This The Simpsons review contains spoilers.
The Simpsons Season 33 Episode 2
It seems like the family on Evergreen Terrace has finally joined the rest of Springfield, to the woe of viewers. We like the moral ambiguity The Simpsons has always projected. Yes, they can be preachy, Ned Flanders and Reverend Lovejoy aren’t even the worst offenders. The most Simpsons aspect of the episode is that no one gets punished in a world where everyone is a criminal. We live in a gig economy, not like in Grandpa’s day, when he railed against communistic ideas like Social Security.
The episode is tailor made for Grandpa, because he is the specific target for the many scams under the magnifying glass. But it’s a little bit too late. Abe should have been scammed a long time ago when had less wits about him, and was thrilled to be given the “icky.” Is it my imagination, or is Abe Simpson much more on the ball now than in the earliest seasons? This episode is about him being a senile old man who gets hornswoggled in an elderly fraud. But, the voice he falls for sounds enough like Bart where we don’t question his memory, and he is perfectly capable of following directions.
Grandpa is reading “What to Expect When You’re Expiring,” when the scammers call. People his age were taught not to question authority, and yeah, it does make sense Bart would be busted for shoplifting, and the way the thin blue lines are being drawn today, a handcuff tax is not implausible. They don’t go far enough. Abe used to write presidents, tell dogs and cats what to do, and cajole strangers to sacrifice members of his own family to his gods. He’s not so feeble minded in this episode about being slow on the uptake, and not as funny. Though I do like Abe’s recollection about getting blind drunk and stumbling into hobo camps to fight their kings.
Directed by Steven Dean Moore, and written by Nick Dahan, “Bart’s in Jail!” feels like an allegory but is too specific. It is a timely issue, one which impacts quite a lot of people, and isn’t constrained to online or phone scams, steak knives or waxy yellow buildup. But the episode is too sanitized for effective satire. Moe’s reading of the closing is the high point of the episode. The overriding idea that everything is a scam, and even Grandpa thinks his family are suckers for believing him when he tries to restore Marge’s faith, is vaguely subversive, but too judgmental. The Simpsons is getting too soft. Too many edges have been ground of all incisiveness. Nothing cuts. It’s all too round and even.
