(Disclaimer: This post may or may not make a lot of sense to you.)
Talking about characterization; I liked this episode mainly because how the characters aren’t their portrayed with as much of their regular characterization, but was instead gradually influenced by the school’s standardized test. Now, regarding the “off-characterization” in this episode:
Lisa’s characterization was clearly different, but was a fair change to fit the episode because she sees education and music as a significant part of life (so her decisions would be influenced by the school more)—her attitude towards education and her dream were destroyed when she received her result, a homemaker-- a job that Lisa regards a less realistic and ideal career for all her hard work put into school and practicing her saxophone. She joins the “bad” side later, only after realizing that the music teacher doesn’t think that she can be a famous jazz musician. Perfectly normal behavior because adults play a big role in supporting the younger characters; without encouragement, there's bound to be loss of motivation.
Bart’s characterization is again, motivated visually by Eddy and Lou’s coincidental “police action”. Like a ten year-old, he is easily influenced by the surrounding situation; in “Bart gets an ‘F’”, he actually attempted to study with concentration so he can pass 4th grade. This is also reasonable characterization; once again, he’s like a ten year old boy who recognizes police officers as a really “cool” career to follow. We can also see in earlier episodes, that he is quite popular among the fourth grade class, thus he feels a sense of superiority over the other kids— this non-superficially explains his content over being authority as a hall monitor. In the quotation from the episode, “I got my first taste of authority... (Rubs his hands) And I liked it!” kind of hints that Bart wanted a taste of authority even prior to the aptitude test. Was his characterization off? A little bit off, but they still share some hidden similarities.
Last of all, why did Bart take the blame for Lisa? On the surface, it seems as if Bart became the false scapegoat, while Lisa takes the benefits. But the episode itself has shown much more than that. Just get yourself prepared to be confused from what I am about to say. I observed the characters behavior in the episode in even more details:
When the ‘bad’ girls offer Lisa a smoke, Lisa hesitates before saying “I’ll smoke it in class.” This reaction perhaps hints that Lisa is still doubtful about her sudden turn in behavior. She later takes the entire teacher’s editions and hides it. When Bart finally discovers that Lisa was behind this, Lisa tries to reason that Bart used to appreciate all the delinquency but ends up crying due to guilt of her wrongdoings—importantly summarizing that Lisa has not really lost all her motivation nor former conscience.
Meanwhile, Bart is shown the confiscated item room, and catches the crossbow and the fake derriere to be the most amusing and desirable to him—this kind of directs emphasis that he still likes the mischievous pranks and dangers of being delinquent. Bart also shows content after being advocated from his position-- he seems to enjoy criticizing Skinner again. After all, that has been his solid interest all along.
Now we have two things that make of this significant scene; Bart still has his delinquent side but due to his authority and ties with Skinner, he does not display much of it. When Bart sees Lisa crying, he also sees that Lisa is like her old conscientious self-- he knew that if Skinner caught Lisa red-handed, she’d be taken away of her motivations. Once Bart found the tiny speck of Lisa’s former self, he steps in to take the blame also to revert himself to his old delinquent self (Which if you read between the lines, he had his mind slightly weighted towards delinquency throughout). In the end he finally says that Lisa had the “brains, the talent to go as far as [she] wants”.
Bart’s support had given Lisa the hopes to continue on and pursue her dream career; on the other hand, he is quite content at the fact of being his prank-filled self. The dynamics in the episode's ending was that Bart’s sacrifice was greatly done to motivate Lisa but as well as provide himself the joy of being a prankster once again.
I am perhaps over-thinking, and the writers probably did not create these details intentionally. The only thing that’s a little faulty here would be the fact that Lisa’s conscience did not tell her to speak of the truth—but again we are all scared to admit our wrongdoings. This is quite a natural behavior in my opinion as it adds to the realism of emotions.
Alright, enough about the characters! As for the general plot line and structures, it had a pretty smooth overall execution, and most definitely establishes emotional conflicts very well. The dialogues are quite well written, and the humor behind the episode is quite well done, for me, most notably:
• “Come on, Bart. In your pre-fascist days, you knew the giddy thrill of futile rebellion!” Bart answers, “Yeah, but even I had my limits…”
• “That’s right man, I got my first taste of authority, and I loved it!”
• “Children, I know this is highly irregular, but for the rest of the uh day, Martin will be teaching this class.” Martin responds, “I will, but I wouldn’t know where to begin!”, “Just do it brainiac!”
• “Seymour, I'll bet you a steak dinner those books are still here. All we have to do is search every locker”, “Oh Bart; I'm not sure random locker searches are permitted by the Supreme Court”, “Pfffffft. Supreme Court. What have they done for us lately?
• The particular scene involving Ms. Hoover quizzing Lisa on the homework pages.
• Lisa says “If you think it's so great, why don't YOU join the band?”
• The humor behind the characterization of the Simpson kids was outstanding.
Well played dialogues! This episode also proves to be a fairly good Bart/Skinner episode, primarily because of the dynamic shift of feelings towards one another. For one, Skinner finds Bart's accountability high and Bart is on the side of the law, but uses his powers abusively, similar to Skinner's. Bart and Lisa's sibling relations have also strengthened through the flexing traits, making this episode perfectly illustrates emotional realism on The Simpsons.
The ratings (at long last)--
I'd say the sentimentality and deeper characterizations have given this episode a high 4.5/5, one of season 3's best and perhaps more insightful episode.
