30x18 Bart vs. Itchy & Scratchy

[7.0/10 on a post-classic Simpsons scale] I gotta admit that I’m a bit disappointed with this one. Between having Megan Amram on board a writer, Matt Selman as the showrunner, and the subject matter, I had high hopes for this. But while the take on the reactions to gender-flipped reboots is solid enough, it’s also pretty scattershot with nothing especially incisive to say about any of the myriad topics it covers.

That breadth is part of the problem. The episode bites off a lot, and can only chew some of it. It tackles women-led reboots, MRAs, Pussy Riot, an homage to (I think?) Spring Breakers, other protest art/pranks/awareness bombs, male feminism, passive vs. active activism, and scores of other topics that all fall into the same categories. While most of the takes on these things are good, they’re inevitably glancing from trying to cover so much in twenty-two minutes, which leaves the viewer wishing that Amram/Selman/the writers room had narrowed their focus and really dug into something.

On the other hand, the show occasionally taps into something really meaningful. There’s a big boost in the third act when you have the conflict between Bart, who’s sketchy on the details of feminism but is taking active steps to help Bossy Riot’s efforts, versus Lisa who knows all about the theory but is too timid to try to effect change. There’s something insightful and complicated there, and I wish we got more of it.

At the same time, the critiques of Milhouse’s ersatz MRA group as pretty surface level and don’t go much beyond poking gentle fun when there’s a wealth of genuinely devastating and comic material to unleash there. That’s true for a lot of the episode’s humor, which hits good notes, but often easy notes. Oddly enough, the funniest stuff in the episode tends to be the less topical material, like Luann and Kirk’s excitement that Milhouse finally has friends.

Overall, there’s some good material in here, but between the names involved in the production of this episode, and the stellar episode that It’s Always Sunny did on a similar topic, I was hoping for more than double-digit season Simpsons may have been able to provide.