Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Love Is a Many Strangled Thing (S22, E17-481)

This is the first of two episodes to feature unintentional wettings of cloth.
Plot Summary
For helping save Mr. Burns, Homer is rewarded tickets to a football game with his family.  There, the jumbotrons start up an "act like an ass" fan cam, and everyone starts dancing to some song.  That is, except for Bart, whose disdain for the act is caught on camera.  Homer tries to get Bart into the spirit by tickling him... and tickling him... and tickling him some more.  Bart loses it eventually, and he ends up wetting his pants for everyone to see.

Homer shows remorse for what he did, but Marge insists he take a class to become a better father.  In the class, Homer tells the therapist, Dr. Zander, that he does strangle Bart every once in awhile, saying it rather smugly at that.  Zander is stunned by this, so the following week he has only Homer attend the next session.  Realizing that Homer's case requires drastic measure, he invites his friend Kareem Abdul-Jabar to assist in a method: having the gigantic Kareem - dressed as Homer - strangle Homer wearing a cap shaped like Bart's hair.  This 'therapy' lasts for several weeks, and as Homer reveals he doesn't have health insurance, Zander proclaims Homer as cured.

Homer tells Bart that he won't strangle him anymore, and Bart quickly picks up that even trying to strangle him leaves Homer traumatized.  Bart uses this to his full advantage to commit several pranks both to Homer and the school.  Marge catches wind of this, but with Homer in no condition to stop Bart, she goes to locate Dr. Zander.  It turns out that the economic bust has left high-priced therapists out of work, Zander included.  Still, for $23 and a can of beans, Zander is more than willing to fix his wrong and repair Homer and Bart's relationship.

Zander tries multiple methods to get Bart to care about Homer, but Bart doesn't even try to care.  On one final exercise, where Homer is tied to a noose and then left to hang, Zander tries to get Bart to cut the rope, but he's not even aware of what's going on.  Zander finally has enough, and strangles Bart himself.  Homer realizes that Zander isn't much better than him, and the two decide to sue Zander for their troubles.  Of course, with Zander broke, all they get is his makeshift hollow tree home, but Homer and Bart are more than content with the acquisition.

Quick Review
Well, this wasn't too good of an episode.  It starts off slowly with the odd scene with Mr. Burns, then the moments at the football stadium weren't all that funny either.  The episode starts to pick up once Homer visits Dr. Zander, but the episode cools off again near the end and thus it's unable to recover from its slow start.

Final Score: 6.7

No comments:

Post a Comment