Episode 10 - Bart Gets Hit By a Car
11 June 2010
Synopsis: Bart gets hit by Mr Burns' car bumping his head and breaking a toe. Burns treats Homer so poorly that Homer takes up the offer of shyster lawyer Lionel Hutz to take the case to court. Both sides lie outrageously and the jury sympathise far more with Bart. Burns makes Homer a generous offer but Marge gives away the truth of what is going on.
The Good: After so many episodes centred around Burns and Homer interacting there was more than a little irony in the greeting "At last we meet." The writers wisely script Homer to be taken aback by this acknowledging the gag that Burns will never seem to recognise him.
The story of Homer's greed running out of control was understandable. Lionel Hutz made all the moves you would expect to exaggerate Bart's injuries and Dr Riviera was a fun cameo character. Mr Burns is always good value for a few smiles. I liked his bemusement at the juries disgust at his lies. Similarly when he was asked to imagine the headlines if he fired Homer, he was amusingly unable to see how it could be reported negatively.
The Bad: In general though the story was a little too predictable. Watching the fabricated testimony come to life wasn't that fun and the complete absence of real injuries to Bart made the court case seem unlikely. It also seemed odd that Bart wasn't asked to take an oath even though Marge later was.
Mr Burns was written overly stingily if such a thing was possible. Yes he should be greedy, see no reason to be held to account and resent the whole business. But he shouldn't be threatening judges and getting away with it or yelling "I should be able to run over as many kids as I want!" That just paints him as ridiculous.
The ending of the story switched oddly to Homer not loving Marge anymore because she cost him the money. It felt out of place for where the story was focussed. Nothing about her honesty won him back either which wrapped the story up in a further disconnected way.
Best Joke: Lionel Hutz' career as a lawyer is clearly fabricated and he has numerous (presumably fake) degrees framed on his walls. Homer is very impressed though and Hutz agrees "Yes Harvard, Yale, MIT, Oxford, the Sorbonne...the Louvre."
The Bottom Line: There was an easy story here about how the greed of Homer and stinginess of Mr Burns cancelled one another out but it didn't quite come through.
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