The Simpsons Season 30 Episode 14 Review


This season of The Simpsons has been one of the most disappointing seasons of any show that I can remember. While I still enjoy the show and occasionally love the episodes, most of this season has been a terrible bore, and it's been one of my least favorite shows that I continue to watch. There have been strong episodes, but not on the level of the last few seasons. Last week's episode was another snooze, but this week's episode brings Krusty, one of my favorite characters, into the starring role. The last time the show did this, it resulted in one of the strongest episodes of the season, so hopefully that happens again this week.

The school bus is stuck in traffic, and Bart is stuck without a phone. However, he gets ahold of Lisa's phone and listens to Krusty on a podcast. Krusty is talking about his early career in the 1980s, after starring in Good Cop Dog Cop, a huge hit film. The studio wanted a sequel to the film, but Krusty would rather star in a sci-fi book adaptation, The Sands of Space, that the studio isn't fond of. They ultimately agree to make a cheap version, hoping it will bomb so they can lure Krusty for Good Cop Dog Cop sequels. Homer and Marge (and most of Springfield) are production assistants on this film, which will be filmed in Mexico. The filming begins, and it's a disaster from the start. Krusty gets in an argument with the director, and he fires him. Krusty takes up the role of director, though he doesn't know anything about making films and he admits as much.

The film is falling apart rapidly, but Marge tries to cheer Krusty up. Krusty asks her to be his assistant, and she really helps him. Thanks to Marge, the movie might not even be a disaster! Homer's upset about how much time Marge has spent with Krusty, since they don't get any time together. She promises him some time together, and even ignores Krusty when he beeps for her. The next day, Krusty is very upset that she ignored him, because he had to review footage by himself. Krusty tells her that, despite wanting her to himself, he's okay with Homer and Marge being together. However, he is actually planning to get rid of Homer by driving him so crazy that he'll have to quit.

Homer gets all of the dangerous jobs on set, and Homer starts suspecting that Krusty wants him gone. Marge assures him that Krusty loves them together. Homer decides to go out on his next assignment, to a remote location to capture a lizard, and he ends up falling into a ravine However, talking cactuses in the form of Lisa and Bart, his future children, convince him to get up. He then immediately gets kidnapped. Back on set, Lenny and Carl tell them about the ransom note for Homer that they found. Krusty refuses to pay the ransom, but the crew tries to save Homer themselves using film props. Marge diffuses the situation by offering the rights to the film to Homer's captors. Krusty rushes in to take them back, but Marge is able to convince Krusty to let the captors take the film. In present day, Krusty explains that this ended his film career. When they get home, Bart and Lisa ask Homer and Marge about their own experiences on the film.

Wrap-Up:

This Krusty-centric episode wasn't on the level of the one earlier this season, but it was still an enjoyable episode that was better than the wide majority of this season's episodes. It had some solid jokes, a somewhat-original plot (at least, more original than the last two episodes), and most of it made sense (the cactus scene was a little weird, but was also easily the funniest part of the episode, so I can't take points off for that). It was nice to see a bit of Krusty's past, even if the podcast format was a bit strange at first. That format did lead to some funny moments between Krusty and guest star Marc Maron, though. Unlike many episodes from this season, I was interested through the whole episode and wanted to see how it ended, while I was so bored by other episodes that I just didn’t care what happened. This episode was far from perfect though. Many of the jokes worked very well, but a lot didn’t. There were long periods of time that I wasn’t laughing at all. So while the episode itself was interesting, the content of it wasn’t really that funny. But it was hilarious compared to what we’ve gotten from the show for much of the season. The conclusion to the episode also felt very abrupt. It would have been better if they spent less time on the exposition and more time on the resolution. Marge storming in and immediately stopping the fighting after about ten seconds of actual fighting between the captors and crew just felt off and hurt an otherwise-decent episode. So all in all, while an improvement over some recent episodes, it was a far cry from a classic and it just ends up somewhere in the middle.
Score: 7.5/10
Grade: B-

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