Trust But Clarify (S28, E05-601)

Why do the writers make Artie so antagonistic towards Kent?

Plot Summary
Krusty releases a new brand of snacks, which Lisa finds suspicious.  Meanwhile, Kent Brockman gets caught lying about an experience of his and is fired from his job as a result.  While this is all happening, Homer's latent ambition surfaces and its first order of business is to get Homer dressed for success.

Lisa and Bart come to realize that Krusty's new snack is composed primarily of formaldehyde, which is basically poison.  Lisa tries to take the story to the news, but as Krusty is a big donor to big news, they won't take the story.  Meanwhile, Kent tries to latch onto Buzz- er, "Bizzfad", but it goes bankrupt before he has a chance to screw up.  Lisa finds Kent to try and have him break the story, but he's too depressed about his failed career to take it up.

Homer's attempt to dress for success fails when Mr. Burns finds Homer's appearance comical still, and although Homer doesn't regret the attempt, Homer's ambition is kicked out of his head for its failure.

Kent gets advice from Dan Rather to take up Lisa's story because its the ethical thing to do, I guess.  Motivated, Kent and Lisa expose Krusty, which is enough to get Kent his old job back at the station, and Lisa receives unpaid credit for his return, the highest honor.

Quick Review
This was a dull, boring episode.  Homer's sidestory was short and pointless, and the media storyline wasn't any better.  It, again, references events that most people already forgot, and tries to go with a "the current media is pretty bad, except maybe its not?" theme that is rushed and just falls flat.

Perhaps the episode's lone good moment was at the beginning: Bart and Lisa were watching an Itchy & Scratchy cartoon and although it seemed like the cartoon was going to be another artsy reference-fest, it ended up being a quick violence gag like how Itchy & Scratchy should be.  It got a good chuckle out of me, the only time the episode was able to do so.

Final Score: 5.9

Four Regrettings and a Funeral (S25, E03-533)

Somehow, I doubt it.

Plot Summary
At the funeral of a well-loved yet never-seen person, Reverend Lovejoy admits that even this beloved person had regrets.  This leaves several people in the congregation thinking about their regrets: Marge begins to worry if listening to Kiss albums during her first pregnancy led to Bart's current behavior (and Joe Namath regrets sitting behind Bart during his latest prank); Kent Brockman regrets sticking around to do local news rather than go national; Homer really regrets selling his Apple stock back in 2001 to buy a bowling ball; and Mr. Burns (rich in part of buying Homer's Apple stock) regrets letting a woman he loved get away.

As Marge continues to blame herself for Bart's demeanor, Burns tells Smithers about the story of him and Lyla, the previously mentioned woman who would've married Burns had he agreed to be nice to others for five minutes a day.  Burns refused, of course, so Lyla broke up with him promising to marry a man as nice as Burns is evil.  Nearby, Kent Brockman is met by Rachel Maddow, who was once Kent's co-anchor some decades ago.  Both had become sick of the inane nature of local news, Rachel especially so.  She decided to leave town to join a cable news network, but Kent stayed behind.  In the present day, Burns learns from a private eye that Lyla is still alive, but has since become a devout Buddhist and decides to pursue her.  Meanwhile, Kent goes to New York to join a big time news network, choosing Fox News because its the only one that's, sadly, doing well.  After seeing just a taste of Fox News' practices, though, Kent decides otherwise and goes back to Springfield.

Homer decides to return his bowling ball, but learns the bowling ball store is soon to become another Apple store.  Meanwhile, Bart rigs a laundry basket with dozens of balloons and begins to float into the air, unable to get down and starts drifting across town.  Burns, meanwhile, has reunited with Lyla who is more than willing to forgo her oaths for a one night stand.  Burns, though, takes a long time to "prepare himself" in the bathroom and upon return to Lyla, Burns finds out that Lyla passed away while waiting, causing the old man to have further regrets but Smithers recommends Burns honor Lyla by doing the one thing she had asked him to do: be nice to others for five+ minutes.

Kent Brockman returns just in time to see Bart floating around, and quickly sets up a news report about it.  Marge finally catches wind and finds Bart near town hall with the police readying incompetent, inaccurate snipers to try and take the balloons out.  Marge continues to lament what she did during pregnancy, but Chief Wiggum tells Marge that wouldn't of made a difference as his wife listened to Mozart and Churchill speeches during her pregnancy and they ended up with Ralph anyway.  Just then, Professor Frink arrives with a solution to the dilemma - fire a cannonball at just the correct angle and distance for it to land in the basket, giving it enough weight to descend.  However, the town no longer possesses any cannonballs, but Homer arrives with just the thing: his bowling ball.  The plan does end up working, as the ball lands safely in the basket and the basket lands on the ground.  Marge notes that regrets don't matter, as long as you're with your family every choice you've made is the right one.  Meanwhile, after Bart's story goes national, Kent relishes in the attention, but no longer regrets staying in local news.

Quick Review
This episode, which began with a tribute to Marcia Wallace and then a painfully long Hobbit reference of a couch gag, was not good.  While the bulk of the episode remained pointless reference-free for the most part, the episode made the mistake of prioritizing storytelling over comedy.  Fitting in what was four different subplots over a broad "regrets" theme left little room for any good jokes or memorable moments to really exist.  What's left is an episode that spends time really praising Apple (at least its not "Mapple"), takes a couple of quick shots at news media and spends a few minutes on a lost-love story that had very little going for it.  The episode was just too much of a mess to be any decent.  Kind of a crummy episode to dedicate to Wallace's memory, but what can you do?

Final Score: 5.7

A Tree Grows in Springfield (S24, E06-514)

Brockman "hopes" he can stop hope before he can be stopped.

Plot Summary
Homer is depressed about life in general.  Not even a Duff-sponsored party can cheer him up.  He remains depressed as his family takes him to a school raffle.  However, to his surprised glee, Homer ends up winning the top prize in the raffle: an Apple iPad - oh I'm sorry, a "Mapple MyPad", whatever.  Anyway, Homer loves his new iPad and it does everything for him, including cheering him up.  Homer in particular becomes addicted to a pizza making app, and becomes so distracted by it he doesn't see where he's going and falls down an open sewer drain.  Homer is physically not too hurt, however the iPad did not survive.  The iPad wasn't the only thing that shattered, so too did Homer's newfound optimism.

Depressed once more, Homer is dragged out by Ned Flanders to be shown an odd sight: his tree has maple markings on it that spell out the word "HOPE".  As Homer had prayed to God for a goddamned break after his iPad broke, and with Ned Flanders preaching a "even if your tires are flat, you just take things real slow until you reach the next station" message, Homer decides to see things in a new light.  In church, Homer tells everyone about the hope tree, and a following of people start praising the supposed miracle.

Kent Brockman, disillusioned after a childhood incident involving a guy in a Mickey Mouse costume, remains skeptical and decides to find out the truth behind the message.  Quickly, Brockman learns and shows to everyone videotape of a mysterious stranger coming from out of nowhere and painting the word on the tree using typical store-bought maple syrup.  The message of hope dies, as does Homer's optimism again.  Marge finally cheers Homer up for good by telling him that he doesn't need iPads or fake tree messages because the hope he felt was real, not to mention there was somebody out there on Homer's side telling him to keep hope.  Later that night, the mystery person returns to the tree, and ends up being a sleepwalking Homer, subconsciously telling himself to keep hope alive.

With the episode done early, a short mini-cartoon about a love story is presented, but its two minutes worth of referencing nearly every false product the show has made over the years.  Yawn.

Quick Review
Two things really bothered me with this episode, as "grounded" as it was: everything involving "Mapple" and the "MyPad" and Steve "Mobs" and jabs at Apple's privacy concerns because "everyone cool owns iProducts so if we just mention how much Apple sucks ironically then we'll get all the laughs!"  Why.

The short story at the very end was stupid too, again only there because the main plot was boring enough that it couldn't fill up just two more minutes.  The main episode had a couple of decent jokes and moments, but overall it was boring mixed with a few lowlights, which is why it scored so low.

Final Score: 5.4

You Kent Always Say What You Want (S18, E22-400)

Even news anchors have their bad days and enemies.

Plot Summary
The episode opens up with a reshowing of the Simpsons short Family Portrait to commemorate their 400th episode.

The Simpsons go to the dentist for their checkups, but then afterwards go to get ice cream.  Homer buys himself a cone, which ends up being the one millionth cone sold at that store.  As a reward, Homer gets to appear on Channel 6's Smartline (because the ice cream store and Channel 6 are owned by the same company).  Kent Brockman is clearly displeased with the arrangement, but he tries to do the 'interview' anyway, when Homer accidentally spills his hot coffee onto Kent's lap.  Kent reacts to it poorly, yelling out quite the offensive swear.

Kent apologizes for it a short time later, fearing the worst, but it turns out that nobody watched the broadcast because most people nowadays get their news from the internet.  However, there are people that watch TV for the sole reason of finding and complaining about offensive material, and Ned Flanders is one such person.  He finds Kent's swear, and goes to the internet to inform the masses.  The FCC learns about it, and fines the network $10,000,000 for the swear.  This, along with another misunderstanding, leaves Kent without a job.

Marge lets Kent stay with the Simpsons as it was Homer who led to all of this.  One day, Lisa points out the contradiction that is regular FOX and FOX News, which Kent points out is on purpose so that FOX will pay the FCC fine money for their smut, which then gets sent to the Republican party, which everyone in the media knows but refuses to say because of corporate interests.  Lisa, though, offers Kent an opportunity to make that known: through the internet!  On Kent's first broadcast, he outs the media and the Republicans for what they do.  The Republican Party holds a meeting on what to do about Brockman, and quickly decide on a course of action.  Later, as Lisa commends Kent as they walk down the street, Channel 6 offers Kent back his old job with a 50% pay raise.  Lisa hopes Kent will turn them down, but Kent instead quickly accepts the offer.  Lisa is saddened that nobody will stand up for the truth anymore, but Homer reveals that Kent told him one huge secret about FOX, but FOX itself refuses to let Homer share his secret.

Quick Review
We're at the 400th episode now, and each milestone becomes less and less impressive.  This episode was hard to watch through at times.  Krusty's voiceover of the Itchy & Scratchy cartoon was pretty great, but it was really the only good thing the episode had to offer.  As an episode that oddly focused on Kent Brockman, the episode quickly devolved into a message against corporate-owned media and the whole thing just wasn't funny (with a cringe worthy appearance by Ludacris early on making things that much worse), though FOX's attempts to silence Homer at the end was okay.  Its the last episode aired before the theatrical release of The Simpsons Movie, and it leads to the movie on a rather low note.

Final Score: 5.9

She Used to Be My Girl (S16, E04-339)

For Homer, cat fights are only fun if they're about him.

Plot Summary
The Simpsons are watching the news, where Mayor Quimby is dodging yet another adultery controversy.  He's able to placate the local media, however a national media reporter remains to hound Quimby.  Marge recognizes her as Chloe Talbot, a girl she knew in high school.  Later, Marge and Lisa come across Chloe on the street and, despite Chloe's demeanor against Springfield in general, Marge invites her to dinner.  At dinner, Marge becomes jealous when Homer and especially Lisa begin to adore Chloe and her worldwide exploits.  Chloe's exciting life leaves Marge feeling rather inadequate about hers.

Lisa inquires as to how Marge knows Chloe, and explains that in high school the two of them were both into journalism, helping uncover a cafeteria scandal.  They both thought about leaving Springfield to attend a journalism school, but they would've needed to dump their sweethearts to do so.  For Chloe, whose boyfriend was Barney, the choice was rather easy.  Marge would've followed, but soon after she became pregnant with Bart and stayed put.

Lisa continues to spend lots of time with Chloe, and with her and Homer still fawning over Chloe's success, Marge's jealously starts to hit a peak.  Chloe takes Lisa home late one night, offering Lisa to come with her to a women's convention the next day.  However, as they return to the Simpson house, Marge - who drank half a glass of wine - confronts Chloe and the two get into a cat fight in front of Lisa.

Afterwards, Marge prohibits Lisa from going to the convention with Chloe, but with Bart's help Lisa sneaks away anyway.  Lisa finds and sneaks her way into the trunk of Chloe's car, but on the drive Chloe is told from some editor to go to an erupting Mount Springfield to cover the breaking news.  Lisa pops out of the trunk, and the mountain erupts, surrounding the two in hot lava.  Homer and Marge drive to Capitol City where the convention is happening, but can't find Lisa or Chloe.  They see on a nearby TV, though, that Chloe is covering the eruption with Lisa surrounded by lava.  The two quickly drive to the mountain, but are stopped by police.  As Homer tries to convince them to let them through, Marge takes command of the wheel and bursts through.  She finds Lisa and Chloe hanging on for dear life in a river of molten magma.  Using a hidden, motherly strength, Marge leaps into action and is able to save Lisa from the magma.  Chloe looks done for, but she, too, is saved at the last minute by a sober-again Barney in his helicopter (you remember, right?), and the old couple is reunited, at least for 30 minutes of pity sex.

Marge's heroism is noted on the news, and Marge comes to terms with her life.  Though its not as celebrated as Chloe's having three kids and a loving husband is good enough as well.  Besides, Marge as a journalist wouldn't of been all great either, covering things like the Miracle on Ice never happening and such.

Quick Review
This episode starts off slowly and picks up a bit near the end.  Chloe, and the related Sex in the City references, didn't have anything going for them in terms of comedy (nor were her interactions with other reporters), and with no unrelated subplot to salvage things, the few Marge-related laughs that were around barely kept this episode from being truly terrible.

Final Score: 6.3

Girly Edition (S09, E21-199)

Lisa and Mojo, enjoying themselves for one reason or another.

Plot Summary
Under pressure to provide educational programming, a TV network decides to create a news program made by kids, for kids.  Lisa is given charge of the assignment.  Meanwhile, Bart's skateboarding antics draw the ire of Groundskeeper Willie, who confiscates Bart's board.  Getting some kind of vengeance, Bart grabs a tube that's spilling out creamed corn and tosses it into the furnace of Willie's shack.  It eventually overflows, causing Willie's shack to blow apart.  As Bart retrieves his skateboard, Willie knows it was Bart who caused the loss of his home and that Willie will get his revenge sooner or later.  A short time later, Bart has Marge press Lisa into having him join Lisa's news cast.

The show, "Kidz Newz", starts off with a yawn as Lisa unenthusiastically bores about some kind of library thing.  Bart, given Sports, is much livelier than Lisa, and after just the first broadcast a network executive makes Bart a co-anchor.  Later, Lisa protests the decision to the executive, noting that Bart is "kinda dumb", something Bart overhears.  Looking to prove himself, Bart visits Kent Brockman for advice.  Both sharing a common interest - showing up their sisters in the news business - Kent reveals a big secret to his success: human interest stories, tales that grip the human heart and soften the mind.  Bart learns these secrets well, and on the next telecast he starts his newest piece: Bart's People, which becomes an instant hit much to Lisa's dismay.

In the subplot, Homer notices that Apu has acquired a helper monkey after a robbery left him less than intact.  Intrigued, Homer goes to buy one, literally using Grampa as an excuse of getting a helper monkey.  Marge can't stand the monkey - Mojo - being in the house, and for a short time the monkey does help Homer out.  However, Homer's lazy, fatass demeanor quickly grows on Mojo, and soon its as lazy and fat as Homer is.  Marge demands Homer send it back so it can be helped, and Homer eventually does, though he makes a run for it before anybody can see it was him that left Mojo there.

Meanwhile, Lisa tries to do human interest stories of her own, but they aren't working so well (mostly because of a crazy cat lady, whose first appearance is this episode).  After Marge blurts out that Kidz Newz is Bart's show, Lisa has had enough, and sets up a plan to out Bart as a fraud.  She gives him a letter from a supposed viewer saying he lives at the garbage dump now.  Bart sees the opportunity, and decides to have Bart's People air live at the dump.  However, upon getting there, it turns out that person is Willie, still mad at Bart over the corn thing, and angrily begins an assault on Bart.  Lisa regrets what she's done and hastily goes over to the dump to stop Willie, doing so by quickly drumming up an interest story about Bart being the 'son' of today's culture.  Willie is touched by it, and leaves in tears.  Bart and Lisa renew their respects for one another, and agree that if they work together, Kidz Newz will be unstoppable.  However, Kidz Newz is quickly cancelled instead, having been replaced by some kind of advertisement cartoon.

Quick Review
Another solid entry for Season 9, I enjoyed the main plot somewhat, mostly around Bart's various antics, but Homer's sidestory with the monkey really took my laughs this time.  Its just a silly sidestory, and it has nothing to do with the main story, but the plight of poor Mojo really gave me a good time, and helped boosted this episode's score to what it is.

Final Score: 8.6

Lisa the Beauty Queen (S04, E04-063)

If he had given Lisa that sceptre sooner, Lisa would've been hit.  Krusty is a true hero.

Plot Summary
At a school fair, Lisa has a caricature drawn of herself.  Not understanding the purpose of a caricature, the resulting drawing leads Lisa to believe she's ugly.  Meanwhile, Homer wins a raffle, and the reward is tickets to the Duff Blimp.  Later, however, he notices Lisa being sad and learns why, and is bothered that he isn't able to help Lisa feel better about herself.  At the bar, Homer sees a commercial for a "Little Miss Springfield" beauty pageant, hosted by a cigarette company, for ages 7-9.  Needing $250 to apply Lisa into the contest, Homer sells his blimp tickets to Barney to pay for the cost.  When Homer tells Lisa what he did, she's upset (especially when Homer told her he used Lisa's caricature as the picture to apply with).  Knowing the reasoning behind Homer's deed, Marge is able to convince Lisa to do it after telling Lisa what Homer sacrificed to get her in.

At the pageant, Lisa sees the top competition: Amber Dempsey, who had fake eyelashes implanted in Portugal or somewhere.  Marge helps Lisa get beautiful at a parlor, while Bart trains her for other pageant-related things.  Soon, the pageant occurs, and Lisa goes in and does well, but ends up in second place behind Dempsey.  Shortly after that, Dempsey is at a store to unveil some tire spikes, when lightning strikes her sceptre, leaving her unable to perform her duties.  As such, Lisa as the runner up becomes sworn in as the new Little Miss Springfield.

Lisa's duties start off simple enough, seeing off deportees and appearing at Fort Springfield alongside Bob Hope.  However, she learns that, because the pageant was sponsored by a cigarette company, they now want Lisa to be her spokesperson to increase youth smoking.  While hesitant at first, she decides to go along with her duty, however at a parade she sees kids picking up free cigarettes and decides that's enough, and begins to rebel against smoking, and then college football.  When its learned she's next going after the mayor, panic begins to mount among the top ranks.  Fortunately for them, however, they found a technicality that removes Lisa from the position: when Homer filled out the application, in the space "Do not write here", Homer wrote "OK".  Her title stripped and returned to Dempsey, Lisa is still happy that Homer went through so much effort to make her feel better about herself.

Quick Review
Lisa the Beauty Queen is a superb episode, which is odd for a Lisa-centric episode but Homer really pulls through in the episode as well.  The few moments Krusty the Klown was in were great too.  It is one of Season 4's best episodes.

Final Score: 9.6

Dog of Death (S03, E19-054)

All hail King Homer!

Plot Summary
Its lottery fever in Springfield, and everybody is buying tickets, including Homer who buys 50 in the frenzy.  While this is occurring, though, Santa's Little Helper appears to be sick and barely able to stand (also his nose is gray the entire episode which is kinda odd).  It isn't until after Homer loses the lottery (but hey at least Kent Brockman won) where Grampa points out that the dog is dead.  Well, its sick but Grampa doesn't care.

A trip to the vet later, its learned that Santa's Little Helper has a twisted stomach, which will eventually kill the dog if left untreated.  An operation is needed to fix it, but it'll cost $750.  Homer and Marge are initially unwilling to do so because of the high cost, but Bart and the dog convince them otherwise, and Marge is able to devise a plan to save enough money, by having everyone make sacrifices.  Soon enough the money is scrounged up, and the dog is saved.

Just two days later, everyone is disgruntled, particularly Homer as his precious pork chop night has been replaced with chub.  As one would expect, the sacrifices the Simpsons made to pay for the operation is biting them hard.

• Marge gave up her weekly lottery ticket, but it turns out that her winning numbers finally come up.
• Homer gave up beer, and goes to the bar just to poorly sing songs for quarters.
• Lisa was getting volumes of the Encyclopedia Generica at the grocery store, but gave that up before she could get the volume on Copernicus: the next subject of Lisa's essay.
• Bart agrees to get haircuts at the Springfield Barber College for free.  That doesn't work out well.
• Maggie doesn't get any new baby clothes, while her current set just happen to fall apart at the right time.

As a result, everybody in the family gets angry at the dog.  Feeling unwanted, the dog is able to run away and go on an adventure for awhile before being picked up by the dog pound.  Mr. Burns, in need of a new attack dog, gets Santa's Little Helper to condition him into being a vicious attack dog.  Bart stumbles upon Burns' house in search of the dog, and upon being attacked by Santa's Little Helper, he's able to 'reach' his dog, returning him to normal.  The dog is brought back home and everybody loves him again.

Quick Review
Dog of Death is a weaker episode compared to several of the episodes that preceded it, but like with a lot of these early episodes there's still some good laughs to be had.  Much of the lottery-related storyline was great whether it was Homer's deluded dreams of using the winnings to become the pictured King Homer or Kent Brockman after he wins the lottery.  Still, one of Season 3's lesser episodes.

Final Score: 7.9