Bull-E (S26, E21-573)

"Mono-d'oh" moment, this ain't.

Plot Summary
Bart is forced (somehow?) to attend a school dance.  The night of, Bart starts off bored out of his skull, but is convinced by a 5th grade girl to join in, and the two dance together so well, Bart wins a "Best Dancer" award.  Impressed, the girl tells Bart to wait for her outside.  Bart quickly rushes outside, but is immediately rushed and bullied by Jimbo and gang; his trophy is smashed and the girl, witnessing both Bart being bullied and him placing more priority to the trophy over himself, dumps him a second later.

Bart tells the family later on, and Marge finally has enough of the bully culture.  At the next town meeting, she swiftly convinces the town to enact anti-bullying measures, which initially work well as Jimbo and gang are arrested the next time they try bullying Bart.  However, for the most part, the new laws involves the police arresting anyone that they've been tipped as being bullies.  Homer uses this lazily, having people arrested for just annoying him in his daily life.  Soon, Rod and Todd Flanders realize that their father, after being bullied around by Homer earlier in the episode, is a victim of bullying as well and the two call the cops on Homer, who is arrested in short time.

Homer is sent to a bullying rehab center, where a former bully turned doctor takes several "bullies" and has them undergo psychological breakthroughs to determine why they're so upset.  Homer is no exception, he learns that he only hates Ned because Ned is basically 100% better than him.  Still, after the completion of the program, everyone in it gets hailed as a "hero" for no longer being bullies.  Homer, somehow, translates this to parades and first pitch throws, which start to annoy Ned.

Ned confronts Homer at an autograph function, and makes Homer realize that every time Homer puts Ned down, he seems like less of a person to his two sons.  Homer desperately tries to get Ned to forgive him, but Ned only reluctantly does so the following day, when the two make up and agree to have lunch together.

Quick Review
Over the previous summer, I analyzed scores for each episode matched with the people who wrote them, and determined that Tim Long is the worst of them.  Well, actually, Valentine L. Garza fared worse, but she had written just a couple of episodes at the time, and the episode she wrote this season puts her ahead of Long, probably.  The last episode Long wrote before this season was Season 25's Married to the Blob which I now claim is the worst episode in the series, it was that bad.

This episode is the first episode aired since that's written by Long, the only episode he wrote this season.  To be fair, the episode started off with some promise, there were a few decent jokes, Wiggum's escapades were good, and with the absurdity of everyone being arrested for "bullying" I was hoping for a decent conclusion / lesson with the episode.  Then I remembered, this episode was written by Tim Long.

Sure enough, the second half of this episode was an absolute disaster, starting from when Homer entered that bullying rehab center.  That entire sequence with "Dr. Raufbold" (voiced by the always-excellent Albert Brooks) was a complete drag to sit through.  From there, the episode tries to bring about an end to the Homer/Ned spat, but does so in such a hamfisted and boring way.  It almost felt like an after-school special at that point, except most after school specials have better writing than this.

The first half of the episode is this scrap heap's saving grace, its only getting this high of a score because of it.  Otherwise, the latter half of the episode is an exercise of tedium, a good example of how not to write anything.  Hey, at least there weren't that many pointless references (except the Magic School Bus one at the end to fill time!)

Final Score: 6.1

The Winter of His Content (S25, E14-544)

At long last Grampa can be proud of his son.

Plot Summary
The Springfield Retirement Castle is forced to close down due to several health violations.  As Homer and Marge go to take Grampa home, Marge notices two other old men with nowhere to go: Jasper and the "Old Jewish Man".  Feeling sorry for them, Marge lets them come home with them and Grampa.  Naturally, Homer and Marge have difficulty taking care of the three old men and their various needs.  Homer is nearing a breaking point but is encouraged by Lisa to be nicer to them at the very least.  Homer takes Lisa's advice to heart and decides to spend time with the old men.  Upon doing so, he comes to realize that with 6 AM breakfast, mall walking that counts as exercise, among other things, the old man lifestyle can actually be really great.  As such, Homer does everything possible to become an old man, which bothers Marge immensely.

Meanwhile, at school, its learned Nelson is forced to wear his mom's old panties, being unable to afford his own.  As kids laugh at Nelson, Bart decides to stand up for Nelson, revealing he, too, wears hand-me-down underwear.  Afterward, Nelson is extremely grateful to Bart, so much so that he takes Bart to a bully hideout where Jimbo and pals make Bart an honorary bully.  Later, they decide to attend a bully convention out of town, but while there a rather radical bully hits the leader of the bully congregation with Bart's slingshot, pinning the blame on Bart.

Bart and the bullies find a way to escape the wrath of the bully congregate, with Nelson sacrificing himself for the cause, but the radical bully and his gang chase the four all the way back to Springfield, setting up a possible beatdown.  Homer and the old men chance upon this, and with the old men unwilling (and/or possibly unable) to help, Homer realizes he's still a bit too young to consider himself old and rushes in to punch away the radical bully and his gang, saving Bart and the others.

Quick Review
The episode started off strong, as I really enjoyed the old man and Homer storyline.  I didn't expect the Bart sidestory to take over the latter portion of the episode, though, and considering how weak that subplot was it really brought the episode down.  The episode also ended in a rather sudden, awkward manner that didn't work at all.  This episode had some potential that just fell apart when it shifted away from that potential.

Final Score: 7.1

Black Eyed, Please (S24, E15-523)

Ol' left-hookin' Ned, showin' Homer the true meaning of "an eye for an eye".

Plot Summary
Ms. Hoover takes an indefinite leave of absence for depression, and a "permanent substitute teacher" takes her place.  The Tina Fey-voiced woman, Ms. Cantwell, seems pretty nice at first, much to Lisa's elation, but when Lisa actually tries to do stuff, Cantwell becomes rather mean towards Lisa, giving her low grades and taking away accomplishment 'joeys' from the kangaroo board for no apparent reason.  No matter how Lisa tries to get Ms. Cantwell to like her, the efforts fall flat, and Lisa begins to realize that Cantwell is being a bully... a bully teacher.

Meanwhile, Homer invites himself to have breakfast with Ned one morning, where he finds Ned's now elderly beatnik parents.  Somewhat upset that Homer quickly gets along with them, Ned leaves to go on a power walk, but returns to find Homer "partaking" with Ned's parents.  As Homer continues to disregard Ned's feelings, Ned has enough and punches Homer square in the eye.  Feeling bad about it later, complete with a nightmare, Ned looks to the bible for help, and comes across a relevant passage: an eye for an eye.  Ned goes to Homer at the nuclear plant the next day and requests that Homer punch him in the eye to make them even.  Homer realizes, though, that if he refuses, he would technically be the "better man", then proceeds to gloat about it right in Ned's face, angering Ned enough to punch Homer again, this time in the other eye.

Lisa tells Marge about the teacher, and she and Homer go to Principal Skinner and Superintendent Chalmers for answers.  Chalmers reveals that Cantwell has been there for two weeks and, thus, has gained enough tenure to become unmovable.  Cantwell learns of this and harasses Lisa even more.  Seeing Lisa break apart by the teacher, Homer decides to do something about it.  He goes to Flanders' house once more and tells Ned he'll forgive him for the punching under one condition: that he wants Ned's wife, Edna.  After the commercial break, he clarifies that he wants Edna to force Cantwell to leave the school, and by doing so Homer will forgive Ned.  Ned agrees and convinces Edna to help out.

Later, at school, Edna transfers Bart over to Cantwell's class, saying he's been suddenly demoted by two grades.  Somewhat stunned, Cantwell doesn't think much of one student, but after a two minute bathroom break, Cantwell returns to find Bart has made an absolute wreck of the classroom.  Lisa tells Cantwell Bart will be gone if she will just like Lisa, but Cantwell refuses and tries to leave school.  Lisa is able to stop her in the last second to force Cantwell to admit why she doesn't like her.  After dodging the question for a bit, Cantwell blurts out its because she believes Lisa is astonishingly pretty before driving off.  With everything settled, the Simpsons host the Flanders for a barbecue where Homer and Ned start to get along again - thanks to the help of some "brownies" prepared by Ned's father.

Quick Review
The episode has its moments, and I liked how the two plots merged to solve each other at the end, cleverly putting the "Nedna" thing to use.  Beyond that, though, the episode does have some misses, particularly the odd use of Ned's parents in the episode as well as the entire nightmare sequence of Ned's.  Basically, Ned's storyline suffers enough drawbacks to hurt the episode as a whole.

Final Score: 6.9

Lisa Goes Gaga (S23, E22-508)

Lisa really sounded off-cue in this bit, guess that's par for the course.

Plot Summary
Lady Gaga's train is about to pass through Springfield, when the star notices something a little odd: that all the town's signs indicate how depressing it is.  Meanwhile, Lisa has been voted as the least popular girl in school.  Things seem like they're about to turn around when a forum poster known as "TruthTeller" defends Lisa on a local message board, but Bart finds out - in front of everyone - that Lisa is actually TruthTeller, and now everyone makes for of "LieSmeller" Lisa for that.  Lisa's ultra-depression reaches Gaga telepathically, or something, and she decides to make a stop at Springfield.

As Lisa's hopes continue to die, compounded by her loss of integrity from the TruthTeller thing, she hopes for some solitude to finish the kill, but Homer decides to take Lisa to see Gaga as the train pulls into the station.  Upon arriving, Gaga performs for the large audience there to greet her, and it seems like Lisa is about to cheer up, until nearby bullies call her LieSmeller again, and Lisa becomes depressed again.  Gaga is able to sense this, and somehow stealthily makes her way over to Lisa to help her become happy again.

Despite Gaga's numerous attempts to make Lisa happy via flashy, hollow means, Lisa remains horribly depressed.  The next day at school, Gaga tries again but Lisa has enough, going off on Gaga over giving people false hope and trying to fill them with happiness that just isn't there.  She finishes telling Gaga off by denouncing her, several times, leaving Gaga in diamond-encrusted tears.

Later, Homer tries to cheer her up in his usual manner, when Lisa finds that she has no anger or depression left to unload on Homer.  Realizing what's occurred, Lisa runs off to find Gaga.  Gaga is about to leave on her train, now more depressed than the town in general, when Lisa stops her just in time to thank her.  Lisa reveals that by expelling all of her pent up anger on Gaga, she's able to focus on the things that make her feel good again.  Happy that Lisa is happy, Gaga has Lisa join her for a song, and Gaga takes her leave.

Quick Review
This rather infamous episode is about as bad as I thought it'd be.  Some time ago, I lamented over the first episode to focus its plot around a celebrity (or in that case, many celebrities), and this episode is basically the same kind of deal, except this time the celebrity is a huge star who has a huge fanbase... most of which I would imagine have never been fans of The Simpsons.  Conversely, I doubt very many Simpsons fans - old or even new - are that big of fans of Gaga, I know I'm not.  Yes, I'm generalizing and I'm sure there are some exceptions out there that would take offense to those generalizations, but for the most part I think that's true.

The oft-used "Lisa is unpopular" storyline was actually okay for a bit, but the episode was just too focused on Gaga.  It's a big deal that Gaga's train is heading for Springfield, its Gaga that's gonna cheer the town up, its Gaga that's going to cheer Lisa up, etc etc.  The episode is all about Lady Gaga, and Lisa takes a backseat at times to the star's eccentric behavior.  Hardly any of it was funny, and it makes for a rather fitting end for what was a disaster of a season.

Final Score: 4.2

Bye Bye Nerdie (S12, E16-264)

"Hey come on, cut it out.  I insist that you desist."

Plot Summary
A new girl comes to school, but is instantly shunned by the other school children, a feeling Lisa knows all to well.  She goes to talk to the new girl, Francine, however as soon as Lisa nears her, she gets punched in the face.  Having no idea why Francine would just do that, Lisa takes a suggestion from Marge to find something in common with the new girl, but that doesn't work out either and Francine ends up being Lisa's rather vicious bully.

In a sidestory, Homer and Marge are paid a visit to someone interested in selling them baby-proofing products, but is thrown out because her stuff isn't cheap.  Homer decides to baby proof the house himself, and upon 'successfully' doing so decides to expand his operations across town.  With all the kids in Springfield now safe, Homer feels accomplished, however his mood is soured when he learns that people in the baby-injury fields are losing money - and losing jobs.  Realizing what he's done, Homer runs around town and encourages kids to no longer be safe, restoring whatever status quo there was in that regard.

Lisa attempts to rid herself of Francine by hiring the other bullies for protection, but they won't go up against a girl bully only because of how vicious they are.  As Nelson tries to explain the way of things, Lisa notices Francine bullying smart kids but only smart kids, and decides to investigate why that is.  She gets Willie to show her the video room and she begins looking at several tapes where she encounters Francine: one where Francine finds a hidden Lisa, and another where Francine shows no hostility to Lisa.  Lisa inspects the second case, and sees that Francine was wearing nose plugs that time, coming up with a hypothesis that bullies go after nerds based on their scent.

After a few tests, Lisa displays her findings at a science expo.  Explaining that the nerd sweat, which Lisa officially calls "Poindextrose", can overwhelm a bully with rage, Lisa then reveals that salad dressing - one with lots of vinegar anyway - can block the smell receptors of a bully to render them harmless.  Lisa is given a gift certificate to JC Penny and she is congratulated on her scientific find, at least until she runs out of dressing and Francine goes nuts on all of the nerds in the building.

Quick Review
This was an enjoyable episode.  Willie's moments as well as the scene with Drederick Tatum were among my favorites, and Homer's babyproofing side plot had its laughs from time to time as well.  As per the usual, when the episode focuses solely on Lisa, the jokes are hard to find, but even so this episode is still pretty good.

Final Score: 8.1