Fatzcarraldo (S28, E14-610)

"We want the Family Guy audience." -these stupid writers

Plot Summary
After an aggravating night dealing with his sisters-in-law, Homer skips out to get a nice, calming, fattening meal.  However, the Krusty Burger as well as every other fast food place has since updated their menu with the latest food fads and Homer can't get his fix.  Homer has to leave town to find something that fits his palate, and finds a lone chili dog stand -Deuce's Caboose - with which he gorges to his heart's content.

Later, Homer learns from Grampa that, as a boy, Homer was left there while his parents underwent unsuccessful marriage counseling.  It was through Deuce that Homer gained his love for chili dogs and other fattening foods.  Though Deuce doesn't seem to remember Homer, Homer resumes eating at his stand, inviting his friends to eat there as well, causing Krusty Burger and similar outlets to lose sales.  Later, Homer decides to take Lisa (whose school radio program got shut down in a very brief sidestory) to the stand, only to find in horror it has been sold.

Deuce sold the stand to Krusty's food empire so he can retire, but as Homer sees the immediate price markup and likely loss of quality, Homer quickly latches the food caboose onto his car and takes off with it.  Lisa, doing one final radio bit, is able to convince several other fatasses to help Homer out in his chase, but the antics eventually lead to him and the caboose hanging on by a thread over a bridge.  Deuce runs up, having remembered Homer, and helps him back up with the caboose falling to its end.  The two reconcile, and that's that, I guess?

Plot Summary
This episode serves as a good definition of Zombie Simpson "dull".  Too many references, not enough jokes.  Glen Close returns to voice past-Mona for a couple of lines, but she clearly phoned it in both literally and figuratively.  Lisa had a tiny little insignificant sidestory that really served no purpose and offered no laughs.  Although not entirely irredeemable, there isn't anything in this episode worth a watch.

Final Score: 5.3

Love is in the N2-O2-Ar-CO2-Ne-H3-CH4 (S27, E13-587)

Comic book guy writes an episode where he pretends he's Frink for some reason.png

Plot Summary
Its Valentine's Day, and Mr. Burns via a misunderstanding hosts a Valentine's Day party for his employees and their significant others.  Among those attending is Professor Frink, who works at the plant as a consultant, but is one of the few people there without a date.  Homer eventually gets a call from Grampa who complains that he's alone and that the death-stalking cat that lives there is paying him a visit, so Homer and Marge go to visit him.  At the retirement home, all of the seniors are depressed, until the nurse these gives everyone a new drug which makes the seniors hallucinate all of their former loves.  This includes Grampa, who hallucinates Mona back when Grampa still liked her.

The next day, Homer finds Frink still at the plant, the professor having spent the night wallowing in despair.  Homer tries to lift Frink's spirits by noting dating is nothing but trial and error - like the scientific method.  Adequately lifted, Frink goes to find a way to make himself desirable to women.  This includes ditching his glasses for contacts, height-raising shoes and - most importantly - a computer chip which changes his voice into something not nearly as nerdy.  After testing these modifications successfully on a female-like android he suddenly has, Frink is quickly and easily able to find dates - tons and tons of dates.  He notices that other men aren't as lucky as he has become and starts to come up with a plan.

Meanwhile, Marge visits the retirement home again and sees its seniors still hallucinating under the drug.  Marge confronts the nurse there over the drug and eventually relents.  Soon enough, the seniors are back to being lonely and depressed, but Grampa finds the stash of the remaining pills and binges on them, fully taking him to a hallucinated 50's world.  Eventually, Marge, Bart and Lisa pull him back to reality.

Soon after that, Frink invites all of the ladies he's dated to the planetarium under the belief he's going to pick one of them to date solo.  However, Frink - back in his goggles and 'normal' voice - reveals his true plan: having matched up the single men in Springfield with all of the single women he had been dating, though this leaves only him without a match.  Still, he finds looking out at the stars with his android girl (and her android mother whom Frink built for some reason) good enough.  Also Grampa flushed the remaining pills into the toilet, likely contaminating the water supply, meaning everyone can hallucinate that its the 50s, now.

Quick Review
This episode was pretty boring, nothing particularly funny happened.  Frink, usually a decent character for gags and such, is given focus on an episode for the first time and it doesn't work out especially in the episode's second half.  The sidestory with Grampa and the hallucinations was just weird and again failed to deliver anything of humor in the latter portion of the episode.  This episode isn't worth your time.

Final Score: 5.9

Let's Go Fly a Coot (S26, E20-572)

Glenn Close cameo'd Mona's voice here, but it sounds way different.

Plot Summary
The Simpsons are invited to Milhouse's birthday party, the latest in a line of lavish, extravagent, and expensive kid birthday parties.  Homer has enough of this, and makes it a mission to ruin each kid's lavish party so that such parties can return to the basics (ideally before one of his kid's next birthdays).  However, big birthday corporations catch Homer and force an ultimatum: either give up his crusade AND be the host of a similarly magical birthday party for Rod Flanders, or none of his kids will have birthday parties - of any kind - ever again.  Homer reluctantly agrees, hosting the party at a Flight Museum.

At the museum, several World War II vets, who served in the Air Force, recognize Grampa Simpson, but notice how poorly Homer treats his own father.  The five vets decide to change Homer's ways, by beating him up, forcing him to spend time with Abe, and then forcing Homer - at gunpoint - to hug his father.  Somehow, this works, and Homer and Abe are closer than ever.

Meanwhile, Milhouse's Dutch cousin Annika is in town who looks like a hot girl with Milhouse's face, and Bart takes a liking to her, especially after she introduces him to e-cigarettes, technically legal in whatever state they're in.  As the two (and Milhouse) spend time together, the two (except Milhouse) continue smoking e-cigs... and Marge catches Bart in the act.  Suddenly, Annika is forced to return to the Netherlands, and Bart seeks advice on how to express his feelings for her.

Grampa decides to help out by telling a story of him back in the 50s when he cleared turtles off of runways at an Air Force base.  At a nearby bar, he takes a liking to a cocktail waitress, "Sunny", but realizes she prefers the company of men capable of feats like breaking the sound barrier in a plane.  The next day, Abe decides to hijack a new jet model and, somehow, is able to break the sound barrier with it.  Abe successfully woos the waitress, who turns out to be Homer's mother Mona, and its remarked that Mona didn't seem so "Sunny" until after she left Abe.  Grampa's point, then, is that with a grand gesture, you can make any woman like you, even if she's not a good fit, but that love won't last if you try to keep up that charade.

With that advice, Bart catches Annika at the airport and, in a grand gesture, tells Annika how he feels about her: that he doesn't like her, or her attitude towards most things, and especially the e-cigs that he had been storing in his backpack.  With that settled, Bart returns to hanging out with just the one lame Van Houten, and with the Air Force vets' job done, Homer cooks Grampa a thick steak... which has to be condensed into e-cig vapor as that's the only way remaining in which Grampa can consume food, apparently.

Quick Review
This was an odd, disjointed episode.  The birthday party opening had some good things going for it, and the stuff with the Air Force vets had potential as well.  Unfortunately, that subplot kinda died out rather suddenly, with the focus then shifting towards Bart and Annika, which was a pretty boring plot.  Grampa's story about how he met Mona was okay, but it was nothing special.

This ends up being a subpar episode brought down mostly by a fractured plot and the unfunny use of Annika.

Final Score: 6.3

How I Wet Your Mother (S23, E16-502)

A stark reminder that even Tracy Ullman short Simpsons are funnier than what we get nowadays.

Plot Summary
Smithers inadvertently leaves the supply closet ajar, which Homer takes full advantage of by letting everyone taking the contents within.  After work, Homer sees Burns approaching and quickly flees, forcing every other car to crash and spill out office supplies for Burns to see.  The next day, Burns yells at everyone for their thievery except for Homer, whom Burns didn't see with any supplies, and even gives Homer the day off.  Although the entire plant is angry at Homer, Homer doesn't care and he spends the day fishing with Bart at the lake, though Bart tries to correct Homer that karma is when if you do something bad, something bad happens to you.

Sure enough, the next morning, Homer wets the bed.  He's able to hide it, but the next morning he wets it even worse.  He realizes that this must be for how he threw everyone at work under the bus, and decides to make it up to them and karma by hosting an apology party, for free even!  Believing himself to be even, Homer happily goes to sleep that night, but finds in horror the next morning that he has wet the bed yet again.  Homer buys a 'urine detection system' to blare an alarm should he start leaking, and that's when the entire family learns of Homer's problem.  Later, Homer deals with it by simply wearing a diaper, which is a massive turn off for Marge.  One night, Marge is on a late night walk when Professor Frink just drops in, literally.  Aware of Homer's problem thanks to Twitter, Frink proposes Marge use a new invention of his which can go into people's dreams to find whatever subconscious quirk is making them do this or that.

Frink hooks up the entire family to a sleeping Homer, and they successfully enter his dream, which is him skiing adequately.  He's met by death, who's carrying a coffin.  As Homer uncovers that the coffin reads "Marriage", he panics a bit.  Suddenly, everyone falls off a cliff and, worse yet, Frink reveals that dying in the dream means dying for real.  Luckily, Lisa gets the idea for their dream selves to fall asleep and enter a secondary dream world of their own.  Quickly they do so, where they wind up in one of their own Tracy Ullman shorts.  Homer is forced to confront the marriage coffin, when fish suddenly swarm out.  With the room flooding with fish, the family decides to fall asleep and enter a tertiary dream world.  This world, Lisa's, is mostly uninteresting and everyone quickly falls asleep for yet another world, which annoys Lisa.  Finally, they reach Homer's innermost desires and while Homer is unwilling to confront his trouble, back in reality Chief Wiggum busts in to stop Frink for some reason, the two fumbling over Frink's dream device enough to cause chaos in the dream world.

Death returns to rescue the family, but reveals itself to be Homer's mother, Mona Simpson.  Taking the family to a secluded theatre, she reveals a scene back just weeks before she left Abe.  Abe and a young Homer had gone on a fishing trip promising to bring back plenty of fish, but Homer's excitement causes the boat to capsize, and the two are forced to swim all the way back, which takes hours.  Homer realizes its the same lake as the one he took Bart to the other day, and so that was what triggered his wet dreams, however he also comes to believe that it was his actions that caused Abe and Mona to split, though Mona quickly shows Homer that wasn't the case at all, so, uh, case closed.  Homer and Mona finally give each other a proper goodbye even though the latter is just a figment of Homer's dream, and the family is able to wake up from each level of dream they were in back to reality with Homer's as dry as he'll ever be.

Quick Review
This episode, which is the last episode I had seen before starting this blog (everything from here on out is new to me!), started off pretty decently with the nuclear plant storyline and the bed wetting plot was initially pretty good as well.  Professor Frink provided a modest amount of comedy, too.

However, once the episode turned into a full blown Inception parody things, predictably, went south.  Too much time was spent spoofing that movie and not enough time was spent making it all funny, though the homage to the Tracy Ullman shorts was appreciated.  The whole thing with Mona at the end was just weird as well.  Its like the writers finally got the memo that the way Mona Leaves-a ended wasn't the best way to conclude Mona Simpson's story and just hamfisted her into a poor Inception parody to set up a farewell dialogue between her and her son.  Coupled that with the odd resolution to Homer's bed wetting, and the latter part of the episode basically destroyed the good will built up at the beginning.

Final Score: 6.6

Mona Leaves-a (S19, E19-419)

Plot Summary
After the Simpsons return from the mall, they return home to find it has been broken into.  Homer grabs the "Defender", which is just a cinder block on a chain, and investigates, but suddenly sniffs the aroma of an apple pie.  He heads into the kitchen and finds that his mother, Mona Simpson is back!  As she is now presumed dead, Mona is fairly sure the heat's off her for good, and she's more than willing to finally settle down and live the rest of her life with the Simpsons.  Homer, though, isn't willing to let his heart be broken a third time, and refuses to re-embrace his mother.  Mona keeps trying to prove she means it, but Homer refuses each time, and eventually Mona gives up.  That night, though, Homer finally relents, realizing how much of a jerk he's been, and goes downstairs to make up with his mother.  However, he finds Mona slumped over near the fireplace, and to his horror, he finds that she has died.

Mona's body is cremated and given to Homer, who is unable to cope not just with his mother's death, but the knowledge that she believed he hated her to the last moment.  The family looks through Mona's belongings, which contain a video will on a DVD.  In it, Mona leaves Bart a Swiss army knife, Lisa "her rebellious spirit", Marge a hemp purse, and for Homer she leaves him a difficult yet odd task: reach the summit of Mount Springfield and release her ashes at 3:00 PM.  Homer decides to do just that to make up for how he treated his mom at the end.  The family attempts to climb the mountain together, though with Bart and Lisa unable and Marge unwilling to finish, Homer completes the climb himself, just as 3:00 PM rolls around.  He releases his mother's ashes into the sky, but the winds push those ashes the other way, into a secret base conveniently located right behind Homer.  The ashes destroy a missile control unit, and Homer is angered that his mother tasked Homer posthumously to commit one final radical act.  Homer is quickly subdued and captured by the guards inside, Mona's ashes collected into a vacuum cleaner's bag.

Homer learns that Mona's biggest enemy, Mr. Burns, is behind the base as he plans to send a missile full of nuclear waste into the Amazon rainforest.  Homer forgives his mom for the task, and promises the stop the launch if he gets free.  Just then, Bart finds Homer's jail cell from outside the mountain, and tosses Homer his army knife to use to free himself.  Elsewhere, Marge and Lisa use the hemp purse, as well as Mona's earrings that Lisa pilfered, to send in hemp fumes through the ventilation.  Homer is able to find a cinder block and chain to make another Defender and uses it to defeat the subdued guards and eventually destroy the base.  Homer is able to escape just in time, and finally releases Mona's ashes into the open, as Homer's few memories and/or clips with his mother are shown.

Quick Review
This ended up being a tale of two stories that really didn't have any right being together.  I understand if the writers wanted to do a story where Mona dies.  I don't have to like it unless they do it really well (of note, they did it okay here), but I would understand a 19 year old show doing such a thing.  For most of the first two acts, its seemed like it was going to be an emotional episode.

However, the final act gets into a weird spy-like theme with the missile launch of the family's various ways of stopping it using Mona's final gifts.  It seemed really out of sync with how the rest of the episode set up, and the quick tribute at the end wasn't enough to make up for that awkwardness.  Its too bad, really.  Also, the episode wasn't really that funny; it might've gained a point if it had stuck with the emotional theme, but the forced-in spy stuff at the end ruined that.

Final Score: 6.5

Homer's Paternity Coot (S17, E10-366)

If it had been revealed to be Grampa here, I doubt the reactions would be much different.

Plot Summary
A chain of events contribute to the discovery of a frozen mailman, who got trapped in an avalanche or something back in the 60s.  Although its too late for the mailman, at the very least his mail can finally be delivered.  One letter is delivered to the Simpson home, meant for the eyes of Mona Simpson.  Grampa is there to see what could be addressed to his wife-on-the-run, and he along with the other Simpsons learn that the letter is from a man Mona was having an affair with.  Not only that, but the man, a lifeguard whose name is only listed as "M" on the letter, is absolutely sure that the baby Mona is carrying (Homer) is his, not Abe's.  Despite that, Abe is certain Homer is his, but Homer goes out on his own to find this M anyway.

After some quick investigating, Homer learns that M is Mason Fairbanks.  He visits Mason, now a deep sea treasure hunter, and is immediately impressed by his possible father's achievements.  He takes the family out on Mason's boat where they have a great time, but upon returning home, they find Grampa as cranky as ever.  Marge decides its time for a paternity test, and all relevant parties agree, especially Grampa.  Soon, Dr. Hibbert reveals shocking news: the test reveals that Homer's father is Mason!

While Marge and the kids spend pity time with Grampa at the retirement home, Homer and Mason decide to go out to grab a legendary treasure deep in the sea.  The two go down in personal submarines and find the treasure.  However, Homer gets lost, then stuck, and then finds his oxygen low and passes out just as someone (Mason?) goes to rescue him.  Homer's life flashes through his eyes, all of which feature Homer's father, Abe Simpson.

Homer wakes up from his coma three weeks later with his family, Abe and Mason all there.  Homer requests some time alone with Abe and tells the old man that no matter what the test says he'll always consider Abe his real father.  Which is fine, as Grampa reveals that he switched his and Mason's samples during the test as he felt Homer would rather spend time with Mason, and that Grampa is Homer's actual father.  Homer is touched that his father would go out of his way to try and prove he isn't Homer's father, and the two reconcile.

Quick Review
I usually enjoy episodes featuring Grampa, but I can't say I enjoyed this one.  If I had to pin a reason as to why I didn't enjoy this episode, it would probably have to be that the jokes were limited and a few of those few weren't all that good.  Not a bad episode, really, but not a good one either.

Final Score: 6.5

My Mother the Carjacker (S15, E02-315)

Not... quite the same emotional impact as the last Mona episode, I know.

Plot Summary
Marge wins a T-shirt when she sends in a hilarious newspaper clipping to Channel 6.  Homer becomes jealous and tries to do the same.  His quest for his own T-shirt drives him to delusion, looking at newspapers all evening for a funny headline, when he notices something odd about one article about a giant pizza.  The first letters in each line spell out a message for Homer to meet a person at an overpass at midnight.  Homer casually follows this message, and at midnight he's greeted by the mystery person: his mother.

Mona, still on the run from police, felt nostalgic toward Homer and decided to see him again, using 'the liberal media' to her advantage to plant that pizza story for Homer to catch.  However, their reunion is cut short when the police arrive for an unrelated reason, though they identify Mona right away.  Homer attempts to drive Mona to safety, but unwittingly drives right into the police station, and Mona is arrested, much to the glee of Mr. Burns.  During the trial, though, Homer's passionate plea to be back with his mother gets to the jury, who refuse to convict Mona, and the case is dismissed, much to the ire of Burns.

Now a free woman, Mona spends plenty of time with Homer; the two have a lot to catch up on.  Mr. Burns even invites Mona as he turns his old germ warfare building into something more positive.  However, its actually part of Burns' trap and he's able to get Mona to admit to using a phony name on federal property.  She's arrested once more, leaving Homer sad yet again.

Homer regroups, though, and is able to find and hijack the bus taking Mona to a federal prison.  Letting the other prisoners out honor system-style, Homer attempts to drive Mona to freedom.  However, with the police hot in pursuit, Mona decides to knock Homer out and toss him out the bus rather recklessly.  Moments later, Homer witnesses the bus go over a railing and into a lake, crashing, exploding and causing rocks to fall upon it, pretty much sending the message that Mona is dead.

Homer can hardly hold himself together at the funeral, and then later becomes somewhat delusional when he starts searching newspapers for a sign of Mona, believing to of found one in "IMO[next page]K".  The family tries to support Homer in his grief, nobody aware that Mona actually did leave a message in one paper, detailing how she escaped her predicament.

Quick Review
This episode was alright, mostly.  The big (second) return of Homer's mother was handled mostly well, though some of the bigger plot points really came out of nowhere (mainly Mona being arrested again as well as that rather far fetched ending).  Otherwise, the jokes were alright and the episode ends up being good though not great.

Final Score: 7.8

D'oh-in in the Wind (S10, E06-209)

Far out, man.  Groovy, dude.  Etc, etc.

Plot Summary
After filming a propaganda video for the nuclear plant, Homer wants to try acting.  While filling out a form to join the Screen Actors Guild, Lisa points out that Homer needs to put in his entire middle name, though he is only aware of its initial, J.  Homer asks Grampa about it, but Grampa mumbles that it was Homer's mother that named him, but remembers a place where she hid out after becoming a revolutionary, and takes Homer there.  The place, a barn, is still occupied by the two hippies Homer's mother became 'affiliated' with back in the 60s.  As Grampa continues to chide the life of the hippy, how they always sit around and doing nothing, Homer becomes more and more intrigued, and upon seeing a mural that his mother painted of young Homer (which reveals his middle name: 'Jay'), Homer decides to become a hippy himself.

Because Homer can never ease into these things, his new hippy life quickly annoys both the family and, moreso, next door neighbors.  Looking to break the norms or however they phrase it, Homer revisits the two hippies, but is shocked to learn that they actually work once in a while, having a factory within the barn.  The two produce and create an all-natural vegetable juice drink, the top drink of its kind in Springfield.  Homer chides the two for making money and convinces them to go on a 'freak-out'.  It lasts a couple of hours, and nothing really happens, but upon their return, a frisbee Homer left behind has jammed up a machine in the factory, ruining a shipment's worth of juice.  The two become furious with Homer, declaring he never was or ever will be a hippy.

Homer is saddened by what's happened, but promises to turn things around.  That night, he sneaks back into the barn and decides to produce and ship more juice.  The next morning, the hippies are stunned as, because Homer ran out of vegetables, he went and grabbed some from the two's "special supply".  Soon enough, townsfolk drink up the "enhanced" juice and start hallucinating.  Chief Wiggum catches wind of this and sends a strike team to the barn.  Homer tries to settle everyone down with his newfound hippy mantra, putting a flower into each policeman's rifle, but one shoots a flower back into his head, and though Homer survives the incident, Dr. Hibbert is unwilling to remove or at least prune the flower.

Quick Review
This episode takes what I didn't like about Homerpalooza, and twists it in a way where I can not enjoy it all over again.  "Hippy" Homer was not a humorous character, not even barely.  A few things at the beginning were funny, and the various people hallucinating had its moments, as did the moments involving Grampa.  However, most of this episode did not have much going for it.

Final Score: 6.5

Mother Simpson (S07, E08-136)

Plot Summary
Rather than help clean up a Burns-owned highway on a Saturday, Homer goes out of his way to fake his own death so that he can just waste the day away instead.  With his co-workers all witnessing the "death", news of it spreads quickly, with neighbors and sisters-in-law trying to comfort (or celebrate with) Marge.  Marge scolds Homer over it, and has him go the next morning to prove his status among the living.  At the cemetery, he does so but with an attitude and after demanding he see his government profile, he notices what appears to be a glaring error: his mother is still listed as alive.  Homer tries to point out the grave his dad claimed to be his mother's, but upon closer inspection it's just Walt Whitman's grave.  He inspects another grave, but it turns out to be his, falling in over the shock.  Then, he gets scolded by an old woman for messing around in her son's grave.  As Homer is pointing out to the woman that its his grave, both people realize what that means, and Homer has reunited with his mother.

He introduces her to the family, who are a combination of shocked and stunned over this development.  While "Mona" Simpson starts to get along with the family, most notably Lisa, suspicions begin to rise.  For one, Mona refuses to talk about where she's been the past 27 years.  Bart finds several fake IDs in her purse, as well.  Mona also avoids being seen by the police, which confuses Lisa.  Homer also doesn't know why she left him, presuming he had something to do with it, which prompts Marge to inquire about her past as well.  With the whole family on her, Mona decides to reveal her story.

It was 1969, and as Mona tucks away young Homer for bed time one night, she notices her husband Abe watching Super Bowl III.  On the broadcast, she sees Joe Namath put on display his long hair, which blows Mona's mind, showing her a new revolutionary side of things.  In that vein, she joins a protest against Mr. Burns, who was heading a germ warfare building at the time (guarded by Clancy Wiggum, who was in student security).  She and the group decide to build a device that releases concentrated antibiotics into the building, pretty much killing all the germs in the building (as well as Wiggum's asthma).  Burns arrives just in time to be trampled by the group, but Mona makes the mistake to see if Burns is alright.  Burns sees to it that she'll be arrested, but Wiggum's incompetence allows Mona to escape.  However, now that her face is on the news, she's forced to go on the run, kissing Homer good night one last time.

Homer still wonders about one thing: how come Mona never sent him any packages?  Turns out, she sent one every week but Homer never received them because the letter carrier is never tipped at Christmas.  While Homer and Mona go to the post office to retrieve the packages, Mr. Burns happens to be there as well, and is able to identify Mona, requesting the FBI and Chief Wiggum to track her down.

The search takes the police to the graveyard and eventually to Patty & Selma, who have the tombstone Mona was visiting: Homer's.  Meanwhile, after Mona is painstakingly reunited with Grampa and the group sits down for dinner, Homer receives a call, and he and Mona quickly take their leave just before Burns and company arrive.  At a distant locale, the tipster calls again, revealing that Mona was responsible for clearing up his asthma, allowing him to rise up the ranks and become Police Chief Wiggum (though Homer hangs up before that last part).  With Mona's hippie group ready to pick her up, Mona says her goodbyes to Homer and departs.

Quick Review
In terms of comedy, Mother Simpson isn't among the best episodes of Season 7 thus far.  However, this episode is an emotional one, as Homer is reunited with, then separated from, his long lost mother.  The scene at the end can be a tearjerker, and really boosts the quality of the episode, making it one of Season 7's best.

Final Score: 9.5