Episode 17: Love is a Many Strangled Thing

Before I begin this review, let's go over our checklist to see if we could predict the success of this episode in advance:

• Title is a rather lazy pun off another title? Check
• Pointless cameo from a big name guy? Check
• Rather stupid plot that makes no sense for the character? Check and check

Okay, maybe that's not the best way to prejudge an episode. But with all that in mind, let's take a look at this week's abomina- er I mean episode.

So our episode begins (After having the Futurama ship fly by in the opening. Tip to the staff; don't show us better stuff we could be watching) with Mr. Burns doing a plant inspection via 1800's balloon (Although this does seem like something Burns would do, it's still a rather bland sequence). After the balloon goes out of control, Lenny gives Homer and Carl guns from his trunk to shoot down the balloon (Because he went hunting, huh. Interesting, Lenny would bring loaded guns to work, this episode would probably be 100 times better if it was about Lenny going Postal on the plant. Just saying). Of course though, Homer can't just shoot down the balloon, he needs to do a needless ritual and then shoot at everything EXCEPT the balloon (Ah yes the ever efficient "padding" it always seems to work on people who just don't care). Homer eventually does get the balloon down (Which apparently the plant is right next to a church... weird) Burns then gives Homer a reward of tickets to a game with no promotion that day (Because that's... funny? Insulting? Insinuating? I don't know, and I doubt anyone else know either). After the family looks around inside the stadium (I'll admit, there's the occasional decent joke in here, but the rest aren't worth an emotion) they go to watch the game (Is it just me or is the stadium the size of a small city? Just saying)

Well, considering who's writing this, that shouldn't be too hard

At the game, the jumbotron asks for the fans to make asses out of themselves (I know who wins! It's Lisa isn't it?) So after a few scenes that kill some screen time, we see that Bart's uninterested in dancing and Homer tries to encourage him to join in, but then ends up embarrassing him on the jumbotron after Bart continues to tell him to stop and how it's not funny (I concur, this isn't funny, stop now). Oh yeah quick note, Lisa's more than willing to join in with Marge and Homer for this, but Bart isn't? Did the writers just forget their characters or something? This is more something Lisa would do. Bart then gets angry at Homer for causing him to wet his pants in front of everyone, so Homer apologizes to Bart and Bart is reluctant to forgive him, thus leading Homer to wonder how he can get Bart's love back. Or that's how it would have gone had this show been written by competent writers, instead Homer does a half-hearted apology while at the same time trying to start the wave like a complete moron (How sad is it when it takes me all of 5 seconds to rewrite this episode into something decent?) So let's see, it took about 6 minutes for us to get to "Bart's embarrassed in public" isn't padding just a wonderful thing? Later that night, it seems that Springfield has nothing better going on as Bart wetting himself makes the evening news in an unfunny drawn out scene (Okay seriously? What the hell writers?)

Who does this "Kriken" guy think he is bashing our show?! I'm going to complain about him on my Liveblog

Homer then feels a little bad about what he did and Marge berates Homer for what he did to Bart causing Homer to make it seem like Bart's nothing more than a pet dog with a broken leg (Just when you think the writers can make Homer redeemable, they pull him back to his hole and throw him another shovel). As Bart's overhearing all this, he goes online and sees how Jimbo and Kearney make fun of Bart via Skype (Look, it didn't work when you used this in Bart Mangled Banner and it doesn't work now). Marge tells Homer that he needs to take advantage of this to improve his fathering (Oh for Fu- HOW many times has this plot been used in the past 3 seasons ALONE?! I'll give you a hint; TOO MANY TIMES!) After Homer gives Marge some sarcasm to the idea, she enrolls Homer in the 24/7 "How to be a Better Father" school (Yeah I'm pretty sure these sort of things have "Calling hours" so you can't just call in the middle of the night). At the class, we see Homer, Apu, Kirk, and two random guys along with the teacher Dr. Zander (Don't ask why these guys are here, they are entirely pointless. You could have just had this class full of clowns and it'd make about as much sense).

The staff recently polled some fans and they wanted to see these 4 guys with Homer in this class

Dr Zander then asks Homer about what his experience of being a father has taught him and Homer tells a random story when he tells Zander that he strangled Bart for name calling. Dr. Zander, being a human is appalled by Homer strangling Bart (Relax Doctor, Bart's neck is now made out of silly putty so it's all good). After Homer seems proud of what he does to Bart (I'm pretty sure he strangles Bart out of blind rage and not just "You exist! I'll strangle you boy!")  After a flashback to show how Homer strangled Grampa when he was little (Ah, yeah... BULLSHIT!) Dr. Zander dimisses class. One week later, we see that Dr. Zander only wanted to talk with Homer at the seminar. Dr. Zander then tells Homer that based off his one story that he needs to take an extreme treatment method to cure Homer (Yeah because weeks and weeks of therapy and hard work never do anything. Always resort to the Ludivico treatment, right?) Dr. Zander then calls in Kareem Abdul Jabar and the session begins with KAJ looking like Homer while Homer is given a Bart-style wig as Dr. Zander tells Homer that he needs to realize what it's like to be a young terrified little boy (Great, you want to turn him into a pansy. I swear if this ends with Homer jumping out of a window and ending up in a hospital being fed grapes by Marge, I quit).

This is 50% physical humor, 50% padding and 0% substance

After we see KAJ strangling Homer initially, we get a montage of KAJ strangling Homer for days (This is just beyond stupid. I mean at least the "Spanking treatment" in Hurricane Neddy had some charm. This lacks all of that). After all that strangling (Because harm to Homer a thousand times is funny, right?) Homer sits on a couch and Dr. Zander decides that Homer's cured (Now everytime he sees a neck getting strangled, he'll start to get nauseous and get down on his knees and start gagging). Later, Homer informs Bart that he's cured, and to prove this, Homer has Bart throw some eggs into a fan and everytime Homer tries to strangle him, all he can see is KAJ (They somehow found a way to make that pointless cameo fit into more scenes of the episode. Dammit, I lost my bet). After Bart sees Homer freak out over his hallucinations, he decides to take Willie's tractor into the school and wreak havoc (Because... I honestly have no idea... hello? Logic? Reasoning? Bueller?). Edna tries to stop him, but Bart points out that Homer's afraid of Bart now (I still don't see how that prevents Bart from being punished. There are still school rules and Marge is more than willing to punish him). After some padding by Bart (It's funny because it's not) we see that Homer's having a nightmare about Bart being the parent while Homer's being the abused child (This episode's becoming more and more painful by the minute). After that bit of pain, Marge gets a call from the school saying that Bart's out of control (Because as we all know, schools call right in the morning and give specific details like "Out of control").

Big deal, Edna has nothing on that Chinese man in Tianamen Square

After Marge suggests therapy for Bart (And Homer shoots down the idea of two people in the same family needing therapy *Bites tongue*) she goes to the counseling center as she finds out that Dr. Zander's not there (I guess she couldn't tell it was abandoned by oh let's see THE BIG "FOR LEASE" SIGN or what about the fact that IT'S BOARDED UP?! It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out). Marge goes to find out that because of the economy him and a lot of other unnecessary expensive luxury providers are out of a job (In 5 years this won't seem dated at all). Marge gets Dr. Zander to agree to help reverse what he did to Homer as SOMEHOW this led to Bart becoming a bully (Seriously, this makes no sense at all. I'd get it if it was just Bart to Homer, but apparently it's Bart to everyone. That's a lot to buy there writers, that's a lot to buy, and I ain't buying it). We then see Dr. Zander take Bart and Homer out on a trip to the wilderness, as we need our obligatory "Snake in Homer's pants" joke (You see this face?! Oh yeah, you can't, well I'm not laughing) After a stupid scene involving Bart having Homer getting hurt by cacti (If Homer gets hurt maybe once in a blue moon, it's be funny, but it gets tiring seeing Homer get hurt a dozen times per episode. You can't make that your running gag for EVERY episode) we then see that Marge decided to kill some screen time by "Bonding" with Lisa over doing nails, making brownie sundays and watching 4 sad movies (The last of which isn't shown but makes Lisa cry. My guess is it's The Simpsons Season 24)

Oh mom, don't remind me of that shitty Season 20 release. It was so forced and terrible.

After they kill some more screen time (Seriously, this feels very shoehorned in, it's unresolved in the end, and UTTERLY pointless. Was the script 1 minute too short?) Dr. Zander has Homer set up on a tree with a noose around his neck assuring Homer that Bart will cut the noose when he jumps down (Or he falls to his death and we're free of this crap forever. Come on Bart, don't cut the noose!)  After Homer jumps, Bart decides to text Moe "I am a wiener" (Great, another memorable joke raped by the writers. Hey, while you're at it, why don't you have Homer take his family our for some "Zero-fat, low-calorie unfrosted "rich in antioxidants" chocolate malts"?) Dr. Zander, angry at how Bart could care less about Homer decides to strangle him himself and realizes why Homer strangles him constantly. Bart decides to cut Homer down and he saves Bart from Dr. Zander. The episode ends with Homer and Bart relaxing inside of a tree agreeing that therapy works (Bull-fucking-shit! I want a refund for this crap).

Final Verdict: This episode is terrible, the story doesn't flow at all, the jokes are just lame, the writing is terrible, and there's no point to ANYTHING in this episode. This is just a very frustrating episode that starts nowhere and ends nowhere. It's also very (And I emphasize very) forgettable, I couldn't write up the review by memory, there was nothing memorable about this. In the hands of competent writers, this may have been a pretty good bonding episode between Bart and Homer *Cough* Boy Scoutz in the Hood *Cough*, but in the hands of these writers, it's a joyless mess.

Final Grade: 2.0/10 Will this season just END already?!