Original airdate: December 1, 2019
The premise: Still riddled with grief over his mother’s death, Todd Flanders has a crisis of faith, resulting in an angry tirade at church where he publicly renounces his belief in God. Incensed, Ned forces Todd to stay with the Simpsons, hoping living in such a sinful hellhole will strike the fear of God back in his son.
The reaction: Reading the synopsis of this episode a few weeks ago most definitely got my attention, something I can’t remember ever happening before. Ned Flanders and his two boys have really gone through a lot; our floating timeline makes it unclear exact;y how much time has gone by, but over what must feel like a tragically too short period of time, Ned has loved and lost two wives, and Rod and Todd two mothers. It’s a topic that was really only explored in Maude’s death episode “Alone Again, Natura-Diddly,” and a little bit in the following season’s “I’m Goin’ to Praiseland,” but those two shows were much more concerned with goofy dumb antics and Homer acting like an asshole, and most importantly, forcing Ned to move on and start dating again, moving swiftly past Maude, given killing the character off was directly tied with her voice actress getting the boot by FOX anyway. Ned, Rod and Todd never felt like they had any time to grieve, and while Maude was really a relatively minor character we didn’t know all that much about, an episode dealing with the effects of her absence is absolutely brimming with potential, especially when viewed through the eyes of an innocent child coping with the loss of a parent. So I got excited. Despite absolutely knowing I should know better given the shitty shit shit quality of this show, I got a little bit hopeful. I mean, we’re now almost twenty years passed since Maude’s untimely death, but I guess better late than never to tell this kind of story. I was also curious if this episode would even acknowledge Edna Krabappel and her role in the Flanders’ lives as the new stepmom or anything, but as I figured, despite her making two brief cameo appearances towards the end, she’s never mentioned. She doesn’t even appear in any of the many photos on the Flanders walls. “Nedna” was completely pointless, and there was absolutely nothing to their relationship. But who cares? I’m willing to put all of that aside, pretend it never happened, and make like this show happened like a few seasons after Maude’s passing. I was willing to give this episode some rope to tell a meaningful story about these characters… and it then proceeded to hang itself with it while shitting all over my face.
I was immediately fooled by the episode’s opening. Ned wakes up teary eyed from a dream about Maude, alerting Todd, prompting him to ask his son if he ever dreams about his mother. Todd is hesitant; we see that he has dreamed of her, but with a blank face. He somberly recounts this to Ned, “Daddy, I can’t remember what Mommy looks like.” Heartbreaking stuff. I’ll be perfectly honest, as someone who has also lost their mother, the conceit of this episode has me in the bag already. I too struggle with these kinds of things with my mother. Her face and voice becoming less clear, memories of her getting hazier, all of this is very scary stuff, the idea of someone who meant so much to you becoming more and more of just a faint recollection. This is GOOD SHIT, incredibly emotional material you could definitely center a whole episode around. This show has dealt with the topic of death in very serious and honest ways, while simultaneously remaining incredibly funny and poignant (“Old Money,” “One Fish, Two Fish, Blowfish, Blue Fish,” “‘Round Springfield,”) so it’s incredibly disappointing that this episode starts to go off a cliff in the very next scene, signaled by two glaring things. Ned shows his boys an old home movie of Christmas morning to show them their dearly lost mother, a beautiful occasion quickly interrupted by a confused and irritated Abe Simpson busting through the door, and Homer abandoning him there for the day. Later, Todd watches more home videos of his mother and him, tape footage that is promptly interrupted by Homer in a bad wig playing air guitar, as we cut back to Todd holding back tears as Homer continues being an ass, having taped over Ned’s personal home video tapes for God knows why. I’ll get into this in a bit, but Todd very quickly gets steamrolled out of his own story, and his emotional pleas about his beloved mother are mostly ignored.
The second glaring thing is that Ned is firmly in ultra-religious caricature mode, a big part of his Flanderization over time was him becoming less and less like a normal human being and more an avatar for jokes about conservative Christian zealots. Fair enough, he’s been like this forever. But what I wasn’t expecting is that after Todd passionately renounces his faith, Ned is absolutely furious at him (“Son, let me put this gently… WE’RE ALL GOING TO HELL!!”) We proceed to get more doozy lines from him going forward (“You do not question God’s real estate holdings and tax-free status!” in response to Todd asking why God needs so many churches.) Here’s the thing: this episode could have featured an incredibly conflicted Ned. Concerned for his son’s soul, but still warm and understanding considering he’s still grieving. Hell, he himself is still grieving Maude too. Todd could get increasingly obstinate about his renouncement of God, which could over time lead Ned to the brink in frustration. Ned could even have a crisis of faith himself, which was used as a joke back in “Natura-Diddly.” But instead, the episode becomes about needing to get Todd believing in God again, almost entirely disconnected from him missing Maude. Ned is furious at Todd, with no further mention from him about his son deeply missing his mother (“There must be some way to scare religion back into my son!”) He sternly casts Todd out to live with the Simpsons, where we get scenes of Homer and Marge attempting to get intimate without Todd’s keen ears hearing, and Lisa doggedly attempting to convert Todd to Buddhism for some reason. No sympathetic ears are ever extended to this poor kid. Eventually we circle back around to hearing from Todd about how he misses his mom, which actually clicks with Homer, who has also lost his mother. But from there, he abandons the young child on a park bench, rushing to Moe’s to drink away the pain, meets Ned there, the two get drunk together, then get hit by a car and sent to Heaven. Where the fuck is this episode going?
Ned and Homer are both in comas at the hospital, leading to the one and only nice moment of the episode, where Marge actually helps Todd cope with his conflicted feelings on whether or not he should pray for his father (“Prayer doesn’t have to be to God, it can also just be an honest conversation we have with ourselves. Just do what your heart tells you.”) Meanwhile, Ned and Homer are dicking around in Heaven, where the former hears Todd praying and returns to Earth. “Daddy, you came back! I believe again!” the boy cries. “Two lives saved by prayer!” Ned responds, as the family has a group hug. What am I to take from all this? I haven’t the foggiest. The episode ends with Maude’s ghost tenderly tucking in Rod and Todd, an absolutely hollow attempt at a sweet ending, so I really have no idea of the writers even acknowledge that the show wasn’t even about her death. It’s episodes like these that really convince me this show is truly unfixable, at least in how it’s been run for the last nearly twenty years. Last week’s “Thanksgiving of Horror” was admittedly fun, fleeting entertainment (an absolute rarity in over a decade of nearly uninterrupted junk), but the rot of this series runs too deep. Some shows will have glimmers of decent ideas, but through the writing and rewriting process, these concepts and themes end up completely buried in stupid nonsense. Every so often a stock character will breech ever so close to actually behaving like a human being, like Todd being sad he forgets his mother’s face, but that shit will be shot down real quick, in this case being an empty, status quo-confirming resolution that doesn’t even address why he was mourning in the first place. Over the course of its over thirty-year-long run, through all of the decaying characterization, the stupid jokes, the preposterous stories, the insulting shots at the fan base, the biggest casualty of the series is the death of its soul, of characters who behaved like real people, and the other characters, and the show itself, acknowledging and respecting that fact. Now, none of that matters, and it hasn’t for a long, long time.
Two items of note:
– Lisa repeatedly pestering Todd about converting to Buddhism reminded me of “She of Little Faith,” whose final act featured Marge attempting to discourage Lisa’s discovery of her new faith and bring her back into the fold of Christianity. I recall being annoyed by her insensitivity, but at least I can kind of understand her plight of wanting her daughter to share her faith and be with her in the afterlife. Here, Lisa knows Todd is upset and grieving his mother… but doesn’t give a shit about that, she’s out for souls to convert! For some reason? Outside of the complete insensitivity from who should be the most sympathetic Simpson, we’ve never seen Lisa militantly try to push for new converts before. And then it’s the stinger at the end of her being chewed out by Buddha by not nabbing an easy get like Todd Flanders. Scenes like those make it clear that the writers as a whole never really gave a shit about writing a serious story about Todd’s grief or Maude’s death at all.
– Glenn Close returns as Mona Simpson in her tenth guest appearance, with seven of her appearances being posthumous for the character. Here, we get more revisionist history painting Mona as unusually cold and distant, rebuffing her son’s earnest attempt at a hug in Heaven, and appearing in a flashback screaming at Abe as a young Homer cries himself to sleep (“I’d tell the kid I love him, but I’m as bad at goodbyes as I am at picking husbands!”) Why did they do this? Outside of any continuity issues, why the fuck wouldn’t they make it that Homer bonds with Todd over their fond memories of their loving mothers? How the fuck do you not make that part of the episode? If Ned is too wrapped up in his unflinching religious bullshit to speak to his son after excommunicating him, maybe Todd’s first step back is to open up to a kindred spirit who knows how it feels to lose a mother? Instead, not only does this not happen, but they retroactively make Mona kind of an asshole? WHY.
One good line/moment: Todd’s somber retelling of his dream of his faceless mother, and Marge’s heart-to-heart with him at the end about prayer are two honestly great moments, acting as bookends to a truckload of fucking horseshit. But because of this, that the episode doesn’t even attempt to even fucking try within the body of the story, those two scenes are rendered completely inert. Fuckballs.
Me Blog Write Good 
One step forward with “Thanksgiving of Horror,” two steps back with probably the most wasted potential in a ZS episode. Gotta love how every time you find a passable episode amongst the lazy uninspired dreck, next episode dashes your hopes of a return to quality. It’s like a coordinated dance… of shit! Hurts even more in that this particular basket case could’ve been absolutely brilliant.
On top of what you’ve mentioned, Bart genuinely caring for Homer in secret then denying it when asked also came across sweet to me.
But yeah…they has absolute gold in theory and let it slide badly in execution.
If Fox is going to keep reanimating this corpse, and hiring new voice actors to replace the deceased including the main characters this show needs NEW writers or to stop writing emotional episodes. Or they should just go balls to the wall wacky like The Bart Mangled Banner. Ever since 2000, the writers have proven time and again that they are unable to write emotional episodes or with a single hint of depth and nuance. As terrible as episodes like Kill the Alligator and Run and Saddlehorse Galactica are at least they didn’t try to manipulate the audience into feeling emotional for these caricatures of once layered characters.
Forget about a new Showrunner, Scully and Al Jean have proven that it was the writers that made the show, that spent days rewriting jokes and doing their damndest to create the funniest most poignant show there was. But no GREED knocked on their door and asked Fox to sacrifice quality for all the monies and Fox sold the soul of The Simpsons and ruined the chance for the Simpsons to go out with a bang with a series finale like Trash of the Titans.
Seriously FUCK Zombie Simpsons.
Amen. The show, more than (arguably) anything else, has gradually become locked within the same withered, decaying shells of the basic concepts and archetypes it trailblazed nearly three decades prior, leading to the entire Jean era (particularly the past ten seasons or so) blurring together into a seemingly endless stretch of crushing repetition which resembles a Wal-Mart product (in its soulless ‘consistency’ of content) more than many of the animated shows dominating the present-day landscape. Although FOX executive meddling is definitely an easy contender to blame (and honestly, considering their ceaseless renewal of the show, I can’t deny their involvement has played a role in the current situation in some significant way), it honestly seems that Jean is more at fault for the direct low quality of the most recent episodes – a skim across interviews with the show’s latter-day writers, in particular, reveals that Jean’s mathematical prowess (given the guy graduated from high school at 16 to study math at Harvard) and resultant ‘efficiency’ (which we can only assume equates to running the show’s production process akin to an assembly line, hence the incoherence of much of his solo era; it’s obviously far simpler to plug a scene into an ‘approximately acceptable’ position within the plot and call it a day as opposed to integrating each story beat and gag into a satisfying and well-paced whole as the earlier seasons excelled at) has allegedly enabled him to hold the showrunner mantle for 18 years now. Combine that with the writers’ complacency (I can only assume that the crew were paid handsomely for producing even the lowest-quality HD episodes, which effectively negates any real ‘hunger’ to improve the quality of their work, particularly for a show with literally no ending in sight) and you’ve basically got a mess on your hands story-wise.
As for this episode… it definitely had surprising potential, given the show’s continual refusal to fully explore the impact of Maude’s death beyond having Ned hook up with other women for various superficial reasons (because liking someone’s laugh equates to instant matrimony, I guess), but once again squanders its own promise in the most unremarkable and miserable way possible, which is basically par for the course by Jean-era standards. At least Scully and co. were honest (to the point of crass brazenness, but still) about the cast’s degradation into shallow caricatures as opposed to coating it in layers of insidious and unearned sentiment (I’d swear it was an attempt to manipulate audience members into assuming the show ‘still has heart’, but the integration by this stage is so poor that it’s kind of astounding).
And that’s sort of the problem with Al Jean’s “reign of malaise”. As terrible as it was seeing Homer become a Jerkass who could take on the world (and likely win) with no comeuppance unless the plot insisted upon it and all of the other characters degrade into cardboard cutouts of themselves during Mike Scully’s four years as showrunner since he wanted to be Mr. WackyPants and wanted NRBQ to do the soundtrack for each episode, there was still a mindset of wanting to fight to create the best possible show without compromise. Were there questionable calls? I mean, his run was the period where Homer got sexually assaulted by a male panda, after all, but at that time, the Simpsons weren’t the only adult oriented animated program on FOX (there was obviously King of the Hill, but that was so far removed from the Simpsons it was a non-entity; however serious contenders arose during the Scully Era like Futurama, Family Guy, and even the PJs) and the fact that Family Guy in particular looked like a younger, more attractive suitor to replace the Simpsons (commentary of episodes around this time pointed out how the staff grew to loathe the series internally because executives kept bugging them about how FG “listened” to what said executives told them to do or change and was cheaper to make). However, once Al Jean took over, all three of those shows I mentioned were all gone. Futurama? Dead show walking. The PJs? Exiled to UPN as it was a syndicated program to begin with. Family Guy? Cancelled. Again, you had King of the Hill, but KOTH was always going to be the show that got bounced around and/or preempted by football, so it never was a threat, and when Jean became the sole showrunner, the show’s status as the ultimate survivor was etched in stone and there was no need to try anymore with cutting-edge humor or storylines, it was time to feast, baby!
I should look at the people who’ve written on the series since Jean took over in Season 13, but I assume that outside of the Pross/Gammil/Selman core, you won’t see a lot of variety outside of the obligatory WGA freelance episodes. A common complaint about the “decline of the Simpsons” is how the staff changed in such a short amount of time in the first 8-10 years, which you can safely attribute to things such as burnout and people getting opportunities elsewhere, but if you look at the past two decades, the core has remained very stable. However, stability isn’t always a good thing. Stability can lead to predictability, and when you aren’t worried about cancellation or being put lower on the priority tier, you aren’t as inclined to seek out new people (and those you do seek are most likely those you just want to help take advantage of “the good life”, not get a big break in Hollywood).
I would talk about the episode, but… the staff clearly don’t understand the concept of death and questioning one’s own faith even though I lost two family members in the span of 2 months and had multiple incidents over the years regarding Christians and the churches they use to “spread” the message of “God”, so why should I give them the time of day to tell them how they suck at it especially since they’d just tell me I’m some basement dwelling loser who doesn’t know what he’s talking about?
At this point, The Simpsons is locked in its ways for the rest of its run. I don’t know why Mike realizes now that the show is unfixable. If Al Jean couldn’t do anything about the show’s decline when he became the showrunner in season 13, what can be done now, almost twenty years later?
There was a reason the show constantly felt different in its earlier seasons, and evolved and adapted so much that you can know the difference between an episode in season four and an episode in season five: The work was a lot harder. Back then, The Simpsons was the only show of its kind. It had to fight to get respect from people who thought that animation was only for kids, and prove that not only was that untrue, it could be a far more intelligent and soulful sitcom than all of the other sitcoms now. The writers, the producers, the animators, the voice actors, they had no choice. They had to strive for excellence or no one would take them seriously. It’s why writers were constantly leaving and being replaced, because they felt like they could cut it somewhere else and the show wasn’t going to be around forever. When Greg Daniels joined the writing staff, he thought The Simpsons was already past its prime.
Turnover was essential. From what I’ve read back then, working on the show was hell. You were constantly up at all hours of the day, writing and rewriting and rewriting and rewriting. There was no sleep for these people. Writers were gaining weight. If there was a joke in the script that the staff didn’t think was funny, after hearing it 28 or 29 times, they would cut it and replace it with something else. Back then, everyone devoted their lives to the show. Al Jean & Mike Reiss were working from 80-100 hours a week when they were the showrunners. Bill Oakley & Josh Weinstein were burnt out by the time production on season eight ended, because they had to do post-production on season seven at the same time which led to them working on both seasons at once. The rule at the time was as the showrunner, the second season almost kills you. There was an order for 25 episodes per season, but it was so much work, two episodes were given to former showrunners to produce so the order could be completed. There was no overstaying your welcome.
Nowadays, the show’s mentality is entirely different. There’s no more staying up until the very next morning to get a script right, no more goals that the staff has for a particular season. It’s corporate writing now, McDonald’s writing. The expectations aren’t as high and there’s no desire to be radical or subversive or provocative. The Simpsons can’t be any of those things in 2019, except when it’s not trying to (The Apu documentary, the “Stark Raving Dad” controversy).
If you’re looking for that classic Simpsons mentality, you can only get it from younger shows like Rick and Morty or BoJack Horseman. And also South Park, but they’ve always been a unique case.
Would you rather torture the writers by keeping them up all night to check over their story to see if every detail works? If your answer is yes, then you are no better than the soulless The Simpsons writers themselves. The safest option would be to encourage them to just not write an episode in one draft, and check over the main story to see if it works and if the characters are in character and consistent, and if the emotions feel organic. For me, a writer myself, that doesn’t take any longer than a few hours each day. Sleep is not an excuse to be completely incompetent.
And it would not take me as much time to rewrite a The Simpsons episode to make it good as it took them. If I were to write any episodes to make it so The Simpsons ‘still has heart’, I would do it to set a good example for the writing staff that will never stop The Simpsons to show them that it shouldn’t take longer than 1 or 2 hours to rewrite an episode that had its first draft finished in a week. I would also write certain stories to show that they don’t have to lock The Simpsons in a rut forever, and if I find out for sure that they have a rule against being creative (I hope to God there isn’t one), then I will help them abolish that. Let me know when you have tried and failed at doing that yourself, person who claims to write better than the writer of Todd, Todd, Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me.
Why are they still doing ‘Homer Carelessly tapes over family VHS tapes’ in 2019? Did they at least lampshade it by saying the Flanders consider digital technology sinful and so still use analogue VHS technology? Cos otherwise it makes absolutely no sense.
This was one of those episodes that felt like a bunch of scenes that barely connected together to produce a really disjointed story. The show is so ham-fisted these days it’s outstanding it gets any praise.
Naturally this got a B- on the AVClub.
The AV Club could watch footage of someone torching their offices and still give it a B-.
I don’t really bother with the No Homers group anymore because a good portion of people will give something nine thumbs up regardless if it misses the point in a tragic farce such as this.
It probably isn’t the worst episode but is this to you one of the most disappointing episodes?
(sigh) I guess the first and last moment of this episode were just good enough for that. The Saga of Carl didn’t have any good moments Mike found and that also got a B-. If the AV Club did give footage of someone torching their office a B-, then it must have been really funny how they did it.
When you have wasted potential for a good story, “one/a few good moments that work” are all you have left to save your episode from being totally unwatchable. In addition to what you mentioned above, I actually liked that even though Mona said she was not a hugger, she still agreed to hug Homer for the brief minute he was in Heaven with her, and they got to have their goodbye moment.
Oh my gosh. With the scathing long review you gave this episode, I can tell it’s gonna be a bad one before I even watch it, as opposed to short reviews for boring, innocuous episodes that are just mediocre. Still, I have enough bile fascination to see for myself how bad it really is.
“Despite absolutely knowing I should know better given the shitty shit shit quality of this show, I got a little bit hopeful.”
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me 471 times…well, fuck….
There was a glimmer of some truly heartfelt, moving stuff, but that only makes this episode worse because of the terrible way they handled it.
I ended up watching this episode unintentionally. We finished up the movie we were watching and were starting to cook dinner and while I originally planned not to watch the episode right now, the opening bit hooked me. I thought it was an intriguing concept and sweet. In fact, I rather enjoyed the first two acts of the episode despite Lisa being a jerk and Ned being psychotic. I even liked his plot that living with The Simpsons for one day would get Todd back into the fold. But then… how long was Todd living with them? It had to be several days.
Oh anyway, then the last act happened with Homer and Ned and the show completely lost me. It’s like ADD kicked in and the writers couldn’t handle having a show focus on Todd’s dilemma so it had to go balls to the walls in crazy antics with Homer and Ned in Heaven because reasons. Why couldn’t it have been about Todd refinding his faith by not wanting to lose his dad too instead of the slapstick comedy? There have been over 200 episodes of straight up silliness in the last decade, surely a single seriously dramatic one wouldn’t have sealed doom on the show.
Also, what the hell was up with that random ending with Lusa and Buddha? That made no sense.
To end on a good note though, I loved Bart’s moment when he admitted his feelings for Homer.
Agree. Pretty crappy episode.
Sorry about your loss.
Ok, I just watched it a year later because of late Spanish dub… Oh my god… Lisa trying to convert Todd into a buddhist is the cruelest thing I’ve ever seen from her. No sympathy for this kid that does not remember his mother and her first instinct is to “recommend him to be a buddhist”? Wooow… Like..wow