Rate & Review: "Thanksgiving of Horror" (YABF17)

How would you rate this episode?


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Brad Lascelle

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Season 31, Episode 8
Original Airdate
: November 24, 2019
Writer: Dan Vebber
Director: Rob Oliver
Showrunner: Matt Selman
Synopsis: In a special Thanksgiving edition of "Treehouse of Horror," the Simpsons are forced to face various Thanksgiving nightmares, including the first Thanksgiving, an A.I. mishap and a dangerous space mission complicated by a sentient cranberry sauce.

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Users Who Have Voted & Their Score for the Episode (votes will not be cited below if the user has voted in the thread poll above)
1010011010 {4} / 714MatchesFound {5} / Financial Panther {5}
Hockey Mask {4} / Homer Samson {5} / Net {5} / owo {1}
purple {5} / Sam {5} / Simpson's Fan {5} / Smarch Weather! {5}
The Abominable Dr. Lenny {5} / Trab Pu Kcip {3} / Venomrabbit {1} / Wahh7 {5}​

R&R Poll Average Score: 4.13 / 5 (as of September 23, 2023 / 39 votes)
IMDb User Rating: 7.3 / 10
 
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I'm hoping to have time to catch up with some more detailed reviews during the holiday break.

The Black Mirror segment was the clear highlight for me tonight whereas the others had their charm and the special as a whole was elevated by a masterclass of animation courtesy of Rob Oliver.

An easy 5 out of 5 from me for the poll.
 
This was an AMAZING episode! All of the segments for great and honestly this was better than this year's TOH. I will give a much detailed review (for once) for each segment tomorrow so I won't rate it till then.....


Ok so here's the review

A-Gobble-ypto: Well first off, this was clearly a parody of Apocalypto which I haven't seen in full. I did see enough of that movie to know that this parody captured the tone of the movie really well. I'm not nor will I ever be a vegan but seeing the preparations for the first Thanksgiving through the view-point of the turkeys was legit disturbing. LOL moments included the Homer turkey being happy that the Patty & Selma turkeys were killed and the Indians backing away from the town after Milhouse set it on fire. 5/5

The Fourth Thursday After Tomorrow: I gotta be honest, I've never watched Black Mirror so I didn't realize this was a parody of that until later. I actually felt sad for digital Marge throughout the entire segment. And the ending with her using the sound of a heartbeat to win over Maggie left me feeling....forlorn for some reason. It was a surprisingly solid moment in what's supposed to be a damn parody What the hell!? LOL moment was digital Marge having the freedom of the Internet and choosing fucking Esty! 4/5

The Last Thanksgiving: They went all out with this one, no bones about it!

:cricket:

"ahem" Anyway this felt like an Alien parody which is always awesome. The cranberry sauce sucking the bones out of it's victims was visibly disturbing (especially since they were children) and the ending was weirdly sweet. Could've have done without the "Dead cats are automatically funny" joke. Honestly, I don't mind most cliches but this one needs to fucking die already...just like the cat. LOL moment was Martin's death. All of it. 4/5

That brings the total score to a scary 13 but as far as a normal episode it gets a 10/10 It would seem that when the Simpsons add the words "of Horror" to a word that's not "Treehouse" it's destined to be great! Halloween of Horror was great and so was this episode! Now all we need is Christmas of Horror!
 
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I'm just gonna guess I was wholly right about at least #3.

Yes, why would you watch it? You might have to come to terms with the fact the episode might have, y'know, been good. It wouldn't be pleasant to openly admit you've been nothing but arrogant and obnoxious about it, right?
 
Color me impressed. This episode was really good!

The first segment was fine. It was a pretty basic plot that just had the characters as turkeys, but it was cute and a good story of revenge. 3/5

Second segment was very good. Marge vs. herself was really interesting, and it didn’t because a big marriage crisis as I thought it would. It had some genuinely disturbing moments in it, like Homer’s attempt to flirt with AI Marge. And real Marge wasn’t a complete antagonist either; they gave her some sympathy at the end. The bit with AI Marge playing the sound of the heartbeat for Maggie was quite sweet. I really enjoyed this segment. 5/5

Third segment was solid as well. Sentient cranberry sauce could have been an eye-roller, but I liked how it was handled; it wasn’t over-the-top ridiculous, and there was some good suspense in this segment. The part with Martin at the end was a little predictable in thinking that he would side with the cranberry sauce. The ending was kind of sweet as well. I’ll give it another 5/5, albeit not quite as high as the second segment.

I will go ahead and give this episode a 5/5. Best of the season so far.
 
Yes, why would you watch it? You might have to come to terms with the fact the episode might have, y'know, been good. It wouldn't be pleasant to openly admit you've been nothing but arrogant and obnoxious, right?

Screw that I'd love to have been wrong. Frankly, it would make my night. Not like I could even watch it right now anyway.
 
[MENTION=49374]Venomrabbit[/MENTION], If you're talking about the last segment being a shitty final note for Russi Taylor to go out on as Martin, then sadly yes you were because it was...

I'm probably gonna be in the minority in saying that for the most part this was awful. The episode reminded me too much of when AD! does a Christmas episode and in an attempt to subvert the typical formula for holiday episodes make them as mean spirited and full of gratuitous gore as possible! Granted, this wasn't as unwatchable as some of those episodes, but I'd say it is on par with Miracle on Evergreen Terrace in terms of it's badness (though I would take this one over that if I forced to rewatch one of them).

The second segment was the only one that was actually tolerable simply for not feeling like "Let's see how much pointless bloodshed and massacring we can get away with in five minutes!", but even then I thought the ending was kinda lame.

Other things I'll note:
* as soon as I saw Maude as a turkey, I predicted they were gonna do a " Joke" at her expense about her dying. And yep, five seconds later she's the first to die with her head being blown off which pretty much sets the tone for the majority of the rest of the episode.
* I noticed Grey Griffin in the credits but didn't hear her at all. More than likely she was doing some last minute pickups for Sherri & Terri.
* I was willing to give them the benefit of at least killing Russi's characters in the final segment off screen... But then the last scene with Martin happened giving me the worst slap to the face final note for a late VA to go out on since Frank Sinatra, Jr.'s final FG appearance had him going out on a homophobic remark for cheap shock!
* Ironic for the credits to use footage of the Bart balloon from the Thanksgiving parade as I actually watched Bart vs. Thanksgiving earlier today.

1/5, only because I can't rate this a zero!
 
This episode was great. I'm not gonna write a whole review because it would be identical to Panther's. 5/5

Also, when was the last time the show used the word bitch?
 
Wow,

5/5, I'd even give it 10/5 compared to the Treehouse of Horror we got this year. They didn't try and cram 3 seasons of a show into a single segment.

#1, that was a nice parody of apocalypto, It was pretty obvious what was going to happen to turkey maude but overall it was a fun parody.

#2, reading the description I was worried that they were going to try and recreate the smart house in season 13, I was pleasantly surprised that they did not.

#3, another good one, a nice parody of interstellar and alien.

I thought all the segments had a great cast, were paced well and actually paid homage to the source material. I'm not sure why people complain about the gore in these episodes, they have always been the goriest episode and it's not something I would call gratuitous, except maybe in the first one.
 
because i have suddenly remembered to i must sadly give this episode a 1/5 because matt selman... ok well i did my job time to take a goddamn piss
 
This is the second episode to have a "Viewer Discretion Advised" warning; the first was "There's Something About Marrying."

They couldn't have done this episode at pretty much any time in the previous 10 years, when the show would have had a "personalized" warning? No, they had to wait until Fox went back to generic warnings...

Thanksgiving Credits
Note that Matt Groening, James L. Brooks, and Sam Simon did not have "special" credits
Executive Producer John Frinksgiving
Co-Executive Producer J. Stuffing Birds
Co-Executive Producer Mike Pies
Co-Executive Producer Bill Au-Gratin-Kirk
Co-Executive Producer Rolls H. Cohen
Co-Executive Producer Rob La-Drumstick
Co-Executive Producer Jeff Wishbone
Co-Executive Producer Brined Kelley
Co-Executive Producer Dan Leftovebbers
Co-Executive Producer Ryan Kohfurkey
Consulting Producer Megan Canned-Yams
Consulting Producer Dan Baste-allanetta
Consulting Producer Dan Gravy
Consulting Producer Tim Long Awkward Conversations
Consulting Producer Casserole O'Mine
Producers Tom Gobble / Max Sauce
Producer Mike Celery
Producer David Mirk-In-Laws
Producer Mike Feast
Consulting Producer David Silverware
Supervising Director Mike Pecan-derson
Produced by Giblets Raynis
Produced by Denise Turkey Trot
Produced by Biscuits Sakai
Written by Dan Novebber
Directed by Corn on the Rob Oliver

Executive Producer Meat Selman
Executive Producer Alka Seltzer Jean

Starring Dad Clashin-With-Grandma
Juicy Carve-ner
Fancy Foodfight
Rhubarbly Smith
Thanks Azaria
and Harry Shearer
Special Guest Voice Charlie Brooker
Also Starring Hamela Cravin'
Also Starring Trussed Big Meal
Also Starring Chris Eat Early / Glazed Griffin / Kevin Michael Puritan / Maggie Roast Well / Russi Taylor
Producer Gizzard Chung
Co-Producer After Dinner Drink
Animation Producer Tums Klein
Animation Producer Pan Drippings Romero
Staff Writer Cesar Mashed Potatoes
Post-Production Co-Producer Dominique Bird
Associate Prodicers Full-icia Toomuchturkey-Caplan / Black Fri-J Kaufman
 
Fine, going in. I seriously don't get people. They complain when things are lazily written and pointlessly mean-spirited yet love when the show does those things even harder. By that extent, Miracle on Evergreen Terrace must be a classic, On a Clear Day I Can't See My Sister is a heartwarming tale in comparison. This honestly feels like that thing monsterlandbuddies wrote up brought to life by an even worse writer.

#1 Really didn't go anywhere. Spose it's hard to have anywhere near a decent story when most of it is just gobbling noises. So of course it's mostly just random acts of gore, then an egg hatches and that's about it.
#2 All good things start with an exposition dump. I thought Marge's voice was okay in Marge the Lumberjill but it's gone back to strained. It's a whole lot of dead air wrapped up in a marriage crisis. Oh a firewall being a literal wall of fire. That's new. Technology bad. It's boring as hell but probably the best segment.
#3 The rest was just 1/5 material but this, this one is the one that bumps it down. It wasn't even a "kids as adults" thing or even a reason why it had to be kids, someone just has a sick obssession with killing children. And while Marcia Wallace got a sendoff in a little dance fantasy and Nelson and Ned stating how much they missed her. Russi's sendoff is Martin being ripped open and all of her characters being graphically murdered. That's actually offensive. That's supposed to be a loving sendoff? If I drew something even half as bad with Lisa and @'ed Yeardley Smith, I'd be blocked. Hell with how thin-skinned she is towards Lisa I'm not sure charges wouldn't be pressed. That's a sickening slap in the face. And then it has the gall to be one of those fake bullshit happy endings because the monster "just wanted to be a side dish (even though it could have been in the first place)" and Bart and Lisa see nothing wrong with eating something made up of the rest of humanity and Lisa narrates like it's an uwu happy ending. Fuck off. God she needs to die next thoh. What a fucking load.

Also the cast use was shit. There were barely any jokes and nearly everyone outside of the main family and Chief Wiggum was just fodder for lazy shock-deaths. It's great watching a big cast full of varied characters and untapped potential be completely wasted like this.

This wasn't just bad or even as bad as I thought, this is easily the worst, most pointless and mean sprited pieces of shit ever put on the show. The show has never gotten so vile to the point it's actually disgusting but how Russi's entire lot were treated as a "sendoff" to her cinches it (and watch, they won't get shit for another year or three). Dan Vebber is a hack, when this isn't being boring it's being disgusting and not in a THOH-y way but just plain shitty.

1/5, if only because it can't be rated lower. Also, I want my rating for THOH XXX to be amended to a 5/5 simply for not being this thing.
 
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It's kind of funny to read you complain about something being mean spirited but then you tell lisa to fuck off and want to see her die..
I'm not trying to dissect your review but there's a sense of dissonance..


and I've seen a few people talk about how this was martin's VA sendoff.. is it really? is that the last episode she worked on?
 
It's confirmed that it's Martin's last lines by her. And well none of her other characters get shit so, yeah, final Russi moment. For this garbage.
And yeah, maybe it'd be even remotely fair if something bad happened to her for once when she acts like an asshole most of the time. At least if she got axed off at all I could say it's "fair enough" that anyone's up for grabs but nope, it's an obvious spite thing considering half the victims don't get to do anything but die anymore, in or out of THOH.

Also the "fuck off" was directed at Vebber and Selman.
 
First, what the fuck did Wiggum put up his nose?
Second, I'm still trying to figure out what the fuck I just watch?

I have a particular problem with turning on the Simpsons only to get a Family Guy type episode. All it needed was vomit. Of all the years of watching I don't think I've ever watch an episode so violently bloody and I'm talking about excessive. A bear attacking Wiggum. Hasn't that happen before?

2. Seemed to go on forever. House of Whacks anyone? So basically meh.

3. Well at least it didn't have something like Homer eating himself, oh wait...
Where were the other adults? Why would the kids be unfrozen first? Maybe I'm thinking to much about this to much. Anyways, I swear I saw something like this before where something attacks a spaceship and kills the crew. I remember, it was a Futurama episode, "Murder on the Planet Express." The ending was weird and made no sense at all. Plus, weren't there other adults?

I didn't think about that this might be last Russi Taylor's episode when watching it tonight. [MENTION=49374]Venomrabbit[/MENTION] is right about the send off. Have we even scene a goodbye at an end of an episode?

I want to give it a 2 but right now it's a 1/5. What a let down from last week.
 
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Also the "fuck off" was directed at Vebber and Selman.

Once again you just can't blame Dan Vebber for the fact this episode is Russi's sendoff. Hell, this episode was written a year ago and was clearly made in order to be scheduled a year after it was finished (y'know, because it's called Thanksgiving of Horror), was he supposed to know that Russi Taylor would die before its airdate ?
 
Well, whether or not he knew the scene wouldn't have worked either way. Had she not passed away prior, it would've been another example of the pointless massacring that plagued the episode, but as is not only is it that but as I already said a slap to the face as her final portrayal as Martin.

Lastly, Matt Selmen definitely needs to get his head out of his ass if he thought that was a worthy sendoff for her!
 
You'd think that's the kind of shit you'd look at as soon as she died and thought "hey maybe we could just cut/edit this bit out?"But I suppose that might have taken effort and if there's anything this episode didn't do in the writing department, it's effort. Almost all of them were just shock deaths (yeah, amazing use of your cast /s seriously if you don't count background appearances and having a single, inconsequential line then it's basically the third notable moment in a row where the twins die. Please think of something else to do.) and that happy ending was total bullshit ("it just wanted to be a side dish!" uh... then why didn't it when there were people at a dinner table? Oh right, shitty writing. And glad Lisa and Bart aren't the least bit bothered about eating what's left of almost everyone they knew. At least kill the stupid thing. There's not even anything resembling a change of heart beyond being told to get in a bowl) And so glad the objectively worst character still hasn't had anything resembling a comeuppance despite being absolutely terrible through the rest of the season.

And for [MENTION=75682]Shoskin[/MENTION] the answer was there isn't a reason why it was children. It's not even one of those "children as adults" universes they sometimes have, they just have a hate-boner for any kid that isn't Lisa at this point. Not that it would've been any good with adult characters though.

And yeah, way to make every previous Martin moment uncomfortable knowing how shitty it ends up. The closest to a saving grace is that they specified Martin but since her characters rarely if ever get anything but dying in dreck like this it meant anything like having leftover lines for anyone else.
 
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And for [MENTION=75682]Shoskin[/MENTION] the answer was there isn't a reason why it was children. It's not even one of those "children as adults" universes they sometimes have, they just have a hate-boner for any kid that isn't Lisa at this point. Not that it would've been any good with adult characters though.

You mean an "in-episode" reason, or a reason why the writers went with kids in the first place?
IIRC, the "in-episode" reason was, the kids would do all of the "dirty work" getting the ship ready before the landing so the adults wouldn't have to do any of it.
My guess for going with kids in the first place: somebody thought a rehash of "Nightmare Cafeteria" would be a good idea.

The Bart parade float at the end might have been better had it had audio from the actual parade - maybe even the original NBC commentary from, IIRC, Willard Scott (although the one version I remember was a little "generic" as he had to try to explain it to people who weren't fans of the show). Speaking of which, here's one for the Things I Did Not Know Until Recently department, although this may be relatively new: in the segment of the parade route shown by NBC (other than when they cut the ribbon at the start), crowds are not allowed to line the sides of the route.
 
Wow, as expected really good episode in a while. All segments were great, maybe 1st was slightly weak due to turkey noise, but it can be overlooked. 4.5/5, rounded to a 5/5. Two other notes, Marge's voice is Really strained now, and that bart balloon with the creepy credits music was real freaky.
 
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Well even "in episode" it's a paper thin excuse. Nightmare Cafeteria at least had the good sense to keep that offscreen. Nono, it's pure spite, they have a not-so-subtle hatred of pretty much all the kids outside of Lisa and Milhouse. I mean, Marcia Wallace dies and her sendoff is a bittersweet little dance moment for her main character. Russi's sendoff is a pointless scene where her main is deboned, stripped naked and then thrown against a wall. What else other than hatred would motivate them to not only leave her characters and that bit in (was it really that hard to have a few empty seats at the table?) but even treat it as a selling point. I couldn't even come up with something that heartless if I tried

Hell, they probably only even hired Grey so they can keep doing shit like that. Even outside of THOH they really love their kid-death gags especially with Ralph and the twins.
 
Well, whether or not he knew the scene wouldn't have worked either way. Had she not passed away prior, it would've been another example of the pointless massacring that plagued the episode, but as is not only is it that but as I already said a slap to the face as her final portrayal as Martin.

I'm not saying that you don't have to not like that scene, of course you have the right to think it's a terrible scene, but don't blame the writer for the fact it's her sendoff while it's obvious it wasn't intended to be. You can blame him for the handling of the character if you want, but not for that.

You'd think that's the kind of shit you'd look at as soon as she died and thought "hey maybe we could just cut/edit this bit out?"

That'd have taken some major editing then, considering what Martin did in this bit, and I'm pretty sure this episode was basically finished at the time. Also, just cutting out this bit would have been a kind of disrespect on its own. And once again, I don't think the writer itself can do this.
 
Talk about how great their stupid cranberry blob was and then die? Yeah, vital scene that. And yeah, handling was shit anyway so it would have been a terrible segment even if Russi was alive. Even if Martin's bit was that important, they didn't have to drag everyone else of hers into it. Especially when they must have known she had cancer by that point, that isn't exactly subtle. Pretty sure someone on the team must have known she was terminally ill in time for a tiny rewrite.

I mean hell, could have even just stuck something like a still group-shot of her characters at the end to say goodbye but couldn't even do that. It's just depressing to be one of the extreme minority to have ever given a shit about Taylor. Hell, have a scene some of her other characters turned out late to the dinner and end up walking in on a bunch of discarded skins, that might've been an actual joke, something the segment lacked, along with anything beyond wasting their cast, pointless killing and a rushed cop-out of an ending.
 
Regarding the Russi Taylor controversy, the discussion has gotten pretty toxic already and I don't want to say a lot more, but I'll add a little. First off, I mostly agree with [MENTION=78686]Wile E. the Brain[/MENTION] on this.

I can definitely understand those of you who took the end result really badly. It's unfortunate that this ended up being her last but it's not something I hold against the crew. It just ended up badly timed. I guess they could have have Grey redub all the lines but then we would have missed Russi's performance (which was surprisingly big. I really liked that she got an entire scene towards the end as Martin, no matter the results) or they could have added additional footage to the end, but maybe they didn't have the time or thought it would affect the pacing and story structure negatively or something. Heck, maybe they could have even pulled the episode altogether but that would have just been an huge waste with the episode being finished and all.

Again, it was the timing that was unfortunate and I seriously doubt they made it like this out of spite (and maybe if they had more episodes with Russi they could've aired one of these up next to soften the blow) but being rageful and blaming and cursing Vebber, Oliver and Selman because of this mistake feels way overblown. You may not like what they did with Russi's characters and that is fine and up to you, but the hatred is over the top, especially when you start saying this episode retroactively ruined all previous Martin scenes (it brings my thoughts on the whole 'Last Jedi' backlash hate storm).
 
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Talk about how great their stupid cranberry blob was and then die? Yeah, vital scene that.

The fact he drives Bart, Lisa and Milhouse in front of the blob, the fact it was in a container and the fact Martin close the door behind them ? Removing all of this would have made some plot hole and I don't think they would have much time to replace it and making that coherent.
 
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