[7.2/10 on a post-classic Simpsons scale] Look, this episode plays some cheap tricks. Having the emotional crux of the story hinge on the words of a character and cast-member who’ve both passed on, showing faith and devotion to one of the main characters when no one else would, and closing with a montage of her best moments set to a sweet old tune allows “Diary Queen” to tug firmly at the viewer’s heartstrings. That is nothing short of cheating, but I am not at all immune from the spell. It’s hard not to feel that twinge of mistiness, to mourn someone who was a big part of the show from the beginning, and to swell at this way of honoring her.
If only the episode started out on such a good note. The opening of this one is really the pits. The beginning musical number about a garage sale is tepid. The jokes about Flanders’ random tchotchkes and other things he’s basically giving away are terrible. And Bart and Milhouse’s pranking after finding Edna’s diaries and its school secrets is unfunny to the point of being trying.
But from there, the episode kicks up a notch. Bart finds a passage where it seems like, despite being tough with him, Edna believed in Bart. It causes the little hellraiser to have confidence and try to be a better person to live up to that. It’s a good look for Bart. We’ve seen it before (in “Separate Vocations” for one), but it’s nice to see him doing it while being inspired by what his dearly departed teacher thought he could become.
It turns into a nice psychological story with Lisa, where she reads the diary and learns that Bart’s applying himself because he misinterpreted a set of passages where Mrs. Krabappel was talking about her cat. It’s a good conceit, because it puts Lisa in an interesting moral position. On the one hand, she sees the good effect this misreading has had on her brother and it’s good for him to live up to his potential. On the other, 1. It’s a lie, which she’s always queasy about 2. It could be setting him up for failure when his self-assessed talent falls short of reality, and 3. She’s plainly miffed at how Bart thinks she’s her intellectual equal now.
Eventually she does tell him, and Bart’s understandably devastated by it. There’s good emotional work there, tracing Bart and Lisa’s internal experiences of all this through the way. But having Ned come by to cheer Bart up through sharing with him a video that proves Edna’s devotion and belief in Bart, if not in the same terms as her cat, is a really nice balm to cap off that emotional journey.
Once you get past that opening throat-clearing nonsense, it’s mostly smooth sailing to that emotional climax. Even the jokes get better once the episode gets into the emotional storytelling. (I particularly enjoyed the layered gags about Willie’s reaction to the rabbit Bart gifts him.) Using Edna’s image and Marcia Wallace’s voice at the end is a little manipulative, but whether earned or cheap, it worked on me, and I suppose I can’t complain too hard about that. If nothing else, it’s an episode worth watching.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2021-02-27T01:36:54Z
[7.2/10 on a post-classic Simpsons scale] Look, this episode plays some cheap tricks. Having the emotional crux of the story hinge on the words of a character and cast-member who’ve both passed on, showing faith and devotion to one of the main characters when no one else would, and closing with a montage of her best moments set to a sweet old tune allows “Diary Queen” to tug firmly at the viewer’s heartstrings. That is nothing short of cheating, but I am not at all immune from the spell. It’s hard not to feel that twinge of mistiness, to mourn someone who was a big part of the show from the beginning, and to swell at this way of honoring her.
If only the episode started out on such a good note. The opening of this one is really the pits. The beginning musical number about a garage sale is tepid. The jokes about Flanders’ random tchotchkes and other things he’s basically giving away are terrible. And Bart and Milhouse’s pranking after finding Edna’s diaries and its school secrets is unfunny to the point of being trying.
But from there, the episode kicks up a notch. Bart finds a passage where it seems like, despite being tough with him, Edna believed in Bart. It causes the little hellraiser to have confidence and try to be a better person to live up to that. It’s a good look for Bart. We’ve seen it before (in “Separate Vocations” for one), but it’s nice to see him doing it while being inspired by what his dearly departed teacher thought he could become.
It turns into a nice psychological story with Lisa, where she reads the diary and learns that Bart’s applying himself because he misinterpreted a set of passages where Mrs. Krabappel was talking about her cat. It’s a good conceit, because it puts Lisa in an interesting moral position. On the one hand, she sees the good effect this misreading has had on her brother and it’s good for him to live up to his potential. On the other, 1. It’s a lie, which she’s always queasy about 2. It could be setting him up for failure when his self-assessed talent falls short of reality, and 3. She’s plainly miffed at how Bart thinks she’s her intellectual equal now.
Eventually she does tell him, and Bart’s understandably devastated by it. There’s good emotional work there, tracing Bart and Lisa’s internal experiences of all this through the way. But having Ned come by to cheer Bart up through sharing with him a video that proves Edna’s devotion and belief in Bart, if not in the same terms as her cat, is a really nice balm to cap off that emotional journey.
Once you get past that opening throat-clearing nonsense, it’s mostly smooth sailing to that emotional climax. Even the jokes get better once the episode gets into the emotional storytelling. (I particularly enjoyed the layered gags about Willie’s reaction to the rabbit Bart gifts him.) Using Edna’s image and Marcia Wallace’s voice at the end is a little manipulative, but whether earned or cheap, it worked on me, and I suppose I can’t complain too hard about that. If nothing else, it’s an episode worth watching.