30x12 The Girl on the Bus

[8.8/10 on a post-classic Simpsons scale] This was a good one. It’s so rare that the show centers squarely on the characters’ hopes and emotional states anymore, so getting an episode that does exactly that was a boon. The episode does a nice job of dramatizing the fact that Lisa, as usual, feels like a misfit and unfulfilled within the cultural desert that is her own reality T.V.-watching family. The glimpse of a more cultured and sophisticated life, realized through a friendship with a girl she sees while riding to school, is given weight by the contrast with her frustrations at home.

And there’s a lot of good gags at the expense of the snooty, NPR crowd (which are especially funny to me since I’m a part of that crowd.) There’s a few too many winks at the “french farce” conceit, but there’s a lot of sharp gags here at the expense of the noveau inteligencia. (I got a particular kick out of the idea that the cultured dad traveled all around the world in his research on parent/child separation.)

The double life thing as tension, and Marge’s clear pain that Lisa would lie about her family adds a counterveiling emotional weight to the proceedings. Homer sticking to his four things to say in conversation makes for a great gag, and the combination of disappointment, support, and eventually acceptance from the family when the ruse is up is satisfying as hell.

The only thing I didn’t like is the ending, where the story needs a closer and so Bart’s room becomes a nightclub that solves all the problems for thin reasons. But the episode is pretty damn strong up until that point.

Overall, one of the best-written Simpsons episodes we’ve had in a while, that gets the character, especially Lisa and Marge, just right and wrings a lot of comedy and pathos from it.