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| Somehow, I doubt it. |
At the funeral of a well-loved yet never-seen person, Reverend Lovejoy admits that even this beloved person had regrets. This leaves several people in the congregation thinking about their regrets: Marge begins to worry if listening to Kiss albums during her first pregnancy led to Bart's current behavior (and Joe Namath regrets sitting behind Bart during his latest prank); Kent Brockman regrets sticking around to do local news rather than go national; Homer really regrets selling his Apple stock back in 2001 to buy a bowling ball; and Mr. Burns (rich in part of buying Homer's Apple stock) regrets letting a woman he loved get away.
As Marge continues to blame herself for Bart's demeanor, Burns tells Smithers about the story of him and Lyla, the previously mentioned woman who would've married Burns had he agreed to be nice to others for five minutes a day. Burns refused, of course, so Lyla broke up with him promising to marry a man as nice as Burns is evil. Nearby, Kent Brockman is met by Rachel Maddow, who was once Kent's co-anchor some decades ago. Both had become sick of the inane nature of local news, Rachel especially so. She decided to leave town to join a cable news network, but Kent stayed behind. In the present day, Burns learns from a private eye that Lyla is still alive, but has since become a devout Buddhist and decides to pursue her. Meanwhile, Kent goes to New York to join a big time news network, choosing Fox News because its the only one that's, sadly, doing well. After seeing just a taste of Fox News' practices, though, Kent decides otherwise and goes back to Springfield.
Homer decides to return his bowling ball, but learns the bowling ball store is soon to become another Apple store. Meanwhile, Bart rigs a laundry basket with dozens of balloons and begins to float into the air, unable to get down and starts drifting across town. Burns, meanwhile, has reunited with Lyla who is more than willing to forgo her oaths for a one night stand. Burns, though, takes a long time to "prepare himself" in the bathroom and upon return to Lyla, Burns finds out that Lyla passed away while waiting, causing the old man to have further regrets but Smithers recommends Burns honor Lyla by doing the one thing she had asked him to do: be nice to others for five+ minutes.
Kent Brockman returns just in time to see Bart floating around, and quickly sets up a news report about it. Marge finally catches wind and finds Bart near town hall with the police readying incompetent, inaccurate snipers to try and take the balloons out. Marge continues to lament what she did during pregnancy, but Chief Wiggum tells Marge that wouldn't of made a difference as his wife listened to Mozart and Churchill speeches during her pregnancy and they ended up with Ralph anyway. Just then, Professor Frink arrives with a solution to the dilemma - fire a cannonball at just the correct angle and distance for it to land in the basket, giving it enough weight to descend. However, the town no longer possesses any cannonballs, but Homer arrives with just the thing: his bowling ball. The plan does end up working, as the ball lands safely in the basket and the basket lands on the ground. Marge notes that regrets don't matter, as long as you're with your family every choice you've made is the right one. Meanwhile, after Bart's story goes national, Kent relishes in the attention, but no longer regrets staying in local news.
Quick Review
This episode, which began with a tribute to Marcia Wallace and then a painfully long Hobbit reference of a couch gag, was not good. While the bulk of the episode remained pointless reference-free for the most part, the episode made the mistake of prioritizing storytelling over comedy. Fitting in what was four different subplots over a broad "regrets" theme left little room for any good jokes or memorable moments to really exist. What's left is an episode that spends time really praising Apple (at least its not "Mapple"), takes a couple of quick shots at news media and spends a few minutes on a lost-love story that had very little going for it. The episode was just too much of a mess to be any decent. Kind of a crummy episode to dedicate to Wallace's memory, but what can you do?
Final Score: 5.7
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