[On an unrelated point, I liked the little acknowledgement of celebrating episode no. 636 at the start. It wasn’t drawn-out like I thought it was going to be (which would be bad), it was just a little nod to the achievement of the show.]
Anyway, I feel like I'm repeating myself when I say - yet again - This episode could have been great. However...
First off, there was a lot of room for a really good story. Whenever Grandpa starts his confession with "This is the worst thing I've ever done," I was seriously interested. Grandpa has done a lot of bad stuff over the years, abandoning his children, cheating on his wife, neglecting and hating Homer... not to mention the fact that he told Homer that his mother was dead for many years.
I got the feeling that whatever Grandpa says next could not possibly live up to the title of "The worst thing he ever did," considering all we've learned about his past throughout the series. But his confession to Homer, I think, really can live up to this title.
I like the way they didn't just gloss over the meaning of the recipes to Homer, they spent some time on the context and background to Homer's connection to his mother through the recipes, setting it up really well for how horrible Abe's acts were. Throwing away Homer's last memories of Mona was a really cruel move by Abe.
The conclusion of the story with Abe and Homer was done really well in places, I thought. The idea of Homer being reunited with the recipes and his mother's messages through the food itself, was really nice, and a great way to conclude the story. There's also a little forgiveness of Abe form Homer, too. Because he refuses to read out Mona's thoughts on him.
Unfortunatley, there are a disappointingly high number of problems I had with this episode. The main issue I had with
Forgive and Regret is that a lot of jokes were totally lost on me.
I’ll start with the commercial for the dogs home. I found it too drawn-out for it’s purpose of simply making the observation that everyone feels miserable when they see these types of ads. Not funny. Then there was the joke about the announcer at the derby switching to the British accent – predictable and not funny. Cletus talking about the movie
Cars to his kids – not that funny.
The episode kept going like this for a lot of the first half or so. It would just be easier to note some of the jokes I
did like. These would be the exchange between Homer and Abe at the derby (“Numb with pride” was a great line), the sequence with NCIS, and Abe thinking it’s the News; and Lisa demonstrating the effectiveness of the silent treatment to Homer. The lines did get better towards the end of the episode, but there were few jokes that could be considered memorable.
On a separate note, I actually liked the way that the entire family were unanimous in their belief that Abe did a horrible thing. To have someone like Marge or Lisa try to defend it, would have just made them contrary and annoying.
I think if they were looking for something different to how a family member reacted to Abe’s actions, having Bart seem to feel betrayed more than angry would be a good one. Abe always seemed closest to his grandson in comparison to any of the other family members (maybe because he’s trying to make up for being a terrible father to Homer, or that he wishes Homer was more like Bart), so if Bart’s reaction was more that he felt betrayed, it might have added something extra to the family’s anger towards Abe.
The idea of the family all looking to show contempt towards Abe was good, but somehow the scene in which Homer sings “If I could save hate in a bottle,” sorta kills the idea of the family’s collective hate. It might be because the song was dragged on for slightly too long, or because it was there in the first place.
Also, when Abe is in hospital at the beginning, the way they set it up makes it seem like Abe genuinely was going to die. So when he does recover easily, I can’t help but feel a little cheated in terms of the plot. I know that Abe had to be alive for the rest of the episode to work, but it would have worked better if they didn’t set it up with Hibbert’s lines etc. for Abe to die.
And again, during the scene over the edge of the cliff, there was a nice moment between Abe and Homer, with Abe appearing to sacrifice himself for the sake of his son. Again, I know Abe has to survive during this episode, but when he falls onto the bed, he seems to declare that he knew it was there the whole time, undermining the fact that he sacrificed himself. I believe this would have worked better if Abe
didn’t know the bed was there, landing on it with an exclamation of surprise that he’s alive.
Lastly, the ending of the episode. There was a really sweet ending with Homer finding his mother’s messages, and reconciling with Abe, and they should have rolled the credits right after Homer saying “Thanks for buying it.” But, they decide to throw in that little scene with Homer buying his car back.
I realise that they had to show that Homer gets his car back, for continuity purposes, and on it’s own, the clip is pretty funny. But to put right after that really nice scene with Abe and Homer at the end, is just a bad idea, and a lame ending. It’s almost as though they had two ideas for the ending, and they decided to put both in, instead of having to choose. The buying-the-car-back scene would have worked much better as a post-credits scene, because then we’d get the funny clip that asserts continuity, but not have the ending of the episode ruined.
Overall, this episode – again – had a lot of potential. There was a great plot featuring Abe, and this aspect of the episode was really memorable. But it suffers from terrible jokes for the first 2 acts or so, it feels a little cheap in places (Abe’s miraculous escapes from death weren’t done well at all), and the scene they chose to end it on very nearly kills the episode.
This episode could have competed for being best in the season, but doesn’t quite hit the mark for that title.
Mostly for the great story they have in the episode, I’ll give it a 7/10. Good overall, but could have been better.