Wedding for Disaster

A true disaster of an episode

Homer and Lisa Exchange Cross Words

Clue: Does this episode provide quality entertainment? 

Solution: 2 letters, starting with 'N'

Worst of the worst: Lisa the Drama Queen-Part 2

Well, it's been a week since my sanity snapped. I've begun pulling what hair I have left in clumps, and all knives, medication, and blunt instruments were removed from the premises. Also, the asylum has told me that one more freakout like last week and I'll be getting a lobotomy, so this will be a much calmer review. Fortunately, I've been able to recover and I feel brand new, so let's finish this abomination and put this chapter of my reviewing days to rest.

So where were we? Oh right, Lisa had lost her own marbles and went into a hallucination with Juliet. *Sigh* Now, I said last time I'd get back to why I hate Juliet. This episode was improperly named; it's JULIET who's a drama queen, not Lisa. She flips out over not being able to play her own music and later ends up freaking out whenever Lisa hesitates about joining her in her delusions. Everything MUST be about what she wants, and, for this, she ends up derailing Lisa's character without adequate reason. Why is she so unbalanced? Because the Juliet of Heavenly Creatures was! The difference is, the reason for the mental imbalance is elaborated upon in Heavenly Creatures; in The Simpsons, it's because Juliet's just a brat. Ugh... Anyhow, Lisa and Juliet are both in "Equalia" (Dear Lord, just castrate me while you're at it) where they see a bunch of mythical creatures and, wait a minute... that fountain, it looks familiar. Oh right, because there's no such thing as originality here, it's the exact same fountain from the movie.

Welcome girls. Lisa, you're free to roam around. Juliet, you're scheduled for execution soon

Sorry about that, moving on. So Lisa and Juliet (dressed up like princesses) find a twonicorn, and after feeding it a sugar cube, it barfs a rainbow (You know, I'm over halfway there and yet I cannot live on a prayer for quality for this episode). The... queen? (I don't know she just shows up and says a few words, she could be the jester for all I know) welcomes Lisa and Juliet to Equalia (Okay, I need a new name for this place. Bollville, perhaps?) where she decides to start a royal dance for them by playing the "Royal Mypod". ...I really have to wonder if this episode was made for the sole purpose of desensitizing the audience to the point that every episode afterwards would look like Last Exit to Springfield in comparison.

*BARF* I'm sorry, but pretentious shit makes me throw up

As Lisa and Juliet slow-dance with each other (No lesbian undertones whatsoever) Bollville begins to transition back to the real world as it's shown that Lisa and Juliet were dancing to the sprinklers going off (I have no words for this, I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the idea that someone thought that an episode based on Heavenly Creatures was a good idea). The next day we see Lisa and Juliet writing more of their story about Bollvillle (with paper crowns and scarves draped around their torsos. Brian Kelley's really trying to drive this in until we accept it isn't he?). When Marge tries to play along, Lisa essentially tells her to fuck off (Despite them writing in the kitchen instead of her room... okay, how many warnings to stop watching this have we been given? *34* I thought as much). Later, Marge and Homer are called to Skinner's office where he tells them that Lisa's grades have been dropping ever since she's been hanging out with Juliet. However, because there couldn't possibly be any good jokes to be told with that premise, Homer ignores everything Skinner says and acts like a complete ass-clown (which causes Skinner to facepalm. Isn't it nice when the writers acknowledge how bad Homer's gotten and yet don't bother to make him more human?). Back home, Marge tells Lisa that she can no longer see Juliet. This causes Lisa to get upset, saying this:

(There are no words I know of to describe my hatred for this episode). After Marge shrugs that off, Lisa tries to escape by climbing down the tree, only to fall into a laundry basket being held by Marge (I guess cloning is far more advanced than we ever thought). The next day, Lisa leaves school only to bump into Juliet, who is throwing stuff at Lisa from a tree... Oh wait, it gets better. Juliet tells Lisa that she's running away (...Why?) and she's taking Lisa with her. Lisa is hesitant initially, but Juliet convinces her that she needs to come because Bollville needs her... I just want that to sink in for a moment. Juliet was waiting in a tree for Lisa to get out to tell her that they're both going to run away from home because they need to write a fantasy novel, a novel that Juliet believes is real. Oh, but wait, I haven't even told you about the icing on this cake, Juliet tells Lisa that she needs her too, as Juliet grabs Lisa's hands...*Goes to corner in fetal position* This is all just fictional, this is all just fictional, this is all-

Brian Kelley, don't encourage the slashfic.

Anyways, Lisa agrees and they walk off while holding hands (You hear that snap? That was the sound of my sanity leaving me, I'm so screwed now). As Lisa and Juliet bike their way to their new location, the scenery around them turns into Bollville complete with the annoying music (At this point I'm just waiting for the ending where Lisa and Juliet brutally murder Marge with a rock and run back home screaming with blood on their hands). Lisa and Juliet arrive at "Clam-Elot" (Ugh) where Juliet tells Lisa to just use her imagination and it'll become Bollvile. *Checks time remaining* 6 MINUTES?! Oh I do hate myself at this point. Oh, and we see Lenny and Carl pass by the condemned "Clam-Elot"... why? Just, why? We cut back home where Marge and Homer talk about how Lisa should be at the Model UN (Gee I wonder if this will lead to anything? I mean it's oh so natural in the way it's casually discussed here). Just then, Marge gets a call from Martin that Lisa never showed up (In the most forced, unfunny way possible, I'm sorry is this a comedy show or brainwashing material?). Marge expresses her concern about how she was too intrusive in Lisa's friendship with Juliet by driving around looking for her... Oh wait nevermind she SAYS all that in some more awkward dialogue (I would pull up the "Show don't tell" card here, but that would require me to care at this point)

Why did I let my daughter hang out with a schizophrenic? Why did I let my daughter hang-

After Homer feels the need for his style of 'comedy' (And it looks like the closing credits will be the best part of this episode), we cut to Lisa and Juliet in "Clam-Elot" as it's very dark and damp, but Juliet doesn't seem to mind much (Seeing as she's about one break-up away from becoming Mother Shabubu, I completely understand). We then see a scene of the family pulling up to the parking lot (They're at the wrong place) and Lisa and Juliet hear a car outside the restaurant (Look there's still 5 minutes left, they aren't there). Through the windows we see silhouettes of what appear to be Marge, Homer and Bart (Forget it, not going to work on me) however, we cut back to the family and here's a shocker; THEY ARRIVED AT THE WRONG PLACE! (Wow, that totally came out of left field, and here I thought that the last 5 minutes would be about Lisa having to deal with her friendship with a borderline psychopath). Back at the restaurant, it turns out to be Jimbo, Dolph and Kearney as they find Lisa and Juliet and decide to tie them up and lock them away in cages (... No comment, Rule 34 has been run into the ground WAY too much here) Oh and by the way, they aren't tied up when they're in the cages... consistency, who needs that?

Ummm... Uhhh.... Insert your own bondage joke here

Kearney is left to guard Lisa and Juliet. Lisa tells Juliet about her being afraid and Juliet comforts her by telling her to imagine Bollvile. However, at this point Lisa decides that enough is enough and tells Juliet that Bollville is not real. Juliet counters by saying it's better than where they are and she offers her hand to Lisa, which Lisa grabs (Minor note, the cages have a convenient hole just bigger than their arms. Now here's a fun game to play at home: re-read both of these parts, take a shot for every time I describe the Lisa-Juliet relationship as gay) After some ramblings between Lisa and Juliet (That's the best way to describe this, I swear) Kearney gets intrigued and Lisa and Juliet decide to use Kearney's uncharacteristic curiosity against him, getting him to free them both (It's almost done, it's almost done). We then see Kearney listening to Lisa read her story with a lot of interest (Well, there's a sucker born every second, I mean there are people who LIKE this episode).

Lisa: "Surely it was a good way to die, in the place of someone else, Someone I loved. Noble, even. That ought to count for something"

Jimbo and Dolph come back as they're shocked to see Lisa and Juliet are free. After some pretentious dialogue from Juliet (Ten bucks says that when this show is finally done, she will end up as the least popular supporting character) Jimbo decides to burn her book in front of her (Jimbo is my favorite character in this episode, not only does he hate Juliet, but he wants to see her suffer). However, Kearney starts to hallucinate this all as Bollville (Oh for fucks sakes, Who left the LSD out?) and decides he needs to save the oh-so-important tales of Bollville (Hey if Twilight can get published, I guess anything can). In Kearney's hallucination, he's beating them up, but in reality, he's getting his ass handed to him (I think there's a very important lesson to be taken away from all this, if we use our imagination hard enough, this episode can seem only mediocre. Let me try... DAMMIT!). Lisa and Juliet escape (but we don't see them take the book, odd) and Lisa decides that she needs to stop escaping to a fantasy land and live in reality (Is this supposed to be some sort of half-assed message? If so, I have a simple response: FUCK! YOU! WRITERS!!!). Juliet mocks Lisa for daring to want to live a normal life in the real world (2 more minutes, just 2 more minutes). Juliet then leaves Lisa as Lisa decides to call her cuckoo (This is beyond the pot calling the kettle black).

Good-night sweet bitch; and flights of demons sing thee to thy rest

We cut to two months later as it turns out that Lisa sent her novel to a publication and it got rejected (Naw, really? And here I thought we had the greatest story of modern times on our hands). After Bart insults Lisa and Marge tries to comfort her, the episode ends with Homer deciding that we need one more hallucination as he just imagines his family as random objects (...I've got nothing, I'm just waiting for the credits). Okay here we go, the best part of the episode; the credits, let's see them. The episode truly ends with Bart introducing Fallout Boy over the end credits as they do a shitty remix of the ending credits theme... And the circle is truly complete, not only did this episode fail on every category possible, but they managed to fuck up the credit sequence. Congrats staff, you managed to suck in EVERY category. YOU FAIL!

Final Verdict: This abomination to man was fucking AWFUL. The bottom of the barrel, the episode that is the measuring stick to every shitty episode out there. Not only did the writing suck, the jokes suck and everything else suck, but there was absolutely no entertainment value at all. This was a fucking nightmare and a true pain to sit through. I know I use hate quite a bit (Even dedicated a theme month to it) but I can calmly say that I reserve the deepest feelings of true hate towards this. I will leave with just one thought: FUCK! THIS! EPISODE!!!

Final Grade: 0.0/10 If I was allowed to go negative, I would, but going negative feels cartoony and I want to be serious about this.

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!

Worst of the worst: Lisa the Drama Queen-Introduction

So, we've finally reached this day. A day I wished would not have to come. I will finally bury the demons that haunt me of this putrid, vile, God awful, retched piece of shit that The Simpsons call an episode. But before I can even talk about this vapid waste of atoms, let's take a look at the smaller details leading up to this episode.

A little bit about the writer, I already bitched and complained about how basically every episode for The Simpsons he's ever written (THoH segment not withstanding) is terrible and seems to have rather misogynistic undertones whether that's intentional or not. But really, none of this is provable, in fact finding information on this guy ranks up there with finding the Holy Grail. His Wikipedia page is a waste of data with no true evidence that he even exists (No birthday, no hometown, no family, nothing) and his IMDB page may be even more useless (Mistaken identity on the articles). I'm under the assumption that "Brian Kelley" is just a pseudonym that the writers use when they're ashamed of an episode they're submitting.

A preview of the utter insanity we are about to venture into

Now, onto the source material. This episode references quite a few different movies, mostly fantasy, however, the main story is more or less Heavenly Creatures. Heavenly Creatures, for those of you unaware of it, is a Peter Jackson fantasy movie based on true events about two girls becoming close friends; however, instead of being a "coming of age" story, it tells the tale of a friendship gone horribly wrong. Let me summarize the movie as best as possible:

• The main character Pauline attends an all female school in New Zealand. There, a transfer student named Juliet (Remember that name) soon befriends Pauline and they begin to do almost everything together. Pauline and Juliet decide to work on a fantasy novel about a world they created and they begin to make clay figures to help manifest their fantasy into reality. After Juliet's parent leave her for London (Juliet's parents promised never to leave her after she suffered from a severe case of Tuberculosis) Juliet and Pauline begin to imagine their world and that they exist in it. Later, Juliet comes down with a bad case of TB and Pauline decides to write to Juliet to keep up her morale. While Juliet is recovering, Pauline falls in love with a boy named (Mark) and here begins the first signs of Juliet's jealousy towards Pauline. After Pauline breaks up with (Mark) and Juliet gets better, the girls spend a lot of time together talking about their fantasy world. However, Pauline's parents do not feel comfortable with Pauline's relationship with Juliet as they take them both to a doctor. There, the doctor informs Pauline's parents that they are most likely in a lesbian relationship. Pauline's parents forbid her from seeing Juliet anymore which causes Pauline and Juliet to plan the murder of Pauline's mother before Juliet goes back to England. The girls go on a picnic with Pauline's mother where they kill her with a brick. The girls are both arrested, convicted of murder and released at separate times with the condition that they never meet again.

Now, why do I hate this episode so much? Allow me to confess something to you: of all the episodes I've ever watched, this was the only one that ever made me physically ill. I'm not even joking; the first time I watched it, I got nauseous and fell to the floor by the end of it. I had no idea what the episode was based off of when I first watched it. After I watched Heavenly Creatures, I hated it even more, if that's even possible. There has never been an episode that made me angrier towards any show or idea than this episode (And that includes That 90's Show and GI D'oh!). To date (9/2/11) it holds the second lowest score on TV.com with a 6.2/10 (228 votes), to put that in perspective, the lowest score belongs to All Singing All Dancing with a 6.1/10 (172 votes) and That 90's Show holds a 7.6/10 (298 votes). Just think about that for a minute. According to the TV.com community, they think that this is only better than a musical clip show.

Be afraid. Be very, very afraid.

Now I'll admit I don't put too much stock into those scores (Usually padded out by fans who will 10 star everything) but in comparison, it's simply amazing how low the score is. For as much crap as the modern fans will take, they flat out hate this episode as well.

...if you haven't guessed yet, yeah, this is padding to put off the review for another week. I need more time, I just need a little more time....

Season 20 Review

In all my years of watching The Simpsons I have never seen anything so poorly written and woefully executed, with jokes that are so painful that I want a lobotomy. Seriously, some say season 11 is the worst; I say it's where the series jumped the shark and this is where the series was eaten by that same shark. With the low quality season 19 was emitting I thought "This show has nowhere to go but up". I was wrong, very wrong. I just hoped that the writers never make a season this shitty ever again (Season 22 dashed those hopes).

The season of course carries the momentum of "All about Lisa" and starts off with a rather mediocre episode that seems to try to say to the viewing audience: "Hey we can be as mature as Family Guy or South Park", but the effort doesn't seem to be there. 

The next two are polar opposites as one continues to try to appeal to the audience with the entire plot being about cell phones which to me just feels very out of place and too forced.I mean there's nothing wrong with trying to keep up with technology, but when The Simpsons try to incorporate modern technology into their episodes it just feels wrong and unnatural. The third episode had a MUCH better form in print form and was just a waste.

After The Treehouse of Horror to rope us back in, we go through 4 rather mediocre and unimpressive episodes that aren't funny nor interesting to the audience. But they are all better than "Lisa the Drama Queen". I still refuse to review that because the last time I saw it, I vomited and had nightmares because it was such a disgrace to the show that Brian Kelly should have been fired on the spot for writing such a flaming pile of shit.

Unfortunately that is the last episode of the series that is shown in SD (Great way to end an era wouldn't you say? ... ugh) as Take my Life Please is the first episode to go to the HD format and change the way we watch these episodes. And by way we watch them I mean the writing is patronizing to the audience and is just uninteresting from this point out. Nice way to usher in a new era.

The next few episodes are like a rollercoaster with it going down then up then way down then back up again. It's not too bad because it's better than consistently sucking.

The highlight is In the Name of the Grandfather, while it is rather boring, I'd still take this over a majority of the episodes this season (Which is really sad), while the lowlight has to be Gone Maggie Gone where it pisses on the source material (No it wasn't a satire, it was a piss-poor attempt at one) and is just batshit stupid.

The next three are the same as Wedding For Disaster is a waste of talent, Eeny Teeny Maya Moe has mixed messages and fails at their point while The Good, the Sad, the Drugly was more or less a re-hash of two previous storylines with little new material.

What this series excels at though is having an awful stretch of episodes that diminishes hope for next season being an improvement and redeeming this season (but it tried to my surprise). They are all shit, all poorly written and just plain stupid.

This was the lone season that really made me not take this show seriously anymore. The topical jokes and references seem forced and I really hate it. In the past, this show rarely needed to force topical reference in order to get viewers; I could watch an episode that's over 10 years old and understand the jokes without having to Google them. Now there were a couple of jokes that I didn't even remember what the event was that they were making fun of. The cell phone jokes though got under my skin the most. This is the family whose car has an EIGHT-TRACK TAPE PLAYER and all of a sudden they need to use their cell phones everywhere they go? I've said this in real life, people are idiots. We used to live in a world without cell phones and we survived perfectly fine, but take it away now and people will panic (Oops, shouldn't put my own view about cell phones in there, forget what you just read).

Next to the jokes, the fact that this season seems to have a musical motif pisses me off. In the 20 episodes of this season (excluding "Lisa the Drama Queen")  there were 41 times where there was a scene involving the characters singing or dancing. I'm not kidding, that is basically musical show numbers there.

I'm still in shock that Maggie got six lines in one episode and another five in the next. Let me say: MAGGIE DOES NOT TALK EVER!! IT'D BE LIKE KENNY TALKING WITHOUT HIS HOODIE FOR THREE STRAIGHT EPISODES! YOU DON'T DO IT! (Still pisses me off)

Really, the plots are either recycled or poorly executed as the new ones just seem uninteresting. In the 20 episodes there were 20 montages. I don't know what to say; it just feels like lazy writing as the occasional montage is good but not one per episode because it defeats the purpose. There is very little good and way too much shit for this to even be considered a season of The Simpsons. I just wish that it'd be gone and I could have the memory of this season erased.

Final Verdict: 1.2/10 It's just a horrible season that no real Simpson fan should ever have to see.

(This is RBY, calling out. If you'll excuse me, I'm now gonna put my nostalgia filter back on and go watch something GOOD)

Episode 21: Coming to Homerica

Now tell me if you've heard this before, The Simpsons doing an episode based on illegal immigration and... *1000 replies later*. Yeah this is just a poor man's Much Apu About Nothing and it's not even clever in trying to distinguish itself from that episode, it's an unfunny clone of it. Illegal immigration was a problem during the airing and it's the same today (Except now this episode would have the police go around saying "Show me your papers" instead of building a wall, but I digress). I know I commented that I liked the episode with Lisa on drugs and Bart having a girlfriend but that was more interesting; this tries too hard to make light of something we've known for years and it come off as stupid. Let's put on our sombreros, avoid Arizona and take a look.

We start off with Krusty's accountant telling Krusty about how his products are bad and he needs to change (Change the bloody record already. We've seen this so many times already). Krusty then tells him add a veggie burger to his menu to offset the unhealthy items already there (Like that helped McDonald's). After the Simpsons watch a commercial for the "Mother Nature Burger" (I couldn't make that up if I tried) Homer decides to take his family to Krusty Burger. At Krusty Burger we see that the burger has made the restaurant popular (We even see Apu and Lisa eating burgers. Savor those images, you'll never see them again). Back at home, though, the burgers made the family sick and everyone starts throwing up (Homer doing it in Lisa's sax, charming. Oh yeah we see that they have three bathrooms, correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't there only two bathrooms in the house?) After a pointless scene at Springfield Elementary, we find out that the burgers had tainted barley in them and the barley traces back to Ogdenville (Fair enough, Ogdenville hasn't been truly established for what it does, there's potential here). As it turns out, the citizens of Ogdenville are descendants of Norwegian immigrants from 100 years ago and they specialize in barely production (... Whatever you say, oh yeah keep note of the line "Settled 100 years ago by Norwegian immigrants" in short, the settlers were immigrants, but the descendants are American... that fact will hurt a lot throughout the review).

All the subtlety of a baseball bat

After that we see that Ogdenville becomes a ghost town because all of its business was barley and nobody wants to buy barley from Ogdenville anymore (Oh yeah, this apparently happens OVERNIGHT, I've heard of exaggerated timelines but this is ridiculous. This ranks up there with the ending of Alone in the Dark). The residents then do their greatest impression of Grapes of Wrath and head out for new life in Springfield; we can tell there's prosperity there because the gray overcast isn't over Springfield (...Subtle symbolism ain't it?). We then cut to Homer buying rain gutters as some Ogdenvillians offer help to Homer install them because they need work (Great, they aren't even trying to hide that Ogdenville citizens are their stand-ins for Mexicans, scratch subtle writing off the list). Homer thanks the workers for what they did and he says that he's thankful for them being there to take the jobs Springfielders won't take and they can't have too much of a good thing (Gee I wonder if that contrived line in any way will come back to bite him in the ass? It was said oh-so-subtly by Homer and the theme we already have will make me ponder this for a long time). We then see the streets are crowded with some Ogdenvillians doing all sorts of jobs, we cut to Marge as she hires an Ogdenviller named Inga to be her new nanny (No, only British women with songs and flying umbrellas can be their nanny).

Not obvious enough, try putting sombreros on them

After that, we cut to Luigi's where we see that Selma is going out with an Ogdenville man who helped her kill moles in her garden (Well that was pointless, then again the majority of the scenes have been pointless). We cut to Bart and Milhouse as they see that Ogdenville kids have basically taken over their skating area (And they're Minnesota Vikings fans, which is stupid. That's like saying all Native American descendants are Florida State fans or all Irish descendants are fans of Notre Dame (As an Irish Catholic descent myself, and I hate Notre Dame)). After one Ogdenville kid goes "So many meters" (That's stupid beyond words, you said they were DESCENDANTS of Norwegian immigrants, NOT Norwegian immigrants themselves. God I hate this) Bart decides to outdo him and gets hurt in the process. Bart is then taken to the hospital where he has to wait because of all the "Norwads" (This is hurting my brain). Because of all the Ogdenvillians there (They are American-Norwegian at best, not pure Norwegian you DIPSHITS. No I'm not letting this go, they CLEARLY said the immigrants SETTLED it. It's all there black and white clear as crystal. It's the equivalent of saying anyone born in Chinatown is Chinese and not American) Homer and Marge are given a Norwegian form because they are out of English ones (How does that make sense? Shouldn't the Ogdenville people be given the Norwegian ones while Springfielders are given English? GOD MY BRAIN HURTS)(To make it worse they. Are. DESCENDANTS. At this point, it's unlikely they don't know English, making the Norwegian forms, you guessed it, entirely pointless).

I knew it, the people from the next town over will cause hospitals to become too crowded

Marge takes Bart home and pulls his arm out of the socket to fix it and Bart claims that the Ogdenville kids "dared" him. Lisa points out that they were all immigrants at one time and the Ogdenvillians shouldn't be hated (They are NOT immigrants, they are the same nationality as you, American. How is it that this episode seems to pisses me off with every new line?) We then cut to Moe's as we see that there are more Ogdenvillers and that causes Moe to stop serving beer but instead serve some Norwegian Aquavit and it causes him to start accepting Norwegian money (Trust me, there isn't enough alcohol to make that scene okay). I know I probably should be allowing my suspension of disbelief to say that these are Norwegian immigrants and they are acting like illegal immigrants. However, illegal immigrants do not use their old money; they would convert it into U.S. dollars like how an American immigrant in Europe would convert his money to euros instead of trying to get businesses to accept the dollar instead, God I hate this. Homer then tries to down a bottle of Aquavit instead of using a shot glass and he gets a tremendous hangover the next day which causes him to get fired. Later, we see a town meeting to discuss the "Immigrant Problem" (No I'm not letting this go THEY ARE NOT IMMIGRANTS! THEY ARE U.S. CITIZENS WHO HAPPEN TO HAVE KEPT THEIR ROOTS! THEY LIVED IN THE CITY NEXT TO YOU, YOU TWATS!!!).

Everyone who has no clue how the immigration system works, raise your hand

Blue-haired lawyer suggests that there be a law banning Ogdenvillians from being inside the Springfield limits (You know you could just "deport" them by checking all the citizens and seeing if they have the proper papers). So after an unfunny xylophone joke (By the way, Xylophobia is fear of wood, not xylophones. Good try you dumb-fucks) we see at the border it's made obvious that the Springfield police are really sucking at their job and Ogdenvillians just keep crossing the border (Booze, don't fail me now). Lou suggests that they hire citizens to help patrol the border and we see some main characters with guns in their hands. Later it's shown that Homer is the leader and he tries to get a name for their group (How about "The Bigot Klan") Carl suggests "The Star Spangled Goofballs" and it sticks (I like how Cletus pointed out how stupid their group is, of all the characters to point out the stupidity of this)(Cletus? The slack-jaw yokel LAMPSHADES? ....it's pretty bad, then). After Lenny and Carl fail at air patrol (With an Up reference in the background... why?), Mayor Quimby is not pleased and he suggests that they need a new solution. They get their new solution after seeing Homer run into a wall; Quimby decides to build a big fence (Wow and I thought the wall on the U.S.-Mexico border was absurd)(At least that's between two COUNTRIES and has some basis, not two CITIES in the same country). We cut back home where Marge thinks the fence is stupid until Maggie says "Ja" (5 times) and that upsets Marge because Maggie's first words are in "Ogdenvillese" (And I thought Bush calling Mexico's LANGUAGE 'Mexican' was bad....it's, at best, a dialect, folks)...

Because her talking in the last episode was so amazing, here it is again

Okay, fuck it, I'm heading out for a while and I will not be back to finish the review. If you can't tell why, then clearly you need to re-read it. *walks away only to be ordered back by RBY* Okay I've been told I'll be fired if I don't complete this review so let's get back to this (Which is strange when you consider the fact that Kriken hired ME....don't think about that too hard). Where do I begin with that? Let's see:
1. That is stupid! Just because your baby is acting like a parrot doesn't mean these "immigrants" are a bad influence on your town
2. Really? Ogdenvillese? That's like saying Cubans who from Miami (Little Havana to be more specific) are speaking "Miamese" when they speak Spanish
3. Yet again this goes back to pathetic satire of how the writers view Americans viewing the world and blowing it WAY out of proportion. It's stupid and not funny.
4. Building a fence to keep two U.S. cities apart, I believe, is unconstitutional (I don't think it's covered in the lawbooks - NOBODY IS THAT STUPID! ....ok, maybe it's covered by anti-discrimination laws). It would be like if NYC created a fence around Little Italy, or if San Fransisco boarded up Chinatown. It's just dumb. And doing this is in no way funny nor "Satirical", it's fucking stupid.

Why do I get the feeling this is why the writers are so out of touch with modern society

We then see Quimby begin design of the wall as they decide to hire the Ogdenvillians to help build the wall (Sure why not?). As they build the wall together, each Springfielder finds that they have something in common with an Ogdenviller (Aw, could that mean they won't build the wall? Most surely not, right? You wouldn't pull this cliche? Right?) As they are putting up the last bit of the wall (Symbolism!) the Springfielders regret putting up the wall because they missed them for all of five seconds (Wow, what drama. I have more feelings for my fork then I do this scene). The Ogdenvillians come through a door they created (Lazy writing at it's finest ladies and gentlemen) and they all come back to Springfield where everything is back to normal. They even have a dance number at the end because this episode hasn't pissed me off enough yet, and the ending credits are put over the flag of Norway for some more symbolism. Now if' you'll excuse me I'm off to finish this bottle I got for the midway point.


Final Judgment: This episode is terrible. The satire is stupid, the plot is recycled and horrible, the writing is atrocious, the message is beyond stupid, and the "Mexican stand-ins" are horribly done because they are U.S. citizens and the writers couldn't be bothered to change a simple little thing like that. This is a piss-poor attempt at satirizing the illegal immigrant issue and it's sad because their first attempt was so much better and funnier; this just seems lazy and stupid.


Final Grade: 1.2/10 I never want to see this again

Episode 20: Four Great Women and a Manicure

Yeah you know how usually three story episodes are reserved for Halloween episodes? Well apparently the writers got lazy and decided to do four short stories instead of one long one so they wouldn't have to worry about plot development and such. Yeah, this is just speculation and my feelings on these types of episodes because frankly, I don't like these episode setups outside of the Treehouse of Horror episodes. It really feels lazy as the writers don't need to take as long to develop the plot and there is no excuse for filler yet they seem to put it in anyways (Aw, but I like some of them, like the Revenge stories). So let's watch this and see why it's best to do one full plot only.

We start off with Marge taking Lisa and Maggie to a nail salon (Heads up, Bart doesn't even make an appearance in this episode but Nancy does voice Ralph here, so she is still needed). Marge took Lisa there for her first manicure/pedicure and what's the first thing Lisa does to thank her? She asks why it's more important to be beautiful than smart or independent (Great this is going to be one of those pretentious "Lisa's a feminist and we're going to point it out often" episodes isn't it?)(Though it still sounds more in-character than last episode). Marge decides to tell Lisa about how women can be smart, strong and beautiful and she decides to use the story of Queen Elizabeth I about how a woman can be great but she does need a man (I'm just going to leave a bottle of scotch right next to my computer here for future use)(I'm using it first. This story cannot possibly go well....'needs a man', what in the HELL). We find out that Elizabeth (Selma) is having suitors come to visit so she can be married. After Ralph makes his appearance we see the King of Spain (Julio) arrive being as fruity as a salad bar (....aren't there vegetables at the salad bar?)(Did I mention I HATE this character? Probably but to be sure let's get that out of the way).

NO! We are not having you in this episode! Now scram!

After he threatens Elizabeth, we see Walter Raleigh (Homer) who Marge immediately falls in love with (In the interest of fairness, the writers did get Walter's character right. He did popularize tobacco in England and the writers took advantage of that to make a decent joke out of it. Unfortunately, that's the only decent joke in this segment, all the rest are cringe-worthy). Because Julio was rejected by Elizabeth (For not being straight enough to be a husband) he decides to launch the Spanish Armada against England (Okay I'm not going to allow history to affect my opinion of this story because if it did, there would be so many parts that are nowhere near what happened)(Can I?). Back in England, Walter runs into Marge and helps her carry water up the stairs and they start making out on the stairs until Elizabeth comes out of her bath (Must be that time of the month). Elizabeth decides to send Marge and Walter away because Walter was her suitor, not Marge's. We then have an unfunny bit where Moe calls Elizabeth; Grendel (That doesn't even begin to make sense. Even though the story was available in England, it'd be like Hilary Clinton calling Obama, Frankenstein and being serious about it. The book was fictional  and originated in the Baltics so that joke was stupid and made no sense). Moe then tells her that the Spanish Armada is coming and Elizabeth goes into action (This is stupid on so many levels but whatever, it's not as stupid as what's to come).

Well if your mission was to ruin humor, plot and an otherwise great show. Then that's correct

After an unfunny "Mission Accomplished" banner (These topical jokes are TERRIBLE) the ship that Walter happens to be on catches on fire by his pipe and the ship just happens to run into the Armada and sets them all on fire destroying them all and thus letting England win (A swig or two of scotch and then my mind will be clear)(...I want to hurt something so badly...). I'd rather not get into the stupidity of this because this whole story is flat out stupid in its own right so let's move on. After that, Elizabeth knights Walter and blesses the marriage of Walter and Marge. Elizabeth realizes that she doesn't need a man but she has a whole country (Sure why not? Next story!).

After Marge tells Lisa she'll look great, Lisa decides to try to tell the story of Snow White. Blue-haired lawyer interrupts claiming the rights to that story belong to Disney (And we see he has long nails indicating he's evil, just like Disney, and Fox executives). Lisa counters saying it's a fairy tale from hundreds of years and her characters are not the same as Disney's (That's like saying if I created a yellow kid named Elizabeth with spiky hair it's original because the name is different. What a legal system)(Technically, she is right, though, I think). After we see a musical bit that is not in any way "Hi-Ho" (Seriously it's not horrible but just try to keep the parody as a funny parody and not a "We're stealing from Disney so Ha-Ha") we see the wicked witch talk to her HD TV on the wall (Pills, I need pills). No I'm not letting this go, I hate things like this, there are idiot writers and producers who think that old stories need to be modernized in order for people to find them entertaining. I'm not a person who'll enjoy a black and white movie for the sake of it being black and white, but I'll most likely hate it if a good black and white movie is given a color release. What's the point? I've never seen it but whose idea was it to 'modernize' Rear Window in Disturbia? (Based on reviews from IMDB and Rottentomatoes that's what it seems like). Anyways, the witch finds out that Lisa is Snow White and this upsets her, causing her to tell the huntsman (Willie) to go kill Snow White and put her heart in a box (Okay the body box for Snow White and the huntsman did make me laugh a little in the interest of fairness).

I knew it! The real Lisa's been dead for years and they've been holding her body in there

We then see Snow White doing some cooking as the huntsman comes in and can't bring himself to kill her. He then tells Snow White to run away and he tries to get a different heart but he fails several times (Wow, what a pansy). Snow White gets to the several dwarfs' house and settles in but not after a piss poor attempt at parodying Little Red Riding Hood (They did that before, lazy). As the dwarfs get back, they notice someone's disturbed their house (Because we can't see shit when they say that, I guess they never understood "Show Don't Tell" did they?). They go into their room and wake up Snow White by accident (When you consider it's Lisa and she's 8 and the dwarfs are all above 20, I can't help but be a little disturbed)(In the original, I think Snow White was 12. AND Disney had censored most of it. That's fairy tales for you!). After Hibbert warns Snow White, we see all the animals helping to clean up the house (Who is she, Dr. Doolittle?)(It's Disney Power!).

I guess subtlety really is a lost art

We then see the witch disguised as an old woman with a basket of apples, offering one to Snow White (This isn't nearly as bad as taking candy from a stranger, but if a stranger offered me food after he got into my house I'd run away) After she gets Snow White to take a bite, the witch runs off against the ineffective dwarfs until she gets mauled by the forest animals (Oh great Cartman's X-mas critters got out again. Didn't you lock their cage RBY?)(I was kinda hoping I could get them to maul drunk frat boys...). We see Snow White in her glass coffin as she isn't rescued by Prince Charming but instead by a female doctor offscreen. This is the same girl whose favorite movie is "The Little Mermaid" (Make Room for Lisa), a movie that's underlying theme is "Give up your voice so you can be with a man". Words escape me people, this is total bullshit, next story!

Our next story starts after Marge laments being married to an idiot. We start off by seeing Marge who plays Lady Macbeth in a local play trying to get the stains out of a costume. We see she's angry because Homer cannot act to save his life and his role is that of a tree (I'd doubt that, cardboard cutouts of trees would be far more interesting)(....why would they pay someone to act as a tree?). Homer points out that Sideshow Mel is playing Macbeth and Homer could never be as good as him. Marge suggests to Homer that he kill Mel and take over the role of Macbeth (except there are probably about a dozen guys more qualified but we'll get to that soon). Homer kills Mel in his dressing room with his bone and Homer ends up getting the role of Macbeth (Odd, I would have assumed there would be promotions for all cast members)(Actually, they'd use, you know the understudy). Homer is a complete failure as Macbeth during his first performance and the reviews praise Dr. Hibbert for his role as Banquo. Marge decides to have him killed next because he's outshining Homer. Homer lampshades that he should take acting lessons instead but Marge says no and he needs to kill Dr. Hibbert.

I'm married to a tree, guess mom was right about you

Homer then pumps laughing gas into Dr. Hibbert's office causing him to laugh to death (Oh the irony). In the next review (they lampshade this) everyone except Homer is considered a good actor by the paper (We're reviewing the play? I didn't think we were famous, Kriken!). Marge in a fit of fury tells Homer to kill them all so it'll only be him and Marge. Homer then kills the cast members one at a time as they are in a conga line for a cast party (Subtle). As Marge cleans the dead casts' wardrobe (from blood) the ghosts of the cast come to haunt Marge for her having Homer kill them all. Marge then dies of a heart attack from the ghosts and she continues to nag Homer to perform Macbeth by himself. Homer then goes out and has a great performance but nobody's there to hear him except ghost Marge. After she gives Homer some more plays to rehearse for, Homer kills himself and says that having to read them would be a tragedy (Wow, that was completely underwhelming and forgettable, final story!)

Marge breaks the fourth wall by saying they always tell three stories until Maggie implies she wants one for herself. Marge decides her story will be that of "The Fountainhead" and Maggie is Maggie Roark (I have no idea what this is so I'll just play along)(Ayn Rand, folks....this is going to be a long ride, folks). We see Maggie at a daycare center where the teacher Mr. Toohey lets them play with blocks. We then see Mr. Toohey try to get them all to conform to be mindless impotents and he punishes Maggie for being artistically creative (Kind of counterintuitive, wouldn't you say? Blocks are one of the best ways to be creative). We then get a montage of Maggie being creative and Mr. Toohey being a complete and utter prick (I'm not sure but I doubt this was the way Howard Roark's creativity was oppressed)(He got expelled from college and was rarely hired). After that Mr. Toohey tells the kids to show to their parents how "uncreative and beaten down they've become" (Wow, how totally subtle, we couldn't possibly see that on our own. Thank God we have writers who think we're drooling idiots, it's what draws me back week after week). Mr. Toohey, expecting all the kids to be drooling idiots, is shocked when Maggie creates another building and he decides to punish her in his court (Oh scotch thank God you're still here for me).

Big deal, I was making designs for entire cities while waiting to be born

Mr. Toohey argues in "Court" that Maggie reminded them that they are individuals and she should be punished (You know after reading Ayn Rand's biography on Wikipedia, I found out she hates socialism, communism, fascism, and welfare state. Quite frankly this story is about as subtle as a punch to the face)(Restraining snark.... Rand's pretty controversial figure. I won't go into depth myself about her beliefs, as I don't know enough about them, but she had a tendency to go on long-winded tangents about her beliefs in the story. I'm not a literary critic or scholar, but Rand was never subtle. Sadly). Now before continuing, Maggie has spoken a grand total of 4 times in the series (Including the movie) and all of them have been a sentence or less with 3 being two words or less

1. When she said "Daddy" in Lisa's First Word it was precious and funny

2. In Treehouse of Horror V she had James Earl Jones' voice to emphasize the bizarreness in Homer's time travels

3. In Home Sweet Homediddly-Dum-Doodily Maggie said "Dadily-doodily" to emphasize she barely knows Homer

4. In the Movie she said "Sequel" for the sake of fanservice

I wish for this episode to be stricken from continuity and everyone's memories your honor

Here Maggie talks for a grand total of 6 lines about how she's being treated unfairly. A part of my childhood died when she opened her mouth; my little nostalgic feeling died and cremated itself after this. Let me say one thing; MAGGIE DOES NOT TALK! How the fuck did this get by the director? (Booze?) Who in their right mind thought to themselves "Hey let's give Maggie more speaking time in 20 seconds than she's been given in the entire series". It would be like having three South Park episodes where Kenny is wearing street clothes and talking normally, IT'S JUST PLAIN STUPID!! This really ranks up there as among the stupidest moments in the show. Moving on, (Brain bleach, I need the bleach) we see that Maggie grew up to be a great architect and her office had a daycare center for children with active minds(FUCK YOU WRITERS!). The episode ends with Maggie using the nail polish to paint Van Gogh's Starry Night and giving the same look as we all have; confusion (While that sounds cute, that would require the viewer to stay around after seeing her TALKING).

Final Judgment: This episode sucks, the plots are all moronic, unoriginal and boring, the writing is horrendous and the characters are either unlikable or extremely derailed, and the jokes are mostly horrible. Having Maggie talk is one of the biggest sins of not only this episode but also this season and the series as a whole. It really wasn't funny and there was filler even though each story averaged just over 5 minutes.

Final grade: 1.2/10 Just something that's been regurgitated by Satan himself

Episode 19: Waverly Hills 9-0-2-1-D'oh

Ever wonder how episode ideas are created? I don't, but here's how this one was probably created:
Writer: Hey, 90210 is back on, let's do a "parody" of it because it's topical.
Executive: Wasn't this show on in the 90s? Why do it now?
Writer: We aren't nearly as talented to create episodes that actually require thought so we need this.
Executive: Well, will you at least has some subtle jokes and writing so that people don't feel insulted by the stupidity of this?
Writer: Nope! We never do! Our viewers are like lobotomized rats, they need to be told what's going on and told when to laugh or they won't understand.
Executive: Okay, start production, but at least make the Hannah Montana knock-off creative.
Writer: Can't do, sir.
Executive: Oh well, do it anyways.
(Disclaimer: it may have been the executive's idea. Attempts at contacting the studio were ineffectual and resulted in an alien invasion stopped only by the ghost of Bruce Lee possessing Chuck Norris teaming up with naked zombie Sean Connery)
And now to review this uninspired, not-so-subtle approach to topical humor based on an unpopular spin-off of a much more popular TV series from the 90s.

We start off with Marge on a morning walk when she passes by a guy giving out free samples of "Science Water" *Fake laughter*. After Marge drinks about a dozen samples of the water, she needs to use the bathroom and decides to go into Springfield Elementary to use their bathroom (Oh great, we're going to have another "Helicopter Parent" theme aren't we?). Marge then takes a look in the classrooms and notices how either nobody's learning or the classes are "comically" overstuffed with students (Surely she'd know this by now)(Thank God the staff dropped the "Helicopter Parents" theme or I would have gone berserk). Marge goes up to Skinner's office and yells at him about the quality of the school, which goes nowhere (That had a point). Back at home, we see more evidence about how Springfield Elementary sucks (Including some statistics data. It's not funny but pretentious and, considering what I learned about standard deviations, it makes this joke even stupider to me). Milhouse then exposits about his cousin who goes to a school in "Waverly Hills" and everyone in the family starts brownnosing their school system (Quick question, feel free not to answer. Why is Milhouse there? Where is this cousin he speaks of? How many plot solutions can you put on the table without an explanation?).

Hey there Milhouse, so nice of you to come over uninvited

Marge decides that they should get a small apartment in WH to establish residency so that they can send Bart and Lisa there. Where do I begin?
1: Residency must be established for a year before you can transfer to your new "Home School"
2. Are there truly no magnet or private schools in the area? I only once went to my home school and that was because I didn't get into a magnet school because of the lottery.
3. Residency is established by utility bills, not by "You're living there"
Okay to be fair, there probably are no magnet schools and the home school is probably the only choice for Springfield. However, the family could have used a huge loophole in that you can transfer to another school if it has a program that one of your kids need (Just give Bart a fake speech problem and, voila, you've got a legit excuse now, it worked for me). Anyways back to the review, after Bart objects to losing his friends, Homer goes to find the worst place in WH to establish residency (For the sake of argument (And so I don't bitch about this throughout the review) I'll just accept that there is no designated time frame here for establishing residency here. Still a big plot hole, but let's let it slide for now).

I'm here to tell you how you can live rat-free for life

After a montage of WH (Goodie), Homer and Marge go to City Hall to enroll their kids and Wise-guy tells them that an inspector will come by to make sure they live there (Yeah, screw utility bills or phone bills! Make sure they live there and make sure they aren't out doing something like buying groceries when the inspector visits... I hate this episode). Homer decides that he will stay in the apartment and he exchanges some exposition with Marge about his stay. The next day, Marge drops off Bart and Lisa at their new school as we get to see all the stuff WH Elementary has to offer (Is it me or does this look like a private school? If so, they could have gotten in without establishing residency. I guess the writers decided to make this the school in the upper class area. But that does make me wonder, if there is a hellhole in WH, and this school seems to be all upper class but not a private school, where are all the kids from the hellhole area? Ah, my brain hurts from the stupidity of this plot hole). After we see the principal, Skinner comes in to try to get Lisa back to Springfield Elementary. Chalmers comes out and we get some pure undiluted unfunny couple dialogue (I guess Chalmers really DOES live at Springfield Elementary and is engaged with Skinner).

Look, just because I have no life outside of you Skinner, doesn't mean you need to be around me constantly

We cut back to Homer meeting his new neighbors who come off as pretentious douches (Wow, thanks for not making me give a fuck about these guys, now when are they going to die?! Oh wait this isn't a horror movie, damn it!)(If it were, we wouldn't be stuck watching this). We cut back to WHE as we see Lisa's having a hard time fitting in because she doesn't know who Alaska Nebraska is (Our "Subtle" Hannah Montana knock-off people, bet you couldn't spot it)(Eh, I prefer 'Yoda Minnesota') and she uses pretentious dialogue. I really don't understand why the writers are obsessed with making Lisa a popular girl on the show, it's out of character. I'm not saying she can't have friends but it seems like they are going for one extreme or the other: she either has many friends or no friends, there's no middle ground for her. We then see Lisa get a B+ on a paper. She's shocked and then responds by crying (Congratulations writers, you have somehow derailed your own derailment. This "Lisa" character is nowhere near as good as Lisa Simpson is. What is with the character derailment moments in this season? Did the writers just forget what they were writing?)(...when you consider the Spin-Off Showcase for Season 8, this suddenly loses its humor). You know what, I'm not calling her Lisa, she is just so far removed from Lisa as a character (Even for Modern Lisa), her new name is LINO (Lisa In Name Only. I'm going to figure something else out later). So LINO goes to talk to Bart about this. Bart decides to establish himself as a bad boy by having Wiggum come to WHE and "arresting" him in front of everyone.

You're under arrest for the impersonation of Bart Simpson

After Wiggum releases Bart (This will come in later so it's not entirely pointless. It's very stupid, but not entirely pointless) the next day, we see that Bart is the most popular boy in school (Because getting arrested for a crime that nobody knows what it was instantly makes you cool, for all they know Bart could have been arrested for trespassing on school property, or indecent exposure, or even jaywalking. Just saying). However the writers thought of that and the students decide to make things up for what he could have done (COULD HAVE are the key words). Bart then decides to make LINO popular by spreading the lie that LINO knows Hannah Montana (Because I refuse to acknowledge this "parody") and she was lying earlier to protect Hannah. We then see all these kids texting each other this secret, causing the phone company's computer to explode (I'm out of booze, oh well off to the liquor store down the street)(Hurry back, I'm not finishing this review for you. It STILL hurts from last time). We then see that LINO is popular and Bart gets in trouble with Wiggum because he didn't go to Ralph's birthday party. After a long pointless chase scene Bart gets captured and we end the act with an unfunny joke (What was the point of all that? Why not have Bart go to the party and be rid of this scene that could have gone to further plot development? Oh wait, nevermind look at who I'm talking about, they probably would have inserted another montage or something.). We then come back to Marge at the apartment with Homer as they go to a party together down the hall with douchebag 1 and 2 (Basically a college party with some pretentious dialogue like Homer and Marge just met. Can I go there? It seems FAR more interesting than this episode).

When you can't think of any jokes, just steal what douchebags do online.

I'm sorry, but dialogue like this really gets under my skin because even though they're married, it's just plain stupid; the writers are trying to tell us that we should be finding this pretentious dialogue funny and charming when in reality it's not. The next day at school, LINO finds out that "knowing" Hannah Montana makes her happy and she doesn't even need to try hard for good grades because the teacher is trying to bribe her for a signed T-shirt (For the love of- People, this is the same girl who would admit she cheated on a test to prevent her school from getting funding and now she's okay with lying to get grades?! Do I need more poof that this writing sucks?!) Later, we see Homer give Marge a key to his apartment that's in a ring-box in a pie, just like a wedding proposal. Moving on, we see LINO talking to Caitlin as she tells LINO to get her backstage passes to the next Hannah Montana concert (Does it ever occur to people that even if she knew the person, it'd be impossible? You can't just print backstage passes whenever you like). We then cut back to Homer and Marge as we see that Marge redecorated the apartment (This "Dating" dialogue is still pissing me off). Back with LINO, she sneaks into Hannah's dressing room and begs her for some backstage passes, to which Hannah says no and has security kick her out (But not without LINO continuing her pretentious dialogue. I'm off to drink that booze I just got).

Look, can we never speak of this role again? It's a real low point for me

We go back to the apartment where Homer and Marge start bickering until the inspector FINALLY gets there to get Homer and Marge to stop bickering and make the room look kid-like (Hooray! That means the episode's almost over). LINO then tells her "friends" that she couldn't get the passes and they chase after her for lying to them. LINO hides but is caught because she's wearing "Last year's shoes" (Whut)(If you'll excuse me I'm going to finish this bottle and then rest for 8 hours)((Un)Fortunately, folks, I held him to this. On with the review!). The inspector clears them because it's clearly the home of elementary school children (I guess my house when I was 10 would fail then)(It would've?). Bart and LINO tell Homer and Marge they need to go back home (Making the entire "Inspector" plotline *Entirely pointless* way to undermind your own writing there). They're reluctant at first, but decide to go after deciding to turn the treehouse into their new loveshack (.....poor Bart).

Final Judgment: This episode is atrocious. The satire is awful, the writing is shitty and disjointed, the plot is idiotic and pointless, and the character derailment is cringe-worthy.This personally ranks as one of the worst episodes of the entire series, and at least bottom 10 of the season. There's a reason this show didn't have to resort to many TV series satire-heavy episodes like this in the past: they were too talented to HAVE to. They could easily satirize anything and not have to rely on the audience saying "I know that show only because it's on right now"

Final grade: 1.2/10 Even the new 90210 was better than this episode.