The lesson is never try said:
The worst bit however, is homer leaving grandpa TWICE, then getting run over, and having his kidney removed without him knowing.
I've been saying this a bit recently, but I don't understand how that is a big problem within the episode.
Do you have a fear of something that is overwhelming? Take a fear of heights for instance (I've used this one before), if your dad was in the CN Tower, dying, and you had to climb up the stairs to get to him, would you be able to do it? You may say yes, but the truth is, if you had an overwhelming fear of something, much like Homer did you may not be able to do it.
Homer did try to do it, if I'm not mistaken he attempted to go through with it twice but he got scared and ran off. That's not insensitivity on his part, it's merely him reacting to his fear of being operated on, or perhaps being anethetised.
The bigger problem with this episode is the fact that when he was aboard the ship of lost souls, he recounted his series of events with absolutely no remorse. That's why the people threw him off the ship. Surely anyone, including Homer, in this situation would show remorse and regret what they did. However in the writing for this episode, he doesn't and that's where one of the problems lies.
The second major problem is at the beggining when he doesn't let Grampa go to the bathroom despite the ease at which he could have pulled over and let him go. I believe (it's been a while since I've seen this episode) he also teases him with the idea of going to the toilet.
There has been instances where Homer acts even more jerkassish then in this episode though. What about in
Old Money when he doesn't beleive that grampa has a girlfriend, in fact, he ridicules him. Surely that's worse then what Homer does in this episode. There was no psychological reason for Homer to do what he did in Old Money, he was just a plain jerk. Now tell me, where is all the crap being poured onto that episode? Where is it?