[6,4/10 on a post-classic Simpsons scale] This is a hard one for me to grade, because some of what it does is abysmal or ridiculous, but some of it is really heartfelt and earnest, and I don’t know how to resolve the two.
What I appreciate is that both stories are rooted in a core emotion. For Lisa, it's a feeling put out over the sense that her peers view her as a “wet blanket.” For Homer, it’s jealousy that Abe is treating his new stepson, Calvin, with the type of care and attention Homer himself never received as a kid. You could do worse than to focus on those core ideas!
On Lisa’s end, there’s some nice synchronicity with how Abe moving in with his new, new age-y girlfriend frees up his space at the Retirement Home, which then allows Lisa to turn it into a party pad where she can change her reputation as a “party narc.” That's a solid idea. But it goes off the rails as the parties get more silly and elaborate, in a way the audience barely gets to see. And Lisa getting addicted to topping herself happens too fast to be meaningful. I appreciate the poetry of Lisa tattling on her own party when she’s gone too far, only to end up viewed as cool for getting “arrested” by the cops. But it’s all pretty thin gruel in the end.
The Homer side of the equation is a real mixed bag. I get that he’s jealous, but watching him be a jerk to a little kid is just not fun, and doesn’t make him sympathetic, even as we can tell he’s projecting. He and Calvin are just nasty to each other. Their dynamic could work in some circumstances, but it’s a really weird look for The Simpsons. It’s also odd because this is a fairly serious half hour by the series’ standards, and yet the pranks and tricks Homer and Calvin play on one another are cartoonish and buffoonish. I hate everything about their mutual antagonism.
But god, there’s something so quietly devastating and real when a glaucoma medicine-blinded Abe mistakes Homer for Calvin, and Homer hears his father tell “Calvin” he’s proud of him, something Homer himself never got to hear. And Homer dressing up Calvin like him, so he can see how cruelly Abe treats him to this day, with Calvin’s downbeat “huh” at the end is an equal and opposite gut-punch. I appreciate that for as ridiculous as their prank war is, it lands someplace real that helps them understand one another.
Homer learning from Calvin and expressing his feelings through taxidermy is a nice clockwork touch. And the insight that Abe likes being a father to Calvin because it makes him feel young, whereas being a father to Homer repelled him because it made him feel old is a solid insight. The resolution coming from Homer realizing that Abe’s a self-centered jerk is appropriately cynical for the show, but is played the right way. There’s some genuine emotion there, and frankly, it’s a little intense for this show, but I appreciate the creative swing it takes to do something like that.
I just wish we didn’t have to wade through so much junk to get there. And I wish the show didn’t just lazily hit the reset button at the end of the episode. Again, I don’t know what to do with this one. There’s some really insightful, well-observed, even harrowing emotional material at play here. But the episode struggles to make it funny or convincing as an extension of The Simpsons’ world, despite a lot of good material contained within it.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2022-11-29T22:59:05Z
[6,4/10 on a post-classic Simpsons scale] This is a hard one for me to grade, because some of what it does is abysmal or ridiculous, but some of it is really heartfelt and earnest, and I don’t know how to resolve the two.
What I appreciate is that both stories are rooted in a core emotion. For Lisa, it's a feeling put out over the sense that her peers view her as a “wet blanket.” For Homer, it’s jealousy that Abe is treating his new stepson, Calvin, with the type of care and attention Homer himself never received as a kid. You could do worse than to focus on those core ideas!
On Lisa’s end, there’s some nice synchronicity with how Abe moving in with his new, new age-y girlfriend frees up his space at the Retirement Home, which then allows Lisa to turn it into a party pad where she can change her reputation as a “party narc.” That's a solid idea. But it goes off the rails as the parties get more silly and elaborate, in a way the audience barely gets to see. And Lisa getting addicted to topping herself happens too fast to be meaningful. I appreciate the poetry of Lisa tattling on her own party when she’s gone too far, only to end up viewed as cool for getting “arrested” by the cops. But it’s all pretty thin gruel in the end.
The Homer side of the equation is a real mixed bag. I get that he’s jealous, but watching him be a jerk to a little kid is just not fun, and doesn’t make him sympathetic, even as we can tell he’s projecting. He and Calvin are just nasty to each other. Their dynamic could work in some circumstances, but it’s a really weird look for The Simpsons. It’s also odd because this is a fairly serious half hour by the series’ standards, and yet the pranks and tricks Homer and Calvin play on one another are cartoonish and buffoonish. I hate everything about their mutual antagonism.
But god, there’s something so quietly devastating and real when a glaucoma medicine-blinded Abe mistakes Homer for Calvin, and Homer hears his father tell “Calvin” he’s proud of him, something Homer himself never got to hear. And Homer dressing up Calvin like him, so he can see how cruelly Abe treats him to this day, with Calvin’s downbeat “huh” at the end is an equal and opposite gut-punch. I appreciate that for as ridiculous as their prank war is, it lands someplace real that helps them understand one another.
Homer learning from Calvin and expressing his feelings through taxidermy is a nice clockwork touch. And the insight that Abe likes being a father to Calvin because it makes him feel young, whereas being a father to Homer repelled him because it made him feel old is a solid insight. The resolution coming from Homer realizing that Abe’s a self-centered jerk is appropriately cynical for the show, but is played the right way. There’s some genuine emotion there, and frankly, it’s a little intense for this show, but I appreciate the creative swing it takes to do something like that.
I just wish we didn’t have to wade through so much junk to get there. And I wish the show didn’t just lazily hit the reset button at the end of the episode. Again, I don’t know what to do with this one. There’s some really insightful, well-observed, even harrowing emotional material at play here. But the episode struggles to make it funny or convincing as an extension of The Simpsons’ world, despite a lot of good material contained within it.