Worst of the worst: Lisa the Drama Queen-Part 1

...I hate you all. No I take that back, I hate this episode, and I hate the fact that I can't avoid reviewing this. Unfortunately, I've already delayed it a week, and I can't think of any more padding. Let's just do this. Before we start, I just want to say one thing. Due to the circumstances, little things that I would probably gloss over in any other reviews will not be glossed over here. Likewise, I may get into the occasional paragraph-long rant about one thing or another. Also, I'd like to acknowledge that this is the last episode of the standard-def run and the next episode would begin their run on HD. What a way to end an era, wouldn't you say?

The episode begins with Homer throwing Bart and Lisa out of the car at the Springfield Recreation Center for no real reason and then proceeds to drive off. So let's see, less than a minute and a half in and logic is nowhere to be found, what an appropriate way to begin this episode. Oh by the way, the sign says *Springfield Recreation Center "A place to be dropped off at"*. Would it scare you if I told you that this is potentially the highlight of the episode? We then cut to a kung fu class being taught by Comic Book Guy (Like I said, logic is nowhere to be found). Bart proceeds to mock him and then kick his ass (Hooray for unfunny pointless scenes!). By the way, we clearly see Nelson kick CBG in the stomach, not the crotch; seems like someone dropped the ball on that pathetic joke. Next scene is Lisa in an arts and crafts class (to the tune of classical music. Bad episode! You don't deserve to use classical music. Go to your room and think about what you've done!) where we meet Lisa's love interest, er I mean her new friend Juliet.

Hmm, this is too subtle. How about we add a purple shirt to the dragon for good measure?

Where do I begin with Juliet? First off, her voice is terribly miscast, not only does it sound like a fake pretentious British accent, but it doesn't come across as an 8 year old. It sounds way older than her character really is. Secondly, she is a blatant rip-off of Juliet from Heavenly Creatures (Using the same name is not an homage, it's a rip-off). The art scene is more or less the exact same outside of a few line changes, it's pathetic. I'll talk about her a bit later, but for now, back to the crap at hand. After the teacher berates Juliet for daring to be "creative" (It seems that Mr. Kelley believes that satirical comedy should involve the subtlety of a 2 by 4 to the head), Juliet then talks to the teacher and points out how her knight is modeled after Josh Groban... Okay where do I begin here?

1. This is clearly the episode's stand-in for Mario Lanza
2. This makes no sense in the slightest, in the movie it makes sense because it's used to get them together and it helps to establish their character. Here Lisa claims to be a fan despite nothing indicating this until now (not even listening to a song on the way over, that could have helped)
3. This is completely irrelevant to the episode, in the movie, they use it early to get them closer to each other. Here, it's brought up, they become friends, and never speak of Josh plotwise again.

In the movie, Juliet failed to do the school assignment and was scolded for not doing schoolwork
Here, Juliet ignored an assignment at a rec center and was scolded for being "creative"
Guess which one actually means something to the audience

Okay, rant over, moving on. Lisa goes over and praises the painting, ignoring the fact that the issue is that she wasn't doing the assignment. It's not about 'creativity' (which it wasn't); even in the movie, you could tell that Juliet got in trouble for good reasons. Anyways, the teacher is mocked by Lisa when she decides to show off Juliet's painting to the class (making Juliet smile... moving on). The teacher (She's never named, I swear) tells Lisa and Juliet that if they want to be creative, go outside; they look at each other, smile, and run off (I'm sorry, this is too subtle for me. Could you flatten the teacher character a bit more? I don't get what she's supposed to be representing.) After the teacher tells the rest of the class to paint "20 laps" (With the fat kid being slow... Do I even need to explain why this joke sucks?), we transition to outside the rec center where Juliet explains her character and why they conveniently never met. Apparently her father is a University professor and he just took a job at Springfield University, yeah because I've never heard of an English girl named Juliet whose father is a Professor who moved recently to take a teaching job nearby... FUCK THIS EPISODE!!

Call it a hunch, but I don't think these two will ever perform at Carnegie Hall

So Lisa and Juliet decide to get closer by singing a Groban song (It's not very important, so I stand by my words) in what has to be the worst performance ever since Soulja Boy's 'Anime' song. This song is so bad and it doesn't help that neither Lisa nor Juliet can sing; in fact JULIET'S VOICE IS SO TERRIBLE, SHE MAKES ME WANT TO GRAB AN ICE PICK AND JAB HER THROAT! I HATE THIS SCENE, I HATE IT! AHHHHH- *Is restrained by RBY and taken away*

Happy pills make me happy :)

But in all actuality, even the background characters (Willie and Wiggum) hate this to the point of shoving objects in their ears to avoid hearing it. Isn't it so much fun when the writers know how bad they are, but continue anyways? Anyways, Lisa and Bart go shopping at the Kwik-E-Mart so Lisa can buy some candy which ends up being nothing but padding. Seriously, the candy, despite being a gift to Juliet, is NEVER brought up again... I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. Afterwards (on the poorly-drawn set; the sidewalk appears to be slanted downwards, and the school looks tiny) Lisa approaches Juliet's school (Named "Tuition Academy"... please God, take me now) and tells Juliet that she hasn't had a playdate in a while and doesn't know what to do (I'm just going to go over to that corner and cry for an hour). Juliet reveals that her parents gave her a pass to the Folk Art Museum which leads to... *Sigh* a montage (*Pulls out checklist* Obligatory montage, check). At home, Marge talks to Bart and Homer about Lisa's new friend and how she finally seems like a normal girl. Lisa and Juliet then run in and Lisa asks Marge if they can sleepover. Marge is reluctant but accepts anyways. Okay time out, time to talk about more artwork, and with me is my art consultant, RBY. RBY, you want to give your thoughts on this kitchen?

Sure. Let's see - wait, where the heck do I start! ...the tiles are larger than Maggie despite this being a fairly small kitchen (or so I thought from the first scene and other appearances). When Lisa and Juliet enter the kitchen, the way the tiles are drawn should have them sliding to the front of the screen (and the feet appear to be the length of a tile; while normal, the fact that the next shot has the tiles to large creates the effect that the feet are HUGE). There's something called perspective, people, USE IT! In addition, thanks to the bad perspective, Homer appears to shift his spot at the table (which has inexplicably grown) and the refrigerator appears to have shrunk. Really, this is a masterful butchering of perspective. For those who are learning to draw, look at this and learn: this is how NOT to use perspective.

Thanks RBY, anyways, at dinner Juliet mentions that her father loves John Grisham and has put forth different interpretations of Grisham's books. This leads to Homer telling Marge that he agrees with one of the interpretations presented... excuse me a moment *Screams unintelligibly* I'VE READ JOHN GRISHAM, THIS IS NOT WHAT HOMER READS! HOMER WOULDN'T GET PAST PAGE ONE AND WE'RE EXPECTED TO BELIEVE FOR A MOMENT THAT HE COULD NOT ONLY READ IT BUT HAVE A DEEP UNDERSTANDING OF IT?! I HATE THIS EPISODE! I! HATE! IT! *Gets dragged away by RBY*

Valium makes everything better :) :) (P.S. I don't care if it's supposed to be a joke, it's an awful joke)

Congrats, you have officially outsucked Stephanie Myers. You two should be proud of yourselves

Later that night, Lisa and Juliet are in their sleeping bags in Lisa's room. There they discuss what to name their fantasy Kingdom, er I mean Queendom (Ugh). Okay, time out! Where did this come from? I know this came from the movie, but here it makes no sense here, there's no lead-in to why they have decided to make this story or when they came up with the idea. Show, don't tell, writers! There, Juliet comes up with the name of... EQUALIA! ...Really? Equalia? How sad is it when an animated show for 5 year-olds can come up with better names for places than a show meant for adults? *Sigh* Someone was PAID to think of the name "Equalia"... I defy you to say that out loud and tell me you did not lose a shred of dignity. Lisa describes it as (Sic) "Everyone's equal but we're in charge"... *Pulls out Animal Farm* "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."... really? You're trying to play a quote from Animal Farm for laughs? I really do hate you. Moving along, Marge tells Juliet and Lisa to go to bed. Juliet then starts quite possibly the creepiest scene in Simpsons history, you know what, I can't just describe it, watch the clip:

... I'm going to go watch something far less creepy, I hear that The Empty Child is far less creepy. After Lisa accepts (And Marge cheers, to which neither of the girls react to... Help me!) Lisa goes to bed declaring that she has a best friend. Juliet hears this, but is cool with it and Lisa is giddy... It's not really helpful to think that the source material had Lisa's and Juliet's characters as 16-year-old lesbians...and these characters are eight years old... Invest in brain bleach stock now, I'm buying it all out now. Marge and Homer compare this new friendship to love - Marge implies it, Homer outright states it, and there's a joke about Homer's stupidity. Pinnacle of wit, this Kelley guy. We then cut to Lisa and Juliet sitting in the hammock together, one's head at the other's feet.

What I'm about to show you cannot be unseen, click at your own risk

*glances at screen* Hey, this looks like the movie! Y'know, the scenes where Pauline and Juliet sat in the bathtub together naked?

...0_o Oh my God you're right... AHHHHHHHH- *Technical difficulties due to broken screen, please stand by* ...AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH- *Mental breakdown, please stand by*

That place with the pillows helped me a lot, thanks guys! :) :) :)

Anyways, Lisa and Juliet talk about how to grab the audience's attention for the fourth chapter (What you mean that your oh so interesting "Queendom" will bore people? Nahhh). Juliet recommends that they insert a new creature called a "Twonicorn"...creativity in the writing room was at an all time low that day, wasn't it? Lisa then thanks Juliet by mocking her accent while talking about her doing the audio-book *Bangs head on wall*. We cut to the mall where Lisa and Juliet are playing with cardboard cutouts of their characters, a perfect metaphor for Modern Simpsons (These jokes are too easy). After Nelson acts as the voice of reason (and then has his character butchered; Brian Kelley has that amazing touch of draining all hope and joy from the audience with each new character), we find out that Lisa and her family were invited over to Juliet's house. There Bart uses Homer's "Fancy word" which results in Homer smacking him... twice. Dude, this goes from "Humorous violence" (i.e.impulsive) to child abuse (DELIBERATE). Congratulations Mr. Kelley, you suck!

He-he, child abuse is funny... wait

At dinner, Juliet's father (Seriously, he's never given a name, I'm going to call him Ted) talks like an intellectual Englishman (only character trait) and Homer decides that there needs to be 'comedy' so he goes into his normal jerkass mode (Oh Mr. Kelley, there's a time and place for humorous things. Noon tomorrow at the cliff, I'll see you there). Juliet then spontaneously suggests that she and Lisa play some Josh Groban at dinner (Stop shoehorning it in, it has no purpose outside of keeping to the source material). Ted tells Juliet that he's afraid of her obsession with Groban (Despite the fact that it was never brought up before... character development? What's that!?). He then puts on his music, giving us the ONLY quoteworthy lines of this episode: "I hate it, I HATE IT!" Well said, Juliet! Juliet runs out crying (...I don't know why, and honestly I don't care) to which Lisa follows her. Truly a sad emotional scene, which is why it's understandable that Homer feels the need to have Ted tell him that the lump on his back is chewing gum (Oh Mr. Kelley, you have the magical ability to take any emotion from a scene, crumple it up and toss it out the window).

Now we actually care about the top because Juliet's parents betrayed her trust
We do not care for Simpsons Juliet because her motives are crazy and make no sense

Lisa catches up to Juliet where we can see that Juliet has clearly gone insane because she didn't like the music (In the movie, Juliet went insane because her parents promised never to abandon her and they were leaving her behind. Just think about this for a minute, you can understand my frustration). Juliet tells Lisa that she can see Equalia, Lisa however, being sane and rational determines that Juliet needs help and... oh, oh dear Lord she can see it too...

And we end on an acid trip, lovely

FFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUU- *Is taken away by the people in white*

Kriken's probably gonna need a week to recover. Come join us at Blackthorn Asylum next week where we will finish this abomination!