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| Brockman "hopes" he can stop hope before he can be stopped. |
Homer is depressed about life in general. Not even a Duff-sponsored party can cheer him up. He remains depressed as his family takes him to a school raffle. However, to his surprised glee, Homer ends up winning the top prize in the raffle: an Apple iPad - oh I'm sorry, a "Mapple MyPad", whatever. Anyway, Homer loves his new iPad and it does everything for him, including cheering him up. Homer in particular becomes addicted to a pizza making app, and becomes so distracted by it he doesn't see where he's going and falls down an open sewer drain. Homer is physically not too hurt, however the iPad did not survive. The iPad wasn't the only thing that shattered, so too did Homer's newfound optimism.
Depressed once more, Homer is dragged out by Ned Flanders to be shown an odd sight: his tree has maple markings on it that spell out the word "HOPE". As Homer had prayed to God for a goddamned break after his iPad broke, and with Ned Flanders preaching a "even if your tires are flat, you just take things real slow until you reach the next station" message, Homer decides to see things in a new light. In church, Homer tells everyone about the hope tree, and a following of people start praising the supposed miracle.
Kent Brockman, disillusioned after a childhood incident involving a guy in a Mickey Mouse costume, remains skeptical and decides to find out the truth behind the message. Quickly, Brockman learns and shows to everyone videotape of a mysterious stranger coming from out of nowhere and painting the word on the tree using typical store-bought maple syrup. The message of hope dies, as does Homer's optimism again. Marge finally cheers Homer up for good by telling him that he doesn't need iPads or fake tree messages because the hope he felt was real, not to mention there was somebody out there on Homer's side telling him to keep hope. Later that night, the mystery person returns to the tree, and ends up being a sleepwalking Homer, subconsciously telling himself to keep hope alive.
With the episode done early, a short mini-cartoon about a love story is presented, but its two minutes worth of referencing nearly every false product the show has made over the years. Yawn.
Quick Review
Two things really bothered me with this episode, as "grounded" as it was: everything involving "Mapple" and the "MyPad" and Steve "Mobs" and jabs at Apple's privacy concerns because "everyone cool owns iProducts so if we just mention how much Apple sucks ironically then we'll get all the laughs!" Why.
The short story at the very end was stupid too, again only there because the main plot was boring enough that it couldn't fill up just two more minutes. The main episode had a couple of decent jokes and moments, but overall it was boring mixed with a few lowlights, which is why it scored so low.
Final Score: 5.4
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