_______________________________
Double, Double, Boy in Trouble
Series: The Simpsons
Season: 20
Season episode: #3 (423)
Written by: Bill Odenkirk
******Warning! Contains spoilers!******Season: 20
Season episode: #3 (423)
Written by: Bill Odenkirk
Plot
-Chalkboard: There is no such month as "Rocktober".
-Couch gag: After getting on the couch a Tornado appears and suck them and the sofa into the air and, in a parody of The Wizard of Oz, are landed to a farm picture turning black-and-white.
Homer and Bart are buying groceries from the Kwik-E-Mart. Homer is tempted to buy a lottery ticket. Meanwhile Bart is acting childish. He jumps from a shelf to another, but suddenly loses his balance and falls down. Homer comes to rescue him.
At the same time Lenny happens to buy the lottery ticket of which Homer was about to buy. It's the winning ticket, prize of 15000$. Homer gets mad at Bart whose fault the huge loss obviously was. So is Marge when he hears the news.
Lenny decides to have a grand party due to his great victory. Every citizen of Springfield is invited. Lanny sings a songs in which he thanks everyone for being friend.
Acting immature for the whole evening, Bart finds a peculiar way to trick the guests; He launches dozens of Vacuum bots to spread chaos to the party.
The Springfield police is needed to stabilize the situation. Bart gets caught and is punished by Marge.
While washing hands in the restroom, Bart meets his complete look-alike(who's bespectacled though) and the boy's father who also bears resemblance to him. Both are bored to their regular life and decide to change the roles.
Bart, who now pretends to be Simon Woosterfield, realize his nerd-counterpart is from a uber-rich family and lives in a mansion with all the luxuries available.
On the Evergreen Terrace Simon already finds The Simpsons very lower-class people, Homer being the most repulsive person of the family.
Meanwhile Simon's half-sister Quenley and half-brother Devan are planning to get rid of Simon so they would inherit the entire fortune. They lock "Simon" up to the mausoleum. Luckily Mr. Burns happens to walk past and manages to free Bart with the help of Smithers.
Mr. Burns tells a valuable story about his large family, and that everyone except himself survived through their youth.
Simon's evil siblings are taking Bart to a ski-trip to Aspen. They make him to run the most hazardous trail, in order to finish him.
But, Lisa has become aware of the boy's little role-game and after being informed that "Simon" could be killed anytime soon, Homer and the family hurries to save Bart. Homer accidentally falls from the ski-lift, forms a giant snowball which hits Bart and saves both of them.
Both Simon and Bart return to their own families. Bart is no longer dissatisfied with his life but instead says before falling asleep: This is the life.
Picture and Audio
The visual impression is as perfect as always. In fact, I kinda long for the old shaky drawing style. It still had some emotionality in it, but even though current style is awesome, it's also kinda sharp and straight-forward and too calculated. Though, for example Bart's embryo scene is beautifully implemented. Furthermore, it's always fascinating to see how the animators keep concentrating on the shadows. They create a certain mood to the scenes.
In terms of music, the episode is pretty much average. As a fan, it's great to see that Lisa's varying saxophone solo is still used.
Interestingly, the episode includes no popular music. We briefly heard light music while Lenny is singing and apart from few drama-segment cues it's very speech-oriented episode.
Major character appearances
Guest Stars:
- Joe Montana
New Characters:
- Simon Woosterfield
- Mr. Woosterfield
- Devan
- Quenley
- Woosterfields' limousine driver
Recurring characters:
- The Simpson family
- Apu
- Lenny
- Moe
- Barney
- Todd
- Mayor Quimby
- Chief Wiggum
- Lou
- Krusty
- Milhouse
- Smithers
- Mr. Burns
- Grampa
Did you notice that..?
-Moleman was eaten by the crazy vacuum bots, but is later seen alive in the background
-Moleman was eaten by the crazy vacuum bots, but is later seen alive in the background
-Milhouse has replaced the face of Luanns boyfriend with Kirk's face.
-The episode pokes fun with Saddam Hussein.
Pros and Cons
+ No idiotic subplots that ruin the main story.
+ Bart-centered episode instead of endless Homer-doing-this-and-that ones.
+ Bart-centered episode instead of endless Homer-doing-this-and-that ones.
+ Ending was well-chosen had a sense of emotionality
+ Barney crying like a girl
+ Marge's flashback of "drinking" alcohol while being pregnant
+ Simon's Milhouse look-alike mother
- The idea of changing roles is badly worn out,yet surprisingly never use in The Simpsons.
- The first 9 minutes of the episode suggested it would tell about Bart's misbehavior. Then that part was was totally forgotten
- 9 minutes? The appearance of Simon and his family took place quite late.
- Woosterfields ares richer than Mr. Burns, and still never heard of them before? And what they were doing in Lenny's party in the first place?
- Homer stumbling and making himself a snowbal=lame.
-Joe Montana had only a 20-secs role, so why on Earth he's depicted on the promo picture?
- How Simon could be alive at the age of 10 if his siblings always try to kill him? No idiotic
+ Marge's flashback of "drinking" alcohol while being pregnant
+ Simon's Milhouse look-alike mother
- The idea of changing roles is badly worn out,yet surprisingly never use in The Simpsons.
- The first 9 minutes of the episode suggested it would tell about Bart's misbehavior. Then that part was was totally forgotten
- 9 minutes? The appearance of Simon and his family took place quite late.
- Woosterfields ares richer than Mr. Burns, and still never heard of them before? And what they were doing in Lenny's party in the first place?
- Homer stumbling and making himself a snowbal=lame.
-Joe Montana had only a 20-secs role, so why on Earth he's depicted on the promo picture?
- How Simon could be alive at the age of 10 if his siblings always try to kill him? No idiotic
Summary
The 20th season continues with mixed feelings. The first episode was horrible and made the fans fear the worst. Fortunately the following episode showed a slight improvement, giving a faint sign of hope. But when pondering this episode it hard to say whether the season is going towards success or failure. The plot itself may not be the most original one, and somehow it was predictable that it would Bart who will change the role. The first half of the episode is confusing. It's all about Bart doing tricks and misbehaving. But all of sudden a couple of Bart clones shows up out of blue and the episode turns totally different. It like the 8 minutes were totally pointless. There must have been better way to introduce Woosterfields. The whole Lenny-winning-and-having-a-party could have been dropped out(which kinda reminds me of Homer Simpson, This Is Your Wife in which Lenny has invited everyone to watch his HD-television. How come they can use Carl instead?). Despite many pointless and utterly unthinkable parts, the episode is saved by many strong jokes and good variety of characters. I also appreciate the ending which, contrary to usual joke, is realistic and shows Bart as a 10-year-old son who loves his mother.
***½/*****The 20th season continues with mixed feelings. The first episode was horrible and made the fans fear the worst. Fortunately the following episode showed a slight improvement, giving a faint sign of hope. But when pondering this episode it hard to say whether the season is going towards success or failure. The plot itself may not be the most original one, and somehow it was predictable that it would Bart who will change the role. The first half of the episode is confusing. It's all about Bart doing tricks and misbehaving. But all of sudden a couple of Bart clones shows up out of blue and the episode turns totally different. It like the 8 minutes were totally pointless. There must have been better way to introduce Woosterfields. The whole Lenny-winning-and-having-a-party could have been dropped out(which kinda reminds me of Homer Simpson, This Is Your Wife in which Lenny has invited everyone to watch his HD-television. How come they can use Carl instead?). Despite many pointless and utterly unthinkable parts, the episode is saved by many strong jokes and good variety of characters. I also appreciate the ending which, contrary to usual joke, is realistic and shows Bart as a 10-year-old son who loves his mother.
No comments:
Post a Comment