Saturday, April 6, 2013

The Lastest Gun in the West (S13, E12-281)

That horse looks like its had about enough of Buck's nonsense.
Plot Summary
What starts off as a lucky day for Bart turns sour when he runs afoul of a vicious dog, a dog that only acts vicious to Bart.  The dog practically stalks Bart, looking for any opportunity to pounce on him.  One day, Bart is chased to a secluded area of town, and jumps the fence of a house.  The dog still refuses to give up, however an old man dressed up as a cowboy enters the scene and gives Bart a tip on how to calm the dog down.  Bart is impressed with the cowboy, who calls himself Buck McCoy.

Buck, apparently, was a big Western star in the 50s.  Between the dog thing and his various shooting and lasso tricks, Buck quickly becomes Bart's hero, a fact that makes Homer rather jealous.  Buck shows Bart and the family that while he was a big Western star in said 50s, when the Western genre started to die out by the beginning of the 70s, so too did Buck's career.  Bart decides to bring back the Western, making it a big fad at school.  Bart along with Lisa convince Krusty the Klown to have Buck come on his show to do some shooting tricks.  Buck is against the idea, being retired and all, but Lisa goads him into going along with it.  Buck does well in a rehearsal, but when Krusty forces the concept of Buck being watched live by millions, Buck doesn't deal with it well and takes several swigs of drink.  When the show goes live, Buck is too drunk to shoot properly, and ends up accidentally shooting Krusty himself.  Buck informs Bart that he is also alcoholic, and Bart is crushed, no longer considering Buck his hero.

Homer is initially happy that he has a chance to become Bart's hero again, but with Bart still sad over Buck, Homer realizes his folly and decides to get Buck back into Bart's good graces.  He and Marge try to get Buck to stop drinking, but that effort doesn't go smoothly.  Homer then decides to go about it in an easier way: by having Buck do a heroic thing.  Oh hey look, a bank is being robbed by criminals with high-tech weaponry!  Homer decides to takes Bart and Buck down to the bank.  Buck agrees to stop the robbers so that Bart's opinion of him improves, and is able to subdue the robbers just by using two unshootable lassos.  Bart considers Buck a hero again, as well as Homer for his efforts, and with Bart's faith in him restored, Buck rides back to his home simply asking Bart not to visit him again.

Quick Review
I enjoyed this episode.  The opening scenes with the vicious dog were fine, and I appreciated Buck's plotline once it got going, with enough funny gags and jokes to prevent the episode from hitting a tail spin many other Season 13 episodes have fallen into thus far.

Final Score: 8.1

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