“Where is Homer, anyway?” – Selma Bouvier
“It’s so typical of the big doofus to spoil it all.” – Patty Bouvier
“What, Aunt Patty?” – Lisa Simpson
“Oh, nothing, dear, I’m just trashing your father.” – Patty Bouvier
“Well, I wish you wouldn’t. Because, aside from the fact that he has the same frailties as all human beings, he’s the only father I have. Therefore he is my model of manhood, and my estimation of him will govern the prospects of my adult relationships. So I hope you bear in mind that any knock at him is a knock at me, and I am far too young to defend myself against such onslaughts.” – Lisa Simpson
“Mmmhmm, go watch your cartoon show, dear.” – Patty Bouvier
After I finished watching this episode, I went to the end and began rewinding. Lucas, the kid who Lisa briefly sorta liked and whose dialogue appeared to be stuff that was rejected from Zach Galifianakis’ part in a draft for Hangover 4, appears in the very last scene. It had been so long since we saw him that I wasn’t even sure when he’d gone missing. Reversing, it turns out that he had been gone since literally the halfway mark of the episode. The show didn’t completely forget him, there was that final, tacked on scene, but he was so pointless and shallow that they literally didn’t need him for most of the second act and all of the third. Jebus. The dropouts at Hollywood Upstairs Screenwriting College think that’s sloppy.
Besides a forgettably shallow guest voice, what else did “Luca$” have? Exposition. Lots and lots and lots of exposition. In the B-plot, Snake kept stealing stuff for Bart, which we didn’t see, then he got arrested, which we didn’t see, and then Bart went to get him out of jail, which we did see but which was practically narrated for us, including such sparkling dialogue as:
“But, Chief, we got guns! He’s got a little wrench.”
“You won’t need to save me a third time.”
“If I get caught, it’s suicide by cop.”
“It means I get you to shoot me.”
The A-plot, meanwhile, suffered from the same repetitive problem, but managed a big swing and a miss on the ending, where they wrapped up the wrong plot thread. Marge was supposed to be worried about Lisa seeing Homer as a bad example for future romantic partners, but that quickly devolved into Homer being upset with her about it, which meant that the ending was about Homer forgiving Marge, making Lisa’s whole presence something of an afterthought. That the big gag was that Marge wore a dress from when they drew her into Project Runway didn’t help, nor Jimbo at the bar or the overall weird and creepiness of Homer and Lisa going on a “date”. The quote above from Season 1 contains basically every idea the A-plot fumbled, and it didn’t forget any characters in the middle either.
– Slapping “Parodies Are Easy” on the couch gag is maybe a bit more revealing than they think.
– Why did Nelson run up the playground in a baseball uniform?
– Repeating the word “Senator” should kill some time.
– Skinner chasing Bart in his car is, uh, somewhat dumber than “The Boy Who Knew Too Much”.
– Milhouse gets an aside to complain about the “fat kid with a dream”. They really have no idea how to write dialogue anymore. Even inside the cafeteria what passes for jokes has to come from asides and random breaks in what’s actually happening.
– Nice that this kid just happens to have tupperware full of hot dogs in the cafeteria.
– “Liberated, you mean stolen?” Thanks, exposition Milhouse.
– “Then that makes me the Jackie Robinson of the sport, and you are the racist Philadelphia manager.”/”Quit comparing me to Ben Chapman” – Jokes work so much better when explained beforehand. It’s comedy 101, everyone knows that.
– “Women marry their fathers, Marge” – In case anyone was unclear what was going on, it has now been explained to us.
– The montage of stolen things ate up some time.
– Is all of Galifianakis’ dialogue going to be him telling us what he’s eating? (Amusing side note: my spell checker’s only suggestion for his name was “Egalitarianism”.)
– “Careful it’s uncut syrup”, hmmm, haven’t I seen Bart and Milhouse mainline Squishee syrup before? Nah, this feels too original and believable.
– “You ratted him out!” – And for approximately the fortieth time in just thirteen minutes of video, things have been explained to the audience yet again.
– Professional freelance writer as an advice authority is kinda funny. Of course, it’s also one of the few jokes that happen within the dialogue and aren’t about explaining what’s happening, but I’m sure that’s a coincidence.
– “Homer you can’t just do the things you want to do” comes right after Homer tells us what he might do.
– “She might marry someone like me”/”you think that might be bad?” – These just keep coming. It’s one thing to explain what’s happening, it’s quite another to do is three times in the same scene.
– Nice of Cletus to just be there at the bar without saying anything until now.
– Good Jebus, now Homer is describing what he’s gonna do at the dinner.
– “Hey, I can’t screw this up or Lisa will get stuck with someone like me” – Did you get it yet? People who fell asleep watching American Dad and just left the TV on could follow this plot by now.
– “We need to have a conversation in loud whispers”, once again, the action you’re about to see before you see it: comedy!
– How about some characters describing their feelings out loud and in public? “I felt terrible when you said I felt stuck with you, but then I realized I am stuck with you”. Ugh.
– “Remember that sewing machine you say I never use, well I sold it and bought this dress” – It’s never going to stop.
– Why is Jimbo at the bar?
– Hey, Lucas is back for the last scene in the episode. I guess he didn’t choke to death or anything.
– “You’re not competitive eating anymore?”/’No, I realized that was unrealistic”, but his lines are still terrible.
– The whistle version of the theme over the credits was kinda nice, but, then again, I’m a sucker for that song.
Anyway, the ratings are in and while they are up slightly from last week, they remain deep in the toilet. Last night, just 4.30 million people wondered why they named the episode after a character who wasn’t in the last half of it. That’s good enough to not be one of the ten least watched episodes ever, the first time that’s happened since January, but is still #14 on the all time least watched list. Season 25 remains well on pace to be the least watched season ever.
Dead Homer Society 
27 responses to “Behind Us Forever: Luca$”
The title character is hardly in the episode…and it turns into yet ANOTHER fucking marriage crisis?! The last one was six episodes ago!
I am glad that I did not watch it.
In my fantasy land, this is all part of some buildup the writers are doing to an episode (possibly the finale) where Homer and Marge get divorced, and it stays that way. But I don’t think these writers think very far ahead. But I can dream…
I dont know why but when I read this episodes recaps I get angry. Not because of you but because of these god awful plots. And they are still going on? if they were in any other country in the world, you’d have starved to death long ago!
If I might add, 4.3 million is very good for this pile of trash. They don’t deserve it. The show must get below 3 million ratings as of today for fuck’s sake, so who forgot to turn off their TVs last night? (seriously)
Also, reading your summary, I was somewhat reminded of a Familly Guy plot in which Chris dated a girl whose face looks exactly like Lois, which made Lois mad and the whole thing still managed to end with Chris breaking up (albeit very hilariously, if I can remember). Why am I mentioning it? Well, for starters, I was reminded like I said, which means that I remembered the episode. I doubt this one would’ve been memorable however, had I watched it.
I remember that FG episode too, lol. Reminds me also of the Seinfeld episode where George dates a woman that looks like Jerry.
Great points on that, Stan.
Last week also had a Family Guy episode where Peter “dates” Chris and goes so far as to marry him for an inheritance only Chris was getting. The funny thing is that episode was actually better written than this episode and actually had some satire underlying the ridiculousness of it. This episode had none.
Oh God, hast thou no mercy for the wretched souls of those who dared lay their eye on such heresy?
A few other points about this episode:
Why is Lisa so cool about willing to date her own father? Dating your parent as a kid is probably the most embarrassing thing imaginable.
Why is Lisa into this Lucas kid? Does she now get a crush on any kid with pants? Just because he happened to have a dream? If that whole business about her being attracted to kids like Homer was true, she would have been all over Ralph by now instead of absolutely mortified of having any serious relationship with that kid.
Why is Cletus at the bar? He has never gone there before, and for good reason–he makes his own moonshine! It’s also probably better than the swill Moe serves.
Lisa dated Ralph twice already, unless my memory deceives me. And one of those times ‘was’ during the ZS era, when Ralph suddenly became a presidential candidate (though I think they didn’t really date, with all due respect to the omnipresence of weirdness in that ep, Lisa did play a role in it).
But Lisa dating Homer is just wrong. Wrong characters, wrong show, wrong everything.
Oh god, forgot about that presidential one.
No wonder. I myself only remember it because it was the turning point of watchability of this show for me.
Also worth noting that the first time Lisa dated Ralph, it was more out of pity than actually liking him in that way.
Cletus shows up whenever they need to make a joke about incest or meth. Yep.
I don’t think it would ever occur to Lisa to think of her dinner with Homer “dating” him, she would have just appreciated it as Homer making an effort to spend more time with her.
The idea of Lisa and Lucas “dating” in the episode synopsis also seemed to exist mostly in Marge/Patty & Selma’s heads, weren’t they basically just friends? I don’t recall us ever seeing them kiss or hold hands or anything.
That scene where we see Lisa and Lucas in the yard from the kitchen window was really poorly animated, the perspective of the yard was off making the window looked more like a flat TV screen.
I was expecting Snake showering Bart with gifts to be revealed as a double-cross to frame Bart for a robbery, but apparently Snake just had a crush on him. Or whatever.
I did like that Moe was scheming instead of suicidal this week, and even got to make his own prank call for a change.
Marge’s new dress appeared to be another reference to something that I am entirely unfamiliar with.
Cletus being at the bar did stand out as wrong. And while I could be mistaken (I was looking away from the screen for a bit, thanks exposition!), aren’t inappropriately absent characters also becoming a problem? I’m pretty sure there have been lots of Patty & Selma appearances lately where Ling is apparently home alone for no reason. Barney seems conspicuously absent from the bar a lot lately, too.
This might be the most exposition heavy season ever. Not the worst (Season 23, anybody), but the most exposition heavy.
This surely can’t be better than Season 23, not overall, not even exposition-wise. Season 23 still featured more action than characters explaining it.
Well, season 23 definitely had the downright STUPIDEST plots. I refer to “Moe Goes from Rags to Riches” and “Lisa Goes Gaga” as the reason de facto why season 23 was the worst. Still, with season 25 producing bad episode after bad episode after exposition-filled bad episode during the second half (the first half was more mediocre than anything), this might best season 23 in the “worst season” category.
You have to be a bit broader on the “word season” term. Stupid shitty plots do not necessarily mean failure in a show which heavily relies on the viewers tuning in only because certain ‘guest’ stars make their voice cameos. You could have nonsensical plot/subplot in an episode featuring Daniel Radcliffe or Zach Galifianakis and still end up with more viewers. That’s what actually frustrates the fuck out of me.
It’s hard to compare them both, however, since I’m willingly not watching the current season. Yet what I read about plot summaries or hear from people’s reviews (and these usually don’t tend to point out specific dysfunctional elements in each and every one of the episodes), I get the impression that the writers seem to put into comparison their previous works – which already sucked hard – to make sure to produce proper ‘derivatives’. Hence their final results often miss the point so much, they end up making another point in the process. And this, if I may say, is beyond any feasible excuse for being sloppy, which could’ve still worked back 2-3 years ago.
*worst season
The Sideshow Bob episode was certainly in the ballpark of talking bar rag-level stupidity.
We also have the Futurama crossover coming up. There’s a good possibility that will be so bad that it will be seared into the minds of Futurama fans and ZS viewers alike.
Sad, just terribly sad.
Glad to read that somebody despises the later seasons as much as I do. Their glorious past has become Simpsons’s own enemy, the subtle humour gave way to forced one. Last couple of seasons were only about Homer screwing up, apologising to Marge and patching things up. I just gave up watching.
“…the overall weird and creepiness of Homer and Lisa going on a “date””
This aspect reminded me of that stupid tennis episode from a few years ago.
My review for this episode is those commercials for that Fargo TV show look pretty interesting. Awesome cast, based on one of my favorite Coen brothers movie, and FX has a great track record when it comes to original programming. Also that was a great episode of Bob’s Burgers, I think Linda Belcher might be my favorite cartoon character and Louise is better at being Bart Simpson than Bart Simpson is. Oh I guess this wasn’t the worst episode of ZS. I just found it super forgettable and a waste of Zach Galifianakis but not as terrible as how they wasted Patton Oswalt in that episode where The Simpson writers discovered that Portlandia was a decent show.
Why was Homer not aware of competitive eating? He has participated in these contests in the past.
He became a trucker after his opponent in a competitive eating contest died.
There was a level in The Simpsons game that was a competitive eating contest. (Though I guess that isn’t really in the same universe.) Moe informs Homer that vomiting during the contest is called a “Roman incident”.
Surprisingly that last Simpsons game released on the PS3/Xbox 360 wasn’t bad and it actually had some solid jokes and great use of guest voices, which is more than I can say about ZS. If you see it for cheap I would recommend picking it up.
Also there was a King of the Hill episode where Bill became a competitive eater and Hank and Peggy try to hide that competitive eating was a thing from Bobby.
You need a peacock’s feather for that.