Moe'N'a Lisa (S18, E06-384)

How can a guest spot this good end up in an episode this bad?

Plot Summary
Homer awakens to find several messages by him telling him not to forget something.  Soon, Marge tells everyone that they're going to the Senior Olympics to watch Grampa compete, and Homer assumes that was the awful thing he was trying to remember.  However, after they leave, Moe attempts to call the house.  It turns out that the thing Homer was trying to remember was that he was supposed to take Moe fishing for his birthday.  After watching Grampa feebly compete all day, the Simpsons return home, where they find Moe sitting there all depressed.  Homer remembers now what he was supposed to do, but attempts to hide from Moe to avoid him.  Moe gets frustrated enough to throw a message brick through the window, telling Homer how much of a scumbag he is, but Lisa (who is doing a school report on Springfield's interesting people) takes a liking to the writing, noting that Moe is a "troubled soul", and decides to do her report on Moe, much to Moe's delight.

Lisa soon visits Moe's apartment where Moe has various notes about his miserable life taped onto the wall.  Lisa rearranges these notes into a depressing poem, coming up with a neat title for it.  While neither the poem or Moe impresses at school, Lisa sends the poem to a poetry publication.  Its editor, J. Jonah Jameson for some reason, takes a liking to the poem and has it published.  Moe quickly becomes famous within the poetry scene and is invited (by Tom Wolfe) to the Wordloaf Literary Conference in Vermont.  Moe brings Lisa and the rest of the Simpsons along, as without Lisa Moe wouldn't be going in the first place.

At the conference, though, Moe learns that its members frown upon those who get 'help' from others for any reason, even kicking out Gore Vidal just for his outside inspirations on titles.  Panicked, Moe quickly takes credit himself for his poem's title, as well as everything else, devastating Lisa.  Lisa tries to confront Moe later on, but Moe keeps unwittingly dodging her.  Eventually, Moe is asked to write another poem for a gathering later that night, and asks Lisa to do it for him while he'll take the credit.  Lisa angrily refuses, and runs off.  She informs Homer and Bart about this, and the two agree to get back at Moe for making Lisa cry.

At the gathering, Moe's pathetic attempts at poetry aren't working, when he sees Lisa slowly walk in.  Moe decides to come up with an ode to Lisa on the spot, which wins back Lisa's respect.  Homer and Bart attempt to pour maple syrup on Moe, but with Lisa having forgiven him and the syrup dripping quite slowly, Moe (with Homer's blessing) easily dodges the syrup, and he and Lisa take their leave.

Quick Review
The best parts of the episode - I almost want to say the only good parts of the episode - were the two segments featuring Jameson (voiced by J.K. Simmons, who portrays him in the Spider-Man trilogy).  Otherwise, this episode has very little going for it.  Its a very Lisa-centric episode, which is hardly ever a good start, and the heavy focus on poets and poetry leave very little room for any good comedy to occur.  The guest stars were okay, particularly the interactions between Jonathan Franzen and Michael Chabon, but its too little, too late for this mostly boring half hour.

Final Score: 5.7