27x09 Barthood

7.8/10 on a post-classic Simpsons scale.

This was a laudable attempt at melding the premise and feeling of Boyhood into the world of The Simpsons. It didn't work flawlessly, but I did appreciate the fact that it gave Bart three clear and salient emotional throughlines: his disconnect with Homer, his affection for Grampa, and his sense of being in Lisa's shadow.

Like most Simpsons episodes that jump forward and backward in time, it didn't really cohere with the show's continuity. There was no Jenda, the Simpson house looks far different than when Lisa brings Hugh home, young Grampa's design is different, etc. But I'm generally willing to forgive this type of thing in a show that never really paid too close attention to continuity. It's a little tougher when it seems to violate the emotional continuity of the show: while Bart has often felt overshadowed by Lisa, he's generally had a closer if rocky friendship with his dad, and outside of the Hellfish episode, never been especially close to Grampa. I can accept the emotional story in the context of a single episode, albeit one meant to span more than a decade, but that disconnect with the show's established relationship does rob the story of some of its punch.

That's what kept me kind of lukewarm on this episode at the end of the day. It's a great story, one of the better constructed ones in the show's third-decade on air, and one founded on the relationships between the characters rather than wacky plot contrivances, but it also doesn't really feel like a Simpsons story, rather, a random other story grafted onto this show.

The tone felt a bit off (with the Simpsons-style jokes feeling kind of shoehorned into a breezier narrative), and while I like a show that's been around this long getting a little experimental with tone, and going a bit more drama than comedy for an episode, it did strike me as a little weird or out-of-place. It almost felt like fan faction. It's a moving story, and I think that's why I feel compelled to rate it so highly, but it does seem out of step with what The Simpsons usually is, for better and for worse.