Review: The Simpsons “Murder She Boat”

Overview

Lisa must solve a closed-boat mystery when Comic Book Guy’s million-dollar action figure is “murdered” on a pop culture cruise.

Our Take

The penultimate episode of what has been an up and down year for The Simpsons gives us the freshest episode the show has done in quite some time. This week, the increasingly impressive Broti Gupta fashions us with a “Whodunnit?” episode twisted up in a Comic-Con parody that had more impressive guest stars than any panel this year. In this case, Taika Waititi adds to an already impressive voice acting resume that includes memorable stops at Marvel’s What If?, Rick and Morty, and The Mandalorian. 

I honestly could’ve used a whole hour of this episode. The dialogue was fantastic, the producers clearly had a field day with all of the geek gags, and even though the twist ending was a fairly obvious conclusion, the journey was good enough that I got way more than what I bargained for.

The 2023 finale for The Simpsons premieres on Christmas and we’ve got to see a lot more to gauge the sustainability of this series for years to come. Fresh writers, new characters, and new premises are seeds for a bountiful future, here’s hoping there’s more where this one came from.