Review: The Simpsons “The Hateful Eight-Year-Olds”

 

 

Overview:

Apparently, Lisa made a friend.  Addy is an eight-year-old who shares Lisa’s admiration of horses.  And much to everyone’s surprise, Lisa is invited to her birthday party.  What Lisa didn’t know is that Addy comes from a wealthy family.

Unfortunately, the other girls at the birthday party come from a different walk of life, and Lisa struggles to fit in.  Addy joins in on the mockery as part of her plan to no longer be the target.  She even offers Lisa the opportunity to bring a new target at the next party so she too can fit in.  Lisa is left with no other choice but to ask for help from her biggest enemy, Bart.

Thankfully, her brother is an expert at getting revenge.

 

Our Take:

I should open with apologizing for dragging The Simpsons through the mud the last couple of reviews.  That two-part disaster about a Christianity and characters we don’t care about really got on my nerves.  I am not even going to put a link for the reviews in hopes we can all forget it.  And if everything is right with the universe we will never witness such a mistake again, at least not extended through two-weeks.  Therefore, I came into this week with a cleansed palate in hopes that The Simpsons can bring me back to the comfort of Springfield and its lovable dynamic community.

Thankfully, we were delivered a thoughtful episode with an honest message and strong morals.  Of course, if I describe an episode in such a manner, it means that it must feature the forever moral compass, Lisa Simpson.

Her adventure takes us through the monumental moment in a sitcom child’s life when they go to a party in hopes of making friends only to discover that they are the target of their mockery.  I am not sure if this a common theme for people in the real world, but it is pretty standard for any television show with children.

Although, Lisa’s story takes a different turn than those others.  In place of Lisa leaving devastated only to make amends with her friend later, Lisa finds her comfort in her brother.  Like a master of disguise, this episode is about Bart and Lisa’s strained but strong bond.

Boy, do I miss the days of Bart and Lisa adventures.  Whether they were working together to solve mysteries or pushing their rivalry so hard that their love shines through, these siblings have been influential for decades.  Unfortunately, this episode fails to reach such great heights as those past tales. Still, it does feature that relationship that we have long loved.

There are some flaws to the episode, including a lack of humour, and an unnecessary B-plot about Marge and Homer wrecking a booze cruise.  But what really hurt was how forcefully guest star Joey King was injected as Lisa’s new friend.  Their backstory involving a brush off comment involving a meet-cute in a library.  At this point in The Simpsons franchise, such lazy writing is noticeable and should have been addressed before production.

On the other hand, there was another cameo that deserves a shout-out.  Hopefully, most of you have seen the video already of Weezer performing The Simpsons Theme in their rock-out style.  If not, I would highly recommend it as it has found its way onto my playlist.

One last note that I should mention for those of you who love Simpson prediction theories.  About a year ago, this episode was crafted and put into production.  Final edits would have been ready months ago, and this show has been waiting to air in the queue since then.  However, Homer does drop a complete monologue about staying home in the middle of this pandemic.  And I quote, “return to your homes and never make plans again.”

Wrapping this review up, I would call this episode average.  Those that love a great Lisa adventure will enjoy it.  There is an ambience of the great morals this show has passed onto us throughout the years.  Otherwise, the themes have all been done before in better ways.  And nothing is helping this episode stand-out from the pack of 682 other episodes.  At least they didn’t try to break this one into a two-parter.