[7.5/10 on a post-classic Simpsons scale] Maybe it’s having just watched “Fatz-caraldo” yesterday, but there’s been an odd bit of psychodrama and delving into childhood psychological issues in recent weeks. Both stories here delve into the mental hangups of youth.
The A-story, with Bart ditching Lisa’s hat in an attempt to be bad, and then feeling guilty about it, was simple, but well-done. The emotional stakes and character motivations were straightforward, with Bart wanting to be “Bad to the bone” like his temporary tattoo only to find that it upsets him to do that to his sister. The increasingly creature that represented his guilt was an interesting way to illustrate his internal process, and led to some amusing visual gags. Of course, Bart rescues the hat and makes amends, and it’s all a bit a pat, but it works well enough and grounds the story in Bart and Lisa’s relationship which is always a good choice.
The B-story, with Homer proving himself a chess whiz and it connecting with sublimated issues about his dad was a bit less successful. Despite the retcon and attempts to paint Homer as an idiot savant, his chess skills just seem out of character. And again, we just did a bit about Homer finding refuge from his issues with his dad. The psychology of Homer needing to beat his dad to get over his neurosis and then deciding that beating him would mess things up more (especially with the oedipal complex material) was very confused and
somewhat nonsensical. Still, I appreciate the show trying to root these sorts of stories in character and emotion instead of just wackiness.
The only problem is that the humor was very hit or miss. Magnus Carlson was a complete dud of a guest star, which isn’t on him, since you don’t expect Chess Masters to be great actors, but on the writers for making him such a big part of the episode. (Though the gag about Carl calling him his cousin was amusing.) And bits like the Rod and Todd being able to pray to lift the crushed car (I kept waiting for the cut to the industrial magnet above them) or buzz cola corroding a hole in Bart’s stomach were too cartoony.
Overall, it’s a perfectly good episode for the post-Classic era, with some good attempts at psychological exploration in both parts of the episode, even if they didn’t always work.
(As an aside, the couch gag was pretty weird. The South Park parody felt out of date and why they used off-brand SP characters rather than the real thing was strange. The California Raisins bit didn’t really go anywhere. But the Robot Chicken Nerd showing up was a nice surprise. The energy was kind of off, but it was more of a bit that didn’t work as well in practice as it did in concept.)
Shout by RothSothyBlockedParent2017-02-20T01:05:46Z
cool new 2D to 3D couchgag; it's like Super Paper Mario, but Super Paper Simpsons!