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| Mr. Burns is rich. Is Lionel Richie all he could afford? |
Homer saves Mr. Burns from drowning in a fountain. As thanks, Burns takes Homer out for dinner. Though Homer is less than enthused, when he tells Burns he like Chicago-style pizza, Burns agrees to take him to Chicago via his private jet. Homer comes to love the plane, from the in-flight sushi to Lionel Richie providing entertainment. The time spent in Chicago becomes a mere afterthought; Homer's experience on the plane were the best moments of his life, and afterward he regrets that he'll never be able to live that good life ever again.
Homer becomes depressed, but Marge decides to get Homer out of his funk by hiring a life coach, Colby Kraus (voiced by Stephen Colbert). Kraus tries to get Homer on track when he finds out that Homer spills out confidence in the bowling alley, albeit not much elsewhere. Kraus tells Homer that he needs to transfer his confidence from the alley to his everyday life, and instructs him to wear his bowling shoes all the time to accomplish this, and it works. Kraus shows Homer various job opportunities that appear from his confidence (somehow), but only one includes flying on a private jet: a safety inspector job at a copper tubing company. Kraus 'relieves' Homer of his previous job, and sends a confident Homer in to get his new job at the copper tubing company, and he seems to be a shoe-in to get it.
However, somehow, Homer doesn't get it, but lies to his family that he does. Soon, Homer drives away each day to show the family he's going to work, but instead drives to a nearby Krusty Burger to waste away his day. Soon, the elementary school's 4th grade class goes to that same restaurant following a failed field trip, and Bart finds Homer there. Homer reveals he didn't get the job because he has no actual experience in copper tubing, and lied to Marge because he couldn't see her down. Bart tries to get Homer to call Marge and reveal the truth, but Homer can't do it, and instead has Marge go to Shelbyville airport, paying a guy to fly a plane so that Homer can tell Marge the truth there. However, the pilot passes out from a heroin overdose, and Homer tries to land the plane himself, Marge convincing Kraus on the phone to give Homer some last-second advice. Homer doesn't quite land the plan right, but he and Marge survive the experience anyway. Homer then finishes his lie by saying that because of the dangers of flight, he'll 'quit' his job and return to the nuclear plant, which Marge understands even though Homer has none of the money he should've had from the job.
Quick Review
Well, this ended up being an okay episode. It started off fine, and Stephen Colbert provided a good guest spot (Lionel Richie less so), but the episode tries to pull a dramatic angle in the middle of the episode, really trying to put weight on Homer's failure, and that drags the episode's quality down quite a bit. It tries to recover at the end, but the damage was done.
As an aside, the opening sequence for this episode was modified. As it was the first episode aired following the release of The Simpsons Movie, the opening showcases Bart going through the ruined yet rebuilding remains of Springfield on his skateboard, zooming past various characters from the film, and back to his still rebuilding house where the family finds Spider-Pig aka Harry Plopper sitting on the couch. Its a neat, enjoyable edit to the opening.
Final Score: 7.0
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