The only interesting thing about this episode is that it seems to support the unintentional idea from The Last Traction Hero, that Homer and Marge's entire relationship is based entirely on having sex, and that it really is the only reason why their still together...which is a pretty depressing idea.
I really have no idea what to make of this episode. So contrary to what I initially thought, this episode is a direct sequel to the original Kamp Krusty episode? Then why do most of the events and references from Kamp Krusty that are brought up in this episode not coincide with what actually happened in that episode? Did they retcon the events of that episode? This episode also tries to claim that it takes place during the events of Season 4, but nothing in this episode happens that makes it feel that way, it just comes like another HD episode. It's just so bizarre that this episode claims to be a sequel to Kamp Krusty, yet we barely even see the camp, there are barely any references to it, and what references we do get to it are mostly wrong.
So anyway, things open with the Simpsons house looking like crap because Homer and Marge were busy having sex in Bart's treehouse because having crazy sex is apparently what they've been doing all summer. Why would they want to have sex in their son's treehouse? Also, wasn't Homer's sub-plot in the actual Kamp Krusty episode about him losing weight? Does Homer's increased sex life have anything to do with that? And didn't Homer see on the news Bart taking over the camp? So after seeing the news, did Homer immediately just decided to have sex with his wife and stop caring about Bart having taken over a camp? Wiggum shows up because Ned called him, which I'm pretty sure is a joke they already did in the episode where Skinner and Edna almost got married. Homer is shown to be completely oblivious to what's happening in Kamp Krusty. Wait, but didn't Homer got into better shape in that episode and only got fat again when he found Bart had taken over the camp? Also the kids are destroying the camp now, even though I'm pretty sure they just took it over originally. You can also see Jimbo and the bullys destroying stuff, even though they were camp counselors in the original episode. Bart is wearing his Kamp Krusty outfit here, which is a detail I find to be absolutely amazing. The writers either retcon or just flat-out ignore everything that actually happened in the original Kamp Krusty episode, but apparently, Bart's outfit from when he took over the camp was too sacred and important for them to forget.
Homer and Marge are cheerful about picking up the kids and don't seem to still be aware about what happened at camp. All the kids are traumatized, because I guess that trip to Tijuana didn't happen anymore, and Marge says they will all got to therapy. Wait, so she knew about how awful the camp was? Then why was she so cheerful earlier, why wasn't she freaking out or worrying about her kids? It's not even five minutes, and already nothing is making any sense. The therapist and the therapy scene in general is just boring. Also Lisa is traumatized because the camp forced her to watch the Parent Trap....what? Anyway Bart fakes having PTSD to get out of school. Homer flatly doesn't give a shit about his kids, as usual nowadays, but Marge shockingly stops caring too because she gets really horny. And Ned is watching them from his house and is going to call the cops on them...what the fuck is going on here?
Bart shows up and sleeps in their bed, and Marge is convinced that he does have PTSD. Was she not convinced earlier? Also Bart watches an Itchy and Scratchy episode that parodies Dancing with the Stars...in an episode that's supposed to be a direct sequel to an episode aired in 1992...ok. Homer is so angry at all this he goes to work early (Marge's reaction to this is kind of funny) and enjoys the benefits of better parking and more donuts. He also starts reading a manual for some reason, I guess because he's bored. This also starts a running gag through the episode where we constantly take a look at Homer's mind and see little people running it, which reminds an awful lot of when they did the same joke with SpongeBob in the episode where Squidward pretends the Krusty Krab is a fancy restaurant in order to impress Squilliam Fancyson, only not as funny. Carl then says that seeing Homer does his job makes him want to work harder, which sounds like it will lead into another plot point about how Homer's hard work inspires everyone else in the power plant to work harder too, but it ultimately goes nowhere. And then Smithers makes a job about wanting to have sex with Mr. Burns after Homer tells him a way to keep getting free magazines.
So Bart discovers he really does have PTSD after a nightmare. There's a cute bit where he goes to wake up Lisa, but she tells him to come back in the morning, which he does, and she happily thanks him for waiting. Lisa concludes that their repressing some horrible incident involving a canoe, but doesn't want to admit it so she won't miss school. Homer starts having more energy and working harder thanks to him waking up early, leading to a boring montage filled with forgettable gags. There is a decent joke afterwards of Homer having his own trap door now though. Bart and Lisa are at Six Flags for some reason and get free passes to cut the line, and while Bart is whining and moaning at this (one of his most consistent character traits now), Lisa tells him to shut up and goes off to have fun. It's sad that the best thing about this episode is that they've been writing Lisa as a little kid again.
Marge gets super horny for some reason and wants to have sex with Homer, but he says "no means no" and Marge angrily starts ripping his shirt off. So is the joke is that she wants to rape him? Who thought this joke was a good idea, especially since they already did a horrible joke where Marge actually raped Homer in the steroids episode? Homer says he doesn't want to have sex anymore, but why? What does Homer waking up early have to do with him suddenly not wanting to have sex anymore? Where did this conflict come from? Homer gives some lip service about how all the great men didn't have sex, but this conflict still feels random. Marge decides to put her and Homer into therapy (but apparently not her kids again, for some reason), and the therapists are the two random guest stars of the week. The therapy scene is equally as boring and dull as the one from the beginning, but the therapists tell Marge to take her kids to Kamp Krusty to save their marriage, which they do, only to discover the camp has been shut down and replaced with an adult resort.
At Klub Krusty, Marge tells her kids to go into a day care. Why is Marge suddenly such a shitty parent in this episode? The whole reason they came back this camp was to solve her kids problems, and not only does she not seem to care at all about them, but she totally blows them off so she can try to have sex with Homer. Anyway Bart and Lisa run out to solve their problem. Also there's a weird joke about Homer fantasying about Marge as a printer. Bart and Lisa find a shed and remember that they actually tried to escape the camp through canoes along with some random kid named Charlie. Also Sideshow Mel shows up in the flashback...was he even a councilor in the original episode? The canoe went out of control and Charlie apparently drowned. Lisa claims that she forgot because of paint fumes...is that why Bart forgot as well? Krusty randomly shows up for no real reason at this point too. Homer and Marge are at a lake for some reason even though they were supposed to be out helping their kids because like I said earlier, Marge is a really shitty parent this episode. Marge is still really horny and is trying to have sex with Homer, and after some objections, he caves in. Wow, this might actually be the most anticlimactic resolution to a plot point ever in the entire show's run. Marge basically just keep asking for sex until Homer said yes.
Meanwhile, Bart, Lisa and Krusty got to report about Charlie, and we get a joke where Raphael asks if they can keep a secret and Lisa gets mad when Bart says she can't, which I thought was actually pretty funny because it's totally true. Charlie turns out to be ok , giving a massage to Dr. Hibbert, and it also turns out he's actually an adult midget, and that he was really at the camp as a spy. This...just makes no sense and raises even more questions. If he was a spy, why did he try to escape the camp with Bart and Lisa? Was his mission finished and he was trying to leave? Did he really plan on escaping with Bart and Lisa in the canoe, or did he anticipate that the canoes would go out of control? Was faking his death part of his plan all along or was it a last minute alteration? Never explained. Bart starts crying, which completely stuns Lisa, much like me. I have mixed feelings on this, because on one hand, wimpy, crybaby Bart is becoming more of Bart's default personality and is always annoying, plus I don't buy that Bart would get this emotional over some random guy that the audience knows nothing about, not even if he and Bart were friends. But on the other hand, it's definitely better then dealing with soulless. sociopathic Bart, so I'll take what I can get. Anyway, Bart's PTSD is over. I thought it was going to turn out to do something with all the abuse he had in the camp by the awful counselors and the camp director, Mr. Black. But I guess I shouldn't be surprised since, despite basically being the main antagonist in the original, Mr. Black is never seen or referenced here. Bart says he's glad its over, and there's a joke about how this will be revisited again in Season 52's Kamp Krustiest, and showing us the awful ratings for that episode, which, I'll admit, that was a pretty good joke, it gave me a good laugh.
Homer and Marge have finished having sex and have totally stopped caring about their kids problems, and Marge is happy that Homer is a moronic failure again as long as she get's laid. Also Comic Book Guy is hanging out in the water for some reason. And surprisingly, this episode breaks Season 28's long-running tradition and does not have another crappy pointless 4th act, instead it just cuts to the credits with Kevin Michael Richardson doing a parody of a Barry White song.
As I mentioned earlier, the biggest flaw of this episode is that it tries to pass itself off as a sequel to Kamp Krusty, when in reality, it really isn't. Almost every detail from that episode that is brought up here is completely wrong, and the one thing they did get right, Bart's Kamp Krusty outfit, was an ultimately unimportant, minor detail in the grand scheme of things. It's almost like they wanted to an episode of Homer and Marge having a bad sex life after their kids go to a horrible camp, but didn't want to actually have to write any of the bad stuff that happened to them at camp, so they just called it a sequel to Kamp Krusty so they could just focus on the Homer plot. Really, the only way this sequel episode "works" is if you either only vaguely remember the original, or if you forgets part of it and only remember other parts from it, which is not what a sequel episode should be.
And that's another problem, the Kamp Krusty stuff is ignored mostly in favor of Homer and Marge's plot, which is just a rehash of Jaws Wired Shut with the premise of "Homer acts like a better person and Marge hates it". Marge is insanely out of character in this. Not only is she suddenly completely obsessed with having sex with Homer to the point that she doesn't care if he goes back to being an idiot, but she also comes off as pretty negligent to her kids. Despite her bringing up several times how her kids are damaged, she doesn't seem to really ever do much about resolving their problems, outside of letting Bart stay in her bed, and even when she takes them to Kamp Krusty to solve their problems, she pretty much just dumps them off at a daycare the first chance she gets and completely ignores their problems because she rather have sex with Homer. Homer's motivations make no sense, how does going to work early and being more productive suddenly result in him not wanting to have sex anymore? It's a very odd turn of events that is never really explain that well. Also the running gag of looking into Homer's brain was not funny and felt more like a way to kill time then anything else. And like I said, the ending to the plot is extremely lame. Marge just keeps whining about how she wants sex and Homer finally says yes.
The sub-plot was slightly more interesting, but didn't really go anywhere for a long time, and when it finally does go somewhere interesting at the end, the plot suddenly screeches to a stop. Bart and Lisa realize that a kid died, but then it turns out the guy was fine and he was actually an adult midget pretending to be a kid for no reason. Really, the best part of this sub-plot is that the writers finally remember to write Lisa as a sweet little kid instead of a cynical, depressed adult, it makes her much more endearing. The animation was shockingly good here, especially in scene like when Bart says Lisa can't keep a secret. I'm not sure why the animation only ever seems to get really good and fluid when the story is terrible. There were also a good number of jokes here too, like the one about Season 52.
Overall, this was an episode that had some potential and actually did have some decent jokes here, but it's ultimately ruined by an idiotic script, too much focus on Homer and Marge instead of Kamp Krusty, lame endings to the both plots, and the fact that it fails to feel like a sequel to Kamp Krusty, instead feeling like the writers were forced to tie it in to that episode. Normally, this would be a 2/5, however, the fact that it mostly ignores the original Kamp Krusty and also either retcons or ignore most of what actually happened in that episode, and how it ultimately feels like a lazy attempt to cash in on that nostalgia for that episode, makes this one feel even more incompetent and worse then usual. So ultimately, I give this episode a 1/5, possible the worst episode I've seen in this whole season so far.
Please no more sequel episodes if this is going to be the quality of them from now on.