Kill Gil, Volumes I & II
For this episode, we have a Christmas one combined with one focused on a secondary character; in this case it's Gil who's existence can never be explained yet he's forced upon our faces every chance the writers get. Well this episode attempts to justify his existence and give him a lot of personality and defining traits since this may be the last time the writers ever have the idea to focus the episode on him; unfortunately the efforts of the writers go for naught as the stuff added doesn't make an already inconsequential character more consequential.
Part of the reason is that while they stuff the episode with soo much Gil, (to the point where there's no sideplot.) the stuff introduced about Gil is generic and bland; almost like the stuff introduced about Chalmers in "Bart Stops to Smell the Roosevelt" an episode that premiered along time after this episode. How these people manage to exploit so little in Gil, a character that though inconsequential has so much purpose, is unknown... I mean really, none of this stuff is making us care more about him and barely any of it is making us think of him in a different light. If I was writing Gil, I would probably have him be more ambitious, be more guilty about his living conditions and have his friendly side come out a little more.
It's a shame that they had to make him into a mooch who gets lucky somehow because the mooch thing doesn't exactly work for the episode; it provides some good moments but those are really far since we can't luster up any care in the world for Old Gil here. The Simpsons themselves are also brought down by this since the plot calling for Gil the Mooch just screams obvious and obviously there are going to be a ton of moments where one person hates him but the other can't luster up the sense to tell him "get the fuck out of my house"; and while Bart and Lisa and others help to make those scenes more unique, they can't help to pull them out of the gutter of predictability that they're in. Not even the charm of the Simpsons family and the charm of Gil with them can salvage these scenes, it's like we're just watching almost 18 minutes of a plot that barely goes anywhere while we see Gil in points where he's obviously worse.
Additionally, the show doesn't know whether to treat Gil as manipulative or as pathetic; it tries to do both but it gets confused in who Gil wants to be... A lot of the scenes function like a see saw, there are scenes which lean Gil towards pathetic and there are scenes that lean Gil towards manipulative; there is no center balance, one of them goes up and down, up and down, not stopping unless someone applies some force to make it stop. That's what Gil's character feels like in a nutshell; that see saw causes stuff introduced in Gil's character to be rendered inconsequential, a personality has to have a lot of things, not just one thing that the writers can't even decide upon. If they can't decide which parts of a character they should include in a character then maybe they shouldn't be creating characters.
This even leads to the end scene where there is an awkward plot where Marge heads to the place Gil ever so mentioned to tell him off... While it's understandable why she did it, the stuff that leads up to this is undeserved and it just serves to place Gil where he belongs; on Springfield serving up the majority of pathetic jokes whenever Moe is on vacation or something. The ending with Gil and the Simpsons moving into a new house is just awkward as fuck... Simple as that. The various things that happen throughout the episode will confound and confuse you; for one, didn't Lisa skate in "Lisa on Ice", that leprechaun from "This Little Wiggy" appears and that attempt to make the Grinch character a running gag just doesn't work out. There are more but I don't feel like pointing them out...
I don't get why they feel like going the extra mile with characters that aren't worth it. Gil is a character who's appeal I don't get; it feels like the character was designed with the writers in mind but I can't understand what the writers see in the character, same goes for the cat lady. "Kill Gil, Volumes I & II" tries to inject some character and personality into Gil and while some of it sticks, a lot of it is inconsequential. The Simpsons are forced to play along a plot that is the most predictable the show has ever done and there is barely anything that they do to make it different and stand out, well except throw in a couple of nods and some good jokes here and there. "Kill Gil, Volumes I & II" is an episode with good intentions, unfortunately those good intentions go to waste. Still; it's nice that they tried.
3.5/10