On a Clear Day I Can't See My Sister (S16, E11-346)

Kinda surprised he hasn't eaten his shorts and gone full naked out there.

Plot Summary
The school goes on a field trip to see a glacier, and Bart is giving Lisa a particularly hard time on the trip, harassing her throughout.  It reaches a climax when Bart throws a snowball at her, causing Lisa to fall into the watery remains of the glacier, getting seaweed and frog remains on her.  Lisa officially has enough of Bart's antics, and by the next day she shows Bart a restraining order she had placed on Bart.  Now Bart can't get within 20 feet of Lisa, Homer giving Lisa a makeshift pole to ensure this.  This causes Bart great inconvenience as he can no longer do most things without getting in Lisa's range.  Marge feels bad for Bart, and tries to have the restraining order lifted in court.  However, with Judge Harm overseeing the case, Bart's snide remarks only increases the distances of the order to 200 feet, meaning Bart can't even be near the house if Lisa's inside.

Meanwhile, Homer goes to a Walmart knockoff to find Grampa working there as a greeter.  After a cart accident cripples Grampa further, Homer takes the reins and greets his ass off to customers.  As a reward, the store's manager promotes Homer to full-time greeter which Homer gladly takes.  However, the manager soon overworks Homer, blackmailing him with forged deportation, and even forces him to stay in the store overnight.  However, the other employees there help him see the bright side of things: they can loot the store of all its good without any repercussions, and Homer is all over that.

As the Simpsons house is now somehow in front of a massive forest, Bart becomes one with nature and the feral things that lie within.  Marge worries further, and tries to convince Lisa to drop the order.  Lisa refuses, though notes that if she or Marge can come up with three nice things Bart has done for her - ever - she'll think about it.  They only come up with two, but later in the day Lisa spies Bart making a 'statue' of Lisa using hay and wicker.  Taking it as nice gesture #3, Lisa goes out to make amends with Bart, stating she'll drop the restraining order.  Even though its quickly revealed that Bart was going to burn the mass of hay in some kind of rage, Lisa learns she misses how Bart tries to lie his way out of things, and burns both the order and her range pole in the fire.

Quick Review
This was an alright episode.  Gary Busey's guest appearance was better than what I was expecting, and the overall plot did fine for awhile until it fizzled near the end.  Homer's subplot had its moments before it, too, fizzled at the end.  Hell, this episode was doing fine until the whole thing fizzled at the end.  It didn't end well, but it still turned out okay.

Final Score: 7.3

The Wandering Juvie (S15, E16-329)

Boy, I hope Bart doesn't develop some odd fetish from this years later.

Plot Summary
The Simpsons go to the mall one day.  Bart learns about the wedding gift registry in one store, and decides to run a massive prank by registering himself and "Lotta Cooties" as a couple and getting people to buy presents for a fake wedding.  It seems to go off without a hitch, but Bart is caught trying to sneak away with presents by Chief Wiggum, who only accepts cash bribes.  In court, Judge Harm sentences Bart to six months of juvenile hall, this time for real.

Bart has a hard time adjusting in juvenile hall, what with everyone beating him up all the time.  Even the girl juveniles, led by a rather tough girl named Gina, give him distress.  Homer gets a job as a guard to protect Bart, but his shifts are too infrequent to do Bart any good.  One night, the hall hosts a mandatory dance on the premise that knowing how to dance reduces the chance of causing a double homicide.  Gina pairs up with Bart, the two shackled together by the Warden, but Gina eyes an escape route and makes her move, dragging Bart along for the ride, even though Bart only had two weeks left to serve.

With Gina threatening to play the victim and blame the escape all on Bart, the latter has no choice but to follow along for now.  The two get to know each other a little bit, with Gina telling Bart that once they get the shackles off she's going to hide out with her parents.  The two reach a blacksmith out in the woods who forges keys to unlock shackles, no questions asked.  Gina leaves rather forcefully, and when Bart goes to get in a last word, he sees her crying.  Turns out, Gina doesn't even have a family.  Bart tries to calm her down, but Gina snaps and attacks Bart.  Chief Wiggum finally catches up to the two, and plans to have both of them go back to jail for a long time.  Gina, in a change of heart, admits full responsibility for the escape, and so Bart is free to go (even though Bart still has a couple of weeks, but Wiggum doesn't care).  Gina goes back to juvie, but Bart brings the family to her jail cell for a taco dinner in appreciation for what she did.

Quick Review
In most of these Season 15 episodes, the funny starts off strong but dies near the end.  The comedy in this episode is more spread out, though that doesn't mean the episode is that much funnier as a result.  The episode, like most others this season, has its moments like the one bit with Homer as a guard, and Chief Wiggum had a few good moments too, but again the quantity of good jokes just isn't there anymore.

Final Score: 7.2

The Parent Rap (S13, E02-271)

I... I'm fairly sure fiber optics do not work like this.

Plot Summary
Homer is taking Bart and Milhouse to school, the boys having missed the bus.  However, Homer finds a contest bus driving by, and drops the boys off wherever so he can chase it to claim a prize.  As the boys walk the rest of the way, they find a police car - Chief Wiggum's car - at a diner.  They go into the car, but as a dog inside sniffs them out, they panic and accidentally set the car into neutral and crash it at the park.  Bart and Milhouse are arrested and go to court.  There, the soft-minded Judge Snyder lets Milhouse go with no punishment, under the 'boys will be boys' credo.  He's about to do the same for Bart, but during Bart's proceedings the Judge's 'vacation time' officially starts and Snyder just ups and leaves without handing a verdict.  In his place, Judge Constance Harm takes over.  Harm is much more ruthless than Snyder, favoring cruel and unusual punishments aimed at having parents take responsibility for their kid's misbehavior.  Taking a look at the case, Harm sees that because Homer had neglected Bart which led up to the incident, that as punishment Bart and Homer would be hooked together with a tether.

With the punishment described as, well, cruel and unusual, Bart and Homer still make the most of the situation and, at first, really start to bond as father and son.  However, Homer's adult... needs begin to interfere, first at the bar, and later on when Homer tries to make love with Marge.  The latter incident sparks a fight between Homer and Bart, where Marge finally has enough and cuts the tether in two.  Judge Harm is instantly aware of the tether snapping, thanks to the fiber optics in the tether (I guess?).  She learns that it was Marge who cut the tether, concluding that Marge, too, must be a bad parent.  Marge refuses to admit this, so as punishment Judge Harm hooks both Homer and Marge to old wooden stocks until they both admit they're bad parents.

Marge refuses to give in, and convinces Homer to side with her on the issue.  The two agree to get back at the Judge.  They remove their stocks using Flanders' tools, then sneak off to Harm's houseboat.  Their devious ploy of vengeance is pretty much just placing a large banner reading "BIG MEANIE" on the boat.  Before they can leave, though, the two are stopped by Harm's pet seal, and are forced to hide.  Homer readies a nearby cinder block to knock Harm out, but he misses and the block ends up sinking Harm's houseboat.

Harm is even more furious now, and the next day in court, is ready to send Homer and Marge to jail.  Bart finally speaks up and tells the Judge that his parents only seem bad because Bart tires them so, and that if anyone should be punished, its him.  Harm agrees and decides to send Bart to five years in juvenile hall.  Before she can make the sentence official, Judge Snyder returns from his vacation and relieves Harm of her duties, then with Lisa's suggestion lets the other three Simpsons free under the 'boys will be boys' credo.  The family then agrees to abide by the law for a year, though Homer isn't off to a good start.

Quick Review
Its not a great episode, some jokes are pretty good but others just miss, but its not a particularly bad episode either.  Judge Harm was an... okay character, I guess, she served her purpose.  Judge Snyder's sudden exit and later entry into the court was odd, but whatever.  So, this is mostly an average episode.

Final Score: 7.1