One of these is not like the others.

“Wait, I’m confused about the movie.  So the cops knew that internal affairs was setting them up?” – Homer Simpson
“What are you talking about?  There’s nothing like that in there.” – Movementarian Guy
“Oh, you see when I get bored I make up my own movie.  I have a very short attention span.” – Homer Simpson

This week, IGN pulled its usual stunt of disparaging Zombie Simpsons while still giving it a ridiculously high numerical score (6.9).  I had to make a surprisingly small number of changes to edit out the synergy, and many of those were me replacing faint praise with no praise.  There were quite a few whole sentences that came synergy free. 

Entertainingly, the one part of the episode IGN genuinely enjoyed never actually happened: the riot.  Moe and Marge both use the word “riot”, but no riot ever broke out.  When Springfield riots you see torches and pitchforks; cars are turned over, fires are lit, and stores are looted.  All that happened here was some people throwing fruit at Burns, and even that we mostly didn’t get to see.  No riot occurred, and yet IGN specifically praises the riot scene.  High comedy.

April 12, 2010 – There really hasn’t been a memorable Mr. Burns-centric episode of The Simpsons during the last few seasons. Nothing immediately comes to mind. Unfortunately Fortunately, "American History X-cellent" will quickly fade from memory as well. It could have had potential ten years ago, but that all faded away the deeper into the episode we got long ago.

Any episode focusing on Burns has used to have potential. He’s the billionaire curmudgeon we love to hate. When the episode opened showing Burns locked away in Springfield Penitentiary, and then flashbacked to show us how we got there, the field was wide open for what could be coming. It was good sad to see Burns characteristically wielding his power and exploiting his nuclear plant employees by making their Fourth of July picnic solely about him instead of something actually evil. I also enjoyed how wondered why Burns was carted away in an actual donkey-drawn cart when he was arrested for stealing a painting. The nonchalance of the town riot was also very could have been funny if there had actually been a riot. The folks in Springfield used to riot a lot, so it was would’ve been smart and funny to see Moe selling "stuff to throw" and Marge taking advantage of the empty malls if one had taken place.

The main plot of the episode, however, was tired and mostly unfunny. C. Montgomery Burns was finally thrown in prison ("After all my years of stockjobbing, gun running, attempted murder, successful murder and tom peepery, they get me on a petty, multi-million dollar art theft."), but instead of watching him become the power hungry king of the yard, we got old references to The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile. Burns’ narration was inconsistent, unfunny and unnecessary. In a week, there will be little you’ll remember of Burns’ time in prison because there really wasn’t anything to it. Had a better story been developed, things could have been much funnier. Instead, the episode was filled out with two other underdeveloped ideas.

The first was a complete waste, as Bart and Lisa bonded over their failure to raise an ant farm. There’s little to say about it because it was as exciting and funny as actually raising an ant farm. The other storyline would have been served better with more screen time. With Burns in the big house, Smithers was left to run the power plant. His transition from good boss– introducing a medical plan that covers illness– to worse than Burns– instead of releasing the hounds, he released wolverines– was a very fun decent idea. Cutting the ant story and expanding on this could have made the episode a hundred times better slightly less intolerable.

Though the potential was there, "American History X-cellent" failed to deliver a would-be classic a decent Mr. Burns episode. His time in prison was too mundane. Evil Mr. Burns is always more fun than a kindhearted Mr. Burns, and new and original ideas are always better than tired Shawshank references. Maybe we’ll get an old school Mr. Burns episode next season in the parallel universe where this show doesn’t suck.