Not a great episode. Kate McKinnon is superb, and a random transient staying with The Simpsons has been good story fodder for the show more times than I can count, but there wasn't much of a point to any of it here. The conflict of Lisa being well-meaning and then let down by the people she tries to help is a decent enough idea, but that entire story felt rushed and spackled into the episode as soon as the idea was introduced. Bart as the voice of reason was an interesting twist on the usual setup (his "your heart is as strong as a soapbubble" line was particularly cute), but it didn't really go anywhere. The whole thing was just an excuse for the Simpson children to pal around with an Appalachian drifter, and the show didn't wring nearly enough comedy or story out of that to make it worthwhile.
The B-story with Homer trying to prove his handiness around the house and losing both Snowball II and Santa's Little Helpers within the walls of the Simpson home in the process was a little more successful, if only because the motivation for it was simple enough and there were enough clever and fun doses of wacky comic hijinx to keep things humming along on that front. But even that story, cute-if-slight though it may be, basically died in the third act right before Homer was folded into Lisa's story.
Overall, it was an episode that could have used a lot more reworking at the writing stage, because the structure and pacing of the story was strange and disjointed. The change in act breaks that happened with the transition to HD is still wreaking a certain amount of havoc with the show lo' these many years later, and it comes through in episodes like this where the story, the humor, and the balance of the two plots in the episode all feel very lumpy.
mmm I'd like me some of that Yo! Gurt
Shout by Bajo Sánchez SosaBlockedParent2016-05-20T04:19:36Z
it made me laugh like, twice, so, pretty good for a simpsons episode of the last 8 years....