Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Revenge Is a Dish Best Served Three Times (S18, E11-389)

In this case, revenge is definitely not best served cold.
Plot Summary
As the family enjoys their new satellite radio in the car, Homer gets cut off in traffic by some rich Texan.  Angered, Homer starts following him in an attempt to get revenge.  Marge tries to talk him out of it by telling him a story about how revenge just doesn't work.

The Count of Monte Fatso
Homer plays the lead role as he and his family enjoy life.  Nearby, a disgruntled Moe Meaux decides he's had enough of Homer's happiness and concocts a plan to basically take his place.  He frames Homer for treason, and Homer is forced to prison for life.  As he's tortured, Homer learns that Meaux has married Marge, and declares he'll have his revenge.  Soon, though, Homer is given a route of escape by Burns, who is unable to escape himself for some reason.  He also gives Homer a map to a vast amount of fortune that he can use to exact revenge on Meaux.  After a few failed attempts at escape, Homer finally gets out and finds the fortune.  Five years have past, and Homer has built himself a nice mansion outside of the town he once lived in.  He invites many people over for a gala, including Meaux and Marge.  At the ball, he quickly traps Meaux in a chair and reveals his identity to the crowd.  He then subjects Moe to a massive torture machine that ends with Moe being cooked alive.  Marge is furious with Homer for killing her husband, whom she had birthed triplets with.  In the five years Homer took to exact revenge, Marge had moved on and Homer hadn't.  In the present day, Marge tries to teach Homer a related lesson, but Homer wasn't listening.
Individual Score: +0.5

Revenge of the Geeks
Lisa decides to throw in a tale about the school's nerds, and how they're constantly bullied.  Martin, late at night, creates a strange glove that will turn the tide, however coordination is needed to operate it and only one of them is capable of wielding it: Milhouse.  Milhouse soon uses the glove on the bullies, and as it turns out the glove is capable of electronically forcing bully torture on whomever the operator wishes.  Milhouse quickly subdues the bullies and becomes the hero of school.  Lisa is impressed with what Milhouse did, but when Martin accidentally embarrasses Milhouse in front of her, Milhouse goes berserk, using his glove to get revenge on every kid in school for every insignificant slight they may have or will make against him.  Lisa is eventually able to calm Milhouse down, and Milhouse removes his glove before he can deal any further harm.  However, Nelson claims the glove, having not been around previously due to the mumps, and quickly uses it to give Milhouse a hell of a bullying.  In the present day, Homer learns a valuable lesson: don't drop your weapon.
Individual Score: +0.5

Bartman Begins
As Homer finally tracks down the rich Texan, Bart stops him so he can tell his story of revenge.  A young and rich Bart comes out of a movie theatre with his parents, and they slip into a back alley where they're confronted by a mugger with a snake tattoo on his cheek (Snake).  He murders both of Bart's parents and Homer makes Bart promise to get revenge in a flamboyant manner.  At the funeral, Bart is met by Grampa, who reveals that he was a crimefighter when he was young, and he agrees to train Bart.  Soon, Bart dons a disguise, and terrorizes criminals under the name "Bartman".  Either capturing villains or throwing them into high voltage wires, Bartman can't seem to find Snake, but his search is interrupted when the pun-throwing Serpent proclaims he's going to rob the museum.  Bartman arrives to stop him, and unmasks Serpent to learn he is actually Snake.  Bartman kills him on the spot.  A snoopy reporter (Lisa) asks Bartman if he feels better now that he's gotten his revenge, and Bartman reveals that, yes, he is because he's still pretty goddamn rich.
Individual Score: +0.5

As Bart finishes his pro-revenge story, it turns out Homer and the rich Texan have made up and are somewhat waxing philosophical about the stars as the episode pays a tribute to the fallen characters of the Star Wars series.

Quick Review
This was about standard fare for an anthology episode, though the themes for these episodes are getting odder by the season.  The odd way the episode ended didn't do it any favors, either.  The segments themselves had a few good moments, but were otherwise unremarkable.

Final Score: 6.4

No comments:

Post a Comment