Original airdate: November 18, 2012

The premise: Homer finds out his new bowling buddy Dan is actually Fat Tony’s accountant, and in Tony’s brief absence, he becomes a temporary mafia don. Meanwhile, Lisa adds more iron to her diet by taking up eating insects.

The reaction: There’s a moment two-thirds into the episode where Dan (voiced by Steve Carell) is having a crisis of conscience, that to truly succeed in business one must purge all human emotion, to justify himself in killing off some of Fat Tony’s gang to cut costs. He’s telling all this to Homer, who looks very uncomfortable watching this guy unravel before his eyes. This scene could have been written a little stronger (as with everything nowadays), but I like the idea of it, and the progression of this character: a meek, put-upon accountant becoming a cold, ruthless mafia don who regards the bottom line more than human life. Except the story is very thin and clumsy. I love Steve Carell so I was smiling through a lot of this episode, but there were also a couple of strange, random turns. One nonsensical pep talk from Moe about being a hardass boss changes Dan on a dime, and later on, he repeatedly flip flops from being nice and innocent to brandishing a gun and looking to shoot to kill. After his realization of his own bloodlust, Dan has Homer tie him up in the Simpson basement. Then a bunch of grasshoppers crawl over and inside his body for hours (more on that later). Then when he’s discovered, he immediately pulls a gun on Homer so he can escape. So there was no point to that creepy crawly trauma other than a feeble attempt to have some connection between the A and B plots, and to get Carell to scream a couple times. The ending involves Dan confronting Fat Tony’s goons, and Homer throwing him off killing them, which for some reason, Dan just moves onto the next one after a single inconvenience. And eventually he ends up working at a mall kiosk piercing ears. I feel like there was potential with this character, but things ended up coming out a bit muddled. Not as much as usual, but still muddled.

Three items of note:
– Boy oh boy, three boring Lisa B-plots in a row! Lisa passes out during a recital (no, this isn’t “Lisa’s Rival”), which leads to her needing to take iron pills to supplement her vegetarian diet. But the living dead comes to her aid in the form of Lunchlady Doris, with Tress MacNeille not even trying to match Doris Grau’s gravelly tone anymore. She informs Lisa that eating food made from insects is a sort of vegetarian gray area, so she joins a foodie society consisting of her, Professor Frink, Cookie Kwan, Herman and Old Jewish Man (did they just throw darts at that giant Simpsons cast poster to come up with this roster?) And yeah, it’s gross. Really gross. And there’s not much else to this story other than it’s gross. Lisa has a nightmare about the bugs telling her they’re living creatures that feel pain, which feels exactly like “Lisa the Vegetarian,” so she gives it all up. She had been keeping grasshoppers in a tank in the basement (which get loose and swarm Dan) and then she lets them out into the wild. And that’s the end. Lisa is such a boring character now. I mentioned “Rival” and “Vegetarian,” those episodes saw her run through a whole spectrum of emotions and they felt so real. Now Lisa stories involve her being a smug pseudo-intellectual in pursuing some cause, where she’s either moderately content, or shocked/disappointed by some kind of twist ending or reveal. Yawn.
– In a hollow act of nostalgia mining, the opening features the Pin Pals versus the Holy Rollers. Dan has replaced Otto, who hilariously has his head caught in the ball return because he’s high. The Holy Rollers, in place of Helen and the deceased Maude, we have the not-Bing-Crosby Parson, and Rabbi Krustofski. I feel like at this point, psycho Christian Flanders wouldn’t be comfortable having a Jew on his bowling team. Remember when he needed to “re-bless” his hand after shaking it with a Catholic?
– We see Louie eating a TV dinner in his apartment watching Jeopardy!, and we hear actual audio from the show with Alex Trebek, who gets credited as a guest voice at the end. It’s kind of weird to hear a real audio clip from another show in an episode. I feel like that has to have been done before, but I’m blanking on when. I’m sure someone will post it in the comments.

One good line/moment: There were a good handful here, honestly. Dan stabs a knife down on the table, just barely missing piercing Legs’s hand. He recoils in shock (“What’re yah doin’! I talk with that hand!”)

Original airdate: November 11, 2012

The premise: Homer and Marge discover Abe has gone missing from the retirement home, and learn new things about his past life over the course of their search. Meanwhile, Lisa becomes addicted to online poker.

The reaction: Haven’t they done this episode title before? Anyway, we haven’t had a good ol’ revisionist backstory in a while, so let’s dive right in. Sometime in Abe’s past, we learn he was a chipper bus boy and aspiring song writer at a trendy nightclub, with a beautiful headliner that had her eyes on him. Then later it’s revealed that this romance was occurring while Homer was alive, after Mona left him. The two eventually got married, but when Rita is called away to tour in Europe, Abe makes the decision to stay behind to tend to li’l Homer. So, multiple problems here. Tey make a joke about Homer being too brain damaged to remember all of this, but it seems like such a stretch. How long did their courtship last? Did it overlap with his marriage to Mona at all? But the biggest problem is this now super clean and sanitized portrayal of Abe Simpson. In past flashbacks, particularly in “Mother Simpson,” he was a sharp contrast to the vibrant and rebellious Mona, a no-nonsense stick-in-the-mud who drank, was inattentive to his wife, and scoffed at Joe Namath’s rebellious sideburns. Now he’s a chipper, idealistic thirty-something sucking face with a smoking hot lounge singer? Then they try and weave an emotional moment with Abe doing what’s best for his son and not leaving with Rita, but there’s really no reason Homer couldn’t have come along with him. It’s another example of the show’s complete inability to balance emotional moments with sharp humor. Like we saw with Homer’s sickeningly sweet speech to Marge at the fertility clinic last episode, it’s just cloying treacle with no edge to it. And why did Rita never try to track Abe down when she got back? They make a joke that she was a smackhead (SO EDGY!), but it’s clear she’s never gotten over him( for some reason) and she’s living in Springfield, why has she not opened a goddamn phone book and called him? The episode ends with Rita and Abe sitting at the piano singing their song, an irony-free ending that means nothing. What a waste.

Three items of note:
– The B-story involves Homer putting five grand of settlement money toward Lisa’s college fund, which he puts into an online poker site, which he repeats over and over to (non)comedic effect in an incredibly annoying and painful scene. This leads to Lisa becoming addicted to playing the game, growing and growing her pot. It just seems like one of the writers had played online poker once and figured that was good enough for a script. But this ain’t no “$pringfield,” the story is completely divorced from the A-plot, and its conclusion is nowhere near as real and honest. Lisa loses all her money to Sideshow Bob, but then it’s revealed that it was actually Bart using a fake avatar. Bart then explains that since the site found out they were underage, they took away all their winnings. How did they find that out? How did Bart get better at Lisa at poker? And why would he do this? After a brief pause, Bart sheepishly admits he felt sorry for his sister and wanted to help her. Lisa chimes in, “I have the ending for my memoir!” holding up a full script entitled “Surviving Bart.” What? It’s just more utter, utter nonsense.
– It continues to be stunning to me how awful the dialogue can be at times. Marge finds Rita’s phone number, holds the phone to her ear and starts prattling off her lines (“Did you know a man named Abe Simpson?”) Rita responds, “Know him? I’m married to him.” Marge gasps, says to Homer, “She’s married to your dad!” Homer’s response? “Woo-hoo! I get two Christmases!” It’s hard to get the feel of how stilted this all sounds in text, a lot of this show is characters explaining things with some attempts at jokes thrown in, but this is a prime example of it. Awkwardly pushing the plot forward, and a random, shoe-horned joke for Homer to give us a serviceable act break. Blegh.
– The lounge of the past is now a seedy biker bar, and for some reason, we see Meathook and Ramrod from “Take My Wife, Sleaze” are there. They don’t say anything, they’re just background characters, but I thought it was a little odd.

One good line/moment: I can’t really think of any for this one. Homer’s lawyer at the beginning had the same character design and similar voice to Victor, the hovercar dealer from Futurama, so his presence on screen gave me a brief contact high of a much, much, much more enjoyable experience.

Original airdate: November 4, 2012

The premise: Marge gets the urge for another baby, and Homer keeps quiet about his opposition to it due to his crippling inability to talk to his wife. Meanwhile, Bart and the other boys try to figure out where Lisa is going after school and the cryptic clues she’s left behind.

The reaction: So here’s an episode that, when you break it down, has a very simple premise about a married couple disagreeing about a big decision: Homer doesn’t want to disappoint his wife, so he goes along with her desires to have a fourth child. Through their failed efforts, he feigns disappointment, while still hiding his true feelings. Homer, of course, is sterile thanks to the nuclear power plant, but Moe reminds him about donations he had previously made to the Shelbyville sperm bank before Bart was born (how the hell would he know this?!)
On the trip there, Homer delays things by taking Marge down a tourist trap-ridden stretch of road, leading to a fun day out for the two. Previously, Marge had proclaimed that being a mom was all her life was good for, so in creating this distraction, it almost seemed like Homer was accidentally making Marge realize that she could have her own fun and fulfilling life outside of doting on her children. But I think that was unintentional. When the truth finally comes out, he’s very callous about it (“I was just being a good husband, by pretending to agree with you while secretly undermining your agenda.”) By the final act, I’m annoyed with both of them; Homer made his own bed by not being truthful to his wife, and Marge acts uncharacteristically abrasive through most of the episode. At a diner, Homer oversees a happy four-child family and flip-flops his opinion, a manipulative, cliche device that the show in its prime would have mercilessly mocked. The same can be said for his overly saccharine speech to Marge at the clinic (“The table with four legs is sturdier than the table with three. Cubes are made of cheese, but pyramids are schemes, and anything that’s half you is guaranteed at least 50% perfect.”) Who talks like that? Then we get to the creepy ending, where Marge sees a gigantic wall of babies born of Homer’s sperm samples, and they both conclude that the world doesn’t need any more Homers. Not only is this very disturbing (and a joke the show has already made before with Barney), but it’s not really a resolution of Marge’s story. She wants another baby, but ultimately decides against it because her husband’s seed has already spread far and wide without her knowing it. So in the end, Homer got what he wanted. I think. Whatever.

Three items of note:
– The inspiration for Marge’s baby revelation is incredibly labored, the likes we haven’t seen from first acts in quite a while. Homer ignores fixing the leaky faucet in the yard for so long, its endless drips have eroded much of the earth beneath Springfield, resulting in a spread of sinkholes. Marge’s car falls into one, but she has a sinkhole preparedness kit, which is a gigantic inflatable staircase that leads them back to the surface. I guess it’s just good fortune that the sinkhole was exactly as deep as the staircase was tall. Marge and the kids fall down the hole, but then everything’s okay; there’s no danger or seriousness to this segment, it’s just an empty plot device to force Marge to have to buy a new car. Going for a test drive, Homer makes an offhand comment about how the car is the perfect size for their three-child family, and then, on a dime, Marge becomes incredibly uncomfortable and ultra-critical about problems with the car that don’t exist. It turns out it’s a psychological result of her wanting to have another kid. I get what they were going for with this, but it was handled very flimsily to me.
– The B-story might be the most boring one to date. Not seeing her get on the bus after school, Bart spies Lisa getting into a cab and leaving behind a strange note. He enlists the other boys to try to figure out these strange clues and find out Lisa’s secret. In the end, it turns out she’s taking an after school class in writing cursive. Wow. Was this story written on a scrap they found under the writer’s room table?
– I know I already mentioned the ending, but it is really unsettling. The Barney gag from “Selma’s Choice” was quick, involving a humorous side character, and was in and out before you dwelt too long on the gross implications. Here, it features Homer, and we pan over the wall full of photos of his dozens of bastard children with serious music playing. Unlike “Choice,” the fact that we’re focusing on this more makes me think about it more. Not only is this clinic using the same man’s sperm over and over, they have a wall of similar-looking children proudly boasting this fact. What wanna-be parents would look at this and think it was okay? And who would possibly want the sample of a self-professed high school dropout with the fake name “Thad Supersperm” to begin with? Then we end with the family enjoying a drive-in movie parked next to a family with seven Homer babies. Creepy, not funny, and, oh yeah, CREEPY.

One good line/moment: There were actually a few good gags here. I liked at the arctic themed motel where Marge mistakes the stuffed walrus for her husband. Homer pushes the toy aside (“I’ll take it from here, wing man!”) Their little detour trip was quite sweet; it again led me to believe this was going to be a character progression moment for Marge… until that didn’t happen.

Original airdate: October 7, 2012

The premise: In “The Greatest Story Ever Holed,” Springfield’s very own supercollider creates a black hole that threatens the entire town. In “UNnormal Activity,” Homer sets cameras up around the house in an attempt to capture unexplained ghostly phenomenon. In “Bart & Homer’s Excellent Adventure,” Bart travels back to 1974 and accidentally interferes with Homer and Marge’s fateful first meeting in detention.

The reaction: The first segment is pretty drab despite its fantastical premise. It has something I haven’t seen in a while from a Halloween special: a music montage! Because those are always scary. Marge forbids the family from putting anything into the black hole, then we get a montage of her, and the others, doing exactly that. Alright. The Paranormal Activity  “parody” is the only story here rooted in anything actually spooky, but it’s pretty nonsensical, and ultimately a big wasted opportunity. At this point there were four Activity movies total and a slew of other shitty found footage horror films, there’s lots to poke fun at and skewer in this genre, but all the show can think of is Homer wanting to have sex on camera, and the tape fast-forwarding through him taking a long piss. Marge seems inordinately worried about the demon’s presence, and it’s revealed at the end that it’s a hellspawn she made a deal with as a girl to give up her favorite child to save her sisters. If this was the case, why wasn’t she more freaked out or protective of the children? Or trying to leave with them? As usual, it just didn’t feel thought out. The last segment is just dumb. We get HD recreations of scenes from “The Way We Was” and it made me sad, since the dim-witted but sweet and genuine teenage Homer is now replaced with his raging asshole modern characterization. Then it ends with alternate universe Marge being married to like thirty different Homers? Oh, who gives a shit. I don’t have much to say about this one. Another terrible Halloween show in the books.

Three items of note:
– The second segment ends with Homer offering himself in Maggie’s place as part of a demon threesome. Yep, that’s right. Do I need to say anything else?
– The “Way We Was” detention recreation scene is a pretty big bummer. Also, Bart just walked into the room, and Homer and Marge get into a screaming match, without a peep out of the teacher at the front of the room. We don’t even see him past the first shot.
– Bart returns to the present to find his new father is Artie Ziff, and he sports a blonde Jew fro, with the most cartoony “boing” sound effect imaginable as he takes his hat off (did he have that on the whole time just for that one joke?) Lovitz/Ziff’s schtick feels very played out at this point; I guess we’re supposed to laugh and slap our fins together when alternate Lisa does his “Achem!” Jay Sherman cough, but whatever. The last we saw of Ziff was seven seasons ago, where they had the joke with all the other Lovitz characters at Moe’s. I feel like that was enough.

One good line/moment: I think the animation is pretty strong in the black hole segment. The scene of the family at the breakfast table actively ignoring everything being sucked out of the room was great. If only there was a good story to hang onto it.

Original airdate: September 30, 2012

The premise: Bart seeks out all his old ex-girlfriends to see if any of them still hold feelings for him. The only one unaccounted for is Cletus’s daughter Mary Spuckler, who has run off to Manhattan, which means the Simpsons are going to New York! Again!

The reaction: How many ten-year-olds do you know that think their love life has peaked and want to track down their exes to get emotional closure? This is yet another episode where they write Bart as a teenager, but it’s also a story born of this show’s absurdly long lifespan. At this point, Bart’s had seven or eight “girlfriends,” but where does that work in the show’s timeline? Episodically you can accept it, but showing the whole roster of girls here just raises some weird questions. But whatever, the main one here is Mary Spuckler, who if I remember correctly, wasn’t really a love interest of Bart’s, as her father Cletus just strung the two together for a hillbilly arranged marriage. But why bring back this character at all? It couldn’t possibly have anything to do with her voice actress Zooey Deschanel now having a hit FOX comedy, could it? Mary, who once was one of Cletus’s naive and innocent hick children, now, for whatever reason, has gone off to New York, is a talented musician, and a staff writer/performer on SNL. And she’s… eleven? Twelve, tops? These stories just don’t make any goddamn sense with children. Earlier, Bart watches a video of the two of them in Cletus’s hay loft; “I don’t know if we should be up here, Bart Simpson…” Mary coos in Deschanel’s sexy adult Southern drawl voice. It’s like the set-up of a bad porno, as well as reminding me of “Natural Born Kissers” as the place Homer and Marge got their mojo back. But that creepiness aside, this story just doesn’t work with Bart at all, showing him so cloying, awkward and desperate. And like in “Beware My Cheating Bart,” they give him a line that undercuts everything and reminds us he’s still a young child (“Girls don’t like me. I don’t really like them either, but I think I’m gonna.”) This is after he’s been pouting for days, putting cut-outs of his exes faces onto Lisa’s dolls to psychologically torture himself with, and guilt-tripped the family to go across the country for the sole purpose of seeking out a girl he kinda maybe liked this one time. None of it adds up whatsoever.

Three items of note:
– The inspiration for Bart looking back over his failed love life is some kind of town ball where he realizes he has no one to dance with. He continuously taunts Milhouse for dancing with Lisa, which I guess is supposed to be him deflecting his own misery, but it just feels very uncomfortable. I know Milhouse is everybody’s punching bag, but the two are supposed to be friends, right? And I guess Lisa at this point reciprocates Milhouse’s feelings, at least to a slight degree. What happened to the Lisa that sees him as a big sister? It reminds me of hearing that in early drafts of the movie, Lisa’s crush Colin was originally going to be Milhouse, and I remember being confused by that. But after seeing recent shows featuring the writers clearly shipping the two closer and closer together, it makes a little more sense now. I guess they expect fans to see themselves in Milhouse, and him making headway with Lisa is like a “win” or something? I’m still not entirely sure.
– So the Simpsons return to New York, roughly fifteen years later. They make hinting references at them repeating themselves, as well as the return of the Khlav Kalash guy, but no reference to Homer’s blind, uncontrollable rage toward NYC. He basically acts as Bart’s distant chaperone as he tracks Mary down. Meanwhile, Marge and Lisa attempt to see the sights on a shoestring budget, one of the few times the show remembers that the family are hard-up for money. This leads to Lisa spearheading a public recreation of Romeo & Juliet once their Shakespeare in the Park show is cancelled? Which they prepare for and perform in like a few hours? I dunno, it’s just dumb. And all of their New York jokes are either softballs, or just variations of jokes they’ve already done before. Why go back to Manhattan if you don’t have anything new to say?
– I don’t understand why they didn’t have Zooey Deschanel voice a new character. Why not? Did they think fans were that attached to Mary Spuckler? They just throw Zooey attributes onto her old, mostly empty character: she can sing, she has a new trendy outfit each scene, she’s introduced doing a lady dowager bit? But where did all this come from? We don’t even get a scene explaining how she left, or her talking about how she felt unfulfilled with her hillbilly family and wanted more out of life, blah blah blah. Cletus randomly appears two-thirds in to bring Mary back, and Bart helps her escape on a train. But why? Again, we don’t know anything about Mary’s character, her wants or ambitions. If she goes back to Springfield, that’s a win for Bart, but you need that scene where she expresses why she’ll be unhappy there, which would lead to Bart helping her get away. Instead, it’s like watching a threadbare story with big patches just missing.

One good line/moment: I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I got a surprise laugh out of an awfully tasteless 9/11 joke (“Dad, you love New York now that your two least favorite buildings have been obliterated: old Penn Station and Shea Stadium!”) I couldn’t believe they actually did that, but the joke actually kind of works, given Homer probably harbors negative feelings toward World Trade Center Plaza after the whole booted car fiasco.