Dogtown (S28, E22-618)

This was animated with an "who gives a crap" mindset.  You should see it in action.

Plot Summary
His car out of control in an alley, Homer is forced to stop it by ramming it into either his dog or Gil.  He opts for the latter, who attempts to sue him for the injury.  However, in court, the jury takes Homer's side after its learned that he spared his dog to injure Gil.  Santa's Little Helper appears in court to seal the deal, and Homer gets off with no penalty, much to Gil's frustration.

Later, as Homer enjoys his mild celebrity over the trial, the mayor decides to take advantage of this goodwill by making Springfield a safe haven for dogs.  Dogs all over come to Springfield to play, and laws are enacted to allow them to do whatever they want.  The town vet warns against this, as soon the dogs will realize they are the alphas and wreak havoc, and soon enough Milhouse's dog leads such a charge.  All of the dogs in town, including Santa's Little Helper as well as Willie, own the streets despite the mayor's attempt to rescind the pro-dog laws.

Realizing the the dogs need to know humans are in charge, Gil takes it upon himself, sort of, to do the task.  Meanwhile, Bart and Lisa go searching for their dog, only to find the feral pack.  Cornered, the two are saved by Marge, who kicks the alpha mutt far away, leading her to take over control of the pack before Gil even had a chance to do anything.  Marge safely returns the now playful dogs back to their owners while even downtrodden Gil befriends a dog (albeit the same one that led the dog rebellion in the first place).

Quick Review
It was an okay episode.  A couple of annoying things in it kept it from scoring higher, and while there were some decent lines here and there overall it wasn't enough to really cancel out the negatives.  I'm not particularly upset with the episode or anything, but I guess it wasn't that great.

Final Score: 6.6

Character Spotlight: Gil Gunderson

Note: This was written following the Season 26 episode Waiting for Duffman.  Any development or information regarding Gil after this episode is not covered here.

Character: Gil Gunderson, voiced by Dan Castellaneta

First Episode: Realty Bites (S09, E09-187)

Occupation: It varies from episode to episode, suffice it to say whatever job he has in an episode, he doesn't hold it for long.

General Demeanor
Sometimes referred to as "Ol' Gil", often by himself, Gil is an aging, overbearing man whose desperation to succeed does not match his actual capability to do so.  Now, there are instances where he does succeed, but regardless he's in a different job in each episode he appears in.  In most of these episodes, Gil attempts his hardest to perform his job, but often does so incompetently.  That said, Gil does have a good work ethic and he does try his hardest at whatever he tries to do; but it hardly ever works out for him.

Unintentionally, Gil's debut episode, Realty Bites, was also the final episode to feature the incompetent lawyer-turned real estate agent Lionel Hutz before Phil Hartman passed away and the character was subsequently retired.  As a result, some fans have considered Gil a sort of spiritual successor to Hutz, especially since there has been a couple of episodes where the Simpson family hired Gil to defend them in court.  Of course, Gil and Hutz aren't really the same character at all; while Hutz was brash and reckless in his incompetence, Gil is far more meek and bumbling in his.

Key Character Moments
As a Season 9 debut character, Gil of course has no moments in the more memorable seasons of the show.  Given that newer seasons have been so awful at creating new, lasting characters, Gil remains one of the "newer" recurring characters in the series despite debuting 17 seasons ago now.

The Fall of the Simpsons
In Realty Bites, Gil is a real estate agent who is likely nearing his end with the company.  Lionel Hutz constantly threatens Gil to turn it around or lose even more walls to his cubicle.  If it wasn't for Marge's major screw up late in the episode, he probably would've been next on the chopping block.  He probably got it, anyway.

Gil pops up again in the Season 9 finale Natural Born Kissers as a used car salesman, whose hot-air balloon home is stolen by a naked Homer and Marge, tossing out a hot plate he had nearly paid in full.  Gil is again selling cars in Season 10's Marge Simpson in: "Screaming Yellow Honkers", but has a sale usurped from him with him putting up little resistance.  In between, he successfully sells Coleco computers to the Springfield school district in Lisa Gets an "A".

Zombie Simpsons
In two Season 13 episodes, Gil acts as the Simpson family lawyer.  The first, Sweets and Sour Marge, he successfully helps Marge ban sugar in Springfield, for a time anyway.  Later, in The Frying Game, Gil in unsuccessful in defending Homer and Marge from murder charges, though it was later revealed to be a setup for a reality show.  I doubt Gil was aware.

To date, there remains one single episode to focus entirely on Gil Gunderson: Season 18's Kill Gil, Volumes I & II.  In it, Gil is once again fired, this time as a mall Santa.  Marge feels sorry for him as it was because he was caught giving a toy reserved for his boss to Lisa, and lets him stay with the Simpsons until he got back on his feet.  Almost a year passes, however, and Gil still hasn't left.  Marge finally builds up the anger to yell at Gil, but then she learns Gil actually found a job and left Springfield.  Unwilling to let that pent up rage subside, Marge finds Gil in Arizona and finally lets him have it, but the scene causes Gil to be fired again.  To make up for it, the family buys a house in Arizona and spends Christmas with Gil once more.

Season 20's Homer and Lisa Exchange Cross Words has Lisa competing in a crossword puzzle tournament.  Lisa makes it to the finals against Gil, and Gil ends up winning after Lisa chokes it near the end.

Zombie Simpsons HD
Gil's appearances since has been mostly cameos or gags.  He makes one notable appearance in Season 26's Super Franchise Me, hired by Marge to help run her new sandwich shop, but is fired for incompetence.

Gil is the least popular, least fleshed out character I've done a spotlight on thus far, so the opportunities to really see Gil "shine" are limited.

(Not really) Must Watch Episodes that Focus on Gil Gunderson
Realty Bites
Kill Gil, Volumes I & II

Super Franchise Me (S26, E03-555)

"Lets take this person who makes good sandwiches and have her instead
run a business while letting other people make sandwiches using
company-prepared food." - Standard business logic.

Plot Summary
Flanders notices Homer sapping away at his electricity.  A huge ferris wheel in Homer's backyard seems like a big culprit, but not the only one: Homer also has a freezer - Ned's freezer - full of meat for an emergency.  Still, Ned takes back his freezer, leaving Homer with a lot of thawing meat.  Marge promises to cook it all and turn it into sandwiches, an all-night task but she accomplishes it.  However, she finds that Bart and even Lisa have been taking a lot of the meat sandwiches, which she learns the two have done so to trade around at school.  Marge goes to the school to see for herself, when she's immediately met by a representative from a major sandwich chain who offers Marge a chance to open up a sandwich shop under hopes of financial stability, which Marge gladly accepts.

Marge opens up her chain but quickly needs employees to help.  She hires Shauna, the squeaky-voiced teen and Gil to help, but has to fire Shauna for stealing money (and she seduces the squeaky-voiced teen to leave alongside her), and Gil for being incompetent.  Instead, Marge has her family help out with the business and, eventually, all five members of the core family help the chain turn a profit.  Then, of course, they see an "Express" version of the same sandwich chain being built across the street.

This chain, ran by Cletus and his extended family, attracts all of Marge's customers simply because of its "Express" attachment.  Marge also sees her family worn down from the experience.  After going to Moe's to drink her sorrows away, Moe gives her an idea to get out of her contract.  The next day, after Marge's pleas to the company's reps yield nothing, she sets up a fake lawsuit situation - with Homer getting hot coffee and also syringes into his crotch, and is able to convince the rep to give Marge back her original investment so she can handle the supposed lawsuit herself.  The rep agrees, and the status quo is restored.  A quick short of caveman Homer hunting a sloth to make a sandwich is shown at the end because the main episode wasn't long enough and they didn't feel like making a three-minute couch gag this time.

Quick Review
Meh, the episode.  Some decent jokes, overall boring premise and plot, the worst use of Mr. Burns I've seen in some time.  Not much else to say.

Final Score: 6.8

Homer and Lisa Exchange Cross Words (S20, E06-426)

Letting Gil Gunderson beat her.  Man, Lisa really did choke.

Plot Summary
Bart and Lisa attempt to sell lemonade.  Homer tries to start a tab, but when Bart wisely refuses, Homer goes to Moe's instead.  There, Edna Krabappel is trying to break up with Principal Skinner (even though, you know, she already did).  For some reason, she can't do it this time, and offers a beer to whoever else will do it for her.  Homer decides to tell Skinner, but the way he does it leaves Skinner happier than before he was given the news.  Its decided that Homer is pretty good at breaking people up and consoling them, and he takes it up as a profession.  Eventually, Marge chides Homer for what he's doing, prompting him as to what would've happened if someone like him was around during one of his various spats with Marge.  That, with an ensuing nightmare, convinces Homer to quit.

Meanwhile, a lawyer comes and stops Bart and Lisa from selling lemonade until they get a license to do so.  They actually bother going to a license bureau to get one, but the line is stalled as the vendor is focused on a crossword puzzle he's stuck.  Lisa has enough, and walks up and solves the puzzle for the guy in record time, and is hailed as a hero.  Soon, Lisa becomes overly obsessed with crossword puzzles, seeing everyday words convert into crosswords and only bothering to do the puzzles from the New York Times.  Superintendent Chalmers picks up on this, and invites Lisa to a crossword tournament.  Homer takes her there, and hangs out at a nearby bar where he learns that various other parents are betting on the crossword matches.  Homer uses the money he earned breaking people up to bet on Lisa, and it pays off for him as Lisa goes all the way to the championship match.  However, Lisa confides in Homer that in these situations, she always finds a way to choke.  Homer takes these words seriously, and decides to bet his winnings against Lisa, much to the disgust of everyone in the bar.  In the championship match, Lisa is up against ol' Gil Gunderson, who uses an elaborate ruse to completely dominate and defeat Lisa for the title.  Lisa can't believe what just happened, but Homer is a richer man for it.

Lisa quickly realizes something is off when she notices Homer has upgraded a lot of his stuff.  Homer decides to tell Lisa what he did.  Lisa simply walks away, refusing to talk to Homer aside from saying she isn't mad (though it's clear she is).  Eventually, Lisa opens up on Homer, telling him she no longer considers him her father, and that she's now taken up Marge's maiden name as Lisa Bouvier.  Devastated, Homer decides to take the advice of the childless drunks at the bar and do something to offset his error.  A short time later, Marge convinces Lisa to do another puzzle to cool off.  Afterword, Lisa realizes the puzzle reveals an odd message: "dumb dad sorry for his bet".  Lisa wants to believe its just a coincidence, but she asks Homer about it anyway.  He reveals that he got in contact with both the editor and puzzle constructor of the New York Times to create a puzzle just for her.  She also missed a second message within the clues themselves which reveal Homer's apparently earnest apology.  Lisa forgives Homer, and the two share a bonding moment in front of the weird newspaper guys.

Quick Review
Well, I will say that there really wasn't anything bad about the episode.  I will also say that there really wasn't anything all that funny about it, either.  Homer's breakup business seemed like it had the most potential, but all the references to past couples really left it without much room for humor, and the subsequent focus on Lisa didn't help it much after that.  Its a pretty forgettable episode.

Final Score: 6.4

Kill Gil, Volumes I & II (S18, E09-387)

Gil finally learns that Marge can be the craziest Simpson of them all.

Plot Summary
Its almost Christmas, and the Simpsons go out for a fun time, seeing a musical on ice featuring Krusty and a Grinch-like character named the "Grumple".  The event comes to an abrupt halt when a basketball game is about to start, causing a riot with Homer beating up on the Grumple for stealing Christmas or whatever.  Later, the family goes to the mall, and Lisa decides to visit the mall Santa, currently being filled by Gil Gunderson.  Lisa laments that the toy package she wants has been sold out, but Gil recalls there being one set aside in the back, and goes to get it for Lisa.  Lisa is happy to get her thing, but it turns out that thing was put aside by the owner of the store.  Upon learning what Gil did, the owner fires Gil on the spot.  Marge, whose still there, sees this happen and, feeling some guilt over what happened, invites Gil over for Christmas Eve.

With Gil having no place to go or live, Marge's continued guilt has her let Gil stay through the holidays.  Gil continues to find a way to pull at Marge's strings to stay at the house rather than leave, citing he's got a real estate opportunity lined up in Scottsdale, Arizona.  Homer tries to get Marge to finally kick him out, when Marge reveals that she just can't say 'no' to anybody, citing a traumatic childhood experience as a reason.  Homer realizes he can't kick Gil out himself as Marge needs to do so for her psyche, but its gonna be a long wait.  Eventually, the day after the next Thanksgiving, Marge finally has enough and gathers enough anger to finally say 'no' to Gil.  Unfortunately for Marge, Gil has actually moved out, to Scottsdale no less, and Marge is unable to properly vent her building rage.  Refusing to let her psychological gain go to waste, she takes the family to Scottsdale to find and scold Gil.

They quickly learn that Gil is somehow a real estate big shot in Scottsdale, and they eventually find him lecturing prospective agents.  Marge couldn't care less, though, and immediately confronts Gil over his eleven wasteful months, and finally says "no" to ol' Gil.  Everyone in the office is taken aback, and the boss of the company fires Gil on the spot.  Again, Marge and the family feel sorry for Gil, and decide to buy a house where they celebrate the next Christmas alongside a family of Grumples, whose father Homer had beaten up earlier in the episode.

Quick Review
This was a weird episode.  Its a Christmas episode, though the entirety thereof occurs over an entire year.  Its an episode featured mostly around Gil Gunderson, a character introduced in Season 9 whose optimistic pathetic-ness you wouldn't think would last an entire episode.  For some reason, those Grumple make continued appearances throughout the episode, when they provided no comedic value after the first act.  So yeah, it all makes for a very odd episode and, perhaps expectedly, not a very funny episode.  Its too bad as I do find Gil a humorous character most of the time, but he's best left for one-off jokes and the like, an entire episode seems too much for his character to handle.

Final Score: 6.7

Realty Bites (S09, E09-187)

I need to buy a house... right after I buy some lumber.

Plot Summary
On a lazy Saturday, Marge grows tired of sitting around and doing nothing.  She convinces Homer to take her somewhere, and Homer does... to a police auction.  There, Homer is able to buy a car, a hot rod to be specific, but its original owner, Snake, sees this and promises to kill Homer for buying it.  Homer takes Marge on a crazy drive in it, but before long she demands he let her out.  Walking home, Marge sees Lionel Hutz putting a house up for sale.  Turns out, Hutz has picked up a new career in real estate.  Marge realizes how good it could feel to help people find a home, and decides to take it up as well.

After passing the test with relative ease, Marge gets a job at the same real estate company Hutz works at.  On the job, though, Marge's truth-telling tendencies do not aid in her attempts to sell less-than-premier homes.  Though she's pleased to hear that people like her frank honesty, she then learns that sometimes one has to 'bend' the truth in order to sell homes, and furthermore if Marge isn't able to sell a home within a week she gets fired.  Meanwhile, Snake sees Homer drive his car near the prison, and noticing that Homer has failed to fill the tank with premium gas, Snake has had enough, and abuses the jail's honor system to leave via a back door.

Later, Marge tries to sell a home to the Flanders, but once again her honesty prevents a sale.  Near the end, the two spy a wonderful house.  Marge learned earlier that this house is where a famous murder took place some time ago but has yet to be resold because of that.  However, the Flanders seem unaware that its that house, and so Marge is barely able to withhold that information, and is able to sell the house to the Flanders.

However, it doesn't take long for Marge to regret her decision, and the day after the Flanders move in to the house, she visits them and tells them the truth about the house.  At the same time, Snake ambushes Homer in the car, and the two get into a fight while the car is still moving.  Chief Wiggum is woken up as they pass by, and gives chase.  The Flanders realize that, yes, they did buy the murder house, but they're even happier than they were before, and are more than willing to stay there.  At that moment, Homer and Snake crash their car into that very house, and Wiggum does the same, causing the house to collapse.  Ned then gets his deposit check back from Marge, and tears it up.

With the real estate company assessed damages for the house, hot rod and police car, not to mention Marge giving back the deposit check, Hutz, who is apparently the boss at this company, fires Marge.  Though Marge is sad she wasn't able to bring in even one check, Homer eases her pain by taking her to the unemployment office, and everything is okay.

Quick Review
This is a sad episode for a specific reason.  This episode features the last speaking appearance of Lionel Hutz, as his voice actor Phil Hartman would die five months after this episode aired (he has one final speaking appearance as Troy McClure in Season 10).  So this episode having Lionel Hutz move out of law, where he was pretty incompetent, to real estate where he seemed to be doing okay, seems like a fine send off to a character that was well liked for the six plus seasons he was around.  Gil Gunderson, a rather inept real estate worker who was introduced in this episode, would have the proverbial torch passed to him as the inept lawyer in future seasons, though Gil would also be featured being inept in other things as well.

As for the episode itself, I liked it quite a bit.  Homer's hot rod sidestory was brief, but Snake's antics helped make it enjoyable.  The main plotline was fine, getting better when the Flanders became involved in the story, and for his final speaking appearance, Lionel Hutz was pretty good as well.

Final Score: 9.0