28x11 Pork and Burns

4.7/10 on a post-classic Simpsons scale.

Spider-Pig deserves better than this. That's a weird sentence to write, but Plopper, the closest thing to a breakout character from 2007's The Simpsons Movie is reintroduced in an episode that squanders that goofy pig's charms.

It's yet another episode where the plot is entirely schizophrenic. First it's about Marge trying to tidy up the house using a book of carwash-level Eastern Philosophy (preceded by a lame and lazy intro of the book being made overseas). Then it's about Homer needing to find Plopper a new home. Then it's about Homer using Plopper as a therapy animal. Then it's about Homer rescuing Plopper from Mr. Burns. And all the while, Lisa has an underserved B-story about her losing and then regaining her passion for the saxophone. It's too much to pack into a half-hour comedy, particularly in the show's late age where it doesn't have the humor and narrative economy to bolster that sort of progression of events. None of these stories feed into each other especially well, just charging headlong into whatever comes next with lame jokes and admittedly good music.

The best you can say is that the return of Plopper gives the show a chance to engage in some visual humor, which is one of the rare places in which it still consistently excels in its 28th season. There's something wacky and fun about Homer cavorting around with a pig, and the way Plopper is animated, all folds and flails, makes it hard not to smile when the little porker is on the screen.

But overall, this episode is a mess. There's a mild bid of sweetness to Bart helping Lisa get her groove back with jazz, and there's a couple of laugh-worthy bits here and there (like "Romeo Brand Throwing Pebbles") but for the most part, "Porks and Burns" is a hodgepodge of unfunny gags and jumbled up plots unworthy of the unkosher little guy at the center of it.