Rate & Review: "Forgive and Regret" (XABF09)

How would you rate this episode?


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Brad Lascelle

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Season 29, Episode 18
Original Airdate
: April 29, 2018
Writer: Bill Odenkirk
Director: Rob Oliver
Showrunner: Al Jean
Synopsis: Grampa makes a confession to Homer while on his deathbed. After his recovery, he comes to realize that this issue will not be easy to reconcile.

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R&R Poll Average Score: 3.94 / 5 (as of September 23, 2023 / 53 votes)
IMDb User Rating: 7.0 / 10
 
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++ Homer eating pickled eggs
+ No overt racism
++ A nice Grandpa rant
++ "Car-Rac- Obama"
6/10.
+ Gun shooting out gun
-- Pretty lame song
1/10 second act
++ Another good Grandpa rant
+ Some decent emotion near the end
-- But dumb ending
Closing Thoughts:
A very lame episode.
The story was very boring, the family drama was insanely mundane and wasn't really engaging to me at all, and There was some decent emotion at the end, but it was counterbalanced by a lame ending.
Jokes weren't really good too. The first act wasn't bad, but the second and third were near laugh-less.
Overall, one of, if not the worst of the year. 3/10.
 
Decent. The story was definitely the strong point to this episode; it actually interested me, and the conflict felt believable. There wasn’t much throughout the episode that I found funny, though, and I didn’t care for either of the songs. All episodes should be like this one in that they only have one plot, because it’s the only way for them to flesh the story out adequately. Seeing the lady from Kill the Alligator and Run again was unexpected, and while the ending was a bit convenient, it was still somewhat heartwarming. 4/5
 
I honestly didn't expect much for this episode but I was pleasantly surprised. I found this episode to be pretty decent. The story was definitely the strongest part of the episode. I liked how it was low-key and mostly focused on the family. The episode also felt mostly grounded in reality by modern Simpsons standards. I also found the ending to be admittedly a bit heartwarming despite being a plot convenience. The episode was able to also flesh out its story due to having only one plot which is good especially seeing that the show tends to struggle with juggling two plots these days. The humor could've been more abundant although there were a couple of decent jokes and gags such as the Obama demolition car and Grampa's ramblings. Overall, the decent story makes up for the episode being light on jokes. I give this a 3.5/5 or a B.
 
Well, there's the record. Quality over quantity and all that, but congrats to the show all the same. It isn't what it once was, but I have to admit it's still dear to me for what it used to be.

As for the episode itself...yeah, not bad at all. It always feels like dangerous territory when they delve into backstory because it's a prime opportunity to trample on better episodes, but it was handled fairly well here. Frankly, it's a lot better than having Mona's ashes be a part of some plot to foil a nuclear missile. The emotional beats of the episode were quite genuine, and the story was paced decently as well. The ending was contrived and felt even more so with their attempt to make a joke of it, but it was still nice. In the classic era, the show was able to earn heartfelt moments, and expertly juggle them with humour, and needless to say, an episode like this doesn't pull it off nearly as well. For the post-classic, and in particular the HD era, though? I'd say it was a respectable effort.

It was pretty light on laughs, which wasn't a huge problem for me as I liked the story well enough. Lisa's silent treatment stands out, and the names of the demolition derby drivers were good (Meth MacFarlane!). I didn't really care for the songs, and having the two of them was overkill, but they weren't awful. I really enjoyed Homer's "D'oh!" after squeezing the hospital's cotton balls. It's a little thing, but that's a situation where he'd often do his big obnoxious exaggerated moan that has sadly replaced "D'oh" over the years, so I'm glad it wasn't used there. Maybe they're afraid it'll sound corny, but it's iconic, and certainly not worse than the moan.

I ended up feeling pretty good about this one. It's not an all-time great, and probably not the best episode of the current season either, but I liked it, it left me with a good feeling. For that, I'll give it a 4/5.
 
As a Homer/Mona episode this was just an okay episode.

I feel like they cut most of the escape room segment, It feels like there was a lot more to do. you can't have an iron maiden there and not have homer get into it.
As a result I found that the transition to the next scene was a little abrupt.

Overall the story was interesting but I found it lacked a little originality or maybe some of that trademark simpsons wit.
 
Anyone else find it sad that Homer's takeaway from bonding with Mona was "food is love" given how he has such a weight problem in the present? This was an okay episode. Abe's bad parenting is something we've seen before, as he just gets mad at Homer and fobs him off to Mona first chance he gets. But to throw away all of Mona's things when she left, including the recipes, seemed vindictive and I could understand why Homer and the family were upset.

Unfortunately, there is not alot of humor in the episode, and the ending at the restaurant feels contrived. I actually think I would've liked the episode better if he ended on a sad note, with the recipes fallen out of the lunchbox and not recovered. But it was okay, I'd be willing to watch it again which isn't something I'd say about certain other episodes from this season such as Singin' In The Lane.
 
I found this one to be pretty good; not a very great episode yet not a bad one, but on the plus side. The plot of Grampa telling Homer about something really terrible he did to his son when latter was a kid (throwing away a box with pie recipes by Mona along with everything else that reminded him of her) and hopes for easy forgivement but it turning into a pretty nasty conflict between the two when Homer cannot forgive him was a good, straightforward plot (a little rushed at times but enjoyable). I liked how it was mainly about Homer and his father with relatively few other characters outside the family getting involved and the emotional stuff was pretty good.

The first act of Homer selling his car to a demolition derby driver and goes to see him in action at a local derby along with his family and Grampa, whom Homer soon has to get to a hospital was a decent start (if a bit long). Homer and Grampa refusing to get along (and the latter being an petty jerk) was pulled off well (I liked Moe trying to make them reconcile which reminded me of Moe's family conflict in 'King Leer', which might have influenced his good will here). I think the episode came into it's own when Homer revealed what Grampa did which made the rest of the family hate him too, I enjoyed him trying to set things right by retrieving the recipe box, which led to a nice climax where Homer tries to stop him and forgive & the twist of the recipes having ended up in the possession of a roadside restaurant hostess (who gives them back to Homer who reconciles with his dad) was nice, contrived as it might have been.

While the story was pretty well done and had some good emotion and drama it wasn't that funny and a few jokes here and there worked while the others were a little lame or fell flat, but those that did were pretty good (some that stood out were "We tried everything we could... and the last thing worked", the Ray Charles/Charles Ray joke, Bart slapping Lisa when she mentally leaves her body, Lisa demonstrating the silent treatment & Homer having used the end of Grampa's climbing rope as his rope) & the characterizations were pretty good too (the family was well characterized and their anger at Homer's father was effective; even though Grampa was unlikeable as said it definitely was the point and this is not the first case of him being a lousy father, but at least he showed to be remorseful). As for the animation I didn't notice any of that fluidity from several recent episodes which was a shame, but it was still good.

Overall, it was a fairly good episode; I liked that they skipped over the intro to start essentially right away, but the beginning was a bit overlong and the episode took time to get going, the story could have used more punch & the humor lacked, but the simplicity and grounded feel, the personal and family-centric style of the plot & the emotional content (which mostly came from the flashback sequence with Homer and his mother) as well as the humor that worked made it work. It could've been better but it was an good effort to do a more drama-heavy plot. I liked it.

3.5/5 rounded up to a weak 4/5
 
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To be honest, at first I wondered if they were actually gonna kill Abe off, but I don't think they would dare doing that, and I realized that quickly.
The moment when we saw the the family inside the diner, I knew it was gonna be revealed that the owner had stolen the recipes
That's... About all I had to say, really. Just an additional pointless backstory to Homer's childhood, and it's a little silly that some baking recipes would be the only thing Homer has to remember his mom by. But I still thought it was a decent episode, which is why I don't have a lot to say. I tend to review bad episodes better than good ones. Not sure if it's 4/5 worthy though, but maybe a bit over 3. I don't do any half points, though.
 
This is a pretty good episode. I really like how they used a single plot that did a great job portraying Homer and Abe's relationship, which actually had some emotional moments. Its not really a new concept where Homer and Abe get into a fight and are expecting some form of forgiveness, though its fitting to Abe's character where he hasn't been a good father when Homer was young.

The couch gag was short and sweet. Kinda tired of all the Gunsmoke references at this point but at least this one went over fast. Moe's bar had some funny moments with the pickled eggs and Moe's way of preserving them. Liked the gag with Homer starting a conversation with Marge by starting with her name, which worries her. The gag with the sad dogs lasted to long though. Bart is actually wearing his lucky red hat in the car, and I really liked the sound proof window gags. The derby was for most part pretty fun with jokes like Truckasaurus II, ''Car-Rac- Obama'' and a genuine moment of Homer not being so selfish and escorting his dad to a hospital. This puts him in a much better light than how he acted in Homer Simpson in: "Kidney Trouble". Abe had some sad dying moments, which almost lead me to think he really died when Hibbert brought up his condition. Guess I should've known better.

I like how Abe acts jerkish to Homer that he already forgive him despite staying alive. Moe actually tried to bring them together which was a good scene. The escape room scenes were also fun but it felt rather short, would've loved to see them do more in the actual escape room. Got a good laugh at Abe tricking Homer to thrust a sword into a power plug, and Homer not wanting to leave the car as it shows how much it sinked in. Lisa leaving her body felt out of place, the show has done gags like these but it took the character a lot more effort and left them seizuring on the floor like Nelson once did to ''hah-hah!'' Bart. The flashback had some genuine moments with Homer and his parents. I like that they kept the kid designs from Moe, Lenny and Karl the same as in The Blunder Years.

The last act has the whole family angry at Abe, and considering the way he acted I don't blame them. Homer finding himself bonding with his family because they share the hatred towards Abe left yet another genuine moment... but Homer sang to long. I liked how the family practices to react to Abe and Lisa giving Homer the silent treatment as she prepares it to use on Abe, probably one of this episodes funniest moments. I pretty much liked the rest of the act with Abe trying to get the box with recipes back, he's willing to give his life so that Homer can get his box back... only to reveal that he was never in any danger. Its actually really fun to see Abe tricking Homer so often in this episode. Good to see that Mona's recipes went in the right hands aswell, though the waitress had no real reason to believe that the recipes where really from Homer's mother and to just hand them all over so fast.

Its a well written episode with a straightforward plot and solid bonding between Homer and Abe. The humor was not that great though, despite having some really funny moments with my favorites being the escape room scenes and Lisa's silent treatment. The pacing was for most of the part fine but it felt like they could've gone trough the first act faster to get to the Homer/Abe stuff. I appreciate that they kept the intro short and left out any sub plots, it really helped keeping the flow for the story. There's not much that I didn't like, though I find a couple of scenes like the overlong sad dog commercial and Lisa leaving her body to be unnecesary. The characterisation has been solid and I don't even mind how much Abe jerked around tricking Homer. Maybe they could've done more with the flashbacks and just leave the whole scene with Homer's bet with the pickles out. Its pretty close to a 5/5 rating, but due to the lack of humor and rushing the episode in several parts (with the escape room being an example), I'll rate it a:

4/5
 
I forgot to mention the NCIS parody. I did find that pretty funny in its absurdity, culminating with the gun firing another gun in place of a bullet.

Anyone else find it sad that Homer's takeaway from bonding with Mona was "food is love" given how he has such a weight problem in the present? This was an okay episode. Abe's bad parenting is something we've seen before, as he just gets mad at Homer and fobs him off to Mona first chance he gets. But to throw away all of Mona's things when she left, including the recipes, seemed vindictive and I could understand why Homer and the family were upset.

"Food is love" was definitely a dark joke. Not the darkest the show has done, but still rather gloomy. I think Abe's vindictiveness is essential to the conflict, and while it's unreasonable, it's also understandable because he was feeling hurt and angry (and obviously had been drinking). That doesn't make it right, it's certainly the wrong way of handling his feelings, but it's definitely realistic and effective in angering Homer and the family.
 
I expected this episode to be a terrible episode where Homer yet again hates his father for no reason, but I was surprised and it was actually done very well. Good episode 4/5.
 
Homer's mom left 33 years ago? That would make it 1985. Scary when a character who was older than you is now around the same age.
 
What's this? Actual emotion that feels genuine and not hamfisted? Backstory that fits in with the show's classic universe? Well I'll be damned, I really liked this one. Jerkass Homer at the beginning had me worried but aside from that I can't see much wrong here. The escape room bit felt a bit like they were trying too hard to be relevant, and I didn't care for the NCIS parody, but those are pretty minor complaints. I got a pretty good chuckle out of the "excellent vision, excellent vision" Charles Ray joke. The pacing felt right, the first act wasn't as nonsensical and uninteresting as usual, the episode looked good in general... Pleasantly surprised with this one, I'll give it a generous 4/5.
 
The story had a lot of potential and if written in the Classic Era would have been great, but by God are they ever awful at putting episodes together nowadays.

The timing was poor, the dialog was contrived, nothing flowed normally.... it's just not The Simpsons we all fell in love with.
 
I found this episode to be enjoyable and somewhat entertaining. The plot really focused on some serious emotional material, and did a decent job executing the storyline. I thought it was a bit silly that such awful deeds committed by Abe towards his son were so easily forgiven though, despite the fact that in the end Homer got his cherished recipes back, which even in itself felt too easily resolved IMO. Considering this episode had no sociopath/loser Bart jokes and the plot was rather good, I gave this one a 4/5.
 
[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.

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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.
 
This was pretty decent and probably the first time since season 27 I’ve enjoyed two Jean episodes in a row as well as the best Grampa episode in years. 4/5
 
It's been a week and no-ones given this episode 1/5 in the poll. That's pretty rare, even in the classic era R&R's.
 
I was very worried about this one at the start - rehashed plot, contrived leaps in logic, horrendously tortuous, drawn-out jokes - but then I laughed at the car windows joke and relaxed a bit, and there were other good bits in there too (the Truckasaurus II memorial, "what's your rope tied to?" and the tag with the used car lot... although it would be remiss of me not to say how excruciatingly unfunny "Carrack Obama" was). The plot was pretty basic, but at least coherent. This isn't going to challenge anything from Seasons 1-8, but it isn't amongst the worst the show has produced either. C
 
Mona's episodes never fail. The first one was Mother Simpson. The only one that arrived in the classical era. It's my second favorite episode of all time. Quietly they could have given a gold closure to the character, but the magic continued and continued in the following years. It was My Mother the Carjacker's turn, and it exceeded expectations. Then, Mona Leaves-a took away the character, but left us to change a memorable and very sad first act. His death did not stop us from seeing her again in the iconic How I Wet Your Mother. And now, it was Forgive and Regret.

Forgive and Regret, the one that concerns us, gives us a fantastic story. As several have said, it is the high point of the episode. It brings us back to Mona, it shows us again Homer as a child, it gives rise to the participation of all the main characters, easily covers the 20 minutes (without the need for a presentation, an epilogue or a subplot) and demonstrates a solidity that It's hard to get to be episode 636 of the series. I congratulate the one who had the idea for this episode. If it was Odenkirk, at least he showed his talent again, after several failures.

Some complain because the episode is not very funny. But the focus here is not fun. It is of emotion. And they achieve this on a large scale, in scenes like those that Homer loses the event for his father, or in which he forgives him, or in which he remembers his mother. Making us laugh is secondary. But he also gets it. Some examples may be when Lisa takes emotion away from the event, when Hibbert leaves us a funny phrase when presenting Grampa, when Moe tries to reconcile him and Homer, or the number of times Grampa cheats on his son, among others. All scenes that at least made me smile. And there is more that I do not remember now.

The characterizations are another high point of the episode. I love the disinterested Grandpa, that everything gives him equal and that he mocks his son. I love that Homer has prioritized his father above all things, that he has shown resentment and has been able to forgive him. I love seeing Mona again with the charm that characterizes her. I love how Marge, Bart and Lisa contribute to the story. And I also love how they used the secondary characters, like Hibbert, Moe and, to a lesser extent, Carl and Lenny.

I liked the presentation. It was not necessary a gag of the poster, one of the blackboard and one of the sofa to remind us a thousand times that they broke Gunsmoke's record. It was enough with a good scene, which makes a subtle reference to that series, in which Maggie is the protagonist. Honestly, I do not find anything wrong with this episode. I really liked it. Top3 of season 29 -for now-, leaving out another great episode like Mr. Lisa's Opus. I feel good about giving, for the fourth time, the note that I would like everyone to share.

Note: 5/5
 
Well, it's finally here, the Simpsons have beaten Gunsmoke's record for most amount of episodes produced by a long running scripted tv show. And since the show has been making jokes about it the last couple of episodes, it's not a surprise it would open with another joke about Gunsmoke, as it opens up with Maggie killing the lead of Gunsmoke in an old western style shootout as he tries to protect his show's record.

The actual episode opens up with Homer eating a bunch of eggs to win 50 bucks at Moe's. However he spits them all out so Moe uses them for pool, which leads to him secretly having them put up to be sold again. Homer gets all mad and accidentally hits a street lamp which a stranger claims is the mayors favorite lamp, so he accepts a deal where he gives up his car for 500 bucks. The next day he happily tells Marge what's happened and how he will drive her car while she goes on a bus, and she sadly agrees, her ability to fight Homer having been eroded by years of this shit. Funny? Homer reveals the fate of the car by turning on a commercial, but gets stuck on a sad commercial about dogs...weird. Anyway it turns the car is now in a demolition derby. Also we get a joke about one of the racers being called "Meth McFarlene"...how amazing would it have been if the actual Seth McFarlene did the voice for this? He's been on Simpsons before. Anyway after a long set up Homer finally explains about the car being in the derby and says he has tickets for the show. Surprisingly Lisa is cool with this because people can let their aggression out and destroy cars at the same time. Marge has zero reaction to her husbands car being used in a demolition derby though because she has totally resigned herself to going along with Homer's nonsense. They go to the derby but bring Abe along for some reason even though their all clearly pissed at having to hear him complain. I guess Abe doesn't care that his family thinks he's annoying now that his hearing aids have mysterious disappeared. Also Homer reveals he put in a glass to cut off Abe from speaking, and a glass to cut off Marge from complaining. You'd think he would put this in his own car instead. Everyone gets seated and there's a joke about how they made a new Truckasaurus Rex that's more in line with newer research on what dinosaurs were really like so it had giant feathers and stuff. Also he says he loves Stephen Speilberg. So the show starts and it turns out Homer's car is pretty badass now because without Homer's weight dragging it can move much faster then usual. It comes down to Homer's car vs a car that parody's Obama and Obamacare, which the audience hates. So is the joke that only dumb rednecks would hate Obama and his policies? However Abe starts acting strange seems to be having a heart attack, so in a shocking moment of actual selfishness, Homer takes Abe immediately to the hospital, despite missing his car wining the derby. At the hospital Dr. Hibber tells Homer that Abe doesn't have long so he should make his goodbyes. They actually make some serious effort this time showing how bad Abe looks here, as skin is a much lighter shadow of yellow now and he sounds totally hoarse. Abe says he has something to tell Homer and wants Homer to forgive him. Abe whispers it to Homer and he's angry at this but promises to keep it secret to respect his wishes and forgives him. At the waiting room, Hibbert shows up and admits he saved Abe's life and he's totally ok. Wow, really? After all the built up, Abe is totally fine? Should have known this show didn't have the guts to kill off a main character now. But really, why not kill Abe off? The writers seem to barely know what to do with him anymore, and it's the kind of cheap gimmick the show loves to pull. So despite the set up, they don't pull the trigger on this plot idea. Whatever. Homer gets pissed at all hell and destroys a contained full of cotton and has to pay thousands of dollars replace it. much to his horror.

Abe is resting at the Simpsons house and is watching NCIS. Ned randomly shows up to comment on how angry Homer seems to be and Homer admits he is pissed as hell over what Abe did. For some reason, Abe acts like a petty asshole and taunts Homer for honoring his dying wish even though he didn't die, and even goes to Moe's just to fuck with him. You know, I suddenly feel like this is probably a good reason for why Abe should have died. And there's a joke about how Homer goes to Moe's because all NCIS has is people talking about guns...I don't get. The two are bitter as hell at Moe's, with Moe trying to bury the hatchet between the two and gives them 50 cents to try the juke box and love tester, but it just leads to jokes about them still being pissed. Lisa tries to get the two to bond again by taking them somewhere that Lisa went to at Janey's last birthday party...woah, what?! Lisa has friends again?! Anyway they go to the Escape Zone, some kind of shitty maze based on the medieval era. The two get locked into a dungeon where they have to escape by working together but Abe just tricks Homer into stabbing a sword into a socket and electrocuting himself while Abe laughs. What a dick. After escaping off-screen, Marge gets annoyed that Homer won't say goodbye to his dad outside of the retirement home, even though she saw Abe tricking him into get electrocuted. After some more jokes, Homer decides to spill the beans and this makes Lisa so nervous she leaves her body, but goes back into it when Bart starts slapping her and pushes him...what? Homer talks about his childhood...oh hey, another "Homer is mad because Abe did something bad to him during his childhood and that's why he's a screw-up" episode. It's been a while since we've had one of those episodes. They had a lot of them in season 28, so I guess they took a break for a couple of episodes before bringing back this plotline again. So this time, the conflict started when Homer kept bothering Abe when he was building model airplanes and accidentally destroyed some, leading to Abe yelling at him and telling Mona to watch over him. Mona decides to have Homer help her cook, and is once again voiced by a now ancient sounding Glenn Close. Also there's a lame joke about Homer saying "D'oh" because he was trying to say dough instead. This leads to a sequence of Homer and Mona cooking things while young Homer is singing a song about cooking. Also we see teenage Moe stealing Homer and Mona's pie after it's stolen by Carl and Lenny, and he has the same design as in the King Leer episode. Hey, consistency, nice! Mona would write recipes of all the pies they made Homer as well as a special note to him and would put them all in a lunchbox. Homer starts crying in the present and reveals the truth: after Mona left, Abe throw the lunchbox and anything else Mona off a cliff. That is indeed a dickish move, but the next sentence confuses me. Abe apparently told Homer that Mona took the box with her when she left...but didn't he tell him she died? Then he awkwardly says to never ask him about it until he's about to die. Back in the present everyone's pissed off as all hell, but then the tension is ruined when Lisa explains to the audience why Abe throwing away Mona's recipe cards was a bad thing. Thanks for that.

Here in the third act, things kind of fall apart. Back at the Simpsons house, everyone is just grumbling about how Abe is the worst person ever. Homer is happy because everyone hates Abe and sings a song about how everyone should hate...ok. So everyone goes to the retirement center and yells at about how Abe is the worst and they wish he was dead. Then why are they visiting him, just to yell at him? Everyone wonders where Abe is when they don't find him at his room and they discover a long note whining about how he shouldn't have confessed and is going to find Mona's lunchbox. And everyone decides to forgive him now. Abe and Homer climb down the cliff and end up falling but manage to catch a branch. Homer spys the lunchbox (which looks a little too clean for something that's been lying on the side of a cliff for 30 years at least). And then we see each of the Simpsons though balloons over who they want safe, and for some reason Lisa wants Abe safe but not her dad and Bart just wants the tree branch safe. I guess they couldn't go one episode without a sociopath Bart joke. Abe helps Homer and sacrifices himself to help Homer get the lunchbox, but doesn't die because Mona's bed was on the floor. Homer opens the lunchbox but it's discovered to be empty. Also this time the animators actually gave enough of a shit to make the lunchbox look old. Homer and Abe reconcile and Homer makes a comment about how life doesn't wrap everything up in a bow and then it cuts to them randomly at a restaurant eating pie, and it's pretty annoying because you can tell how this going to end. We do get a funny remark where Marge is annoyed that Lisa can only compare the pie to great jazz. But anyway, the obvious twist is that pie was made with Mona's recipes which ended up in the hands of this random woman working there. Wow, good thing Homer apparently never went to this nearby restaurant by his father's house or he would have discovered the recipe's earlier. Homer lies about Mona complimenting Abe. The fourth act ends with them actually resolving the demolition derby plotline by Homer trying to buy a car, and can only afford his old beat up one and that's the end.

This episode was pretty good, but it did have some flaws. The stuff in the opening was kind of dumb but fun, and I liked that Homer immediately took his dad to the hospital instead of just waiting around to see the end. That's the best part of the episode to be honest, outside of him selling his car and trying to take Marge's car for himself, Homer is actually written pretty well here, and his motives were understandable. The build up to why Homer would now hate Abe is actually interesting and believable, rather then some outrageous nonsense like another "Homer hates Abe because he stopped playing chess with him years ago" story. I did like that Abe actually did give a shit at the end and tried to help Homer by sacrificing himself and the jokes were mostly decent. Plus they actually remembered to resolve the storyline of Homer no longer having his car anymore at the end. There were some things I didn't like though. Everyone hating Abe by the third act felt rushed and unnecessary, since they only act like that for two minutes and didn't really accomplish anything. It kind of just distracts from the main Homer and Abe story. Especially since we know that by next episode, everyone will have forgiven Abe already. I also thought the ending with Homer getting the cards back was kind of lame, and would have preferred if the cards had been lost and it had been an emotional ending between Homer and Abe discussing it instead. And to be honest, I actually kind of wish Abe had died. Seriously, what are the downsides to Abe dying? The only plots the writers can think of to use with him are more "Homer hates Abe because of something that happened when he was a kid" storylines, and they are old fast. Plus they just beat the same notes with this storyline each time. And it's the 30th anniversary, so they should do something big this time on purpose to affect the storylines. I can't even remember the last time the show had a major change to it since Ned married Mrs. Krabbabel. Overall, this was an alright episode with some flaws to it. Normally it would be a 3/5 episode, but having Homer as a nice guy is very rare, so I'll give it some bonus points, leading to me ranking it a 4/5, a pretty strong episode overall.

I'm actually surprised that there weren't more Gunsmoke references this episode. Guess they ran out of jokes about them.
 
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but gets stuck on a sad commercial about dogs...weird.

Have you ever seen those stupid manipulative animal commercials about endangered pets or pets who have been abused and need new owners? That's what that was making fun of.

Surprisingly Lisa is cool with this because people can let their aggression out and destroy cars at the same time.

Lisa's not completely against demolition derbys, ref "Make Room for Lisa"

Marge has zero reaction to her husbands car being used in a demolition derby though because she has totally resigned herself to going along with Homer's nonsense.

"Go around, go around!"
"This family needs a livewire, but it's just not me."

Lisa tries to get the two to bond again by taking them somewhere that Lisa went to at Janey's last birthday party...woah, what?! Lisa has friends again?!

Lisa's had on-and-off friends, especially Janey, dating back to the classic era. Lisa could go from hanging out with her ("Itchy and Scratchy and Marge") to having her tease her ("Lisa the Vegetarian") at the drop of the hat. That's just what kids too. I mean, I went through it myself at her age.

Also we see teenage Moe stealing Homer and Mona's pie after it's stolen by Carl and Lenny, and he has the same design as in the King Leer episode. Hey, consistency, nice!

I do believe that design originated in Season 15's "The Way We Weren't".

The build up to his est3 hates Abe because he stopped playing chess with him" story.

Not to be a grammar nazi, but could you please reword this? I have no idea what you were trying to say.

I'm actually surprised that there weren't more Gunsmoke references this episode. Guess they ran out of jokes about them.

The Gunsmoke parody opening was supposed to be longer. Check it out.

 
Have you ever seen those stupid manipulative animal commercials about endangered pets or pets who have been abused and need new owners? That's what that was making fun of.

Lisa's had on-and-off friends, especially Janey, dating back to the classic era. Lisa could go from hanging out with her ("Itchy and Scratchy and Marge") to having her tease her ("Lisa the Vegetarian") at the drop of the hat. That's just what kids too. I mean, I went through it myself at her age.

Not to be a grammar nazi, but could you please reword this? I have no idea what you were trying to say.

The Gunsmoke parody opening was supposed to be longer. Check it out.


I figured it was a parody of those kind of commercials, but I thought it was kind of weird because it hung around on it for like a minute.

I only made a comment about it because Lisa hanging out with someone or having friends has been something that I think has been exaggerated throughout the years, like certain other elements of the show.

Whoops, sorry, I have no idea what the hell happened there. It was suppose to be a comment on how Homer's reasoning for why he hates Abe here actually makes sense unlike the last couple of Homer and Abe focused episodes. I fixed it.

I forgot about that video honestly. Thanks for the reminder.
 
To be honest I originally thought Gone Boy was the best Season 29 episode, but now I think this is. It does the best job at non-forced emotion since The Squirt and the Whale, and Glenn Close is great as always. It was a worthy episode to beat Gunsmoke. 5/5
 
To be honest I originally thought Gone Boy was the best Season 29 episode, but now I think this is. It does the best job at non-forced emotion since The Squirt and the Whale, and Glenn Close is great as always. It was a worthy episode to beat Gunsmoke. 5/5

What's so great about Gun smoke? Kill the Alligator and Run could've beaten that show and I wouldn't have cared. Anyway, yeah this episodes great.
 
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