19.1 He Loves to Fly and He’ D’ohs
After Homer saves Burns’ life, he rewards him with a trip on his private jet to Chicago. Homer falls in love with private jet travel and tries to get a new job with a travel account.
Marge hires a life coach, Colby (Steven Colbert) to help Homer achieve his dreams, but, when this backfires, Homer can’t bring himself to admit to Marge he’s unemployed again.
I wish Colbert’s cameo were funny. He found a funny schtick with The Colbert Report and never tried to expand into anything else.
The Simpsons Movie was a rousing success. I wish the follow up had been good, but I suspect the crunch of making a movie and a show at the same time was too much to ask. This is just not funny. Although I did enjoy Lionel Richie’s cameo.
19.2 The Homer of Seville
At the hospital following an incident when he was a pallbearer at a stranger’s funeral, Homer discovers he’s a great opera singer as long as he sings while lying on his back.
He becomes a sensation, but is forced to retire when the pressure of fame and overzealous fan / stalker Julia (Maya Rudolph) become too much to bear.
I enjoyed the Placido Domingo cameo (P. Dingo!) and Maya Rudolph was game, but it’s a middling episode. Not horrible, but not enough.
19.3 Midnight Towboy
Marge tries to teach Maggie independence, only to get depressed when she doesn’t need her as much. Meanwhile, Homer stumbles into a job as a tow truck operator, and is briefly kidnapped when he’s falsely believed to have encroached on rival turf.
This was another subpar episode in a subpar season. I didn’t care for it and the Guidotown jokes weren’t as offensive as they were lazy.
19.4 I Don’t Wanna Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
After witnessing a bank robbery, Marge befriends the culprit (Steve Buscemi) and promises to visit him in prison. When she doesn’t, he escapes and finds her.
Marge centric stories are tough and this feels like familiar material.
I love Buscemi and he elevates this episode, but, like most of the rest of this season, it’s not good. One bright spot: Julia Louis-Dreyfus briefly returns as one of my favorite recurring guest characters, Gloria (Snake’s girlfriend).
19.5 Treehouse of Horror XVIII
Finally a half decent episode, although it’s one of the weaker Treehouse episodes.
Bart and Kodos become a stand in for Elliot and E.T., Homer and Marge take a turn as Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and Ned operates a heck house, hamfistedly teaching morality to Springfield’s children.
I enjoyed the hell portion and seeing the seven deadly sins. Ned as the devil is always reliable for a chuckle, Homer getting punished for his sins is dependably fun, and any episode which references Dante is going to check a few boxes for me.
19.6 Little Orphan Millie
Kirk and Luann reunite, exhilarating Milhouse, but during a celebratory cruise they fall overboard and are presumed dead (the van Houtens have the best luck). Milhouse’s morbid response upsets Bart who finally realizes how much he loves his friend. Bizarrely, Milhouse’s Danish cousin (who bizarrely resembles Indiana Jones) inadvertently finds Luann and Kirk stranded on a deserted island.
In the B story, Homer’s failure to remember the color of Marge’s eyes causes a mini rift between them.
I’m happy Luann and Kirk back together. Milhouse deserves to have an intact family (even if it’s a family of weirdos), and the Dutch vs. Danish van Houten feud was unexpectedly funny.
However, the episode is more remarkable as a plot point in the evolving van Houten relationship than funny. It’s not bad by season 19 standards, but not particularly memorable.
19.7 Husbands and Knives
When a new comic book store temporarily puts Comic Book Guy’s Android’s Dungeon out of business, Marge briefly turns into an all-women’s gym. Her sudden success causes Homer to spiral. Desperate to keep Marge happy, Homer gets cosmetic surgery he doesn’t need and Marge doesn’t like.
I really enjoyed the cameos. Art Spiegleman, Alan Moore, and Daniel Clowes are huge names in the alternative comic book world and it made the episode feel like a love letter to nerds. Jack Black as the competing comic book aficionado was perfection. It’s one of the better episodes to feature a hair-brained Marge scheme and for once, Homer’s fragile attitude was earned and reasonable.
I really enjoyed this episode.
19.8 Funeral for a Fiend
Lisa foils Sideshow Bob’s latest plan to eliminate the Simpsons by distracting him with a critique of his Shakespearean knowledge. Bob is arrested, but manages to paint himself as the victim and, when he dies from a heart attack, the town ostracizes Bart, blaming him for the problems caused by Bob’s malfeasance. This is, of course, another elaborate plot by Bob (joined by the rest of the Terwilliger clan) to lure Bart to his death. Luckily, Lisa uncovers everything in time and foils this attempt as well.
I love Sideshow Bob episodes and this is a rare direct continuation of the previous one (including Bob’s wife and son). Kelsey Grammer’s performance as Bob is one of the most legendary on the show, and casting his Frasier family (David Hyde Pierce and John Mahoney) as Bob’s equivalent is genius.
I love meta touches like this. In my opinion, this is the best this season has to offer.
19.9 Eternal Moonshine of the Spotless Mind
Homer wakes up in the snow and can’t remember what happened the night before. As he tries to piece everything together, the show parodies many of the “lost memory” movies from the past twenty years, including Memento, The Game, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
While the ultimate reason is benign (Marge was throwing Homer a surprise party and wanted to make sure he didn’t remember it was happening), the journey to Homer’s discovery is perfection and hits many of my favorite films.
It’s a puzzle box mystery which unravels in the most satisfying Simpsons way possible. Back to back great episodes in this season.
19.10 E Pluribus Wiggum
Homer causes a disaster on Fast Food Boulevard and, in order to raise money to pay for repairs, the town moves up its primary, becoming the first in the nation. During the ensuing media circus, the city inexplicably picks second grader Ralph Wiggum as their preferred candidate.
I don’t love when The Simpsons gets political, but this feels like the perfect marriage of political satire with the shows’ ethos.
As long as it sticks to pointing out the absurdity of the political options and doesn’t try to score points, it works.
Ralph is one of the most reliable characters on the show and I loved a chance to highlight him. It’s not one of the best of the series, but definitely a season highlight.
19.11 That ’90s Show
While cleaning out the attic, the Simpson children find Marge’s degree and realize she went to college, forcing Marge and Homer to admit their previous recollection of Bart’s conception was inaccurate. When Marge was in school, she feel for one of her professor and an angry Homer formed a grunge band to deal with his angst.
Homer’s band’s rise to fame is an obvious parody of Nirvana and the show even got Kurt Loder (who famously announced Kurt Cobain’s death) to announce the band had broken up.
There’s an all-time great gag about Homer not paying the heating bill because he was counting on global warming.
I was a child of the 90s and it was fun to see it parodied so lovingly. The grunge and Seinfeld stuff hit hard and I loved the Weird Al cameo.
I did, however, have an issue with the show’s decision to throw away the continuity of Marge and Homer’s love story. It’s enough to seriously dampen my enthusiasm for the episode, although the jokes land.
19.12 Love, Springfieldian Style
Another Treehouse knock off. This time, the show uses Valentine’s Day as an excuse for a trio of romantic parodies.
Bonnie and Clyde, Lady and the Tramp, and Sid & Nancy.
I like the idea of The Simpsons taking on punk rock, and some of these jokes work, but the episode feels perfunctory, like Simpsons by numbers with no urgency. It’s only worth it for serious fans of the show.
19.13 The Debarted
New kid Donny (Topher Grace) supplants Bart as Springfield Elementary’s resident bad boy, but is actually a spy working with Skinner to take Bart down.
After a wreck, Homer gets a loaner car and loves it until his old car is sold and he realizes it was his true love.
I like The Departed a lot, and this parody is lovingly done and fairly fresh by Simpsons standards (less than two years after the film premiered).
Topher Grace did a fine job and it was fun to get a Terry Gross cameo. I didn’t really care for Homer’s B story, but they needed some padding.
This is not a great episode, but it’s middle of the road in this subpar season.
19.14 Dial ‘N for Nerder
Convinced Homer is cheating on his diet, Marge hires a reality TV crew to follow him around.
Meanwhile, Bart and Lisa think they accidentally killed Martin. Nelson, not buying their story, investigates, exposing their involvement.
I enjoy Martin in small doses, but in larger chunks his character is more grating than enjoyable.
Fat Homer has been done and done and done. He’s not going to change and get healthier, and even if he does it’s not going to be a lasting change.
This was a silly reason for Homer and Marge to argue.
Lisa going to the dark side was an enjoyable change of pace, and I enjoyed Nelson as a Columbo stand in (driven home by the closing homage to investigative TV shows of yesteryear).
Not bad, but not super memorable.
19.15 Smoke on the Daughter
Fulfilling a lifelong dream, Marge enrolls in ballerina classes, but the director of the studio, Chazz Busby, discovers Lisa is the Simpson with talent. As Marge pressures Lisa into living out her dream, Lisa discovers second smoke causes her to excel and develops a second hand smoking addiction.
Meanwhile, Homer introduces Bart to the secret room of the house where he makes beef jerky, only to have his supply stolen by a family of raccoons.
The two stories intersect in a ridiculous way, Homer recruits the raccoons to steal the children’s cigarettes to prevent Lisa from continuing her addiction.
I like the Busby character (I’m a sucker for Bob Fosse). I enjoy Simpsons Harry Potter parody Angelica Buttons, but the beef jerky storyline was silly, and Marge forcing her vicarious dreams onto Lisa feels like familiar material.
I laughed out loud at the ending tag with Homer training Bart to be a Mexican wrestler and would have rather seen the episode focus on that.
19.16 Papa Don’t Leech
Lurleen Lumpkin (Beverly D’Angelo) returns, down on her luck and still obviously infatuated with Homer. Despite their contentious history, the Simpsons help her get back on her feet.
Marge thinks a reunion with her absent father would help, but this turns disastrous.
Nothing works, until “Colonel Homer” returns and orders her to get in gear.
I don’t like this credible threat to the Simpsons marriage, although D’Angelo is good. Lurleen’s first appearance was perfection, and I don’t blame them for trying again, but it’s a one off character.
While the Dixie Chicks were a good, organic cameo, it’s not enough to justify a whole episode.
19.17 Apocalypse Cow
When Bart joins 4H, he’s given a cow to look after and befriend a farmer girl, Mary. When he learns his now beloved cow is headed to a slaughterhouse, he hides it at Mary’s house. Unbeknownst to Bart, Mary is a Spuckler kid and Cletus views the cow as a promise of marriage.
Through a contrived switch with Homer in a cow costume, the family manages to prevent the marriage and save the cow, sending it to a life of luxury in India.
I usually like Spuckler episodes, and I like Zoey Deschanel’s Mary Wrestlemania Spuckler, but the arranged marriage storyline rubs me the wrong way.
There’s a funny gag of regular cast member Tress MacNeille having an in-universe CD of animal noises, but the episode is just dumb.
19.18 Any Given Sundance
After Lisa’s short film impresses aspiring filmmakers Chalmers and Skinner, they encourage her to produce a feature about her family. The resulting film, Capturing the Simpsons, is accepted into Sundance and the family travels to Utah to watch the premiere.
While the film is well received, the Simpsons are disappointed to learn it portrays them harshly and feel Lisa misled and manipulated them.
As Lisa struggles to choose between artistic integrity and her family, Jim Jarmusch advises her to watch Nelson’s short film about his home life and she realizes other families are as bad, if not worse, than hers.
Skinner and Chalmers as amateur filmmakers and the Jim Jarmusch / John C. Reilly cameos were wonderful, but “Lisa learns to appreciate her family” is an over explored dynamic.
I liked it, but it’s not in the pantheon of great episodes.
19.19 Mona Leaves-a
Mona Simpson (Glenn Close) returns, supposedly for good, but dies before fully reconciling with Homer. Her will leads to a secret underground bunker where the Simpsons discover Mr. Burns is planning to send the city’s nuclear waste into the Amazon Rainforest. The family thwarts his plan, but Homer complains his mom sent them on another “stupid hippie protest.”
I like Mona a lot and Close is excellent, but I don’t like when The Simpsons kills off characters. It destroys the charm of a show set in the nebulous present.
I wish Mona were still around and available to pop in unexpectedly.
My overwhelming distaste for her death makes it difficult for me to connect to this episode.
19.20 All About Lisa
After a brief sting as a Kruskateer, Lisa replaces Krusty as the host of his eponymous show. She wins an award, but is convinced by Sideshow Mel’s bitter experience to abandon show business.
Meanwhile, Bart and Homer stumble into a coin collecting hobby and fight with Mr. Burns over a rare “Kissing Lincolns” penny.
The similarities to the season 12 episode “Bart Gets Famous” rankled many reviewers and I understand why.
It’s retread material, which can be forgiven if the jokes are funny, but there’s not enough here to cover for it.
| 1 | Funeral for a Fiend |
| 2 | Eternal Moonshine of the Spotless Mind |
| 3 | E Pluribus Wiggum |
| 4 | Husbands and Knives |
| 5 | Treehouse of Horror XVIII |
| 6 | I Don’t Wanna Know Why the Caged Bird Sings |
| 7 | That 90s Show |
| 8 | Dial ‘N’ for Nerder |
| 9 | Any Given Sundance |
| 10 | The Debarted |
| 11 | Little Orphan Millie |
| 12 | Homer of Seville |
| 13 | All About Lisa |
| 14 | Midnight Towboy |
| 15 | Mona Leaves-a |
| 16 | Papa Don’t Leech |
| 17 | Smoke on the Daughter |
| 18 | Love, Springfeldian Style |
| 19 | He Loves to Fly and He D’oh’s |
| 20 | Apocalypse Cow |