Review: The Simpsons “Go Big or Go Homer”

Overview:

Homer loses his temper with Mr. Burn’s latest selfish deed, which ends with Homer being demoted to training the interns. When the job seems bleaker, then his role at sector 7-G, one of the older interns comes to Homer’s defense. Idolizing his history with the power plants multiple near-meltdowns, Homer takes the intern on as his apprentice. Eventually, he recognizes that he has no place as a mentor, Homer encourages that he follow his own passions. Unfortunately, this leads the apprentice in some significant debt with the mob.

Our Take:

Now we’re rolling in season 31. Last week’s premiere went above expectations, though, The Simpsons have a tendency to start out strong. Despite not bringing in the viewership numbers that a season start should, the writing was a return to form. “Go Big or Go Homer”, an episode title I am surprised has never been used before is the 32nd episode written by John Frink. The executive producer has credits on the series going back to 2000 and has received multiple awards for his efforts. Everything is in the cards for this episode to be a great one.

Unfortunately, there is not much to praise in “Go Big or Go Homer”. The entire episode lacked appearances by many of the other characters. Homer and his new apprentice take the stage, while the rest of the Simpsons clan takes a back seat. With only one plot developing, there wasn’t a lot happening to fill the 22-minutes. Typically, when that happens, the episode is relying on humour, but this one failed to pick up the slack. There isn’t anything terrible about the episode, but not enough to make it memorable, or one that I would care to see again.

Michael Rapaport guest stars as Homer’s new apprentice, Mike Wegman. A penchant for basketball and mislead admiration for Homer, Mike is a strange character. Besides Rapaport’s natural charisma that comes through, the character also has a temper and sharp tongue. He does a fantastic job carrying this off-centered character, especially considering the more significant role that he plays in the episode. Rapaport has that distinguishable New York accent that makes him enjoyable to listen to. There is a lot of life in his performance, and he plays off Homer exceptionally well. Easily one of the highlights of the night.

In fact, Rapaport’s rant as he demeans Bart was stand out hilarious. Not only was the tongue lashing exceptionally well delivered, but the aftermath was also even better. It’s not very often that anybody can get under Bart’s skin. The fact that Homer’s apprentice came into their house for a nice dinner and brought Bart to tears was over-the-top funny. Bart reacts like a child would have received the beatdown that he did. It’s only funny because we don’t often get to see Bart act like the 10-year-old he is. And, Lisa’s breaking out in laughter was the icing on the cake. This may not be one of those scenes that makes it on YouTube, because it takes a lot of context to build up to. But, this may go down as one of the funniest scenes of the season.

Again, these mini-achievements are not enough to carry the episode through. The problem that comes up a few times a year with The Simpsons is the ‘meh’ storytelling. Where this show was once the king, once in a while it is so underwhelming that it turns fans off. As a superfan, I always hope that the series pulls out of this rut and delivers nothing but gold again, but we continue to wait. Still, there are many brilliant episodes and moments to come, so this show cannot die. There just needs to be more consistency, and this episode really set that back.