Wow, I can't believe the early reviews for this episode are actually somewhat positive. Even though this episode starts off promising, it takes a nosedive by the second half. It opens with probably the only extended couch gag I've ever thoroughly enjoyed, but although I found myself pleasantly surprised by the direction early on, later scenes prove that the current staff lacks the skill to handle a two-subplot episode without running out of ideas.
Bart's story is really nothing of any substance - he falls in love with his piano teacher, lies in order to win her affection, and then gets scolded after his secret is unveiled. Now to be fair, I actually like the visual montages during his lessons. Similar to the ballroom fantasy sequence in New Kid on the Block, they frame the scene from Bart's diluted perspective, in contrast to reality. However, that's about the only aspect of merit that comes out of the story. For general purposes, I don't honestly mind that Bart falls in love with his piano teacher, but what really bothers me the most is that she is on the verge of being attracted to him. That does not make any sense, as Bart is a pre-pubescent 10-year old who even Laura Powers wouldn't date due to his age. Now, out of nowhere, he has the ability to woo any girl he wants, his age being a non-factor.
As flawed as all of that sounds, the main plot gets particularly lazy towards the end. Like I said before, the character arc is as trite and uninspired as can possibly be. Of course, with Bart trying to sneak out of his piano training by using a compact disc, you know he's going to be caught at some point in the end, and you know Marge is going to scorn him for it. Lisa's patent comment about frauds always being found out about certainly doesn't add any surprise to the situation. The same applies when Bart asks Marge about how she would react to his cheating. It's like the story is so drawn-out that the writers themselves are forced to make fun of its unoriginality. They don't have any time to add a speck of drama or humor to the situation, so they just point out the flaws of their creation as an excuse to appear intelligent. In that respect, it's like Saddlesore Galactica all over again. The resolution is so lazily impractical it's sort of insulting. All that it takes for Marge to forgive her lying son is for her driving trainee to explain that everybody cheats in Russia? The morality here is pretty much crammed at the last minute just so Marge can tie up all the loose ends by giving her son a mawkish speech (and punishment) after he screwed up.
I laughed when Homer popped up wearing a sombrero and later a yamaka, but his subplot isn't any more original than everything else here. All that we really get is a painfully melodramatic story squeezed out of a running gag that didn't make much sense in the first place. It's ridiculous enough that Homer treats the loss of his two skull hairs as "the last remaining part of his childhood," but the absurdity is taken to an even greater level both Moe, as well as Lenny and Carl react with the same level of surprise. The dumb, leading setups in both of those cases starts with them doubting the severity of Homer's baldness, only to gasp in shock once they see his clean head. The humor carved out of this story focuses on what's not realistic about the situation, rather than what is, making it just plain stupid rather than clever or interesting. To be fair, surreal character-based comedy like this can be done quite humorously. Homer's pink shirt in Stark Raving Dad is a great example of taking questionable logic and making it the focus of the story. But in that case, the overreaction to the shirt is actually funny because it's poked at from a creative and plausible angle (Mr. Burns taking a militant shirt check of all his employees). In the baldness case, there is no humorous context from which the reaction to Homer's hair loss makes any sense. What we're left with is a surreal joke without the surreal environment to justify it - a complete mismatch of tones.
4.5/10