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| "Parents are supposed to be lame, so their kids have something to rebel against by becoming cool just long enough to get married and have kids, for whom they are lame." |
Homer is somewhat upset after a woman believes him to be an old man. He's about to perk up when the plant brings in specialty donuts from a place called "Devil Donuts", but he's too late and they're all gone. Homer is able to organize a search party for Devil Donuts, and soon he finds it. The shop's owner, Terrance, quickly becomes friends with Homer who is in awe of just how "cool" Terrance is. Further shocking Homer, Terrance remains this "cool" despite having two kids. Learning that the two have moved away from Portland when it become too "cool" for them, Homer tells them of a cheap house they can buy in Springfield: the one next door to him.
Homer introduces his family to Terrance's. His wife, Emily, breastfeeds her baby Corduroy which unsettles Marge. Lisa falls in love with everything, while Bart is less than impressed with the elder son in the family, T-Rex, who doesn't particularly care about Bart either. Still, Homer becomes really good friends with Terrance, who teaches Homer his "cool" ways. As Homer becomes more and more "cool", Bart and particularly Marge remain somewhat weirded out by Terrance's family. It comes to head at T-Rex's birthday party, being held in an old factory - probably ironically. Marge is confronted by Emily and other "cool" mothers for using baby formula instead of going 'natural' to feed Maggie, and Marge has enough and leaves. Bart, meanwhile, gets annoyed with the unappreciative T-Rex, who especially doesn't like Homer's present. T-Rex tries to post on the internet about how much of a poser Homer is, but Bart finally has enough and gets into a scuffle with T-Rex. Terrance is particular upset at Homer for letting Bart get away with that, and kicks him out of the party.
Homer is ready to get mad at Bart the next day, but Bart tells him what T-Rex did to his present, and Marge tells Homer about her breastfeeding bullies. Homer realizes the error of his ways, and officially ends his friendship with Terrance. Flanders tries to reconcile their friendship, but as Homer and Marge try to tell them to get real, Terrance decides to go on his phone and inform all of his "cool" friends to come and live in Springfield. In short time, Springfield becomes extraordinarily "cool", with everybody acting like its the past except using the technology of the present.
As Homer and Marge admit defeat to Terrance and Emily at some "cool" thing downtown, Bart and T-Rex talk once again. T-Rex can't explain why everything is lame, but Bart help the boy out by introducing him to TV, something T-Rex's parents had prevented him from watching. As T-Rex leaves, he neglects the family's compost heap and as its left unturned, it catches fire. Terrance and Emily are quickly able to sniff it out and return home with Homer and Marge. With water and fire fighters too "cool" to be available, Marge springs into action with her gallons and gallons of baby formula that Homer and Terrance place into a net created from scarves and wallet chains to put out the fire. Terrance and Homer make up afterwards, but after its learned that a national paper has called Springfield the "coolest" place in America, Terrance and his friends decide the town is "played out" and quickly depart much to Lisa's displeasure.
Quick Review
First off, every instance of the string "cool" above can be replaced with "hipster", because that's what the people portrayed as "cool" in this episode were, and that they are considered to be cool in any context is telling about the episode's writer and his comedic preferences.
I try not to be too harsh for the heavy hipster themes - even in its heyday the show would not be against displaying hip 90s culture prominently, like in Summer of 4 Ft. 2 for instance. Even in that episode, though, I felt all the 90s gushing at me dated the episode, and as a result its not as funny as it might've been back in the day.
Take a look at the score I've given this episode, and that's with hipster culture so popular its become ironic (did I even phrase that right?). Imagine how funny this episode will be years from now when hipsters go the way of the 90s and everything this episode references becomes dated?
That said, the low score isn't because of the hipster theme, its mainly the continued lack of quantity and quality of humor that's plagued recent episodes continues here, which makes the hipster theme much less "cool" than the 90s theme from the much funnier Season 7 finale.
Final Score: 6.4
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