“I regret nothing!” – Doomed Guy in Movie Ticket Line

If any of us had been wondering what it would be like if Zombie Simpsons took the unrelated tales from one of their four-part storytelling episodes, jammed them together with a bunch of expository and often unrelated flashbacks, and dropped in a self voiced celebrity, we need wonder no more.  Proving that Season 25 can employ all the same flat out lazy shortcuts as Seasons 24, 23 and so on, we had characters telling us exactly how they feel, people wandering in and out of scenes seemingly at random, and a self voiced celebrity introduced by name so we know just who they are.  This show has a lot of chronic problems, and this episode featured most of them.  Here we go:

– The chalkboard and the sad look on Bart’s face is a nice gesture.

– The Hobbit opening is kinda fun and all (Irish not welcome at the elf inn), but it doesn’t speak well of the status of the show or the quality of the writing when silent, minute long shorts that retell other people’s stories are the most talked about aspect of the program.

– To the surprise of no one, the “major character” to die was a red herring.

– And the funeral scene is off to a typically slow start whereby Selma and Marge get into an out loud argument in church that’s mostly exposition and some Family Guy flashbacks, complete with giant Gene Simmons tongue.

– This is Homer’s mental dialogue: “I made the worst financial decision of all time.  I can’t think about it.  I won’t think about it.  I don’t want to think about it.  Oh, I’m thinking about it.”  Castellaneta is a very funny man, but saving that is impossible.

– Here’s how you can tell even they know that “Mapple” is weak sauce: they don’t want to use it.

– Okay, using Milhouse’s nose as a dick was at least clever.

– But now Flanders is trying to put money into tithe baskets that the boys are using as sticks because . . . nevermind.

– Burns being nice and incompetent?  Never seen that before.

– Lazy celebrity introduction alert: “Well, well, well, Rachel Maddow”.

– And now, Krusty’s in the woods.

– Ralph is there too, of course.

– Even the FOX News parodies are basically expository, and they’re mega easy to make fun of.

– As if to prove that they can no longer help but repeat themselves, they’re doing a montage of Homer set to “Memories“.  The first time they did this it was for Homer’s stomach before he started subliminal weight loss tapes.  Now it’s for a bowling ball we’ve never seen before.

– Bart, previously way away from Evergreen Terrace, is now floating over the Flanders house.

– If Burns’ sweetheart going to die without getting to do much of anything, why did they bother to make her a Buddhist monk?

– At least Jean can still make fun of himself with that Brockman “no regrets” line right before his name comes up.

Anyway, the numbers are in and they are just as atrocious as we’ve come to expect.  Sunday’s exercise in poor plotting and worse “regretting” was regretted by a mere 5.46 million people.  That’s actually one point below the record low average for all of Season 24, and we’re just three episodes into the season.  CBS has the late national NFL game again next week, so don’t expect much of an improvement.