Review: The Simpsons ‘Covercraft’

Spoilers Below:

The Simpsons started off their 26th season quite strongly, with the Futurama crossover, “Simpsorama,” ranking as the best of the year thus far. That was the sixth of the season, which aired two weeks prior to last night, and it was immediately followed by a dud. Hopefully it was just an anomaly and not the start of a trend.

After a fight between Moe and the King Toot’s owner forced the music shop to close, Homer and Lisa went to a big box store and Homer ended up buying a bass guitar. When his incessant playing began to annoy Marge, she and the other wives in Springfield devised a plan to get all their instrument-playing husbands (Dr. Hibbert, Reverend Lovejoy, Kirk VanHouten, and Apu) to join a cover band together, which they named Covercraft.

However, after getting moderate local success, their surprisingly talented lead singer, Apu, was lured away by 80’s chart-topper Sungazer. Homer became jealous of his friend, while life on the road began to take its toll on Apu. The two then conspired together to poison Sungazer with Kwik-E-Mart hot dogs, and Covercraft played the Springfield concert in their stead. During the final musical sequence, Apu and Homer were shown being arrested.

In Case You Missed It:

1) No chalkboard gag tonight.

2) Couch gag: The family attempted to use their smartphones as they walked to the couch, but ended up colliding with each other.

3) Hey, it’s Will Forte as the King Toot’s owner!

4) Homer was telling Lisa “The terrifying tale of how the Quebec Nordiques became the Colorado Avalanche.”

5) Bart and Milhouse were playing Stacko: A Game of Stacking.

6) For the record, John Paul Jones is the “guy from Led Zeppelin that’s not Page, Plant, or Bonham.”

7) The sign in the window at ‘Zerz: America’s All-Appetizer Restaurant said, “How can this concept possibly fail?”

8) Covercraft played at the following events: The Cabbage Festival, The Sauerkraut Festival, Springfield Policeman’s Ball, The Purple Cabbage Festival, Sideshow Mel’s 45^th Birthday Party, The Kimchi Festival, The “Don’t Text and Drive” School Dance, and The Savoy Cabbage Festival.

9) John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix, and Jim Morrison were all in Rock Star Heaven.

10) One of the photos hanging in Apu’s dressing room was of the Be-Sharps.

I feel like this Covercraft band idea could have been a really fun episode (like Fat, Horny, Drunk, and Joe in Family Guy’s “Don’t Make Me Over”) but something went wrong along the way. Maybe it was the pressure placed on the plot line because it didn’t have a B-story. Maybe it was the ample time devoted to songs that took away from chances to have additional humorous dialogue. Maybe it seemed too much like “Homer’s Barbershop Quartet” or “How I Spent My Strummer Vacation” but with a lot less guest stars. Regardless, this episode came up disappointingly short.

It wasn’t totally awful, as there were some good lines and a handful of hidden sight gags, but there weren’t nearly enough laughs to save “Covercraft.” The whole rock band element had a fun tone to it, so it’s hard to be too down on this episode as a whole, but it wasn’t engrossing in the least bit, and had very little conflict. Other than the draw of seeing some of Springfield’s finest jamming together (and honestly, those scenes were pretty dull), there was nothing to lure in or entice the viewer. Was anyone else just wondering what Bart and Lisa were up to?

Two bad episodes in a row don’t mean much in the grand scheme of things, so I don’t want to dwell on it too much. The Simpsons has definitely shown that it still has the chops to entertain and succeed after 25 years, so let’s hope next week will get things back on track.