The Man Who Came to Be Dinner (S26, E10-562)

Remember: this isn't a Halloween episode.  This is a regular episode about an "ordinary family".

Plot Summary
The Simpsons go to a facsimile of Disneyland, but despite going to every attraction it offers, they simply do not have any fun.  However, the family does glimpse one last attraction that is unlisted on the park map: a place called "Rocket to Your Doom".  The Simpsons, the only family to even notice this "attraction", go in, only to be whisked away in an actual spaceship, and be flown away from Earth.  Turns out, its the Rigelians, in a non-Halloween setting, who wish to bring the Simpsons to their homeworld for reasons yet to be explained.

As the family arrives on the planet, they're given a quick tour of the planet and its supposed culture, but are then sent to a local zoo as an exhibit, and then told a short time later that one of them will be sacrificed as food.  Given the choice to decide, the family agrees Homer should be that sacrifice.  Its part of a grand celebration, but just before it begins, Homer is whisked away by a teleporter beam.

His rescuers, the Rigelian equivalent of hippies, celebrate their rescue operation with a dance, and offer Homer a one-person spaceship with which to return home, but Homer couldn't leave without his family and opts to go save him.  Rigelian law dictates that with Homer gone, the rest of the family becomes the sacrifice, and when Homer returns, Rigelian law dictates the whole family becomes the sacrifice anyway.

This time, the Rigelian Queen comes to take the first bite - a section of Homer's ass that had been sliced off.  However, as the Queen learns the hard way, it turns out the Simpsons are actually poisonous, thanks to their diets (including Lisa's, whose more "natural" diet isn't any better), information the Rigelians didn't bother to look into until after the fact.  Now considered inedible, and the Queen having died, the Simpsons are allowed to return home with their memories of the experience to slowly fade as though this experience never happened.  On the spaceship home, the Simpsons get a call from Grampa, who tracked them down only to complain at them, and the family decides to reroute their ship elsewhere.

Quick Review
This was not a decent episode by any stretch of the imagination.  This episode, which was originally planned to be the Season 24 finale, was held back about a season and a half because its script was being considered for use in a second Simpsons movie.  That would explain the somewhat rushed, nonsensical pace of the plot as well as the absurdity of it, but given how bad it was I'm somewhat glad it's stuck as a forgettable Season 26 episode instead of a stand alone movie.

Ignoring the plot, the episode relies too much on references for comedy, especially meta references like the chip-eating bit from Deep Space Homer.  Just about all of the humor in regards to the Rigelians just wasn't funny, and the whole episode just feels like something that would've been better pitched as a Futurama episode, but would've been turned down - even during the short-lived Comedy Central era.

I wasn't expecting much from this episode, and the episode didn't even meet that.

Final Score: 4.1

Married to the Blob (S25, E10-540)

I don't even want to make a caption for this, even though I just did.

Note: this episode shares the title with a Treehouse of Horror XVII story.

Plot Summary
After Bart and Milhouse read a comic detailing the 'death' of Radioactive Man, the two quickly learn the new #1 issue of the reborn Radioactive Man is gonna be sold in a midnight function.  Homer takes the two to the comic book shop to buy the book, last in line.  Just before he can buy the book, the comic book guy (loving all the money he's getting from the book's sales) is visited by that super hipster who may or may not own a comic book shop of his own anymore.  The guy, whose name I never bothered or cared to learn, is now married to his super hipster girlfriend, news that just stuns ol' Jeff Albertson.  Bothering him still, he recalls Homer is also married despite his physical deficiencies.  As Jeff is visited by a vision of Stan Lee (as the two witness the real one stealing his comic books) to turn his love life around, he is visited by a young Japanese woman who quickly reveals she understands and tolerates him and his attitudes.

Smitten, Jeff asks the girl, Kumiko, on a date.  Recalling Homer also has a hot wife, Jeff asks Homer for help and both Homer and Marge decide to help the comic book guy out.  During their first date, Kumiko reveals she's very okay with Jeff's insulting nature, and love begins to blossom for them both with Kumiko deciding to move in to the comic book guy's shop's basement.  Trouble brews, though, when Homer meets Kumiko's father, who isn't happy that Kumiko is seeing such a fat nerd.  Homer unwittingly reveals where Kumiko is staying and the old man quickly takes Kumiko away, breaking Jeff's heart.

Marge gets upset with Homer for basically being at fault here, and demands Homer do something about it.  Homer finds Kumiko's father and the two go drinking at a Japanese bar where the two end up drinking snake rice wine, getting hammered from it.  The two share a hallucination of classic Japanese animations where Kumiko's father realizes he's been ignoring his daughter's feelings and decides to let Kumiko stay with Jeff.  A short time thereafter, Jeff and Kumiko get married with Stan Lee heading the wedding and, all of a sudden, Jeff doesn't quite feel the need to be attached to comic books anymore.

(Not-so) Quick Review
Wow.  Just... just wow.  I didn't think it would happen, but it finally did.

This is a bad episode in every way.  First of all, there isn't much comedy, I mean, actually good comedy.  Stan Lee's appearance was actually pretty good, and its a shame he had to cameo in such a bad episode, but he's the episode's lone highlight.

Otherwise, the entire episode is just nothing but references.  Comic book references, 'modern Japan' references, Japanese anime references, the episode is filled to the brim with them, and that's what they were: just references.  Nothing about them was made to be funny, it was just 'hey look, its comic book references, and hey here's stuff from Miyazaki, isn't that funny? aren't we clever?' nonsense.

Just one episode ago, I was giving praise to Steal This Episode for taking everything this season has done well and making what was the best episode in years.  I had a feeling just last week that my hope towards the rest of this season was misguided, and boy, was it.  This episode, Married to the Blob, takes everything wrong with the show from the past several seasons and condenses it into 20+ minutes of cringe-worthy references and dialogue, creating what I believe is the worst episode in the series.

Yes, even worse than Alone Again, Natura-Diddly.  That episode I never believed could be 'bottomed' in awfulness not just because of how unfunny it was, but because of what that episode did, in killing off a character.  Married to the Blob didn't kill anyone off, and the new canon of Jeff Albertson being married to a Japanese girl isn't bad at all.  That's how unfunny this episode was, and that was with a decent Stan Lee cameo.

When I heard this episode's premise, I wasn't expecting much, but I wasn't expecting this.  I could barely get through the entire episode.  I can't even use the supposedly famous words of the comic book guy to sum up this episode, so instead I'll just say: its even worse than killing off Maude Flanders.

Final Score: 2.8

Love is a Many-Splintered Thing (S24, E12-520)

Why.  Why.

Plot Summary
Bart, dressed up as something that resembles Woody Allen for some reason, narrates the story.  One day, at school, Bart learns that Mary Spuckler has returned after being gone for just 11 episodes.  Mary's acting career is officially over, and she's happily back with her family, and the two decide to resume the relationship they had begun in New York.  However, Bart is mostly dismissive of Mary, opting to do whatever he wants and only passing to Mary bland compliments.  Lisa tries to warn Bart to pay more attention, giving Homer similar advice at the same time for Marge, but neither one really pays attention.  Mary's musical talents earns her a spot in a hillbilly music competition, though she doesn't win.  Bart is unable to console her, but a Brazilian record producer approaches Mary with an opportunity and invites her to dinner with his nice looking son.  Bart isn't particularly interested in going, so Mary decides to leave on her own, dismissive of Bart.

Gaining the help of a Woody Allen caricature, Bart tries to make it up to Mary, but she no longer cares about Bart and officially breaks up with him.  He goes home just in time to see Homer and Marge fighting over something, and yells at Marge over the perception that women never explain what they really want.  As Homer sides with Bart, Marge decides to kick both of them out of the house.  Homer takes Bart to his usual motel in such situations, full of other depressing husbands and such.  Bart tries one more time to call Mary, but she responds with a rather passionate song about how much she's over Bart, which she rather likes.

Homer decides to rally the other husbands, first by having a fun party, but then pools together the resources to invite their wives to the motel as they've gotten a nice orchestra to play a song for them in their attempts to win back their wives' love.  For the most part it works.  Bart was also able to invite Mary for the same purpose, but she isn't biting, and she leaves with her new boyfriend, the aforementioned Brazilian boy.  Back to Woody Allen lookalike narrator Bart, he checks up on Mary's status online, and learns she's married now (because Hillbilly way, I guess) but suddenly her status changes to being single again, and he likes his chances - though its mostly because Mary is now a widow?

Quick Review
Well, this episode has its problems.  Lots of them.  Here, lets list them.

1) Its not very funny.  That's usually a big one.
2) Bringing back Mary Spuckler so soon after she and Bart become a couple, kinda, only to have them break up rather unceremoniously.  Its like the writing staff realized after producing Moonshine River that they didn't like Bart having a sustained love intereste and worked like hell to remedy that.
3) Lisa was being rather pushy this time, which is always annoying and unfunny.
4) Even though the episode is about Bart, there was still enough time to throw in yet another "Homer and Marge hit another bump in the road in their marriage" plot, like there hasn't been enough of those.
5) The whole Woody Allen thing was unnecessary.  The show has spoofed the guy lots of time in the past, albeit never that humorously, and the heavy theme of it this episode was even less comedic.

I'm just gonna stop there.  Its a pretty bad episode, a waste of a Max Weinberg appearance, and is one of the worst episodes of the series thus far.

Final Score: 3.9

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

Moe Goes from Rags to Riches (S23, E12-498)

It going "kill me", dying and then a black screen for 20 minutes would've been funnier.

Plot Summary
With city hall fumigated for bedbugs for some reason, Mayor Quimby hosts the next town meeting at Moe's bar, which erupts into a party upon the meeting's conclusion.  During the party, a discussion of best friends come up and Moe is unable to come up with anyone that would be his best friend.  People start mocking him, claiming his old bar rag is his best friend.  Bart chimes in and says that Milhouse is a better best friend than a rag, offending Milhouse enough to end their friendship.  Moe has enough and leaves, however the rag is given a spotlight and comes to life, decides to spend some time telling the audience the life its lived.

The rag began its existence way back in ye olde France, when a woman (Marge) is tasked by the Duke de Springfield (Burns) to create a tapestry for little gain.  On his way out, Burns happily slaughters some sheep that were in his way.  Those sheep gained the powers of the devil or something, and as Marge starts to use their wool for the tapestry, she becomes possessed to weave the tapestry non stop for years and years.  Upon its completion, the cloth showcases the events it would live through in the future.  Burns isn't pleased with it, though, and has Marge and her family killed as he rides off, but fate would turn its head and Burns would die by being hung by the cloth during a fall.

As Bart is disturbed that Milhouse is now neglecting him, the rag continues that in the dark ages it was a cloth that was celebrated until vikings came in and raided the place.  A viking that looked like Homer took it for himself and ate parts of it.  Some time later, the rag was used as barter by the Christians to dupe some Muslims, ruining things forever between the two.  It became a patch to the tent of a king (Nelson), who forced his many wives to perform for him or be sent to a pit.  His latest wife (Lisa) is able to free the other wives and they take out the king.  The cloth would start traveling all over Europe, eventually winding up as the rag used by Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, though it was tossed aside after its completion.

As Bart's mental state continues to deteriorate after Milhouse keeps ignoring him, the rag continues that it was used during the Great Depression as a flavoring for cheap soup, but at some point it became a flag for a guy's climb of Mount Everest, but the guy died and the rag was left wasting, until a yeti came by to claim it, giving it to its son, Moe, which brings things to the present time.  Moe is now sleeping happily with the rag, who actually now considers it his best friend, but a mysterious stranger nabs it.

Milhouse somehow hires Drederick Tatum to punch Bart for him, and afterwards Bart promises to be more subtle about his abuse of Milhouse, which Milhouse happily agrees to.  Moe is frantically searching around town for his rag, which is currently being run through a dryer.  A pan out reveals it was Marge who took the rag.  Moe arrives at the house and finds it, happy to be reunited with his rag.  Marge tells him she saw Moe hugging his rag and, after seeing how 'ripe' it was, decided to give it a good wash.  Moe then realizes, though, that the rag isn't his best friend, that since his bar is apparently a hip place to be, he's got plenty of human interaction to enjoy.  Confident, Moe throws the rag outside.  As the rag contemplates its end, Santa's Little Helper grabs it and makes it his own, which the rag rather enjoys.

Quick Review
Well, you can't say they recycled this plot!

Regardless of how weird an episode focused on Moe's rag is, the real inexcusable move was to make such an episode as unfunny as possible.  The episode barely got any laughs out of me, I dare to say not even a dozen times which is incredibly low.  The Milhouse side story was also pretty pointless and ended on a dumb note as well.  This is definitely one of the worst episodes churned out in quite some time.

Final Score: 3.7

The D'oh-cial Network (S23, E11-497)

Oh, I'm disliking it alright.

Plot Summary
Lisa is brought to trial, responsible for some kind of calamity.  With the town's one competent lawyer prosecuting her, Lisa begins to tell her side of the story.

Some time ago, the family goes to the new mall in Springfield, intent on spending a bunch of gift cards Marge had saved.  In the process, Lisa comes across Sherri and Terri, who promptly inform Lisa she's as unpopular and friendless as ever before.  Meanwhile, Homer gladly buys a new "M"apple computer, and decides to let Lisa use it later to find some friends.  Lisa realizes that people are more talkative on the internet and decides to start up a social network of her own with hopes that everyone that joins it will be friends with her.

With the help of the school's brightest, Lisa is able to start up her site, "Springface".  Quickly, kids across school starts using it.  In no time, Lisa has 1000 friends on it, though she then learns its partly because adults have started using it en masse as well.  Sure enough, the entire town is glued to their phones and laptops as they continually monitor their Springface statuses.  Having so many online friends, Lisa is devastated to learn that none of them are willing to actually do things in real life, opting to stick to their phones.

The site proves a big enough of a distraction that accidents begin to occur across town, resulting in a few dozen deaths even.  The source of the trouble is quickly determined to be Springface, and that's why Lisa is on trial.  After a half-assed defense, Lisa relents and accepts the punishment of shutting down Springface.  With the site down, everyone just throws away their phones and junk, and the idea of physical activity returns to the town again.

With the episode ending extremely early, two shorts are presented afterwards: Patty and Selma are beating out some Swedish duo at the London Olympics, and a tale about the wicked Bart is told, though its revealed its Skinner trying to prove that pranks don't pay.

Quick Review
I'm not even 30 years old yet and already these newfangled technologies bother me so.  Well, not really, its not like I'm not familiar with Facebook or anything, but the open-faced parallel the episode does with it and the movie based on it just does not work.  You can tell the writers realized they had a dud on their hands when they left it so short they needed a really long couch gag as well as not one, but two short stories to fill time.  There was just so much about the main episode that wasn't funny, it easily makes it the worst episode of the season (...thus far...).

Final Score: 4.7

Four Great Women and a Manicure (S20, E20-440)

"Curse the producers for giving me Jodie Foster's voice", she was probably thinking.

Plot Summary
Marge takes Lisa to get her first manicure.  Lisa, in her stubborn manner, tries to tell Marge that its more important that a woman be smart and powerful rather than look pretty, but Marge counters that a woman can be all three, telling her about Queen Elizabeth I as an example.

Queen Elizabeth I
The Queen (Selma) is taking in suitors to be her husband.  She turns down multiple suitors, including the King of Spain (Julio).  However, she takes a liking to Walter Raleigh (Homer), who offers the Queen tobacco as a gift.  However, Walter takes a liking to the Queen's Lady in Waiting (Marge), and Elizabeth quickly finds out, sending the two to be executed.  However, before that order can be carried out, she learns that Spain has gone to war against England.  She sends a ship to fight against it.  Unwittingly, Walter sets the ship on fire; as its crew goes overboard the blazing ship sets aflame the entire Spanish armada, winning the war for England.  Elizabeth allows Walter to marry the Lady in Waiting, admitted that she doesn't need a man as long as she has England.
Individual Score: -0.1

The Version of Snow White That Doesn't Belong to Disney
Lisa retorts about the dangers of obsessing over beauty, deciding to retell the story about Snow White.  To avoid legal troubles, the tale also features seven untrademarked dwarves: Crabby (Moe), Drunky (Barney), Hungry (Homer), Greedy (Burns), Lenny, Kearney, and Doc(tor Hibbert) who sing an original yet familiar sounding song as they operate a gem mine.  Nearby, a wicked queen (Lindsey Naegle, I guess) asks her HDTV in the wall who the prettiest woman is.  Angrily, she learns that person to be Snow White (Lisa).  She has someone (Willie) attempt to assassinate Snow White, but he can't go through with it and prompts Snow White to flee.  She hides at the seven Dwarves' house, and they let her stay.  One day, with the dwarves at work, the wicked queen uses her shapeshifting abilities to turn into an old hag, who ambushes Snow White and forces her to eat a poisoned apple.  Though the woodland animals take care of the queen, Snow White falls into a coma.

Then Lisa explains that Snow White eventually was cured by a woman doctor and lived a pedestrian life from then on.
Individual Score: +0.2

Lady MacBeth in the Real World Which is Actually Just an Alternate Ficticious Reality
Bothered by Homer, Marge decides to tell Lisa about a retelling of Lady MacBeth, but with Simpsons characters being themselves.  In this lengthy tale that feels like a rejected Treehouse of Horror segment, Marge is upset that the only role Homer could get in an upcoming Lady MacBeth play is that of a tree.  She is further upset that the lead role is filled by Sideshow Mel, and orders Homer to kill him so Homer can take his role.  Homer reluctantly does so and sure enough Homer now is given the lead role in the play.  The next day, though, reviews are in that proclaim Dr. Hibbert as the star of the show.  Angered, Marge has Homer kill him as well.  The next day, reviews of the previous nights play has Homer in dead last compared to five other actors, so Marge has Homer kill all of them as well.  Marge is only upset at this point because Homer killed those actors in costume, which she has to clean.  However, the ghosts of those killed haunt Marge, fully aware that her intent to kill is the true malice of the situation.  Marge is unable to handle it and dies from a heart attack.  Homer mourns Marge's death, but is relieved he can stop acting until Marge's ghost comes and forces Homer to keep going.  Its the final showing of the play, there are no other actors, and nobody is there to watch it, but Homer finally provides a stunning performance of his part.  Ghost Marge is proud of Homer, and gives him several more plays for him to try out, but Homer has enough and shoots himself so that his ghost self doesn't have to worry about acting anymore.
Individual Score: +0.2

Maggie Roark
As the show now breaks things up into four segments, there's still enough time for one more story, so Marge tells another one based around Maggie (and Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead for some reason).  In it, Maggie is in a preschool run by a guy who actively diminishes creative thinking.  Leaving the babies blocks to mess around with, the teacher is continuously forced to destroy Maggie's creations in an attempt to dull her creative sense.  It comes to a head when Maggie showcases another blocked beauty during a showcase to parents.  As a result, the teacher takes Maggie to trial, with the other babies as the jury.  After the teacher makes his case, Maggie defends herself.  Suddenly being guest voiced by Jodie Foster, Maggie tells everyone that like others in the past, she refuses to let her creative talent go to waste for anyone.  Marge then explains that Maggie grows up to be a successful architect and builds a day care which encourages creativity, but before Marge can finish the story she stops Maggie from messing up a wall with nail polish, ironically ignoring that Maggie had repainted a famous work of art in the process.
Individual Score: -0.1

Quick Review
This was a pretty bad episode.  Telling four stories really puts a cramp in each of them, not really letting any of them hit a stride.  Its made worse with the Lady MacBeth story line being nearly twice as long as the others ones yet that one still wasn't funny.  Really, none of these stories - some of which were peppered with Lisa's annoying self-service - were any good, and they all combine to make the worst episode of the season.

Final Score: 4.4

In the Name of the Grandfather (S20, E14-434)

Nothing like an army veteran dancing on graves to boost your spirits.

Plot Summary
Marge brings the family to a Home & Garden show, much to the disappointment of everyone else.  However, that disdain turns to joy when Homer finds a booth advertising a home spa system, and everyone in the family agrees to get one.  Upon setting it up, the family (and for a time Ned Flanders) melts away in the warm, soothing bubbles provided by the hot tub.  For a moment, the family tries to remember that there was something urgent to attend to, but are too enveloped in pleasure to care.  As it turns out, they're missing Senior-Family day at the retirement home, and Grampa is left alone for yet another social affair.  Angered, the old man goes to the Simpsons home and unplugs and eventually demolishes the hot tub.  The family does feel bad for missing Grampa's event, though, and knowing that Grampa may not be around for much longer, agrees to do one thing on his list of stuff to do before he dies.  Homer decides on an initially simple one: having one more beer at O'Flanagan's Bar.  Then he learns the place is actually in Ireland, but the family goes anyway.

Upon reaching Ireland, Grampa is more than ready to embrace Ireland's rich history.  Unfortunately for him, even Ireland has modernized, and is full of the same businesses and people one could find in, say, Seattle.  Still, O'Flanagan's bar is still around, but Grampa learns its also empty.  He finds an elder O'Flanagan in the back, who reveals that since all of his drunken patrons have since become employed, his business has tanked so bad he can't even remember how to pronounce 'pint' and 'pub'.  Regardless, Grampa and Homer buy a beer.  Marge takes the kids sightseeing in the meantime.  Grampa and Homer actually drink quite a bit, and wake up some time later hungover.  They learn that in their drunken state, they purchased the bar from O'Flanagan, who merrily leaves his dead pub to the pair of suckers.

The two men have as much trouble attracting customers as the previous owner, but Homer recalls there was someone who was able to make money from a old, customer-less bar: Moe!  Moe gets shipped in directly and upon arriving gives the two an important tip: provide a service that no other bar or pub can do, even if its not legal.  Quickly, they realize that smoking in bars is no longer allowed in Ireland, and they decide to run a smoking bar.  As Moe takes his leave, the bar quickly fills up with patrons who love to smoke, however the police arrive in due time and arrest the two for what they're doing.  Somewhat fortunately for them, the only punishment they receive is deportation and a small fine, as the judge admits that all of Ireland's dimwits of old have since gone to America and became cops somehow.  Just then, Chief Wiggum comes in...

Quick Review
So the Simpsons go on another adventure in a different country.  Unlike past episodes where they insult everything within, like in Australia or England or Brazil, this episode treats Ireland rather well.  In fact, it treats Ireland much better than it does the people watching the episode.  This was not a funny episode at all.  The random Q-bert reference was pretty bad, and the continued use of 'progressive' leprechauns was stupid, too.  The main plot was okay, as okay as it could be, but it wasn't nearly enough to salvage this mess.

Final Score: 4.6

Papa Don't Leech (S19, E16-416)

Marge is pleased because she learned sweat cleans the suit.

Plot Summary
The town is broke, and after trying to scam FEMA backfired when a guy posing as FEMA scammed them, they're left even more broke than ever.  However, Lisa learns that the town can get back a ton of money if (most) everyone simply pays their back taxes.  Quickly, that happens, and everyone is eventually accounted for save for one person: Lurleen Lumpkin.  A news story appears about her continued tax evasion, and Homer is reminded of how she is, and how she attempted to "bunk" with him that one time, much to Marge's anger.  To Homer's surprise, Lurleen appears in the back seat of his car one day as she continues to hide.  He offers to let her stay at his place, but Marge immediately refuses, and takes Lurleen back to her home: under a bridge.  Marge isn't so mad at Lurleen to let her stay with hobos, so Marge relents and lets Lurleen stay at her house anyway.

Despite that, Lurleen is quickly located and sent to court, where she's ordered to pay $100 a week to pay off her taxes.  Lurleen gets a job at Moe's but she's not interested in dating anyone, not even Lenny.  Even though Lurleen has had three previous husbands who all suspiciously look like Homer, Lurleen seems to have issues with men.  Quickly, though, Homer and Marge learn that this is because Lurleen was abandoned by her father at an early age.  Marge decides to find Lurleen's father, a redneck deadbeat dad, and reunite him with Lurleen.  Lurleen couldn't be happier, and after the two spend some time together, Lurleen even writes a song dedicated to him.  However, that night, Lurleen's father sneaks away to abandon his daughter yet again.

As if being dumped by her father a second time isn't bad enough, the next morning Lurleen and the Simpsons are stunned to hear a song very similar to hers being sung by the Dixie Chicks, and its revealed on TV that their new manager is Lurleen's father.  Lurleen is pretty much ready to quit everything at this point, however Homer in his old Colonel Homer gear appears, but its really Marge in a similar-looking outfit that challenges Lurleen and tells her to stand up for herself and confront her father.  She goes to a recording studio where the Dixie Chicks are writing another variation of that song, and hits her father over the head with her guitar.  She tells the Dixie Chicks who really wrote that song, and the four of them team up to beat up the deadbeat.  Afterwords, Lurleen is allowed to go on tour with the Dixie Chicks as a lead-in, and thanks the family for their help, though Marge insists privately that Lurleen never shows her face again.

Quick Review
This was a pretty bad episode.  There were a lot of jokes, well, attempts at jokes that just didn't pan out or were hard to sit through.  The idea of bringing back Lurleen after sixteen years isn't that bad of an idea by itself, but from how the plot and jokes set themselves up, this episode really seems like a lazy effort.  An attempt at drawing in viewers who liked Colonel Homer (which was one of Season 3's weaker episodes, mind you), where its seemed like the writers just mailed it in for the day.

Final Score: 4.7

E Pluribus Wiggum (S19, E10-410)

"Mr. Lincoln, why did they make this awful episode?"  He did not actually say.

Plot Summary
Homer is set to start another diet, but before it begins Homer goes on a binge through Fast Food Boulevard.  He sees a public trash can nearby and decides to dump out his food garbage so Marge doesn't find out.  While he's there, he figures he'll clean out the rest of his car as well.  He throws in a leaky car battery and a still-lit match after lighting a cigar.  As he drives off, that combination of trash ignites a gas main below, and the entire boulevard explodes.  At a later town meeting, with everyone mourning the loss of the road, Homer convinces everyone they can rebuild, and Mayor Quimby decides to put a bond issue on it, to be voted on during their Presidential primary election.  However, that isn't for a few months still, so Quimby moves it up to next Tuesday, making it the first primary of the election season.

News outlets, as well as the candidates themselves, learn of this, and flock en masse to Springfield to get voters on their side, as well as voters in general.  None of the candidates look particularly good, though, and the media's constant presence becomes an annoyance as well.  They notice that the Simpson family is still undecided, and swarm their household trying to get them to pick someone.  Homer, as well as most of the town, has had enough.  He knows the media simply just wants to crown a favorite from the primary, and so he proposes that the town put in someone ridiculous as a write in vote.  The next morning, its learned that a surprise write in candidate won the primary and is favored by over half the likely vote: Ralph Wiggum.

Homer is particularly thrilled of the success of his plan, and goes full steam into getting Ralph through the rest of the primaries.  Lisa, however, is stunned by these developments.  Ralph is too dumb to be President?  That hasn't stopped anyone before.  The constitution won't let someone so young be President?  That thing died with the Patriot Act.  To make matters worse, both the Democrats and Republicans are trying to rally Ralph to their side, knowing that Ralph is the likely winner in the Presidential race.  As both sides try to swarm and convince Ralph to join their side, Lisa is able to get them off him to talk to him privately.  Lisa is once again stunned to learn that Ralph knows exactly what he's doing, and he'll unite both parties under his wing.  Lisa willingly relents, and Ralph ends up being sponsored by both parties.

Quick Review
I did not like this episode.  It had a couple of decent moments, like Homer's run through Fast Food Boulevard, or the moment Homer rallies everyone to nominate Ralph in classic Springfield style, but the heavy handed mockery of politics and political media, once again, fails to provide any decent humor, and the attempts were often tough to sit through.  Again, its not like its impossible to do political satire well, but for me that is usually the case when political satire is not the focus of the episode.  This episode fails to escape that fault, and suffers tremendously as a result.

Final Score: 4.1

Jazzy and the Pussycats (S18, E02-380)

If I had understood the reference, I probably would've found this even less funny.

Plot Summary
Homer's Vegas wife has died from an overdose.  At the funeral, Bart interrupts the proceedings over and over again, eventually enraging everyone.  Homer and Marge take Bart to a psychiatrist, who recommends Bart expend his energy with a drum set.  Amazingly, Bart takes a liking to drums, and spends all day and night working on his skills, even while asleep.  To allow Homer and Marge to sleep once in a while, Lisa takes Bart to a Jazz club she frequents.  She invites Bart to join her onstage for a performance, and the two do well.  Lisa sees two other jazz musicians taking an interest, and Lisa believes their interest is for her saxophone playing.  However, afterword, she learns in disgust that the two were actually interested in Bart's drumming abilities, even inviting him to their troupe.

Bart becomes an overnight success, even gaining a jazz nickname ("Tick-Tock").  Lisa, whose jazz nickname is now "Downbeat", can't stand that Bart has become so successful so fast in something Lisa has spend most of her life trying to succeed in.  Marge decides to lift Lisa's spirits by going to a dog pound and getting her a puppy.  Lisa chooses a nice looking puppy over an ailing one, but is haunted by it that same night, claiming that because she didn't pick it its going to get put to sleep soon.  Lisa goes right back to the pound to get that puppy, but is guilt-tripped into adopting several other animals so prevent them from getting killed.  Soon, Lisa has an entire animal troupe with her, that she tries to hide in the attic.  Quickly, she goes back up to keep the troupe quiet, but finds Bart up there with his jazz pals, when suddenly a small tigers accidentally bites Bart in the arm.

Bart's tendons are so torn in the arm, that Bart will be unable to drum again.  There is a surgery that can repair it, so Bart's jazz pals decide to hold a benefit to raise the money.  Meanwhile, Lisa has been forced by police to find someplace to put her animals or animal control will take care of it themselves.  Bart sees this and, upon realizing the chain of events that led to it, decides to take action.  At the jazz benefit, he proclaims that all of the proceeds will not go to fixing his arm, but instead towards building an animal shelter in Lisa's name.  Lisa goes up to thank Bart for his generosity, and Bart's jazz pals may or may not have implied they're going to try another benefit to fix Bart's arm again.

Quick Review
I didn't enjoy this episode.  The White Stripes cameo early on was terrible, the worst part of the episode, and the odd plot the followed it hardly did anything to get the episode back on track.  The two jazz musicians were probably the best the episode had to offer, but they couldn't save this wreck of an episode.

Final Score: 4.9

Girls Just Want to Have Sums (S17, E19-375)

The saga of Jake "Toilet" Boymen almost ended before it began.

Plot Summary
The Simpsons see a play about Itchy & Scratchy.  Its a hit, and afterwords the crowd demands to see its director, Juliana.  As she goes to thank the crowd, Principal Skinner comes out of nowhere to point out that she graduated from Springfield Elementary in an effort to point out that such graduates actually have futures.  However, Skinner accidentally states that girls are weaker than boys in math and science, the 'real' subjects, and there is instant backlash.  At a later press conference, Skinner tries to make up for it, but only makes things much worse.  Superintendent Chalmers has no choice but to relieve Skinner of his duties, and appoint a new Principal: Melanie Upfoot.  The first thing she does is to separate the school into halves: one for boys and the other for girls.

At first, Lisa is thrilled that she'll finally be able to learn without boys getting in the way.  Upon entering the newly remodeled school, the girl's half looks much fancier, containing artwork and such, much to Lisa's delight.  However, she's disappointed to learn that the girl's math class, taught by Upfoot herself, is more about confidence boosting, and there's no actual math to be learned.  Lisa sneaks over to the boy's half of school.  Here, she finds it to be a no man's land, with Skinner having been reduced to Assistant Groundskeeper.  Still, she sees a class do some hardcore geometry, and she wants in.  Marge helps Lisa out by giving her daughter a new persona, a boy named Jake Boymen.

While Lisa gets to enjoy difficult math, "Jake" has trouble fitting in as "he" is quickly referred to as Toilet, and accidentally gets into a fight with Nelson Muntz.  Bart spies Lisa crying in her room while still dressed as Jake and, after learning why she's doing this, decides to help Lisa become a boy in order to survive.  With Bart's help, Lisa is able to become both a math whiz and, I dunno, an assistant bully or something.  Either way, she's eventually given an award for her math prowess.  Its then where she reveals that Jake is actually Lisa, to the shock of some.  Lisa tries to teach everyone that girls can be great at math too if given the chance, but she still has some of the 'boy' that Bart taught her as well.

Quick Review
This episode hardly had the time to be funny, spending way too much time embroiled in gender differences to push in actual comedy.  The bits were Skinner were nearly unbearable to watch.  The Itchy & Scratchy play at the beginning was probably the funniest the episode had to offer, as everything went severely downhill from there.

Final Score: 4.3

My Fair Laddy (S17, E12-368)

He grows his beard back rather quickly at the end.

Plot Summary
The school gets a new gym teacher whose only desire is to play "Bombardment", which is like Dodgeball but the only person doing the throwing is the teacher.  Bart becomes worn out by this and tries to get revenge by preparing a ball filled with frozen water, but Bart misses so badly it goes out the window and eventually lands in Groundskeeper Willie's shack, destroying it.  As Marge picks Bart up from his punishment of helping Willie rebuild it (poorly), she feels sorry for the Groundskeeper and decides to let Willie stay at the Simpson home for a night.  Lisa asks Willie if he's content with his mostly miserable life, and Willie confirms as much, nothing that his father never expected much of him anyway.  He even sings a song that perhaps one day he'll live adequately.  Lisa decides to make a wager with Bart that she can turn Willie into a gentleman by the upcoming Science fair.

Meanwhile, Homer's one pair of blue pants (which I had always assumed were jeans but apparently not) have become torn, and it stunned to learn that blue pants aren't being sold anywhere.  He goes straight to the company to get some, where he learns blue pants had been discontinued following a disastrous Super Bowl ad.  Homer makes an agreement where he'll advertise blue pants so that he can get a new pair.  He does so by painting an ad for blue pants on the back of his head, which creeps Marge out.  The ploy works, and blue pants become popular again.  Even though Homer has a new pair of pants, he decides to put more advertising on his body because he gets paid $100 a week for it.

Lisa's gentleman training with Willie is hardly gaining traction, but near the very end Lisa is able to get through to Willie and he's able to speak properly, look sharp and behave normally.  Lisa presents the new Willie at the Science Fair as "G.K. Willington", who fools the entire crowd with his new pleasing demeanor.  After Lisa reveals her ruse, she's given first prize for her supposed work.

With Willie no longer working at the school, Lisa gets him a job as a waiter at a high-end restaurant.  However, Willie is abused by customers and it turns out that his new life isn't actually much better than his old life, and eventually his frustration lashes out and he's returns to his old self.  Still, Willie's old shack is rebuilt and Lisa is at least glad Willie can be happy or something or I dunno.

Quick Review
This episode, which sometimes took the musical route, also decided to forgo the comedic route as well.  For an episode that finally focuses on the usually funny Willie, this episode hardly did anything of the sort.  Homer's short pants sidestory kinda got off the tracks with some kind of advertising bit, which wasn't funny either.  This is one of the show's weakest episodes.

Final Score: 4.7

The Father, the Son, and the Holy Guest Star (S16, E21-356)

Something about this seems so absurd, but it could just be me.

Plot Summary
The school hosts a medieval festival with everyone playing a role of some sort.  Willie is forced to be the village idiot, though, and becomes so angry about it he exacts revenge by stuffing a giant pie full of rats that get all over the place.  Willie gets away with it too, as Principal Skinner places blame on the act on Bart, and expels him from the school.  The family frantically searches for someplace to have Bart learn, and decide to take him to a Catholic school, as its one of the cheaper alternatives.

Bart gets rocked by one of those strict nuns, but he starts to take a liking to the school when he befriends Father Sean, a rather down-to-earth priest.  With Sean's help, Bart takes a liking not just to the school, but the entire Catholic faith, which begins to worry Marge.  She sends Homer to the school to have a talk with Sean, but thanks to a pancake dinner and bingo, among other things, Sean converts Homer to Catholicism as well.

Marge begins to worry, especially when her Protestant friends Ned Flanders and Reverend Lovejoy 'remind' her that if things stay as they are, Homer and Bart will go to a different heaven than she will.  Upset, Marge goes to the Catholic school and pulls Bart straight out.  She takes him to a Protestant fair of some sort, and Bart takes a liking to the paintball that's offered there for some reason.  Homer and Father Sean catch up to Bart, wielding paintball guns of their own, but are forced to a standoff with Lovejoy and Flanders, also holding paintball guns.  Bart intervenes, reminding everyone that, hey, Protestants and Catholics are both Christians, and there's no reason for the two to be at odds.  The four men come to terms, and Bart begins to teach tolerance and understanding.  A thousand years later, two warring factions continue their battle, one side believing in Bart's message of tolerance, the other in Bart's message of understanding, once again proving that people will go to war over anything.

Quick Review
Go figure, a heavy-handed satire on Catholics and Protestants wasn't funny at all.  The two underlying messages of the episode ("you're both still Christians, you idiots" and "people will fight over anything, religion just happens to be part of anything"), were well understood, but again the 'jokes' in the episode were awful nearly half the time and often cringeworthy as well.  This disaster of an episode is perhaps a microcosm of what has (mostly) been a disaster of a season.

Final Score: 4.4

Homer and Ned's Hail Mary Pass (S16, E08-343)

Did they really need to add the players names to their sweatshirts?
Assuming people don't know athletes wasn't worth addressing previously.

Plot Summary
The Simpsons go to a carnival intended to save a bum-infested park.  Homer loses out on a video camera that Ned Flanders outbids him for.  Bart mocks Homer further when he wins the grand prize in a frog-leaping game.  Unwilling to let his son feel happy, Homer completely outshines Bart in the game, and the grand prize is given to him instead.  To further shame the boy, Homer goes on a lengthy celebration dance, which Ned video tapes.  Jeff Albertson - er - the comic book guy, buys the video from Ned and puts it on his website.  As some internet videos do, it becomes a viral sensation across the world.

Although Homer mostly dislikes being the mockery of the world, he is visited by a high profile football player.  This man laments that he never gets on the highlight reel because he never celebrates after touchdowns, and decides to pay Homer to help him come up with a rude touchdown celebration or five.  Homer does so, and as the player had hoped he becomes bigger than ever.  Soon, Homer's newfound business expands to include actual real-life athletes including Tom Brady, LeBron James and, for some reason, Warren Sapp.  While he's being credited as a cancer to sports, the football commissioner is so impressed with Homer's work that he hires Homer to produce the Super Bowl halftime show.  Homer is honored, but becomes worried over the responsibility and is unable to come up with anything.

Meanwhile, Ned becomes increasingly annoyed by all the sex-filth on TV, and decides to use his new video camera to film a movie with his boys, a rather gruesome retelling of the story of Cain and Abel.  He shows it to a group of people, and they love the violent film, all save from Marge.  Mr. Burns decides to finance Ned to film an even bigger film, but during its screening Marge has enough of its violent nature and is able to get Mr. Burns to stop financing Ned's film ventures, essentially preventing Ned from spreading his supposed message.

At the church the late night before the Super Bowl, Homer goes to seek answers to his dilemma when he finds Ned seeking answers for his.  The two realize that Ned's message can be used for Homer's halftime show, and thus team up.  The next day, the two display their halftime show to the nation, retelling a tale about Noah's Ark, that concludes with Ned just citing bible passages.  Unsurprisingly, everyone hates it, and both men's newfound careers are essentially ruined.

Quick Review
This wasn't a good episode.  The multiple sports guest stars really didn't add anything to the episode (except for Yao Ming, he was alright), and the combination of Homer turning athletes into even bigger jerks and Ned trying to force the bloody ways of the bible to people turned out to be less humorous than it probably should've been.

You'll also notice that this was the episode that revealed the comic book guy's real name: Jeff Albertson.  You may have also noticed that, throughout my reviews, I have shown disdain towards use names of characters that have not revealed their actual names, like 'comic book guy', the 'sea captain', and 'bumblebee man'.  From this point on, I'll likely refer to Albertson by his real name more often than not, needlessly confusing anyone who hasn't bothered learning that particular fact previously.

Final Score: 4.6

Midnight Rx (S16, E06-341)

Somebody at the studio actually thought this bit was funny.  How.

Plot Summary
Mr. Burns invites all of his employees and their families to an outing at an aviation museum.  However, it is a ruse: Burns wanted to lull his employees into a false sense of enjoyment before laying down a 'nasty surprise': due to rising costs, the plant will be halting its prescription drug plan.  He's not alone: other major companies in Springfield are doing the same thing as drug costs continue to skyrocket with no end in sight.  Even the retirement home is forced to have its residents go cold turkey.  Grampa has enough.

The old man recruits Homer to go 'across the border' to smuggle in drugs.  The two reach their destination in Canada, where prescription drugs are as cheap and available as candy.  The two easy get past the border control, and the two are able to distribute their goods across town.  Later, both Apu and Ned Flanders have need for specific drugs that they weren't able to get previously, so Homer allows the two of them to go with him and Grampa on their next smuggling run.  This proves costly, as a coffee mishap between Ned and Apu causes border patrol to suspect Homer as part of a terrorist cell, ultimately recovering and arresting the group for the smuggled drugs.

Banished from Canada, Homer and Grampa are once again despised.  Meanwhile, Mr. Burns learns that because of his prescription plan drop, Smithers is no longer able to afford a key medication and his thyroid swells pretty badly.  As Homer comes up with a plan to get back into Canada via a plan, Burns meets the two just at that point to offer his services as that plane's pilot.  In a gigantic wooden plane which, earlier in the episode, couldn't fly well and caught on fire from rain, the three easily fly into Canada to get another shipment of drugs.  However, the plane gets caught in a storm on the way back, and combined with increased weight makes it unable to fly.  Burns escapes, but Homer and Grampa are forced to crash the plane, conveniently into Springfield.  As the police arrest Grampa for scaring them, the town comes up to defend Grampa for what he's done for them, and the police let him go.  Meanwhile, Burns returns with the medicine needed to heal Smithers and, learning a lesson maybe, Burns decides to re-institute the drug plan for his full-time employees.  Perhaps as a coincidence, Homer reveals to Marge that Burns has made him a 'freelance consultant', just as he discovers a lump in his neck.

Quick Review
This was just not a funny episode.  All the references to people taking this drug and that drug and their supposed reasoning wasn't funny.  That whole spiel near the end with Smithers wasn't funny.  The half-assed attempt to mock Canada wasn't funny.  Hardly anything about this episode was funny, least of all the 'everyone likes to pop pills if they can afford it' plot.

Final Score: 3.6

The Ten Worst Episodes I've Reviewed

Drudging my way through these later seasons, I've come across several episodes which have not been good.  Whether its because the premise is just awful, the jokes are either non-existent or just bad, or a combination thereof, these episodes are the bottom of the barrel for the series, indicators for any new writers for the series to take to heart as to what not to duplicate.

As I continue to make my way through these newer episodes, I will likely update this page when needed.

T-#10: Mathlete's Feat
Season 26 | Episode 22-574 | Score: 4.0
Pointless references, dull plot, a lot of filler because the dull plot was too short, oh, and lots of bad jokes.  That's how you (barely) make the bottom ten.

T-#10: That '90s Show
Season 19 | Episode 11-411 | Score: 4.0
The first episode to air after the similarly awful E Pluribus Wiggum, the problem with the episode isn't the fact that the show get retconned by the 90s, its that it does so goddamned poorly it hurts.

#9: Love is Many-Splintered Thing
Season 24 | Episode 12-520 | Score: 3.9
Marriage theme.  Bringing back Bart's girlfriend eleven episodes later just for them to break up.  Lisa.  Large amounts of Woody Allen.  Yeah, it deserves to be here.

#8: Moe Goes from Rags to Riches
Season 23 | Episode 12-498 | Score: 3.7
Moe's rag, which is Moe's best friend, talks about its origins as a demonic tapestry and all the other crap it went through, none of which resembles comedy.

#7: Midnight Rx
Season 16 | Episode 06-341 | Score: 3.6
An episode where everyone is popping prescription pills thanks to Homer and Grampa's efforts to smuggle in cheap drugs from Canada isn't even as funny as it sounds, and it sounds as unfunny as possible.

#6: The Serfsons
Season 29 | Episode 01-619 | Score: 3.5
While its the same score as #5, I'm giving this the tiniest slack as part of its problem was ("simply") its terrible execution of a braindead idea, though make no mistake it is full of terribly written jokes as well.

#5: The Greatest Story Ever D'ohed
Season 21 | Episode 16-457 | Score: 3.5
Maybe it was the religious theme.  Maybe it was the really annoying tour guide,  Or, maybe it was that this episode was completely unfunny as a whole.

#4: Bart-Mangled Banner
Season 15 | Episode 21-334 | Score: 3.4
A temporarily deaf Bart unknowingly moons the American flag, setting off a wave of political agenda jokes that never makes for actual comedy.

#3: Blame It on Lisa
Season 13 | Episode 15-284 | Score: 3.2
The Simpsons go to Brazil to find Lisa's sponsored child who had gone missing, then Homer gets kidnapped.  The problem with this episode?  All of the jokes were crap.

#2: Alone Again, Natura-Diddily
Season 11 | Episode 14-240 | Score: 3.0
A voice actress has a contract dispute, and leaves the show.  Producers natural response?  Kill off one of the characters she voiced in Maude Flanders, under the justification that future Ned Flanders episodes would have potential, because A Star is Born Again and I'm Goin' to Praiseland were really worth it!

#1: Married to the Blob
Season 25 | Episode 10-540 | Score: 2.8
How does an episode fare worse than Alone Again, Natura-Diddly?  By being an episode composed solely of comic book and anime references which, mind you, is not actual comedy.  The 'jokes' aren't any better, either.  Not even Stan Lee was able to prevent this epsiode from being the new worst Simpsons episode of all time.

Bart-Mangled Banner (S15, E21-334)

AMERICA, AMERICA, SOMETHING SOMETHING FREEEEEE

Plot Summary
The kids get inoculations, though Bart makes a decent attempt at avoiding it.  After Bart finally gets his shot, his ears swell and he suffers temporary deafness, leaving him unable to hear for about a day.  Bart still insists in participating in a donkey basketball game at the school, though.  Before the game, everyone rises for the star spangled banner as a flag is shown.  Bart, who can't hear neither the prompts for the song nor the song itself, continues messing around with a donkey, but the donkey literally ends up eating Bart's shorts.  A still unwitting Bart then showcases his bare butt towards a flag he doesn't even know is there, and people in the gym quickly chide Bart and his supposed anti-American act.

With Bart's track record, nobody believe Bart was actually deaf during the incident, and the local newspaper does its job of blowing the story way out of proportion.  Soon, the entire town hates by and, by extension, the Simpson family.  They get a chance to redeem themselves on a talk show, but the host only intends to make the family seem worse.  Frustrated, Marge accidentally makes it worse, and soon the entire town of Springfield is hated by America.  Quickly, Mayor Quimby changes the town's name to "Liberty-ville", and the entire town is given a red, white and blue makeover.  At church, Lisa makes note that, hey there's still the First Amendment, and right after that a swat team swarms in and arrests the Simpsons under the "Government Knows Best Act".

After a plane ride, the family is sent to a prison meant to keep other 'liberals' from expressing their opinions, and to 're-educate' people by brainwashing into them American values.  With the help from an old man, the family is able to escape, where they learn that the prison was actually Alcatraz.  As the family tries to decide whether to swim to Oakland or San Francisco, a French boat arrives to help the family.  Now in France, the family likes their new life, but they still miss America, given most of their stuff is still there.  Thus, they decide to go back, agree to immigrate there because who could hate immigrants, right?

Quick Review
This is one of the worst episodes in the series.  First off, even as an episode from 2004, its dated.  Secondly, the episode goes from a 'everyone and the media blows things out of proportion' theme to a full blown political agenda.  Its not even really satire like in past political episodes, its basically saying "we writers are liberal and we hate how persecuted we are just by having different opinions on things and so we're expressing our frustrations through this episode".  Hey, I'm as politically-apathetic as they come, finding most political banter as mindless waste, so seeing this slop in a Simpsons episode is as offensive as killing a character because their VA wasn't available.  The fact that this episode actually has passable jokes, sometimes, saves it from being the worst episode of all time.

Final Score: 3.4

A Star Is Born Again (S14, E13-304)

I think she might have a 'seducing unassuming men' fetish going on here.

Plot Summary
The town of Springfield celebrates a day when red jellyfish wash ashore.  A dance is also held during this day, at which point Ned Flanders is feeling pretty lonely.  He decides to slink away and fill out some tax forms at his Leftorium store.  There, he's met by a gorgeous lady with an admitted fake nose.  After Ned unwittingly charms the woman, she invites him to dinner, while not telling him her real name.  Ned soon learns, though, that the woman is the popular movie actress Sarah Sloane.

Sarah, in Springfield to film a movie, finds herself fully attracted to Ned's charms, and is very forward with him physically.  The tabloids find out about Sarah, who has been in a relationship with many actors and other such men in her time, and cause trouble for the two, but they get through it.  The filming for Sarah's movie wraps up, so she tries to convince Ned to move with her back to Hollywood, but he quickly turns away that idea.  So, Sarah decides to live in Springfield instead.

Though Sarah quickly learns that Springfield is pretty dull, she doesn't mind.  As the two go out for a night, though, she decides to convince Ned to have sex with her, because she's been ready to do it for, I dunno, days.  Ned is, of course, hesitant, but with Homer's advice and a snippet from that ever-so-contradictory bible, Ned agrees to consent, and the two go all the way out in the woods somewhere.  The morning after, Ned tries to get Sarah to marry him, as he's unwilling to continue the relationship without doing that, but Sarah declines and decides to go back to Hollywood.

Quick Review
I have to be honest here, there were parts in the episode I had trouble watching through, it got pretty cringe-worthy.  The only real good portion of the episode was James L. Brooks' cameo during Ned's vision of Hollywood, but most other things - especially Helen Fielding's rather out-of-place Benny Hill routine because 'this is British comedy, all of it' - I couldn't find funny.

I might have developed a bias against episodes focused on Ned's love life post-widowing as I haven't even given any such episodes a score above five yet, but this was pretty bad as well, regardless of that.

Final Score: 4.3

Blame It on Lisa (S13, E15-284)

They got $50,000 and the love of a Stockholm syndromed American.  That's win-win!

Plot Summary
The Simpsons get a rather expensive phone bill, with much of the charge due to a phone call to Brazil.  Believing there was no such call, Homer and Marge fight the charge at first, losing their phone access in the process.  However, they learn that it was Lisa that made the call.  As it turns out, Lisa has been sponsoring a Brazilian boy, but he hasn't been heard from in awhile.  She shows the family a tape of the boy, Ronaldo, showing off a new pair of dancing shoes he was able to buy thanks to Lisa.  The family decides to go to Brazil to find Ronaldo, thanks to the internet's cheap airplane rates, as Bart points out that now he will have visited every continent except for Antarctica, which Homer promises to visit next year.

The family reaches Brazil and conga their way to the hotel.  As Bart watches an odd children's show full of big-breasted women and mascot animals like flamingos, Lisa urges the family to begin their search.  After a failed first day, the family splits up to cover more ground.  They're not only still unsuccessful, but Homer ends up getting kidnapped as well.

The kidnappers force Homer to call his family for $50,000 in ransom money, but the family doesn't have nearly enough.  Homer tries calling people in Springfield for money, but just ends up owing Moe another $50,000.  The family tries to look for Homer, but get caught up in Carnivale.  One of the mascots in the parade, the flamingo from the kids show, recognizes Lisa and reveals itself to be Ronaldo.  He tells Lisa that he couldn't write Lisa because he didn't know which state the family lived in, and that his new dancing shoes got him the gig on the show, and now he makes as much money as "Malcolm in the Middle".  He gives the family the $50,000 they need to save Homer.

The family and the kidnappers meet high up on cable cars as per Homer's idea.  The kidnappers get their money and Homer is free to go, but when Homer tries to jump over to the other car, the force of his jump causes the cable the snap and the car falls and the tumbles to the ground.  The family ends up okay, and Homer thanks Marge for bailing him out (again), but now Bart is dancing away after being eaten by a snake of some sort.

Quick Review
Wow, this... this episode was bad.  The episode tried to make jokes, tried it did, but so many of them just were not funny at all.  The only salvageable moment of the episode was Homer's interactions with his kidnappers, but it was too little, too late.  This was very nearly the worst episode of the series.

Final Score: 3.2