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| Homer's storyline got kinda Looney Tunes, no, Merry Melodies at the end. |
As Homer and Marge wait for Milhouse to be picked up after spending the day with Bart, they notice Kirk Van Houten arriving in a new car, dressed like he doesn't care about anything. Turns out, Kirk is now living by the "yolo" philosophy - you only live once, after all. Marge and Homer mock Kirk later on, but as Marge openly states how happy she is that Homer is fine with living his boring old life day after day, Homer starts to get depressed that his life is, ignoring most episodes, boring.
Meanwhile, Principal Skinner is rocked when the local news finds rampant cheating being done by students at the school. At a teachers-parents meeting Skinner is left unable to come up with any answers, but Lisa is able to come up with a simple solution: an honor system, where students vow not just to cheat on tests, but to also turn anybody in they catch cheating. Lisa is able to trick students like Nelson and Martin into signing up for the system, and it seems like its an early success, with cheating now at all time lows.
Marge sees Homer sadly looking over some old letters - it turns out in 5th grade Homer had a pen pal from Spain he occasionally wrote to. Tired of seeing Homer so depressed, Marge decides to contact the pen pal and have him cheer Homer up. Soon, Eduardo, Homer's pen pal, arrives in Springfield to help Homer out. It seems Eduardo lives by a similar "you only live once" philosophy and agrees to help Homer live out as many childhood dreams that he listed that are feasible. After doing several, including riding a fire truck and portraying pirates in a play, it seems like the job is done, except for one last thing: gliding through the air like his childhood hero Rocky the squirrel. Eduardo is somewhat hesitant to go through with this, but Homer wants no regrets, so the two ultimately get into a plain and glide-enabled jumpsuits to do just that.
After a push from Eduardo, Homer is in the air though he's having trouble getting stable. Soon, with Eduardo's help, Homer is able to get it together and glide through the skies. Nearby, Lisa learns Bart has still been cheating, and confronts him but Bart knows that Lisa won't turn him in, as that would mean Lisa's shiny new honor system actually failed. Lisa goes mad from the dilemma, but some time later comes up with a solution: force Bart to turn himself in instead. Homer, meanwhile, has now flown into Springfield itself and unfortunately glides right into the town's tallest building, causing him to fall. He recovers, but hits the building again, forcing him to fall for sure this time. During this, Lisa tries to get Bart to turn himself in, but Bart agrees to only do so if he's given a sign from God. Moments later, Homer falls right on top of Bart. Bart agrees to turn himself in, keeping Lisa's honor system working, and Homer is glad Eduardo was able to help him live a full life.
Quick Review
How long was "yolo" mainstream popular again? Like, a month? A couple of weeks? It was a flash-in-the-pan twitter meme, but yet someone decided it would be a good idea to write an episode centered around the idea even though by the time it aired, everyone would be sick of "yolo" to the point of derision. You'd think lessons would be learned, but alas that would be too good to be true.
The episode itself is alright. The brief appearance of the Jon Lovitz-voiced Llewellyn Sinclair was appreciated and a few of the gags were pretty decent. The cheating subplot was the funnier of the storylines, and it a big reason why the episode scored as well as it did. The main plot with Homer and Eduardo was mostly boring, centering around a minute-long fad, and did nothing to really make this episode any funnier.
Final Score: 7.1
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