(originally aired October 4, 2009)
The opening to this episode is kind of interesting, where we just focus on Mrs. Krabappel’s morning and her lonely, sad sack life, reminiscent of “Bart the Lover.” You would think this episode would have more focus on her, illuminate more of her personality, but most of the running time is focused on Bart’s wimpy guilt about getting her fired and other stupid random shit crammed in to fill time. This series has such a vast universe with so many established characters, I don’t understand why at this point, twenty-four seasons in, they don’t take a chance and just devote episodes to side characters. I mean, why not? Instead, we only scratch the surface of Mrs. Krabappel. She’s a frustrated teacher who just wants to help kids, but it really barely comes across. After taking away her students’s cell phones, Bart spearheads a revenge plan by getting her drunk, which ultimately gets her fired. He deals with an ethical dilemma of wanting to help Mrs. K, but is also won over by her replacement: a hip young substitute whose curriculum hinges on new technology and social media.

The plot progression in this episode is mind boggling. Bart tries to get Krabappel back on her feet with a bogus self-help book, “The Answer,” which is apparently a parody of the real-life bogus self-help book “The Secret.” If anyone knows what this is, feel free to comment on how badly the show tried to make fun of it. So what’s Edna’s dream? She writes it down: “I want to own a muffin store.” Why? She never says. Cut to the next scene, she opened the goddamn store. How did this happen? In the next scene, Bart, who I guess works with Edna now, confesses he was the one that spiked her coffee, leaving her livid (“My real dream was to be a teacher, and you got me fired! Now I’m up to my eyeballs in debt with this stupid store!”) Maybe you shouldn’t have followed the career advice of a ten-year-old then? Also, why the fuck did you open a muffin store at all? What’s happening? Why is none of this explained? Oh, whatever. From that point, we get namby-pamby Bart who feels bad and comes clean to Skinner, but by a convenient contrivance, the substitute is drunk and screaming in the hallways and Edna gets her job back for some reason. What a piece of shit.

Tidbits and Quotes
– I think the ‘Z’ in the title refers to Generation Z, the current crop of youngsters born in the early 2000s (of which Bart technically is one of now, I guess), who have grown up the most accustomed to the Internet and other media technologies.
– The general premise of this episode actually isn’t bad, it’s just completely bereft on laughs, interesting character stuff… any character stuff, really. That, and it feels so thin, with multiple parts of the story that just draaaaaaaag. Drunk Krabappel takes up over two minutes, and later the drunk substitute, in the ending where things should be wrapping up quickly, lasts almost as long. It’s really uncomfortable how much some of these scenes are stretched, where what you’re watching isn’t funny or moving the story along in any way, it’s just complete dead air.
– Many tasteless cracks have been made about Mr. Largo’s alleged homosexuality, but there’s actually a pretty good one here as a drunken Krabappel hits on him (“Give me one night, Dewey, I’ll get you off Broadway.” “Never!”)
– “Then Zach Skyped us, live-blogged our spelling bee and then friended us on Facebook!” We know about new technology! We’re hip, right?
– Krabappel watching the faux Rodney Dangerfield Back to School movie feels wrong to me. Hearing Hank Azaria do that imitation when the real Dangerfield has both been on the show and is deceased… I dunno. Oh, also, it’s not funny and just serves to kill more time.
– Dan Castellaneta’s vocal cords get another workout with a twenty second sequence of Homer screaming and wailing to the substitute.
– The ending with drunk Zach… seriously, it just kept going… and going… and going… and nothing was happening. And none of it was funny. Why keep writing a show if you have absolutely no material?

(originally aired September 27, 2009)
Just like Ricky Gervais before them, this episode was written by two guest writers: Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, the comedy duo behind Superbad and Pineapple Express. And just like last time, I’m sure there’s about 3% of their draft that ended up on screen after getting ripped to shreds through many rounds in the writer’s room. Why get comedy writers to make scripts for you if you’re only going to water them down to be as indistinguishable as the rest of the slop? Bart and Milhouse find out Comic Book Guy has a secret hobby: writing his own superhero comics, and they encourage him to self-publish them. They are, of course, instantly successful, and he manages to print them in large quantities and sell them to comic shops all over the globe… and in space. Bereft of original ideas, Hollywood options Everyman is a movie, and CBG demands he be able to choose the actor who plays the lead. Guess who gets the part? Whoever could it be? Homer the movie star! Ugh.

This episode is about the production and release of an entire feature film, and it still feels like nothing is happening, and the little that is is ridiculous. CBG wanted a schlubby average Joe to play Everyman, but now the studio feels Homer needs to get into perfect physical shape. I guess they gloss over this by showing how CBG has gone Hollywood, but then later we see him protesting the disaster of a production. Whatever. Homer gets ridiculously buff for the part, then weeks into production he’s randomly tempted by a craft services cart and gets overweight again. None of the hundreds of people working on this major blockbuster film noticed or said anything as Homer ballooned back to his normal obese frame, and worse than that, they just pushed the movie into release where his weight fluctuates literally from shot to shot. I’ll say again for the thousandth time, I can’t take any of this shit seriously if the episode itself doesn’t. Having been gracious enough to give this series another shot, I remember watching this one, and just feeling nothing. The magic from this show I once loved was now completely gone. I have no idea why it took me so frigging long to see it.

Tidbits and Quotes
– Comic Book Guy was once shrewd and quick-witted, able to undermine all of his customers and their bullshit. Now he falls for Bart tricking him about not knowing Spider-Man was a comic before it was a movie.
– I couldn’t stop thinking of how shitty an idea Everyman the superhero was. I mean, I guess it works as CBG’s creation, although I think he would make fun of something like this. But then, how is it going to work as a movie if a studio would have to acquire the rights to all these other superheroes for him to absorb their powers from their comic books? It just doesn’t seem like it would work, but then again, I’m sure no one in the writer’s room even bothered to bring this up. Nor does it really matter, really.
– Outside Ginormous Pictures is a poster for Star Wars Episode VII: The Apology. Again, it’s the Star Wars-Cosmic Wars dilemma again. The poster even has that goddamn George Lucas stand-in character on it we saw in that other episode… whatever his name was… ugh.
– Homer as Everyman looks nothing like CBG’s comic. They changed everything about it. You’d think this would be easy satire of Hollywood usurping a creative property and fucking up everything about it, but it’s barely even scratched upon.
– I did laugh at the shot outside the Kwik-E-Mart as Homer’s vomit plasters the inside windows, played in complete silence.
– There’s great, great irony on the Everyman test screening marquee (“Tell Us How To Do Our Job”) considering what happened with The Simpsons Movie, but I don’t think that was the intention of the writers.

(originally aired May 17, 2009)
Chalk immigration up as one more hot button topic this show clearly can’t handle. This entire episode is so ham-fisted and obvious with its messages, once again to the point where characters are just flat-out expositing the plot and their changing viewpoints. The episode chronicles Springfield’s experience with an influx of immigrants. From where? Neighboring city Ogdenville, whose populous nearly all got laid off following a tainted barley snafu. We’ve seen the Ogdenville Outlet Mall, and of course this is one of the towns Lyle Lanley swindled with his monorail scheme, but now we see the town is full of Norwegian types, kindly, naive hired hands that the people of Springfield quickly take advantage of. Then we see problems that Springfielders basically create for themselves (Bart getting hurt on his skateboard trying to show up an Ogdenville kid, Homer getting fired for showing up drunk on Aquavit) are blamed on the Ogdenvillians. I know Springfield is filled with idiots, but they should still remain sympathetic and likable to an extent. Marge hands Maggie over to a nanny (why she wants a woman in to clean the house and take care of the baby, her two most valued things in life, is beyond me), and is horrified to find her first words are in “Ogdenvillese;” she kind of made her own bed on that one.

How do we stop Ogdevillians to get in? Set up a border patrol, of course, with the most intolerant, idiotic folks imaginable, and their leader will be the dumbest of all… our boy Homer! So it’s like “Homer the Vigilante” again, except not really because there’s barely any screen time devoted to their exploits. All we get to see if that they’re incompetent, and compare their jingoistic outlook to the KKK and the Nazis. Way to be subtle, guys. What’s our grand end-all solution? Build a wall across the border, but because that’s too much work, we’ll have the Ogdenvillians help us do it. While building, the two sides talk to one another, and we see how they actually relate to each other and get along real well, in an embarrassingly on-the-nose sequence (even more so when Flanders blatantly says, “Maybe we’re not so different, Sven.”) They finish the wall, then the two sides make up and everybody’s fine. A real head-scratcher of an episode. Everyone in Springfield is painted in such a bigoted, scornful light, and yet we have a big party at the end. It’s like when they make Homer an intolerable ass and they still expect you to still like him, but in some of these episodes, that disease has spread to the entire town. No, sir, I don’t like it.

Tidbits and Quotes
– More great “parodies” as the Simpsons watch “The Drowningest Catch” on the Planet Channel. I did chuckle at the two guys being thrown overboard though (“It was worth it to be on TV!” “Put our dying screams in the promo!”)
– Apu makes an appearance, because he can eat one of the new barley burgers as a Hindu, then he makes a silly Indian dance and leaves. Remember when Apu was actually a character outside being a convenience store clerk and from a foreign culture we can make fun of?
– So Ogdenville’s entire economy hinged on barley, and every single citizen was a barley farmer? They make things so exaggerated and one note nowadays that it’s impossible to take this stuff seriously.
– So much obvious dialogue (“You know, I’m glad you’ve come here to take all the jobs we don’t want to do. Can’t have too much of a good thing.” “This Ogdenville influx has been great for everybody!”)
– Homer shows up to work drunk, and he gets fired. He then blames the Ogdenvillians for getting him drunk somehow. And Marge sympathizes (“Oh, poor Homey. And you with your alcoholism!”) I guess her being a spineless enabler is funny?
– Another Pixar reference as we see Carl’s flying house from Up float by behind Lenny and Carl. That’s really all it is, a reference, reminding me I could actually be watching far, far, faaaaaar better things than this piece of shit.

Season 20 Final Thoughts
And so, we reach the end of our final season. For almost an entire year, I’ve watched as this series I love so much has descended into the shallowest possible version of itself, and shockingly, it just keeps getting worse and worse each season. As such, season 20 boggled my mind. Boatloads of expository dialogue, inept attempts at humor, scatter shot characterization, the problems with these episodes are incredibly numerous. What shocked me was how many of these episodes seemed so vacuous and devoid of anything really happening. Things would happen in them, sure, but none of it seemed to really follow with any story or theme, or seem to have any purpose whatsoever. A lot of it just felt like twenty minutes of white noise. We’ve gone from the greatest show on television, and it’s been eaten away to nothing. A show of just… nothing. I remember being quite beaten down after the run of HD shows when I first watched them. The thought of dropping the show had crossed my mind, but it was becoming more of a likely possibility after the finale. But I just wasn’t ready to quit. I’d give them another chance with season 21, I thought. However, as it turned out, my tenure would soon be up.

The Best
…yep, it finally happened. Out of the twenty-one episodes this season, I honestly can’t say I enjoyed any of them. That’s a good enough telltale sign that this would be my last season.

The Worst
“Mypods and Boomsticks,” “Lisa the Drama Queen,” “Take My Life, Please,” “How the Test Was Won,” “Wedding for Disaster”

(originally aired May 10, 2009)
I thought I was done with these three-story episodes… and I guess I was right. Now I’m stuck with one last four story episode, and it’s just as boring and lazy as anything else we’ve seen before it. It retells (sort of) the stories of four great women throughout history, both historical and fictional. First, Queen Elizabeth I (Selma) and her quest to find a suitable husband. Second is Snow White (Lisa) and the Seven Dwarfs, hilariously renamed to avoid a lawsuit from the Blue-Haired Lawyer. This follows along the lines of Disney style parodies we’ve seen in the past, where the only difference is the backgrounds and some characters have colored outlines. The third story takes place in the “real world” where Homer is stuck playing a tree in a company theater version of MacBeth, and Marge, channeling the frustrated Lady MacBeth, urges her husband to murder his way to the top in the starring role, in a segment that feels like it would be more at home in a Treehouse of Horror. Lastly, Maggie portrays free-thinking architect Howard Roark (not a woman) from Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead. She’s voiced by Jodie Foster, and gives an eloquent speech about individualism, which I guess is supposed to be funny. It’s not. None of this is funny. And these stories feel even more rushed and fractured because there’s less time to tell them. But at least this is the last one of these episodes I’ll ever have to watch, ever.

Tidbits and Quotes
– The wrap-around, as the title suggests, features Marge taking Lisa to get her first manicure. Lisa is as radically feminist as ever, staunchly against getting made up, and how a woman don’t need no man! Her telling the Snow White story ends with her being saved… by a lady doctor. Ugh.
– I’m usually not fond of when the exaggeratedly stereotypical Julio makes an appearance, but I did get a bit laugh out of Hank Azaria’s performance of his final line (“Normally I love to see flaming dreamboats heading my way, but not like this, baby! Not like this!!”)
– Lots of “jokes” about bisexuality, with Selma remaining unclear of who she is professing her love to, Homer or Marge (!), and then the end with the dwarfs singing that they’re gonna make out with each other (“We’re bi, we’re bi, we’re bi!”) Because bisexuality is weird and we should make fun of it.
– Dwarf Moe steps forward to give a sleeping Lisa the kiss of life, and I’m very much creeped out.
– The third segment is incredibly uncomfortable, nothing in it makes sense at all. Why Marge would be so insane about Homer committing multiple homicides, and why would offing Mel would immediately give him the starring role, when everyone else in the play is a better actor than him. They even lampshade one of the dozens of logic lapses, where Homer questions why there’s a new review of the play printed every day listing the latest outstanding actors. Homer is apprehensive and reluctant about all of the killings, yet when he’s brutally doing so, he seems vicious and content about it. And the whole thing ends with him committing suicide rather than having to read. Great punchline.
– I guess if I had to pick, the fourth story is the best. It’s so hamfisted with the instructor (“Mediocrity rules!”) but the idea of this guy cutting Maggie down to the level of the other babies is kind of amusing (“Let’s see what your children have done, shall we? Don’t brace yourselves, you will believe your eyes.”)