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| Marge can really clonk Milhouse when she wants to. |
As part of Homer's "commitment" to his kids, he agreed at some point to take them out to do something one Saturday a month, alternating between Bart's choice and Lisa's choice. Its Lisa's turn this time, much to Homer's dismay, and Lisa drags Homer over to a Smithsonian exhibit which is sponsored by Omnitouch, some kind of company. Homer's standard array of antics leads to the damaging of the Bill of Rights. Unable to pay for its repair, an Omnitouch Rep decides on another course of action for Homer to repay for the item: installing a communication tower right into the house, with the base of operations essentially being Lisa's room.
Lisa is forced to move into Bart's room, but Bart tries to take advantage of this fact, leaving Lisa to get out of the room just so she can study. Homer's insistence that she partake in his activities drives her nuts as well, ultimately leading to a stomachache. Homer takes Lisa to Dr. Hibbert, who determines that Lisa's stomachache is from stress, though Homer refuses any kind of naturally based solution the doctor suggests. Lisa officially has it with Homer, sternly yet somewhat kindly explaining that although the two love each other, they are just too different and that in time, they'll likely drift apart.
Meanwhile, the comm tower picks up phone calls throughout town on Marge's baby monitor. Though willing to report this at first, Marge soon forgets about that and willingly listens in to other conversations for gossip's sake. Bart and Milhouse pick up on this, and play a prank using the monitor in Maggie's room to make Marge believe a deadly criminal is about to enter the house. The prank ends up in Marge bashing Milhouse's skull in, and though she wants to chide Bart for the prank, he helps her realize that eavesdropping is hardly any better, lesson learned I guess.
Hoping to make his daughter content, Homer takes Lisa to a 'new age' store specializing in natural medicine. The owner there suggests the two try out sensory deprivation water tanks, and they agree to try them out for two hours. A short time in, repo men come in to take everything as the owner hasn't been paying bills, I guess. The repo men only have enough space in the truck for one water tank, and take Homer's. It creates a series of events that eventually lead the tank back to where it started, but not before Homer gets a few bruises along the way. Lisa, on the other hand, stars to hallucinate herself into something else. First, she sees herself as the cat, and then she sees herself as Homer, and she learns that both he goes to things he hates so he can be with Lisa and that Lisa (who appears in her own hallucination) can be rather annoying. She comes out of the tank more enlightened than ever, and agrees to go to a monster car derby with Homer, and happily at that.
Quick Review
Its at this point I'd like to bring up a phrase used by people to indicate a particular problem with these 'downfall' seasons. That phrase is "Jerkass Homer". Jerkass, a word Homer uses back in Season 9, is used to describe Homer's character in these episodes as he becomes, well, both a jerk and an ass, rather than the caring yet bumbling father portrayed in seasons past. There have been episodes before this one where "Jerkass Homer" makes a presence, but I really felt it in this episode despite its attempts to right that ship near the end. In his attempts to do what he feels is right for Lisa, he ignores Lisa's real feelings about things like an ass while being a jerk to everyone else about it. Thus, Jerkass.
The subplot involving Marge's eavesdropping was fine, and ended on a humorous note, though it was a bit short. The main plot of the episode hardly did anything for me, though, and numerous instances of Jerkass Homer really dragged the episode down for me at times. The somewhat sweet ending salvages the effort, but only slightly.
Final Score: 7.0
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