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| Too deep for me. |
With her regular teacher Ms. Hoover having to miss time due to what is suspected to be Lyme disease, Lisa's class gets a substitute: Mr. Bergstrom. Lisa takes a shine to him thanks to his good nature, wonderful teaching methods and, as Lisa puts it later on, his "Semitic good looks". When Mr. Bergstrom turns down the allures of Mrs. Krabappel, Lisa's heart melts and she begins falling for him. At the same time, though, she also notices Homer's... inability to be thoughtful at all, something which she makes evident to Mr. Bergstrom as well.
One day, Bergstorm informs the class that the museum is closing due to a general lack of interest. Marge practically forces Homer to take Lisa, and the two meet up with Bergstrom there. Bergstrom brings up to Homer that Lisa is lacking a strong male role model, to which Homer sobbingly agrees. However, the visit ends up being an embarrassment for Lisa, who can't stand Homer at this point. Marge suggests Lisa invite Bergstrom over to dinner, which Lisa readily agrees to. However she finds out that Ms. Hoover has returned, her bout with Lyme disease was really just psychosis. Desperate, Lisa is able to catch Mr. Bergstrom at the train station before he heads over to teach inner-city youths at Capital City. Lisa, nearly unable to deal with her biggest positive influence leaving her forever, is given a paper by Bergstrom, for her to look at whenever she's feeling down or lonely. The paper, which simply reads "You are Lisa Simpson", calms her a bit.
In the episode's subplot, its time to decide the 4th grade class president. Martin is nominated of course, but Sherri and Terri decide to nominate Bart for some fun reason. Quickly, he gains the popularity of nearly everyone in class (with only Wendel sticking with Martin), and the election looks to be a landslide for Bart. However, with Bart holding a victory party at recess, nobody on his side actually bothered to vote, including Bart, and Martin wins the election by a measly two votes to none.
That night, Lisa, still bummed over Bergstrom leaving, can't deal with Homer's usual buffoonery and calls him a baboon before storming out to her room. Homer is able to find a way to console Lisa for what's happened, and she apologizes for the remark. Homer is then able to cheer Bart up and calm Maggie down, and he ends the episode on a 3 for 3 parenting streak of sorts.
Quick Review
Everyone has that one teacher, right? That one they really liked for one reason or another? For most people, they like that teacher either because they made the class fun or made learning fun (and often those two are mutually exclusive). There are a few though whose favorite teachers are those who challenged them, those who didn't just go over lessons and concepts with the sharpness of a brick, but instead made efforts to make them really think about this and that, complemented true acts of intelligence rather than rewarding textbook answers, and so on. Lisa finds that person in this episode, and the episode is done well, one of the best Lisa episodes in the series. The Bart subplot really complemented the main story as well, and Homer quickly bringing resolution to both didn't bring things down any as well. Its another one of Season 2's highlights.
Final Score: 8.5
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