Aw, it was honestly better than I expected.
They decided to make the episode mainly satirical and for that, congratulations. It feels nice to see that they actually care about communicating something and that they didn't just write an episode around a single joke or because they thought of something silly that hasn't been done before.
The beginning was maybe a bit too brief in my opinion. We're directly introduced to the new character & the topic of sport without really understanding what's going on in the first place. Feels like we don't have time to breathe. That doesn't really bother me and such expositions aren't new, but a bit of development could have been nice.
I liked the riot part. That's a good way to mock how some people overreact to sports and how it spreads to the point of becoming a riot with no real motive. I also enjoyed when they tackled sports scholarships and their legitimacy as well as forcing children to follow a very competitive career path at a young age, in the hope it'd materialise. Both topics didn't feel too forced and that's a plus. Media looking for controversy was also obvious but smoothly done. At least, it was more realistic than in the Princess Guide in which media are just portrayed as stupid.
When it comes to characterisation, I'd say the result is mixed. For once, Lisa & Bart truly behaved like kids and not adults trapped in kids' bodies (Lisa saying stuff like "so it means you've never seen your parents" or Bart sharing information on social media about little details concerning Grayson.) Homer was pretty absent throughout the episode and honestly, he wasn't needed. Marge acted like a mother figure and overall like an adult and that's good to see.
However, as I expected, Burns was just deplorable, but not in an entertaining way. I don't know if their goal was to recapture Burns' intelligent schemes or intimidating behaviour but I hope it wasn't the case because it just sucked. "Booh booh, Marge, there will be dire consequences"/"Marge what have you done?". Seriously? I don't understand why Burns would be so obsessed with Grayson not behaving like a "bad boy" anymore. As long as the public likes him, he wins. At this point, he's just being evil because he has to (and "evil" is a big word because nothing about it was convincing.) Burns' absence of credible motives made me question his presence in this episode. Was he really necessary for the plot? Considering the ending, I don't think so.
In general, Burns/Marge interactions were just plain boring. They took the most obvious personality traits about the two characters and turned them into dialogues: "- Mr Burns, you're selfish. / - Marge, you're too nice." Yeah, great development here. When Marge said "enemies forever" at the end, I just knew where this was going: they hate each other because of a guy, this guy ends up deserting both of them, so we have a nice status quo and there are no consequences whatsoever in their relationship. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, eh? The "divorce" type of dispute could have been funny, but it led to absolutely nothing so it just felt like a waste of time.
The relationship between Burns and Grayson could have been a bit more developed and they sounded pretty awkward together as well. In a way, it reminded me of the Great Phatsby. But again, for a 20-minute episode, they did what they could.
Some jokes weren't particularly funny. Like Burns not drinking liquor. It has been done through several variations before and they weren't particularly funny either.
But the worst thing about the humour is that, as it often happens, they overexplain it. Grayson only knowing generic falsely confident lines was genuinely funny, but no, Homer had to re-explain those. "Hey, Grayson IS himself", yes, we're watching the same episode, we understood that it's witty, you don't need to shove it down our throats. The same goes for Grayson failing and Homer immediately hating on him. That was already funny, a good way to mock people changing sides when it comes to their favourite celebrities, no need for Marge to say "but Homer??? You like him????" five times. And I could share other examples of overexplained jokes in this episode but you understood.
I love how they handled what I think to be the most interesting issue in this episode: identity. That's a pretty common topic for sure, but I liked it (well, until the ending).
Seeing a man, who was raised in "fake positivity" ("Am I, like, a loser?/"Doing you is what you do best"), realising that eventually being "himself" is meaningless was interesting. This idea that despite trying to "be yourself", you're simply not enough was something I wish they spent more time on. The concept that being yourself also means you have to be there for other people ("do others" as they said) was a cute way to put it into words! The only thing I didn't like about Grayson interacting with the Simpsons was Lisa being a life coach in the montage scene. Helping someone doesn't mean you supervise them but it didn't last long so why not. Grayson saying "I have a family now" was also a bit too stereotypical since I thought the main thing here was to teach Grayson that his image wasn't his entire identity instead of just finding him a new household but I guess it was meant to introduce the "divorce scene" later on so I guess that was okay.
I know this gets mentioned pretty much every time but in this episode, it was considerably worse: the voice acting. I'm not blaming the cast for ageing (that'd be ridiculous), but I can't help noticing that Harry Shearer has never sounded that off. I don't even know if it's because he genuinely doesn't care anymore or if he's really struggling, but in any case, that's super sad. The worse scene when it comes to this was the parodying divorce scene between Burns and Marge. The characters are moving around, punching walls, being theatrical, and yet Julie Kavner and Harry Shearer sounded extremely monotonous. I don't want to make a fuss of it or what but at some point, it even prevented me from getting into the episode. Jeez. Even Dan Castellaneta sounded different.
But eventually, considering the criticism of the sports industry or the media, what is the conclusion of this episode? I don't claim it doesn't have one, but I don't really see it. The last scene ended so abruptly. That was cynical for sure, but being cynical doesn't mean your episode will become brilliant. It worked for some other episodes before, but here I don't get it. Like, what was your point? Eventually, the character we learnt to love will never stand up for himself? Easily influenced people can't be saved?
In general, this episode had nice ideas but the execution tended to be a tad clumsy. But for what it tried to accomplish, I'd say it's still a good episode.
For now, that's a 6.5/10
PS: The part where Burns says "well, I guess we'll just have to find a celebrity now" felt like the show was criticising itself. I don't know if it was intentional but it made me smile.
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. By the way, there was lack of really funny jokes here - ok gags at maximum (again Lisa thrown by a ball)
