Review: The Simpsons “Thirst Trap: A Corporate Love Story”

Overview

In a parody documentary, a young college-dropout CEO embraces the Silicon Valley “fake it until you make it” philosophy and bewitches Mr. Burns into funding her highly dubious dream project.

Our Take

Writer/producer Rob LaZebnik has a bone to pick with Silicon Valley and that bone he picks with an episode jam-packed with guest stars. Elizabeth Banks takes on an almost co-starring role as “Persephone” to Shearer’s increasingly fading “C. Montgomery Burns” in a mockumentary about startup culture. To help tell the tale, a number of newsy cameos join the fray like Ken Burns, Peter Coyote, Andrew Ross Sorkin, and Kara Swisher which should please EVERYONE in the 45-64 age range demographic as they’ll get to explain to their kids who the hell all these people even are.

I’m sure the writers of The Simpsons are giddy about the fact that they released a Robin Hood documentary just weeks after asking a number of networks to pay more, and that’s what this show is known for, hitting nerves. In that regard, the producers put together a pretty good wallop. That said, I couldn’t find one original joke in the ENTIRE dialogue, like not even one, especially when you take out a lot of the same punchlines that would be all over Twitter/X about a year or so ago when it was trendy to shit on rich people (nowadays it’s the world’s poor getting most of the brunt).

Elizabeth Banks actually does bring it to this episode, she’s funny as hell as Persephone, but Alex Desert’s take on “Carl” still doesn’t do it for me and I’m not sure it ever will. Narrator Kevin Michael Richardson does a fine job as he always does when he plays his own original characters  However, I’m surprised the writers didn’t want to pick on another popular Twitter-gag trope all that much here the age differences in marriages that like to pop up, mostly in show business. There might be a sprinkle here and there, but the producers actually play it safe here, probably so as to not upset show creator Matt Groening who himself has a beautiful wife 20+ years his junior. I actually commend the writers for this because I do think the “age-appropriate” gags are elitist progressive standpoints not rooted in legality. That said, I am surprised that a series that is trying to become increasingly “woke” in replacing white voice actors with PoC voice actors is totally fine with some of the Monty gags continuing the show’s age-old trend of satirizing the elderly. Like, is it funny that Burns wears a backless man-dress ala Timothee Chalamut because of his build or is it like looking at a fat guy with no shirt on and laughing at his big belly? For me, I think it’s hilarious either way as I’m a proponent of “all is fair in love and war”, but will some of the millennial rags have a problem with it?

In any event, The Simpsons delivers a rather cliched plot and tired punchlines wrapped in a guise of a mockumentary presentation. If the jokes were more original I probably would’ve given this one a higher score, but alas another generic effort for the show’s young season.