Review: The Simpsons “The Miseducation of Lisa Simpson”

 

 

 

Overview(Spoilers Below):

The episode begins with some background on the self-admitted “flimsy one-note character”, the Sea Captain. Spending his life in search of sunken treasure, he finally uncovers the massive booty.  Unfortunately, the township of Springfield decides that his life’s winnings should belong to the city.

With new money to burn, Marge suggests that the town invests in a STEM program.  Soon enough, the kids are off to learn at the new Springfield STEM Academy. Everyone seems to be succeeding, including Bart.  That is until Lisa uncovers the truth about her new school training the less gifted children into gig work such as Uber drivers and personal shoppers.

As Lisa takes it upon herself to rewrite the algorithm of the school’s program, she uncovers something scarier.  The only job that will be left in the future, the only role the school is training them for, is elderly care. Upon hearing this, the whole student body gives the school a negative user rating which brings down the system for good.

 

Our Take:

After the long wait through the winter break Animation Domination is back in full force.  Four fresh episodes of the best Fox can offer including the premiere of Duncanville from Mike Scully and Amy Poehler.  Kicking things off, as they have for decades is the always lovable Simpsons. Season 31 has been as strong as you could hope for thus far.  And, there are high hopes heading into the latter half. “The Miseducation of Lisa Simpson” may be the right episode to light the way.

This may have been one of the best opening scenes of modern Simpsons.  Flashing back forty years ago, we get some rich background on the Sea Captain. 

Of all the obscure characters.  

Surprisingly, the one-note Springfieldian is one of the most awesome.  If you have ever wondered why there has always been a random sea captain in town, your answers have finally been given.  Him and his wife murdered Nazi’s to secure a piece to a legendary treasure map. 

The Sea Captain then spent every day searching the shores of Springfield to find his booty.  Within a couple minutes, the captain suddenly had a rich history and character arch. The results are some of the best Simpsons content you can find. Too bad Sea Captain gets nothing for his lifetime of effort.  But it did lead into us getting a brilliant song about STEM by John Legend himself. 

The cameo would have been enough, but the lyrics took the guest appearance over-the-top.  Additionally, Legend is joined by his wife, Chrissy Teigen, to promote the education program to Springfield.  Of course, we learned long ago that if you want the town to invest in anything (like a monorail, there is going to have to be a catchy song.  And, it all pays off as Springfield invests in their future.

The latter half of the episode fails to hold up to the incredible intro.  We all know when the Simpsons kids get something nice, they have to ruin it for themselves.  In this case, they broke down the whole STEM program as an instrument to turn children into gig workers.  All good for Bart who gets new skins for his school avatar, which lands one of the funniest lines “skins are how boys play dress-up”.  However, when they get their peak at the future, the show makes one of its boldest predictions yet. According to The Simpsons, who have a pretty good track record of this sort of thing, the only jobs left in the future will be elderly care.  Which is disgusting, and we should give it up to the nurses that do that kind of work.

The conclusion wraps up much as you would expect, with the destruction of the new high-tech school.  And, there were some predictable parts to the plot like that. However, by investing the few minutes to give the Sea Captain some background at the beginning, the episode was better for it.  There is no problem in saying that this was one of the more enjoyable additions to the later years of the show. It is episodes like these ones where we feel like we take The Simpsons for granted at times.  Now I want to see more backstories to pointless characters.