Episode 17 - The Good, the Sad and the Drugly
30 July 2009
Synopsis: Bart and Milhouse pull a huge prank at school and Milhouse gets suspended as a result. Bart promises to visit him at home everyday but soon forgets when he falls for fifth grader Jenny. He tries to be good to impress her and when Milhouse returns he is hurt and reveals who the real Bart is. Meanwhile Lisa realises the potential for the world to go horribly wrong in the future. She is so depressed that she is prescribed happy pills and becomes dangerously disconnected from reality.
The Good: Although we have seen Bart and Milhouse torn apart over girls before (323, 1311) this is a well told story. While it doesn’t exactly give us a new twist on the story it does play out the conflict and resolve it in a satisfying way.
The opening prank where Milhouse and Bart have unscrewed everything at school leads to some nice visual jokes (see Best Joke). Then Milhouse is punished and sent “to the big house...where he lives” on suspension. Bart then falls for Jenny and asks her out in the playground. He is egged on by Nelson who amusingly leans out of some nearby bushes insisting Bart punch her arm to “seal the deal.” He continues to behave more pleasantly the more she likes him and tries to avoid Milhouse who threatens to reveal the truth. Once he does and she dumps him it is Lisa who tells Bart not to wallow in despair.
Her sage advice comes from her own experience of despair at the fate of the world. While researching what Springfield might be like in fifty years she becomes overwhelmed with depression about the earth’s prospects in the face of global warming and energy shortages and so on. So the therapist prescribes “Ignorital” and soon she sees everything as one wall of happy faces. Once Marge realises the folly of this, Lisa is in a position to offer Bart some helpful advice.
That links the two stories together nicely and Bart does the morally right thing and apologises to Milhouse for breaking his word. Nelson pops back up to once more suggest Bart should punch him which was a nice running joke. So Bart and Milhouse finish the episode as they started, pulling a prank at school together. Very nice.
Homer is in good form, oblivious to his children’s plight as you would expect. He leaves Bart with Grandpa while taking a pantsless nap in his car. Then he has a great line once he is told what disorder Lisa is suffering from. Instead of the traditional parental reaction that knowing what your child has makes it easier to fight – Homer cries “It’s even worse when you know it has a name.” Then when Bart asks if Marge could tell Jenny that he’s a good boy who does the washing up, Homer laughs and says “Yeah busboys get all the chicks! Ha Ha.”
Lenny’s Grandma’s grave actually says “Lenny’s Grandma.” I also enjoyed Flanders not being able to actually make Devil’s food cake.
The Bad: Lisa’s story is lacking a lot to be fair. First off she already knows all about the problems in the world. She doesn’t really come to a conclusion about what she could do to prevent it. Nor does she take a stance on the dangers of prescription drugs. It could have been developed a lot better. Snake actually shooting Chief Wiggum outside the window was a bit much, especially when no one paid any attention to it.
Best Joke: Having unscrewed everything and caused chaos Milhouse is caught by Skinner and Superintendent Chalmers. We cut with serious music to the Principals Office. We can’t see in because the door is shut. Then suddenly BANG and the door also falls off its hinges revealing the embarrassed teachers inside.
The Bottom Line: A classic Simpsons story, told adequately with one or two nice jokes.
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