Original airdate: December 2, 2018

The premise: After making an impassioned speech in her honor, Lisa begins to idolize her father, comparing him to To Kill a Mockingbird‘s Atticus Finch. Bart becomes jealous of her sister and father’s new camaraderie, and starts to lash out more to get attention.

The reaction: Remember last week when I talked about season 30 not being so terrible? Well… This episode was written by Al Jean, and while the credited writer doesn’t seem to matter all that much given how much these scripts are communally rewritten over and over, it’s  surprised me particularly how shoddy the episodes with his name on them are, given he’s also responsible for some of the greatest moments in the show’s early history. Our saga gets rolling when Homer and Lisa find themselves in a children’s clothing store selling whore-ish attire. Homer sets off on a rant about how inappropriate this all is, even though Lisa didn’t appear to be at all uncomfortable or offended, but this single moment is enough to have her idolize Homer for the rest of the episode. She’s recently obsessed with To Kill a Mockingbird, and sees Atticus Finch’s quiet resolve and sense of morality in her father. She also dresses in overalls like Scout and speaks with a Southern accent. I guess it’s kind of cute seeing Lisa act so innocent and single-minded in seeing her dad with new, fresh eyes, but it clashes with the rest of the time when they write her as a adult, who you’d think would be logical enough to see that Homer hasn’t changed one bit. So Bart is annoyed by their new relationship, and at the fast-talking advice of the school therapist, he decides to act out for attention. His big prank? Switching all the car keys at the valet at the local temple hosting Shauna Chalmers’ (ugh) bar mitzvah, which creates an angry mob for some reason. Bart races home as the townspeople are out for blood. As Homer play-acts as Atticus Finch to continue getting Lisa’s respect, sitting on the porch acting cool and collected, the angry mob arrives (now with many more people than before) and aim their weapons at him. What’s this about? It’d be one thing if Moe (the mob’s spokesman, apparently) said something like this is the last straw, Bart’s shenanigans have fucked us all over and now you’re gonna pay, but there’s none of that. It’s like the Springfieldians used this incident that a small amount of people were involved in as an excuse to gather together and murder one or more Simpson family members. Then Lisa walks outside. To re-set the scene, a bunch of townspeople are outside, all angrily holding weapons at her father. Also, right when she walks out, Homer turns his head to look at her, and we see a bullet hole shoot straight into the house where his head just was. Her father was basically a second away from instant death. Her response? To continue talking in her Southern accent and completely diffuse the situation by talking nice to Moe and Wiggum (who literally says, “Let’s go, everyone, she’s diffused us!” apropos of nothing.) Is that a normal reaction for an eight-year-old? As I’ve said time and again, these characters barely resemble actual human beings anymore, and that completely robs any investment I have in what’s happening.

Case in point, the wrap-up, where Marge wants Lisa to stop looking up to Homer. Lisa gets in a fight with Bart defending her father’s honor, who appears on screen bloodied and with a black eye, cowering behind his mother’s back. Rather than react in any big shock, worry about Bart’s injuries, actually be a parent and punish Lisa, or try to dissolve their feud in any way, we cut to Marge going to see the school therapist, believing the problem lies in Lisa idolizing Homer. It’s unclear exactly why this is a problem. Sitting down with the two kids and actually discussing the issue, making sure Bart knows he’s loved within the family and Lisa to realize she can’t lash out at others, that seems like a good play. But no, status quo being God and all, Marge has to tell her husband to tell their daughter not to look up to him or respect him anymore (“It’s sweet that Lisa idolizes you, but it’s gone too far. We’ve got to put this family back in place.”) ?!?!?!? In the end, Homer “breaks up” with Lisa, I guess, and Lisa has moved on to a new hero as a saddened Homer walks by her door. So I guess Marge imploded her husband and daughter’s new relationship because she didn’t want to parent? They wrap it up with a hollow, manufactured “sweet” ending with Homer thinking he’s got a shot with Maggie, but it’s really all for naught. These episodes where they attempt to have an emotional core to them always feel like they fall the flattest, but at this point, they can’t even bother writing logical conclusions to them anymore. Homer and Lisa’s sweet new connection barely made any sense at the start, and made absolutely no sense in its dissolve. In one ear, out the other, I guess…

Three items of note:
– We open with a school play directed by hotheaded director Llewellyn Sinclair. He just recently reappeared in an episode last season in an equally superfluous appearance, I guess in the show trying to get brownie points by resurrecting characters from the classic era. There’s a weird moment when they perform the “Origin of Veal,” featuring Nelson walking on, dressed Anton Chigurh from No Country For Old Men, and shoots a dummy calf with an air compressor (one, why would Nelson know this character; two, what a dated reference; three, the show already made Chigurh into a literal character in an episode from ten years ago.) Lisa runs on stage, protesting this (“No, no, you promised you would cut this scene!”) Sinclair responds, “No, no, I cut your scene because you were being such a nudge!” Now, if actually spoken in response to Lisa, you’d think there would be an emphasis on “your.” As in, I cut your scene, in response to Lisa asking whether she cut this scene. But no, Jon Lovitz just reads it normally. I don’t know if it’s Lovitz’s fault, or the person directing him, but surely someone must have given a shit about the lines sounding correct, right? Also, speaking of re-using guest stars over and over, JK Simmons appears as the school therapist (where’d Dr. Pryor go?), whose schtick is he only gives each kid 45 seconds and talks really, really fast. I guess they got tired of reusing the J. Jonah Jameson character, but still like it when JK talks real fast. The Spider-Man movies were over a decade ago, are the writers that tickled about his fast-talkin’ guy routine? No besmirch against him, but it just feels so dated.
– As Homer gives his speech at the Li’l Preteen Whore Store or whatever, Lisa looks back and forth from her Mockingbird book, with a picture of Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch on it, to her father, who each time she looks back at him, seems to physically resemble Peck/Finch more and more. When Homer finishes his yammering, Lisa says the following line: “Dad, I’m seeing you with new eyes! You’ve become the hero of my book!” There are times that a line or moment is so baffling to me, I have to pause the episode to reflect on what just happened. First of all, no human being talks like this. The writers can’t communicate character revelations or plot points through normal means, so they literally need to have characters explicitly say what they’re feeling and what they want or are going to do (as the Robot Devil would say, “That makes me feel angry!”) But on top of that, the line is also completely redundant. In a fifteen-second scene (that felt twice as long), we literally just saw that from Lisa’s own eyes, her POV, her view on her father morphing to that of Atticus Finch (with “new eyes” as her hero). The show continues to have dialogue like this (“Dad, you saved us all with your calmness and bravery!”) In the last post, I pondered if it were at all possible the show could climb out of the hole it flung itself into to possibly being okay again, but then I watch scenes like these, and I feel like a complete fool for thinking that.
– Through the episode, Homer and Lisa watch the black-and-white 1962 To Kill a Mockingbird film starring Gregory Peck. As in, the actual live-action film on the animated TV screen. The show has done this a few times in the last couple years or so where we actually see live-action footage (one episode opened with them watching Dr. Doolittle at school for some reason.) It’s incredibly jarring, and I don’t know why they didn’t just animate it. Plus, as it’s a film over fifty years old, the pacing is incredibly slow. The episode just slows to a halt as they’re sitting and watching it. In one section, they try to draw a parallel between the two stories with Homer being inspired by Finch getting a kid out of trouble, or something. Also, I read Mockingbird when I was in school, and I’m having trouble remembering all the plot elements of it. They don’t even have Lisa do an exposition dump about it, or talk about how much she loves Atticus Finch. I’ve also never seen the movie, and surely a lot of people have, but I don’t recognize or understand what’s happening in these scenes we’re watching. It felt like the writers just love this old movie and wanted to use it verbatim in the episode. And it’s not like Doolittle which was already owned by Fox, the Mockingbird movie is a Universal picture, so they had to pay licensing fees to use it too! I really don’t get why…

One good line/moment: After offending him or something, Abe tells Bart to put up his dukes… then to help him put up his dukes… and then he immediately socks his grandson in the face. Solid laugh from me, but that was basically the only one for the half-hour.

Final nerdy nitpick: Hey, look, a mistake! During Shauna’s reading of the Torah, everyone is patiently waiting for her to be done already. Her father bemoans that the buffet spread is getting cold at this point. Notice Willie is sitting behind them to the far right. We also see him in two or three other background shots.
We then immediately cut to the buffet, where we find…

Whoops. I hope somebody got fired for that blunder.

All kidding aside, I understand mistakes happen. Thousands of eyes can look over a project and still stuff like this gets through, I get it. It’s just so weird that it stuck out to me immediately in just one viewing. And it’s not like animation mistakes in the old days when everything was done on cels. They could have easily replaced Willie in those few shots with a different character, since he’s just part of the crowd in the background. But hey, I guess shit happens.

Original airdate: November 25, 2018

The premise: On the run from the law, Krusty lies low in disguise at the circus, only to come to love being an authentic circus performer. Meanwhile, Homer takes on a new job as a TV recapper, only to discover a conspiracy involving our current “peak TV” climate.

The reaction: I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned this before, but this episode reminded me just how incongruous the Krusty the Klown Show is in the year 2018. Lisa tasks Homer with doing recaps of the show, which is what exactly? We see Krusty, Mel and Mr. Teeny doing a hula dance against a fake set, then we see an Itchy & Scratchy cartoon. At the end of the show, apparently Chris Pine did a guest appearance, and from the photo in a newspaper it seems he and Krusty did a Star Trek sketch. So is it like Saturday Night Live for kids? Krusty’s show has always been a catch-all for a bunch of different TV parodies, but as time goes on, his status as a renowned entertainer makes less and less sense. But anyway, Krusty literally tries to kill Homer in a rage while driving, getting them both in an accident. Bart somehow rushes to the scene and gets Krusty out of there before police can press charges. They do a “hilarious” bait-and-switch where you think Bart’s actually concerned for Homer’s well being but he runs to Krusty, ignoring that his beloved TV hero just tried to strangle his father to death (not sure if that’s supposed to be the joke or not.) Bart tags along with Krusty for the rest of the episode, and he makes no mention of this incident going forward. Krusty hides out at a local circus under the alias “Soggy,” only to find his new fellow performers are true professionals who hate sell-out TV clowns. So Krusty needs to step his game up and rekindle his love of performing to go toe-to-toe with these guys… or he can get drunk and perform a crazy stunt by accident and that makes everything okay. But just as Krusty starts to truly embrace his new life, the circus has to close its doors (“A terrible video got out.” “Which one?” “The video we sell here at the circus.”) Don’t see how that makes sense, given how filled the seats have been and how excited the crowds seem at their performances. Do people even go to the circus anymore? Surely they must, but I imagine the industry can’t be doing too hot. Maybe they could have been a struggling performance troupe which causes Krusty’s long-dormant inner enthusiastic performer to come out and act as mentor to these amateur clowns. Considering the B-plot involves an over-abundance of streaming television people are watching (or not watching), I think the decrepit circus concept would have played better.

Said B-plot features Homer getting into the world of TV recapping, summarizing one’s thoughts and opinions about a variety of different shows after they air. Man, what kind of pathetic loser would do that? He’s of course great at it, and renowned the Internet over for his work, as all Simpsons are immediately the best at everything they ever try ever. He even incorporates it into his foreplay, which I thought was actually kind of cute, but then Marge gets irrationally pissed off at him, so I guess it was supposed to a sign that he was getting too invested in his work. The climax involves Homer facing down the head of Google-Disney (voiced by Peter Serafinowicz), who goes on a big monologue about how “peak TV” is all a scam: there’s hundreds of shows out there, but most of them aren’t even produced; they know no one has time to watch that many shows, all they want is people’s subscriber fees. I actually kind of like this reveal (paired with Serafinowicz’s great performance), but I feel like there could have been more to it. The incredibly populated TV landscape and the psychology of what you’re gonna watch, one’s ever growing backlog of media to consume, and using streaming services in general, that’s more than enough material for an entire episode, not playing second fiddle to Krusty fucking around at a circus. I did appreciate them tying the two plots together at the end, with Krusty getting declared not guilty by a jury deeming his attacks justified due to Homer’s scathing B-minus review. These last couple episodes have actually had some decent stuff in them, but there’s still that ever present stagnation the show’s been lounging in for the last fifteen-plus years that’s hard to shake.

Three items of note:
– So yeah, Krusty as a modern day performer doesn’t really make sense anymore. From way back in 1990, Krusty and his show was an homage to the low-budget but charming children’s television programs, with Portland, Oregan’s favorite clown son Rusty Nails being the direct inspiration for the character. Krusty being a hometown performer who amused children with his cheesy buffoonery worked back then, and any joke about him being a higher level celebrity or getting knighted was funny because it was so absurd that a low-level children’s performer was considered at all notable outside the jerkwater burg he had fame in. But by the mid-to-late-90s, TV clowns went extinct, and by the time everyone got satellite TV and smartphones, locally produced television shows kind of disappeared as well. In an age of YouTube and streaming, what kid would waste their time and watch a rinky-dink, no-effort show like Krusty’s nowadays? It’s another instance of the ever-frozen cast of characters being more and more antiquated as culture marches forward.
– At the circus, we’re introduced to “hippo juice,” a strange purple concoction that circus folk drink, and eventually Krusty develops a taste for as well. It’s used as a joke multiple times in the episode, the performers drinking it is used as an act break joke… We see people drinking it so much, I was expecting there to be some kind of twist of what the drink actually was, or some kind of culminating joke to it all. But no, nothing. I guess we’re just supposed to think the name “hippo juice” is funny enough on its own.
– In the end, Krusty saves the circus by letting them turn him into the police for the reward money. But when he’s let off and goes back to the circus to plea for his job back, they still rebuff him. Honestly, why not have him go with them? I know status quo is God, but I think when you’ve run almost 650 episodes, you need to start trying new things. They’re done a few episodes where they shake the format up or try different stories, but the characters have remained stagnant since their creation. Why the fuck not have Krusty leave Springfield, at least for a little while? The Simpsons could go see him on the road, Sideshow Mel could take over the Klown show… I’d love to see new things happen to shake up the show’s foundations just a little bit, but it’s like Springfield is forever stuck in formaldehyde.

One good line/moment: Like last episode, there’s actually a couple decent moments. The final scene of Homer’s story was probably the best isolated scene the show has done in years, even if the whole twist could have been handled a little better. But man, that Serafinowicz has got one dynamite voice (“There is no USA Network! There hasn’t been for twenty years! It’s just bus ads!!”)

If I may wax positive very briefly, this season has been noticeably less terrible so far. By no means is this show anywhere close to great, but episodes at least have had a handful of jokes in them. I used to think as the seasons went on, this show was in a never-ending free fall to a creative nadir that they’d never reach. But, at least for now, it looks like season 28 was the bottom, which had some of the worst episodes of television I’ve ever seen. Season 29 wasn’t nearly as bad, and now season 30 has noticeably increased in quality slightly. It’s like these two years has been the show attempting to claw and scrape out of the bottom of a pit. Will they manage to resurface and regain some sense of greatness? I’m gonna take a safe bet and say ‘no,’ but I’m at least a little glad to see a little bit of effort in these episodes again.

Original airdate: November 18, 2018

The premise: An extreme makeover by Julio gets Marge mistaken for a drag queen, and while she initially is horrified, she ends up embracing the drag scene, seeing it as a confidence booster. Meanwhile, Lisa is inspired by French cinema to make the world a better place, one good deed at a time.

The reaction: Right off the bat, I gotta be honest, the conceit of husky-voiced Marge being mistaken for a drag queen is one of the most humorous ideas this show’s had in a good long while. A story about Marge finding acceptance in drag culture while having to hide who she is could have been interesting, but that pesky poor writing just can’t support it. With Lisa’s B-plot eating up time, we only get one quick scene of Marge getting introduced to a bunch of drag queens, then a musical number, and that’s basically it in terms of developing her relationship with these people and the subculture. As usual, any further scenes would require them having to make Shantae (voiced by RuPaul) or the others actual characters be able hold a conversation, and that’s just too hard, man. Remember how well developed John from “Homer’s Phobia” was? Even as a caricatured gay man (and John Waters surrogate), he still felt like a real person who was actually emotionally affected by Homer’s ignorant homophobia. Here, none of these drag queens feel like they’ve gone through a story, they’re just there to say their joke lines and react to things on cue. The climax involves Homer’s discovery of Marge’s new identity, ruining her good time with a terrible self-aware line (“You didn’t tell me you were tricking all these people into thinking you’re a drag queen when you’re really a regular housewife in need of empowerment… and now that I say it out loud, it doesn’t seem so bad.”) I feel like they should have stuck with either extreme: have Homer wildly ignorant and belligerent and not understand why Marge is doing this, or have him be totally supportive and make the story about Marge worrying her friends will find out she’s really a woman. Instead, Homer’s emotional outburst was an impromptu mistake, one he’s genuinely sorry for and immediately tries to make up for. But this is apparently the last straw for Marge, who by the ending seems one sentence shy of wanting a divorce (“What hurts the most is I can’t imagine there’s anything he could say or do to make me come back.”) There was a long period of seasons during the 2000s which featured Homer being such a flaming, selfish asshole that it teetered on Stockholm syndrome as to why Marge would allow this awful, awful man back into her life. But in the last few years, Homer hasn’t been so bad, but we’ve seen a lot of episodes where Marge seems very quick to up and almost end their marriage. In addition, Marge claims Homer’s “selfishness” stands in direct contrast to the love and support the drag queens have given her, so this moment would have actually held some emotional weight if, again, we knew anything about these people or why we should care. When Marge tells them that she’s not a man, they all admit that they already knew, and that’s all. No one’s upset that a straight woman tried to co-opt their culture? Or, conversely, no heartfelt line about them being fine with helping a poor soul in need increase her self-worth? Again, if these were actual characters, we could have moments like those. After Marge says the above line, Homer appears on stage in drag himself, and that’s enough to win Marge back because we have less than one minute of show left before the worthless tag. Despite the potential of the story line, and for having some genuinely humorous moments throughout, the episode is still missing that emotional core that keeps me at arm’s length from actually giving a shit about what’s happening.

The reaction:
– I don’t have much to comment on Lisa’s story. I think it’s supposed to be a parody of Amelie, but I’ve never seen it. Complete with a French narrator, she performs small kindnesses for the likes of Jasper, the Van Houtens, and Principal Skinner, but becomes discouraged when the happiness she’s bestowed on Skinner and his mother doesn’t last. The ending features all the people she’s helped showing up on the school roof so she’s finally have someone to eat lunch with. This feels like a conclusion the show in its prime would have viciously made fun of. The entire B-story is so lame and ham fisted, and time I wish was spent better developing the Marge plot. Also the green tint over all the scenes in the story made everything look ugly and washed out.
– Among the group of drag queens is “the mysterious Waylon,” pictured on the far left. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised they threw Smithers in there. Sure, I suppose someone formal and straight-laced like him could be into drag, an extravagant outlet for his repressed every day life, but he’s just part of the set dressing here. Instead, it feels a lot like what the show has done in the past with him, where he acts as catch-alls for all non-straight jokes. Past “jokes” involved him taking estrogen, or hinting that he wants a sex change operations (just last season we saw a “joke” about Smithers planning on becoming a woman. Do the writers know that being gay and being transgender are two different things?) Smithers being into drag isn’t necessarily offensive, but given their history of just ascribing him all these different contradictory identities because he’s the gay of the series, it just felt incredibly eye-rolling to me. Hell, I’d watch a whole episode about Smithers getting into drag, why not? It’d be more daring than this crap.
– The tag features a disheveled drag Homer at Moe’s fielding questions from Moe (“So, you’re a drag queen now?” “I dunno. I guess these days it’s okay for everyone to be everything.”) I guess you could read this as a tired, forty-year-old man trying to make sense out of a new social culture he doesn’t understand, but it reads more like the fifty-plus-year-old writing staff grappling with all this gender expression/identity nonsense the youths are up to. For an episode trying so hard to be open and accepting (as seen with Homer’s almost immediate acceptance of Marge’s drag life), this felt like a weird, snarky note to end on. There are ways to make jokes and construct humorous scenarios out of topics like this that don’t come off as mean or back-handed (i.e.: the ridiculous comedy of errors involving the asexual Todd meeting his girlfriend’s hyper-sexualized family from the recent season of BoJack Horseman.)

One good line/moment: Like last week, there are surprisingly a handful of smirk-worthy moments: Old Jewish Man’s banter, Marge imagining the Tupperware speaking (“Did you just high-five that bowl?”), Dewey Largo and his boyfriend (“I’m not leaving until I find my butter tub!” “Look in the mirror,”) but the best moment was a rarity for the show nowadays: a successful set-up and pay-off. Earlier, Homer is befuddled at the idea of using Tupperware to store leftover lasagna (“Whoever heard of leftover lasagna?!”) Later, Marge is raking in so much money doing drag she takes Homer out to a lavish meal at Luigi’s, leaving him so stuffed that he actually gets to take lasagna home with him! Then later that night when he takes it out of the fridge to eat, all he finds in the box is a note telling himself he already ate it at the restaurant. Hey, writing with some thought behind it!

Original airdate: November 11, 2018

The premise: Bart pulls a prank on Moe by ordering him a Russian mail order bride. Moe is hesitant about opening himself up to love again, but when he drives Anastasia away, he decides he needs to get her back.

The reaction: Sad Moe finds love again… when the series revisits the same wells, it’s a little tough to figure out how to talk about it without repeating yourself. Despite being one of the show’s more lovably lecherous characters, Moe’s tender heart has shone through in a good way on several occasions, most notably “Moe Baby Blues,” but only when it’s balanced by his typical lowlife nature. Here, Moe is a pathetic sadsack from moment one when Homer dis-invites him to Thanksgiving dinner at Marge’s behest. When Moe manages to humiliate Bart during a prank call attempt (an actually humorous moment), Bart gets revenge by sending a mail order bride to his door. The core of the rest of the episode is Moe not wanting to take a chance on another woman who might potentially break his heart. The story, up until the twist at the end, really has nothing to do with her being a mail order bride at all, which is strange. A lot of the episode isn’t really that bad. There’s a few bits of life that come through at points, but the story is very dull and lifeless. The Moe stuff is nothing we haven’t seen multiple times over, done better in other episodes. Eventually, he gets Anna to go through with the wedding, only for her to be exposed as an American con artist. Moe is in shock at this reveal (“You’re a scam artist! And one who didn’t aim too high!”) Anna asks him to clarify, to which he replies he’s in severe debt. Yeah, no shit. When Moe tried to win her back, we see that Anna is now with Krusty, a major TV celebrity, surely a much bigger catch financially than a dirty old bartender. The episode abruptly ends as Anna adopts a Scottish accent to court Willie, seemingly having learned nothing about picking your marks carefully. Rather than lean into a deep emotional place with Moe’s anguish, or something more comedic in the mail order bride material, the episode just kind of sits right in the middle: nothing flagrantly terrible, just very bland. Which makes it the best episode of the season by default.

Three items of note:
– Herman makes a reappearance after I don’t know how long as the one who aids Bart in his revenge mission by introducing him to the “dark net.” He proceeds to freak Bart and the boys out by flicking the lights in the basement, and then seemingly rips his one good arm off, only for him to pull out his good arm from inside his jacket. It was actually kind of charming to see him messing with the kids, even if outside his typical hardened characterization. But he was always a tertiary character at best, so why not mess with his personality a bit?
– Moe thinks back to his past lady loves, which includes his fling with little person Maya, and Laney Fontaine, aka not-Elaine Stritch. It’s a rare instance of the show recalling back to events within the past decade. It’s not necessarily fan service, but it requires one to actually remember these old, disposable characters. I recall liking the Maya episode, it actually had some heart to it, certainly more than we get here. And while I don’t care for Laney, I liked the reveal of her wringing Moe out as being part of her one-woman show (“She won a Tony tearing me apart, yet I left humming the songs.”)
– The always worthless tag features Nelson going to Mars to find his long-lost dad (he alluded to the lie his dad gave him about going into space earlier in the episode), only for him to abandon him once more by blasting off the planet. I always found these Nelson bits to be pretty uncomfortable, be it him pining for his worthless runaway father or just making fun of him for being poor. I remember one bit of him being thrown off the bus for not having money for a field trip, ending with him tearfully seeing his reflection in top hat and tails with him sadly assuring, “Someday…” Are we supposed to laugh at this poor pathetic kid? It’s like in South Park when Cartman rips on Kenny for being poor, but in-universe it’s acknowledged by the other characters as being a dickish thing for him to do. Here, I guess we’re supposed to bust a gut at this stuff? Same with Moe’s regular suicide attempts. There’s gallows humor to be made on topics such as these, but more often than not, we’re seemingly supposed to laugh directly at the characters’ plight, which is weird to me.

One good line/moment: There are actually a couple moments that could work here, but I think Moe sabotaging Bart’s prank call was actually pretty great, especially the casual manner he does it in (“I’m looking for a Mr. Buttface, first name Ima.” “‘Ima’? Nobody’s been named that in like a hundred years. And as for the rest, why don’t you double check that name? Try saying it out loud.” “Ima Buttface?” “Mistakes are how we learn there, young fella. Good luck in your journey into adulthood.”)

Original airdate: November 4, 2018

The premise: Homer and Marge get hired at a new, trendy self-driving car company with a fun, laid-back work environment, but become conflicted when they find the company is stealing personal data from its drivers.

The reaction: Sometimes I do actually feel bad for this show, since it’s gotta be so hard to come up with new ideas that not only the series itself hasn’t done, but also social satire topics that haven’t been tackled sufficiently by other shows either. This isn’t to say different shows can’t deal with the same subject matter, but if you’re going to double dip, you’ve got to have something new to say, and pretty much every time this show goes to an already frequented well, it brings back swill. The fun business campus of CarGo (is that even a joke name?), corporate espionage and taking advantage of consumer data, even the self-driving car itself, are all topics covered by HBO’s Silicon Valley, in much greater detail, and much more cleverly and intelligently. As usual with this show, the targets here feel so much like a first draft: lavish office toys and doo-dads that never get used, nerds talking nerd talk, the elements that other shows like Silicon use as their base to build upon, this show is content with using them as is for their actual big jokes. This outing is also ostensibly a Homer-Marge episode; when Marge rouses the coders’ spirits with a hearty game of foosball, she’s hired as some kind of morale booster for the company, despite one of Marge’s core character traits that she’s a no-nonsense worrywart fuddy-duddy. When it’s revealed the self-driving cars listen in on your conversations and transport you directly to the company’s corporate sponsors, Homer flies off the handle while Marge is not too quick to abandon the company she loves for whatever reason. This seems like it should be reversed, but no real explanation is given why either character reacts or feels the way they do about the situation. Meanwhile, Mr. Burns investigates CarGo after the plant goes understaffed to see the secret to their success, and despite being wowed by their business model of keeping employees at work for no substantial extra cost, he doesn’t decide to actually do anything about it. In the end, he, Homer, eventually joined by Marge, shuts down CarGo, and the episode just abruptly ends. Watered down satire seen much better in other shows, and a Homer-Marge story that tells us nothing new or interesting or funny about the two of them, but it killed another twenty minutes, so throw that episode up on the board!

Three items of note:
– We start with a prime example of the show’s bad habit of taking potentially amusing quick jokes and elongating them, thus ruining them. Homer goes through the Krusty Burger drive-thru, where he is presented with his nuggets. “Chicken nuggets?” Homer inquires. Cashier Shauna’s eyes darts. “Yes…” she responds noncommittally. That, alone, would be decent. But then we keep going. “Including things that ate or were eaten by a chicken!” Belabored line, and unnecessary, but not awful. But then, we get a thought bubble from Homer of what those animals or things might be, an elephant, a rat, a boot, basically just a repeat of the hot dog bit from “Lisa the Vegetarian.” Homer contently drives away, chicken nuggets on his dashboard, and he sings a song about them, a sort-of parody of a Jim Croce song that’s not really amusing at all. This nugget bit could have been more than sufficient if left alone after the first five seconds, but it just kept on going, eventually being part of the impetus for Homer losing his job, choking on his nuggets, careening into a construction area at the plant and flying his car upside down through Burns’ office window. Later, during a montage with the self-driving car, we open with seeing a Krusty Burger box labeled “Chicken” Nuggets as Homer sings the Jim Croce song again, in case you weren’t already sick of those two jokes from before. Unbelievable. I assume the writers and staff just love to hear Dan Castellaneta sing, but did they really think they struck gold with the chicken nuggets bit?
– Homer is gobsmacked to discover the lavish cafeteria at CarGo is free of charge to employees. As “Pure Imagination” plays, he’s overcome with emotion and goes on a binge. A lot of the posing and camera movements are pulled straight out of the classic “Land of Chocolate” sequence (I guess as a tribute?), but as usual with all references to the classic era, all it does it reinforce how empty and shallow the show is now. “Chocolate” featured Homer at his most deliriously happy, in this fantasy paradise made entirely out of chocolate, skipping merrily down to Fudge Town and marveling at the “CHOCOLATE HALF PRICE” sign in the store. Here, Homer’s just excited he gets to eat a bunch of normal food. Do we need to devote an entire minute to this bit? Homer already said he loves working there, he doesn’t need to be sold anymore. It’s just unfunny nonsense that adds nothing.
– The coders at CarGo act very much like classic Revenge of the Nerds type nerds, making those crazy nerd noises (can’t think of how to best describe them) as Marge calls on them to power down and have some fun. Also part of the staff are the old college nerds, but with different sounding voices, because who gives a shit about looking that crap up to make sure the voices are correct, right? But it all feels so easy, and at this point, so detached from reality. Silicon Valley shows us a wide variety of different types of tech nerds, from the traditionally socially awkward, to the over compensating, to the overtly weird and creepy. This show has no interest in delving into anything of the sort. They’re just a bunch of fucking nerds.

One good line/moment: Homer’s “Holy crap!” taking the self-driving car to the church with its drive-thru confessional (Lovejoy immediately closes the window upon seeing Homer.) Marge surmises the company must be up to some monkey business, then cut to the two of them returning to work flanked by monkeys, with Homer wearing a “Marcel’s Monkey Rentals” shirt. Contrast with the fucking endless nugget bits, these jokes are quick, aren’t overstated, do their job and get out.

Just as a heads up, next week’s review is definitely gonna be late. Getting married tends to make one a little tardy, or so I’ve heard…