Review: The Simpsons “Step Brother From The Same Planet”

Overview:

Homer and Marge meet Grandpa’s new girlfriend Blythe (Carol Kane) and her young son, Calvin (Melissa McCarthy). Despite initially being amused, Homer becomes consumed by his feelings of rage and resentment when Grandpa becomes an attentive and loving stepfather to Calvin. 

Meanwhile, Lisa finds out that everyone thinks that she is a wet blanket, so when the opportunity to use Grandpa’s old room at the retirement home reveals itself, she and Bart decide to throw the ultimate slumber party to win everyone over. 

Our Take:

This episode starts out at a fair that showcases items that have been repurposed, which is very fitting since “Step Brother From The Same Planet” takes elements that we have seen many times before from countless shows. However, there really wasn’t anything new added to this iteration. It was the same tired trope of a jealous child, yearning for the love of one of their aloof parents. Many animated shows, from King Of The Hill to Big Mouth have used this narrative before. Hell, even The Simpsons have run with this story a handful of times. 

The writing during season 34 has been really hit or miss. There have been some very good episodes that brought fresh life and interesting ideas into a show that is older than DVDs. “Step Brother From The Same Planet” is not one of those episodes. This felt like a filler episode, which is disappointing after the show had picked up such great momentum as of late. The Simpsons is at its best when it deftly pushes a meaningful narrative along while supplying great laughs and memorable one-liners and side gags. 

Homer observing Calvin at his taxidermy class offered a few solid laughs, especially when he said “So you’re not a psychopath, just a weirdo.” Moe lamenting his unprocessed trauma was depressingly hilarious as well. Unfortunately for the rest of the episode, laughs were few and far between. Many jokes just fell flat and others simply didn’t feel like jokes at all. In an odd move, McCarthy and Kane were simply not given anything to really work with in this episode, which is disappointing because there certainly was so much potential for them. It almost feels like a complete waste, not utilizing two funny actors in their guest roles. It’s hard to blame them at all though. 

There was also an issue with some wildly uneven pacing that made the episode feel disjointed and lackluster. Bart and Lisa’s side plot seemed primed to tie into Homer and Abe’s story, but it instead meandered into mostly pointless filler. Kids throwing an unsupervised party in a retirement home had “hilarious hijinks” written all over it. Instead, it turned into another example of recycled jokes that were much funnier the first time. Bart’s gift cards could have come into play at some point during the episode, giving at least some sort of payoff, but it just evaporated into thin air and was forgotten. 

“Step Brother From The Same Planet” is an unfunny and unfortunate misstep in what has been a rock-solid season so far. There was potential to try and reinvent a tired and worn-out narrative, but the writers instead chose to select cruise control and stick with a very basic story. This episode is hopefully just a small blip in quality and not a sign of things to come.