Thursday, January 26, 2017

Dad Behavior (S28, E08-604)

Leinart perfectly spiraled his way out of the NFL, you know.
Plot Summary
Still too lazy to do most chores, Homer learns from Barney about a new app which allows one to summon people to do chores for them.  Homer, of course, abuses the service, even paying extra to have someone without a criminal record to play catch with Bart.  Upon seeing that person, former college quarterback Matt Leinart, have "genuine" fun with Bart, Homer gets jealous.  He attempts to recreate the catch experience with a chore boy, but it goes so poorly Homer gets blacklisted.  That, coupled with him being unaware that the service isn't free, ends Homer's honeymoon with the app.

Lonely, Homer visits his own father, only to find Grampa with his own issues: having hooked up with a new lady via a dating service, Grampa is led to believe the lady he's with is now pregnant and is making preparations to skip town.  Meanwhile, Milhouse and his father have a small falling out and Milhouse goes to visit Bart.  However, Bart and Matt continue to have fun by themselves, which literally pushes Milhouse away and towards Homer, and the two build up a rapport.  Bart soon realizes that Matt was only being paid to let Bart win and he leaves anyway once his time is up.  With no fake father figure remaining, Bart tries to reconnect with his real father, only to find Homer spending time with Milhouse instead.  Increasingly jealous, Bart decides to hang out with Milhouse's father instead.

Grampa ponders whether to actually become a father again, noting that Simpson men have never really been good fathers, but that notion seemingly gets proven wrong when he finds Homer fishing with whom he believes is Bart (but is actually Milhouse).  Invigorated, Grampa goes to his girlfriend, ready to commit, but an ultrasound reveals that the baby is probably Jasper's, not Abe's, which is all good to Grampa.

The tensions between the Simpson and van Houten men reach a head at an amusement park, where Kirk's carelessness gets Bart injured.  Homer quickly tends to his own son, allowing them, and also the van Houtens, to reconcile with one another.

Because there wasn't enough episode to fill the time, the episode ends with a chore negotiator from earlier in the episode failing to get Maggie to give up her pacifier, and a tribute to Vin Scully - who retired from broadcasting a few months back - by doing a bit about Vin (or a caricature of Vin) rambling during a broadcast.

Quick Review
There were some good jokes here and there, but my oh my was the plot dull.  The sidestory with Grampa was short, so short it seemed even more pointless than it was, and it felt like it served only to fill the leftover time from the main story which, despite its modern twist (woah, apps!  s-see, we're m-modern too!), was as predictable as they come.

Final Score: 6.9

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