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| I don't see why mentally 10-year old Homer has to wear the same clothes as Bart. |
At the plant, Homer learns that a retiring worker was also a safety inspector for sector 7G just like him, who has spent the last several years covering up for Homer's blunders and other mistakes. With the man's retirement, Homer realizes just how screwed he is, and decides to double his efforts to keep his job. This leaves him busy all day and all night, leaving no time for him to spend with his family. Marge tries to remedy this by getting tickets for the family to go to the circus, but while there Homer is outraged both by the circus' poor wifi and the fact that he had to deal with stack parking earlier. Bart and Lisa are able to convince Homer to see one act: a hypnotist act, who - with Lisa's dishonest urging - convinces Homer to give hypnotism a shot. The hypnotist convinces Homer he's 10 years old again, but before he can undo the hypnosis, the police barge in to arrest the hypnotist for deluding the rock and roll hall of fame committee into inducting Kiss. The hypnotist flees, leaving Homer in his altered state of mind.
Dr. Hibbert warns the family that with hypnosis this strong, Homer must be allowed to continue believing he's exactly 10 years old, or fact permanent damage to his psyche. Homer is subsequently forced to sleep with Bart and believes he has to go to school. Soon, Homer and Bart become good friends who spend a lot of quality time together, though Bart is able to probe Homer somewhat late at night and learn that Homer fears growing up into someone who has to deal with a crummy job and a three-kid family.
The hypnotist is finally caught, and is ordered to snap Homer out of it before going to prison. Feeling sorry for Homer, Bart sneaks Homer out and takes him to a (nearby?) Itchy & Scratchy land, where they have some more fun before the police catch up to them. Realizing what has to happen, Homer bids farewell to Bart as the hypnotist restores Homer's original persona (not before Marge gets the hypnotist to make him better in bed, though).
Soon, late one night, Homer comes home after another hard day at work, but hears Bart in his room watching cartoons while eating lasagna, causing him to reminisce about "this kid" he knew who was his best friend. Somehow, Homer can't seem to want to strangle Bart for his various wise-cracks anymore, opting instead to hug him.
Meanwhile, at an X-Men inspired jail, the hypnotist is able to trick Chief Wiggum into getting out of jail, while the newly imprisoned Wiggum gets a sudden, lol-so-randumb visit from Loki.
Quick Review
This episode was written by "comedy legend", as FOX advertised, Judd Apatow, over 20 years ago back when the show was still fresh. Indeed, you can tell there are some parts of the episode that do not seem like it was written by your regular member of the modern writing staff (notably, the emotional stuff), while you can easily tell the parts that were added by said staff (notably, the throwaway comic book movie references at the end).
Overall, I thought this was a fine episode, with some good lines and jokes from Homer, and decent mischief from the hypnotist and Chief Wiggum (perhaps a little too much, though the end scene makes me sour for another reason). Its one of the season's better episodes, not that it means too much.
Final Score: 7.2
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