“Well, let me tell you something, boy, if you don’t stand up for yourself, bullies are gonna be picking on you for the rest of your life.” – Abe “Grampa” Simpson
“Simpson!  Give me your newspaper!” – Jasper
“Why should I?” – Abe “Grampa” Simpson
“I wanna do the crossword puzzle.” – Jasper
“No, I want to do the crossword puzzle.” – Abe “Grampa” Simpson
“I said, give me that puzzle!” – Jasper
“No.” – Abe “Grampa” Simpson
“Gimme!” – Jasper
“No.” – Abe “Grampa” Simpson
“Gimme!” – Jasper
“No . . . Well, I guess I can’t help you.  But I know someone who can.” – Abe “Grampa” Simpson

“The Winter of His Content” is the Zombie Simpsons episode that got eaten by its own B-plot.  Not only did their weirdly literal but still nonsensical take on The Warriors take way too long in and of itself, most of what passed for jokes in it were weird asides rather than parodies of the movie.  It was as though they set out to use a movie plot as dully as possible and added all the comedy attempts as bizarre asides only after they realized how well they’d succeeded.  

Over in the diminutive A-plot, Homer adopted some old people who needed a place to live.  They still live there after the episode ends.  That was kinda it.

– I miss Redd Foxx, god bless his smutty soul.  That wasn’t him, obviously, but I do miss him.

– They can’t even do violations at the retirement home without explaining things as they happen.

– “My lifestyle is my retirement plan.” – Okay, that was funny.  It would’ve been funnier if they hadn’t made Homer act everything out, but at least they resisted the urge to have him pull a Duff and some fatty food out of nowhere.

– This scene with the pile of medicine bottles and Maggie, however, did not resist those urges.  Ditto Homer actually telling us he was going to trip and fall before it happened.

– Nelson is more fun when he’s not weak and sad.

– Count Branula was decent.  Sign gags being one of those things they can still sometimes do.

– The rest of this montage is naked filler, however.

– It’s weird, they think Itchy and Scratchy are funny because they’re gory, not violent.  Also, that did not need to repeat itself and go on for thirty seconds.

– The exposition to this point has only been heavily clunky.  But then they have Lisa drop the big one: “Dad, did it ever occur to you that we’re learning how to take care of you when you’re older by watching the way you treat Grampa.”  

– In addition to being a direct question about exactly what’s going on, I’d also like to point out that in that line, Lisa is implying that Homer is being a jerk to the three old men who have invaded his house, but everything they’ve actually showed us to this point is him doing nice things for them.

– The B-plot is doing it’s part on the exposition front with Nelson explaining exactly where they were.

– Rubberized skin noises while Grampa makes over Homer aren’t even among this show’s moderate problems, but minor as they are, they still would’ve been way, way out of place on anything before Season 10 or so.

– That scene where the old lady proposes a threesome wasn’t weird or dull or out of place at all.

– “Huh, you’re turning into your father.” – Thanks Marge, we never could’ve figured that out.

– Oh, good, now we’ve got Dolph, Jimbo and Kearny expositing a character we haven’t seen yet.

– Whatever this episode was lacking in early and unneeded exposition, it has made up for it in late and unneeded exposition.  Marge just explained in a flashback voiceover exactly what we were seeing as it was happening.

– If you want to do a Warriors thing with the bully summit, fine, it’s a decent enough premise.  Chester’s speech was even kinda funny.  But scene stopping crap like Dolph explaining that he lost his sandal and the bad guy explaining his motivations while it’s going on drains out most of the fun.  

– Case in point: Moe’s scene.

– Cases in point: Moe’s scene and Chief Wiggum’s scene.

– Cases in point: Moe’s scene, Chief Wiggum’s scene, and the old lady getting on the bus.

– Hey, look, the A-plot came back!  It was too late to prevent a filler scene with the glass bottles from acting as more parody killing filler, but it is back.

– And Homer picks up right where he left off by telling us exactly what he’s doing.

– So this ends and Bart’s still a bully, or what?

Anyway, the ratings are long in (sorry about the two day delay in posting this), and they remain historically low.  A mere 4.02 million people wondered how something as campy as Warriors could be turned into something that dull.  That’s not as low as last week’s record setting duo, but it is good for #5 on the all time least watched list.