“Dad, I know I’ve been a little hard on you the last couple of days, but if I had the strength to lift my arms, I’d give you a hug.” – Bart Simpson As is often the case with Zombie Simpsons episodes, it’s easiest to understand the many, many horrible problems of “The Wreck of the Relationship” by looking at a single moment and pulling all the loose threads that dangle from it. And, since Zombie Simpsons literally always repeats The Simpsons, we can also see how the exact same thing was done vastly better many years ago. The screamingly obvious choice is Homer and Bart’s reconciliation out at sea, something handled much faster and funnier back in Season 5’s “Boy Scoutz ‘N the Hood”. Before getting to that shared moment, however, take a minute to consider just what it is that Bart and Homer are fighting over in each episode. In Season 5, Bart joins the Junior Campers in the midst of a squishy bender. He tries to bail, but is sucked in by his desire to play with knives, and then stays because of all the cool skills he acquires (“ooh, floor pie”). He doesn’t want Homer on the rafting trip because he knows (quite correctly, as we see) that Homer would be an unmitigated disaster and a total embarrassment. There’s a complex and dysfunctional relationship at work, with Bart trying to escape Homer. Bart knows his father well. In Season 26, Homer and Bart get into a spat over whether or not Bart will eat a piece of broccoli. Then they argue about it for days. Then they get mysteriously kidnapped. And then, after all that time spent doing so very, very little, we see something similar to what happens in “Boy Scoutz ‘N the Hood”: Bart starts learning new skills and actually likes it. The closest Zombie Simpsons can come to showing us this is a montage followed by one of their trademark expository conversations,* but for the briefest of moments there’s something akin to a real character moment. *(Sample dialogue: “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?/So what if I am?”, “You’re my son and you will hate what I hate.”, “I like being a sailor.”) The problem (well, one of them) is that this lasts approximately five seconds before Homer and Bart revert to what they were doing before. The twist, if it can even be called that, is that now Homer is the one being disobedient since Bart is now (for whatever reason) an officer. And just like that we’re back to one note scenes that repeat the same argument over and over again. If this was studded with killer jokes, that’d be one thing, but it’s mostly people dancing around, an octopus jumping on Homer for some reason, and other one off nonsense. And that’s before the ending, but we’ll get to that in a moment. This is the promo picture they released. It’s a static image and it still overstates what actually goes on.…
Tag: The Wreck of the Relationship
Behind Us Forever: The Wreck of the Relationship
“Smithers, I seem to recall you had a penchant for bell bottomed trousers, back in ’79.” – C.M. Burns “Sir, that was my costume from the plant production of HMS Pinafore.” – Mr. Smithers “Oh, yes, of course. Your spirited hornpipe stole the show as I recall.” – C.M. Burns Another week, another forgettable episode from Zombie Simpsons. Homer and Bart get into a fight about broccoli, then end up on a father-son sailing ship. Along the way, Homer gets scurvy, is thrown overboard a couple of times, vomits, and gets attacked by an octopus. Meanwhile, in the B-plot, Marge runs Homer’s fantasy football team. Both suffer from montages, expository dialogue, expository voice-overs, and the usual range of problems. – A long couch gag ends with Scratchy’s blood splattered on the TV. That was odd. – And we open with repetitive shots to some guy’s nuts. Who says the writing sucks? – Bart and Milhouse watching a red band trailer would be a lot better if they didn’t stop to explain everything as they were doing it. – The setup was a bit of a stretch, but Marge getting her mammogram search blocked was okay. – Homer and Marge are having another one of their expository conversations, but this one is in the bathroom. – This broccoli thing just goes on and on and on. Ate up a lot of time, though, so there’s that. – Homer takes a call from Lenny about his fantasy football draft. Does this make any sense as dialogue with Lenny?: Lenny: Homer, where are you? Our fantasy football draft is about to start. Homer: Today’s our draft! I’ve gotta pick a good fantasy team. When I lost last year they made me do something so humiliating….Jebus loves Tebow. No, no it does not. – Homer and Bart both get kidnapped in the middle of the night because how else could they get out on a boat? This show doesn’t just take bad shortcuts. It takes bad and unnecessary shortcuts. – Guh, this guy is a waste of Nick Offerman’s talents. – Trunks of life jackets just appeared out of nowhere. One-year-olds have a better grasp of object permanence than this writing staff. It’s astonishing. – Hey, the B-plot just showed up. Marge helpfully explains that she’s getting messages from Homer’s fantasy league. Sure glad she told us that or we’d never have figured it out. – The trash talking that so upsets Marge isn’t even funny. It’s just lame: “Homer, your quarterback is garbage”. Ooh, cutting! – Homer just got scurvy for some reason. It doesn’t have anything to do with anything, but it did happen. – Montage! (Though maybe HMS Pinafore isn’t the kind of thing they should be reminding us of.) – Homer’s now telling us how Bart’s feeling. That’s a twist. – Homer just puked for some reason. – There are way too many useless lines for me to quote them all, but this is fairly typical: Homer: Wait a minute.…
Sunday Preview: The Wreck of the Relationship
Bart’s disrespectful behavior leads Marge to book him and Homer for a conflict-resolution cruise on the Relation Ship, and while Homer’s away, Marge takes charge of his fantasy-football team, with surprising results. Nick Offerman guest voices tonight, and one of the ‘plots’ involves fantasy football apparently. These are two of my favorite things, but not watching this episode will still be the best decision I make today.