faceless nobodies who all joke around at the local diner and obediently save the day at the end. Absolute yawn.