Review: The Simpsons “Mr. Lisa’s Opus”

It’s a concept episode!

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Our episode this week begins in the past as we see Homer and Marge praise an infant Lisa for being her smart self and Bart being jealous of her. Flashing forward many years into the future, we see Lisa writing her admission letter to Harvard, and flashing back into the past again as she recounts her life leading up to this point. It’s Lisa’s 7th birthday, and she’s upset that nobody remembered; not her parents, her friends, or her first-grade teacher. But, as Homer drives Lisa home from school, he remembers that she’s 6 years and 365 days old. It’s lukewarm, but The Simpsons family throws Lisa an impromptu birthday dinner, and we cut back to the future, where Lisa smiles at her family memory.

Jumping around time again, Lisa recalls how Homer and Marge almost broke up (In addition to all those other times we’ve seen that happen) when she was 14. On the morning of her 14th birthday, things start well as everyone remembers her birthday (And we get to see a cameo from Michael Jackson from way back when for her birthday song). Later, Lisa stumbles on a letter in the closet Marge wrote to Homer telling him that she’s leaving. Lisa, fearing the worst, tries to mend their relationship after Homer’s slobbish behavior at her birthday dinner. Lisa tells Homer he needs to stop drinking to save his marriage. To this end, Homer calls his sponsor, Flanders, who coaches him through a crash course in the Alcoholics Anonymous twelve steps program. Miraculously, Homer manages to overcome his drinking problem, and we cut back to Lisa saying that was her “best birthday ever.”

Lisa’s essay gets her accepted to Harvard, and we see her getting moved into school, saying goodbye to her family. She meets her new roommate, Caitlyn, who Lisa begins to feel inferior to. Bart cheers her up, and Lisa meets her other roommate, who shares in her fears about being away from home. Their friendship (Or potential relationship? As Lisa notes it could be “something more”) kicks off as they play jazz together, with her new friend on the clarinet. The episode with Lisa reminiscing about how she really did love her childhood despite its flaws, and we see a montage of her life followed by the rendition of the theme song to “All in the Family” by Marge, Homer and baby Lisa, with updated lyrics to match the modern day.

Our Take:

The “Simpsons in the future” style of episodes that have become fairly numerous on this show are usually a real treat, spending time giving us a good character story that tries to leave a lasting impression. Yet, this episode fails to live up to the bar. The framing device of Lisa reflecting on her entire is too scattered to really develop a significant plot, and Lisa just kind of settling on her childhood being okay isn’t anything new or interesting. I would be more interested to see what happens with Lisa and the potential love interest of her new roommate, but strangely, she’s introduced at the very end of the episode and isn’t even given a name. Perhaps she’ll return, but knowing The Simpsons, its hard to say if any of this will remain canon. All in all, it’s an unsatisfying, unfocused episode which spends too much time on time travel jokes and fails to deliver anything particularly interesting or worth watching.