This The Simpsons review contains spoilers.
The Simpsons Season 32 Episode 14
This all happens very quickly, even the opening theme and couch gag are skipped, and the episode begins closing credits before the opening ones. We get a lot of information about Cletus’ family. Some it is contradictory to what we’ve thought we knew. He says still loves the gal he got pregnant when “they was 16.” In “Yokel Hero,” Cletus says Brandine Spuckler is his cousin, but in earlier episodes he’s said “of all the cousins I could’ve married, you was my sister.”
You might think Cletus is from a family of Goobers, but that’s his wife’s side. Cletus comes from a long line of no-accounts. He may not be able to resist a good pyramid scheme, but he knows BTS’s Jungkook. Cletus is the character who points out there are still two more acts to follow, and specially whittled credits to boot. Cletus is much more astute than the surface shows. There is a deep knowledge underneath his wisdom that has nothing to do with information.
The country singer in A Face in the Crowd was also found in a drunk tank, and had an inordinate amount of clout when it came to what his fans would do for him. The scene where Wiggum’s car is overturned by Cletus fans mirrors a scene where Griffith’s character tells a whole bunch of people who are listening to him on the radio to go down for a swim at a wealthy local household.
Even though Cletus notices, in person, “Elin” looks nothing like she did in the Nemo movie, we learn the actor/standup/talk show host is exactly as she seems. When she’s not dancing alone in her dressing room, she’s making the audience dance in punishment for not applauding loud enough. God forbid you look her billboard in the eye.
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The story rises and falls so quickly, it might appear rushed, but it does play out fully, and was probably arranged this way so Albert Brooks could take over the final act. There really is no one who talks like A. Brooks. When he says he loves you, you feel loved. When he tells you you’re going to be bigger than Campbell’s Soup, you can believe Tomato Soup is an unreachable pinnacle. His spiel about how there are so many Netflix specials they should call them “Netflix normals,” and riffing on the Obamas is standup sitting down. He pitches a dinosaur animated musical to his basketball client because he could jump out of a tree and sing a song like a small dinosaur. Part of this tells us what a bullet Cletus dodged, but most of it was just to let a veteran guest mouth off. The Simpsons love Brooks, and usually reserve this kind of off-course riffery for Dan Castellaneta. This is the reason there is no couch gag or opening, this may have been tagged on but it had to be.
