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| Ol' left-hookin' Ned, showin' Homer the true meaning of "an eye for an eye". |
Ms. Hoover takes an indefinite leave of absence for depression, and a "permanent substitute teacher" takes her place. The Tina Fey-voiced woman, Ms. Cantwell, seems pretty nice at first, much to Lisa's elation, but when Lisa actually tries to do stuff, Cantwell becomes rather mean towards Lisa, giving her low grades and taking away accomplishment 'joeys' from the kangaroo board for no apparent reason. No matter how Lisa tries to get Ms. Cantwell to like her, the efforts fall flat, and Lisa begins to realize that Cantwell is being a bully... a bully teacher.
Meanwhile, Homer invites himself to have breakfast with Ned one morning, where he finds Ned's now elderly beatnik parents. Somewhat upset that Homer quickly gets along with them, Ned leaves to go on a power walk, but returns to find Homer "partaking" with Ned's parents. As Homer continues to disregard Ned's feelings, Ned has enough and punches Homer square in the eye. Feeling bad about it later, complete with a nightmare, Ned looks to the bible for help, and comes across a relevant passage: an eye for an eye. Ned goes to Homer at the nuclear plant the next day and requests that Homer punch him in the eye to make them even. Homer realizes, though, that if he refuses, he would technically be the "better man", then proceeds to gloat about it right in Ned's face, angering Ned enough to punch Homer again, this time in the other eye.
Lisa tells Marge about the teacher, and she and Homer go to Principal Skinner and Superintendent Chalmers for answers. Chalmers reveals that Cantwell has been there for two weeks and, thus, has gained enough tenure to become unmovable. Cantwell learns of this and harasses Lisa even more. Seeing Lisa break apart by the teacher, Homer decides to do something about it. He goes to Flanders' house once more and tells Ned he'll forgive him for the punching under one condition: that he wants Ned's wife, Edna. After the commercial break, he clarifies that he wants Edna to force Cantwell to leave the school, and by doing so Homer will forgive Ned. Ned agrees and convinces Edna to help out.
Later, at school, Edna transfers Bart over to Cantwell's class, saying he's been suddenly demoted by two grades. Somewhat stunned, Cantwell doesn't think much of one student, but after a two minute bathroom break, Cantwell returns to find Bart has made an absolute wreck of the classroom. Lisa tells Cantwell Bart will be gone if she will just like Lisa, but Cantwell refuses and tries to leave school. Lisa is able to stop her in the last second to force Cantwell to admit why she doesn't like her. After dodging the question for a bit, Cantwell blurts out its because she believes Lisa is astonishingly pretty before driving off. With everything settled, the Simpsons host the Flanders for a barbecue where Homer and Ned start to get along again - thanks to the help of some "brownies" prepared by Ned's father.
Quick Review
The episode has its moments, and I liked how the two plots merged to solve each other at the end, cleverly putting the "Nedna" thing to use. Beyond that, though, the episode does have some misses, particularly the odd use of Ned's parents in the episode as well as the entire nightmare sequence of Ned's. Basically, Ned's storyline suffers enough drawbacks to hurt the episode as a whole.
Final Score: 6.9
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