Review: The Simpsons “Dad Behavior”

Who is your daddy, and what does he do?

 

Spoilers Below, As Per Usual

After getting himself absurdly entangled while assembling furniture, Homer uses the “Choremonkey” app to find a handyman to get loose. Soon enough, he discovers how he can use this app to crowdsource every conceivable task in his life – from setting up the entertainment center and teaching Lisa how to ride a bike all the way to merely opening the refrigerator door. He also hires Matt Leinart (voicing himself) to take over father-son catch duties with Bart.

This arrangement is working out for everybody at first, but it soon proves untenable. Homer becomes jealous of Bart and Matt, so he starts hanging out with Milhouse, who is on the outs with his own dad. Meanwhile, Bart realizes that every last thing that he enjoys about hanging out with a professional football player is all part of a business transaction. He then becomes jealous in turn of Homer and Milhouse, so he hangs out with Kirk, and a whole father-son swap rivalry is afoot. Eventually, things get lethally out of hand, and they all realize that they should appreciate the relationships that they already have. Of course, they do not learn anything so fundamentally in a way that their relationships are actually likely to improve.

Elsewhere, Grampa is experiencing his own paternal troubles fueled by an app. The retirement community has been making fast use of dating sites like “Friends with Social Security Benefits,” and somehow Abe has gone so far as to produce a late-in-life pregnancy. He is all set to skip town, reasoning that he is too old to keep up with a baby and noting that he is not so keen on how his last child turned out. But his gal convinces him to give it a go, but she only ends up devastating him with the reveal (via heavily bearded ultrasound) that the baby’s daddy is actually Jasper.

The main story does not say too much new or interesting about the Simpson or van Houten men, but there is fun to be had in the digressions. America’s Funniest Home Videos may not be the cultural touchstone it used to be, but gags about staging overly elaborate disasters to game your way on to AFHV still kill. The Chromemonkey thread felt like it could have been extended a lot further, i.e., it could have been the entire plot of the episode. Oh well, at least there is some extra mileage to be head out of Blake, retired FBI hostage negotiator.

As for Grampa’s storyline, it does not make a lick of sense, but I love it. My knowledge of how much gold there is to be had out of Abe Simpson episodes was renewed last week, and now I cannot be sated by the tease of just the few minutes we have here. I need more gems like the one that reveals that making whoopee and hanky panky are somehow different from sex!

Memorable Lines and Random Jazz:

-Everything goes disturbingly wrong in the opening. When Barney snaps Bart’s skateboard in half, it is plainly shocking. Homer chokes on the carbon rod, Lisa walks into the hallway door, and Maggie drives off a cliff. It is all existentially alarming.

-“Look, Dad, I would visit more if I hadn’t put you in such a depressing place.”

-“An old shirt? Wow! My dad doesn’t have any of those.”

-Abe’s only good relationship was with his hat. “And the wind blew it away!”

-“That was before throwing your baby into the sun was considered child abuse.”