Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
The Incredible Lightness of Being a Baby
I remember the beginnings of the pandemic era. There's been word going around for a bit and it happened on the eve of a weeklong trip for me and my friends in March of 2020. As it was happening, we decided since we actually weren't going to leave our family cottage for any reason, we'd be fine. Near the end, my mother warned me that the whole world seemed different now and I felt like while I was going to take the pandemic seriously that this still seemed like an overreaction. Indeed it was not. Soon I'd be stuck inside except when I was bubbling with my sister to work as her nanny. Many quarantining people would be stuck inside. And a lot were watching TV. And if this was the episode you tuned into, the world wouldn't seem less grim.
In this episode, Maggie starts a friendship with another baby, Hudson, and Marge encourages it. But soon she has a very hard time tolerating Hudson's snobby and judgmental mother Courtney. Eventually, Marge is so upset, she refuses to take Maggie to any playdates with Hudson. Eventually Marge relents and feels that she and Courtney can be civil for the sake of their kids. Meanwhile, Homer is recruited by Burns to trick Cletus out of the helium on his property but Homer, feeling guilty, ends up helping Cletus get a fair deal.
Yeah, not a lot going on in that episode description, huh? This episode is a complete nothing. A waste of time. Usually, when I'm mad at a Simpsons episode for sucking it's because it has a really shitty or deranged take. Usually when it's just poor TV, I'm like "whatever, it's bad but I can't be mad because this isn't calling Elon Musk the greatest living inventor." But this one just plain old sucks. Both main plots are laughless and joyless, I really don't care and I feel like this is the most checked out I've been in a long while with this series.
I don't think it helps that it's a sequel to a theatrical short that I never actually watched. And also, it's a Maggie episode. Maggie and Marge, I guess but neither are much fun, really. Marge has dealt with shitty mom friends before so this is old news and by the metric, I think Courtney is less bad than... pretty much every mom in Springfield. A lot of them really tend to suck, now that I think about it. And she does kind of suck in a rich white person way but it's also a boring, easy way.
The episode spends a lot of time with Homer and Cletus learning to be friends but really, all of these stories I've just completely detached from. There's just very little character and Homer doing an extended parody of "Best Friends" by Queen because... there clearly wasn't enough episode here. It's so nothing, I'm having a hard time saying anything about it except spending time with it was hard. I was checking my phone, looking at the clock, just trying to get away from it. And it wasn't AGGRESSIVELY awful, just... persistently? I dunno how to explain it. It didn't hurt me but it had such little life, it's a wonder people bothered to let it exist.
I remember the beginnings of the pandemic era. There's been word going around for a bit and it happened on the eve of a weeklong trip for me and my friends in March of 2020. As it was happening, we decided since we actually weren't going to leave our family cottage for any reason, we'd be fine. Near the end, my mother warned me that the whole world seemed different now and I felt like while I was going to take the pandemic seriously that this still seemed like an overreaction. Indeed it was not. Soon I'd be stuck inside except when I was bubbling with my sister to work as her nanny. Many quarantining people would be stuck inside. And a lot were watching TV. And if this was the episode you tuned into, the world wouldn't seem less grim.
In this episode, Maggie starts a friendship with another baby, Hudson, and Marge encourages it. But soon she has a very hard time tolerating Hudson's snobby and judgmental mother Courtney. Eventually, Marge is so upset, she refuses to take Maggie to any playdates with Hudson. Eventually Marge relents and feels that she and Courtney can be civil for the sake of their kids. Meanwhile, Homer is recruited by Burns to trick Cletus out of the helium on his property but Homer, feeling guilty, ends up helping Cletus get a fair deal.
Yeah, not a lot going on in that episode description, huh? This episode is a complete nothing. A waste of time. Usually, when I'm mad at a Simpsons episode for sucking it's because it has a really shitty or deranged take. Usually when it's just poor TV, I'm like "whatever, it's bad but I can't be mad because this isn't calling Elon Musk the greatest living inventor." But this one just plain old sucks. Both main plots are laughless and joyless, I really don't care and I feel like this is the most checked out I've been in a long while with this series.
I don't think it helps that it's a sequel to a theatrical short that I never actually watched. And also, it's a Maggie episode. Maggie and Marge, I guess but neither are much fun, really. Marge has dealt with shitty mom friends before so this is old news and by the metric, I think Courtney is less bad than... pretty much every mom in Springfield. A lot of them really tend to suck, now that I think about it. And she does kind of suck in a rich white person way but it's also a boring, easy way.
The episode spends a lot of time with Homer and Cletus learning to be friends but really, all of these stories I've just completely detached from. There's just very little character and Homer doing an extended parody of "Best Friends" by Queen because... there clearly wasn't enough episode here. It's so nothing, I'm having a hard time saying anything about it except spending time with it was hard. I was checking my phone, looking at the clock, just trying to get away from it. And it wasn't AGGRESSIVELY awful, just... persistently? I dunno how to explain it. It didn't hurt me but it had such little life, it's a wonder people bothered to let it exist.