Decent episode. While the show is way past it's glory years, they still manage to make episodes like this one which is why they're still winning Emmys, and why I'll still be watching.
Not so funny but the story was quite nice
Perfectly captured the feeling of a Wes Anderson film, while developing Comic Book Guy’s character a lot.
The ending gimmick was very charming, quite up to the story told.
It was just so aimless.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2021-01-04T19:30:04Z
[7.5/10 on a post-classic Simpsons scale] Another quality Matt Selman episode. I’m always leery about CBG episodes because the character’s become so eroded over the years, but this was a nice way to rehabilitate him and make him more of a character than just a lame gag machine.
There’s some good humor to be drawn from the contrast between CBG and Kumiko as DINKs, compared to Marge and Homer getting exhausted by raising their kids and needing adult company. The show finds a good excuse to bring them together via a successful trivia night, and the budding couples friendship between them is honestly really nice.
The episode shifts into another gear midway through when, after playing with Maggie, Kumiko decides she wants a baby and tries to talk CBG into it. The humor with Homer helping to inflict parenthood on CBG because he thinks the couple have it too good is hacky, but otherwise, there’s some good material there. As weird as the shtick with Homer and Marge getting stuck in a mausoleum is, I like CBG declaring that he doesn’t want kids after dealing with them constantly in his store, finding the joy of seeing his favorite things to the eyes of children, only to retreat and run away once he realizes that kids need emotional support he doesn’t feel he can provide.
The third act is a real treat, with the whole thing turning into one big Wes Anderson pastiche, replete with Moonrise Kingdom’s Bob Balaban as narrator and head-on perspective for everything! That is, as Anderson learned, a neat way to do exposition and provide backstory without making it just boring or contrived dialogue.
I like the notion that CBG comes from a family of collectors who don’t know how to show love except through their hobbies. The segment tells a tidy tale of CBG being thrown into this life after feeling neglected by his dad (Dan Akroyd!). It’s a little weird that CBG’s into baseball as a kid, but it works as an emotional roadblock CBG has to overcome in order to be ready to become a dad himself.
Overall, the humor in this one is a little mild, but it’s an episode with something on its mind, that deepens and explains Comic Book Guy in more detail, and reaches an earned resolution.