Funeral for a Fiend (S19, E08-408)

Anything is better when done as a family!

Plot Summary
Going out to a hardware store to buy batteries, Homer ends up buying a TiVo instead.  Marge becomes obsessed with the TiVo and its ability to skip any and all commercials, and watches commerical-free programming thanks to it all day, every day.  Marge starts to get a bit worn out, and hallucinates that Keith Olbermann is chiding her for skipping commercials all the time, and she's eventually convinced in her weakened state to actually watch the commercials.  One such commercial is for the opening of a new barbecue restaurant, and the Simpsons are convinced to attend its grand opening.

Once there, though, the restaurant has no customers and its insides are barren.  The owner, seen in the commercial, reveals himself to actually be... Sideshow Bob!  After somehow tying up the family all by himself, Bob tells the Simpsons about what he's been doing since they narrowly escaped his last vengeance plot.  Bob and his wife and son flee to England to find work, but Bob is eventually able to smuggle himself over to America to set up the restaurant plot.  He plans to have the restaurant catch fire by having a defective laptop battery set off boxes of dynamite.  However, Lisa is able to foil this plot by catching Bob misquote Shakespeare, forcing him to double check his quotes on the laptop just as its battery explodes on him.  Bob is essentially subdued, and all is supposedly well.

At the trial, though, Bob's parents attend.  His mother is a top notch classical actress, while his father is a top notch doctor.  Bob pleads not guilty for reason of insanity, claiming that Bart's continued foiling has driven him to madness.  His father goes up to the stand to note that Bob suffers from a heart condition as well, and Bob reminds everyone that Bart has done bad things to them as well.  Bart tries to defend himself, but Bob pulls out a vial of nitroglycerin.  As people panic thinking its explosive, Bart snatches the vial and throws it away.  However, the vial was actually the medicine for Bob's heart condition, and he suddenly collapses and dies on the spot.  Bart is justifiably noted as the reason for Bob's death, and becomes hated across town.

Bob's funeral is huge, attended by all sorts of people including Krusty, other clowns, and his extended family (parents, wife and son, brother).  Bart, though, isn't grieving, and with people still mad at him, he just storms off from the funeral.  Later, nearby, Bart is met by Bob's brother, Cecil, who eventually convinces Bart to give Bob his last respects before he gets cremated.  Bart finally visit Bob's casket, fit to accommodate Bob's large feet, with nobody else around.  It works perfectly, as Bob pops out of the casket alive and ready to kill Bart, tossing him into the casket so he'll get cremated instead.  Bob's entire family is also there to enjoy the slaughter, though Bob is less than pleased to enjoy the moment with glory-hog Cecil.

Lisa suddenly realizes the plot after a visit from a clue-giving Milhouse, and get her family to the funeral home.  Lisa realizes that this was Bob's scheme from the start; he actually wanted to be captured at the restaurant, that because his mother is a classical actress there's no way Bob could mess up a Shakespeare quote, and Bob's father helped simulate death for Bob to complete the ruse of his death.  The family arrives at the home and stops Bob's plot just in time, freeing Bart from the coffin.  The police arrive to arrest the Terwilliger family for their parts in the scheme.  Bob goes mad in prison, which the other family members as well as their cellmate Snake just have to deal with again.

Quick Review
Its definitely a step up from the disaster that was The Italian Bob, but this episode is far from the high bar of quality set by Sideshow Bob episodes from Seasons 3 to 12.  Bringing back Cecil was a nice touch, and the introduction of his parents were okay as well, but the episode was hampered by the somewhat faulty leaps in logic (his mother was a classical actress, that means Bob can never mess up Shakespeare quotes), combined with Lisa's gloatful attitude everytime she stops Bob throughout the episode.  Its about as good as Season 19 can put out, but its not as good as it could've been.

As an aside, when Bob goes mad at the end of the episode, he 'imagines' that the Simpsons are celebrating the 10th time Bob's plot has been foiled.  Indeed, this is the 10th episode focused on Sideshow Bob.  However, in two previous occasions, it was Bob foiling the plot of another person (Cecil in Season 8, 'lil Grimey in Season 14, though Bob did try to kill Bart at the very end of that episode).  Moreover, while Bart was the reason Bob's first three plots failed, Bart hasn't been the main factor for Bob's failures since.  It has either been Lisa, Krusty, or even Bob himself.  Just noting, is all.

Final Score: 7.4

The Italian Bob (S17, E08-364)

As long as he doesn't say "vendetta", that kid can be as menacing as he wants.

Plot Summary
Mr. Burns buys a new Italian sportscar, but has Homer retrieve it manually from Italy so that he doesn't have to pay taxes for it.  Homer gets to bring the family along to get the car, and they have to drive it to Rome to have it shipped.  Despite that, the family does some sightseeing first which winds up with the car getting smashed by a giant block of cheese.  They go to the nearest town to get help, but only one person in town speaks English: the mayor.  They go visit the mayor to learn to their shock that the mayor is actually Sideshow Bob!

Bob reveals that, after his last attempt at killing Bart 'failed', he decided he needed a fresh start, and half-randomly moved to a Tuscan village.  There, his large feet prove vital in creating a large wine harvest, and becomes so celebrated he's voted in as the mayor of the town.  He even found a woman to be his wife and together they had a son (the two are both aware of Bart as Bob screams out his name at night).  Bob tells them that nobody in the village is aware of his dubious past, and he agrees to fix their car in exchange for their silence.  Things go pretty well, but in a celebration feast Lisa gets drunk from wine and lets out Bob's big secret to the entire town.  Bob is disgraced and swears vengeance on the fleeing Simpson family.

During the escape, the Simpson family wrecks Burns' car again but they're able to flee Bob's notice.  Bob is about to give up again, but is encouraged by his wife and child to follow through on his vengeance, as they too have been shamed by the Simpsons.  The Simpsons make it to Rome, where they realize that Krusty the Klown is in town to perform a play.  They ask for his help, and he tries to have them hide within a background character cast in the play he's poorly performing, but Bob and family find the Simpsons and try to kill them on stage.  Krusty is able to secure the family's escape, though, and they get to go back to America.  Bob and his family is at first disappointed, but they soon get motivated again as they bond over getting vengeance.

Quick Review
This... this was not a good episode.  The premise was pretty bad from the start, Bob having a kid already was 'we know continuity is messed up so here you go anyway, suckers' level stupid, and that kid going 'vendetta' over and over again got too annoying for its own good.  Krusty the Klown tries his best to salvage the episode at the end, but its far too little, far too late.  By far, this is the worst Sideshow Bob episode of the show.

Final Score: 5.1