28x02 Friends and Family

7.8/10 on a post-classic Simpsons scale. A lot of this was rushed and not especially well structured. We had a fairly organic (if not necessarily natural) transition from Burns wondering if what's missing in his life is family, to using virtual reality to create one using The Simpsons, setting up the B-story of Homer enjoying the bachelor life by himself. The problem is that once that happened Homer's story quickly became the A-story, with him becoming platonic friends with a female neighbor named Julia (Allison Janey!). The focus was on Homer hanging out with Julia, while we would just cut back to Burns and the rest of the family for jokes.

But hey, at least there was a solid narrative progression for both stories and even an arc. Burns thinks he wants a family, experiences it in easily digestible form via virtual reality, and then when faced with the downsides of fatherhood, gives it up. There's a lot of kind of corny virtual reality gags to the story (like the hot shower fake out) and it gives the show a chance to do some meta-humor by showing the Simpson family doing voice recording and complaining about the script (Marge asking "do I ever get a joke?" in an irritated tone was a highlight). It's nothing so so grand, but it was a pretty good A-plot that had a beginning, middle, and end, with understandable character motivations throughout. It's kind of sad that that's an achievement for The Simpsons in this day and age, but you take what you can get.

The nominal B-story with Homer and Julia wasn't as good. It was introduced way too late in the episode for the story to have any time to breathe, and Marge being that angry with Homer over calling another woman his best friend is probably justified, but still felt out of nowhere in light of how quickly the story was introduced. And Julia just popping in to basically say Homer told her how much he loves Marge was a really rushed resolution. Still, the montage of Homer living it up by himself was funny and creative, and while few gags in the episode we laugh out loud funny, there were a steady stream of them to make you smile.

Overall, one of those episodes that would probably be considered a dud in the show's early years, but stands out as competent and solid and funny enough in the show's later years.