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| I'm not even 30 yet, but the old man in me couldn't cringe at this scene hard enough. |
Homer takes Bart to a mall with a movie theatre, dropping him and Milhouse off at a movie so he can go enjoy the food court, but is so out of shape a salesman is easily able to convince him to buy a state-of-the-art treadmill that comes with its own top notch television. Meanwhile, Bart runs afoul of Jimbo, Dolph, Kearney and Jimbo's girlfriend Shauna. Shauna doesn't want to see the movie the bullies do, but Jimbo doesn't want to leave Shauna alone as a target of someone else's eyes, so he orders Bart to prevent anybody from getting a peek at his girl, and Bart is forced to comply. Bart does make someone stop talking with Shauna, and she's impressed with what Bart just did. Jimbo forces Bart to spend time with Shauna again the next day, where Bart takes the fall for her shoplifting. Shauna is really impressed with Bart's noble act and takes him to a private area to give him a reward, flashing her breasts at him for a good second or two.
The act leaves Bart stunned for quite awhile, but later on at school, Jimbo leaves Shauna with Bart yet again. Bart gathers enough courage to tell Shauna that Jimbo is a jerk and she should stop going out with him. Shauna is surprised someone is actually looking out for her, and takes a liking to Bart. The two start going on in secret, kissing each other whenever possible, but eventually Jimbo catches Bart in the act and is ready to whale on him, but thanks to a distraction Bart is able to flee from him and the other bullies for awhile. Bart tries to go home, but the bullies are not only waiting for him there, they've gained Marge's favor as well. Shauna sides with Bart and he decides to hide out at the comic book store with her until the heat dies down, but Shauna insults the comic book guy, resulting in him calling the bullies over to catch Bart.
This time Bart is able to make it back to the treehouse with Shauna, and that's when Lisa pops in. Lisa, whose been aware of Bart's story, decides its time to intervene. Jimbo finds the three, but Lisa calmly advises Shauna to not go back with the jerk Jimbo, or the dorky Bart, but rather just "be Shauna" she actually says. Shauna takes those words to heart, but Jimbo still has to take care of Bart.
Homer, in the meantime, starts off okay on the treadmill, but he learns from Lisa that the attached television can connect to the internet, and it can stream shows that ended several years ago. Homer takes a liking to one such show: Stranded, a deep, confusing show full of island mysteries and plot holes. Even so, Homer becomes deeply entrenched in the show's plot, and stops bothering to use the treadmill to actually run. Eventually ditching the treadmill, Homer instead grabs DVDs of the show to keep watching non stop, which continues to annoy Marge - who saw the show in its initial run but couldn't get Homer to watch at the time because he said it was pretentious. Homer even hosts a viewing party for the show, even though he's only three seasons in and everyone else already knows how it ends. Marge finally has enough and quickly spoils the show for Homer before he can silence her. This act upsets Homer pretty badly, but Marge makes it up to him by giving him some island-themed sex as Jimbo beats Bart up outside.
Quick Review
Shauna first appeared as part of a gag in the Season 20 episode The Good, the Sad and the Drugly, which was also an episode where Bart falls in love with a girl. She's made one or two other appearances since, so its kinda odd she gets such a focus in this episode.
Neither that storyline nor the sideplot with Homer obsessing over the obvious Lost parody several years too late started off all that badly, but the last several minutes were just disastrous. The 'flame war' between comic book guy and Shauna was just dreadful. Needing to bring in Lisa from out of nowhere to settle the episode's conflict seems like such a boring cop out, and the ending the sideplot felt pretty rushed as well. These factors combined to basically ruin the episode.
Final Score: 6.3
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