23x01 The Falcon and the D'ohman

[5.3/10 on a post-classic Simpsons scale] My biggest problem with this episode is that it is a mostly laughless half hour. There are a few bits the amount to a mild chuckle at most, but god, on the whole, the humor in this one is so weak. It’s hard to explain without just dissecting joke after joke, which is no fun for anyone, but suffice it to say this had tons of references in lieu of humor, gags that feel really dated now (hello Taiwanese animated news stories and autotuned tragedies!), and the less said about the tacked on North Korean musical at the end, the better.

This is a “Homer and buddy” episode which has paid dividends in the past, but delivers none here. Maybe this would have been funnier if I’d seen more of guest star Kiefer Sutherland’s prior show, 24, since Wayne Slater is basically an off-brand version of Jack Bauer. But the problem is that we’ve already had Kiefer Sutherland guest star as an outsized military man, and as Jack Bauer in an episode-length 24 parody, so this feels pretty redundant. They go for the same jokes over and over vis-a-vis Slater’s badassery, and the PTSD riffs are mildly uncomfortable as something the show’s trying to wring humor from it, which I might be able to get past if they were, you know, actually funny.

The story also loses all tether to reality, a recurring problem in double-digit season Simpsons. Homer getting kidnapped by a bunch of double axle-performing Ukrainian gangsters is pretty ridiculous, as is Slater’s flaming t-shirt gun rampage. At least there’s the slightest modicum of setup and payoff in the form of Homer and Wayne’s friendship-affirming fist bump, but overall, the plot does this episode no favors.

Honestly, the best thing about this one is probably the Nedna business. I’d almost forgotten about that summer poll, and while the whole deal is kind of gimmicky, the fake-out with Flanders drinking OJ with pulp, Edna’s wink, and the wrap-arounds, replete with an amusing biblical homage to promise they weren’t just going to immediately reverse it, were all cute at worst (save for Skinner’s groveling). It’s not much, but hey, in an episode like this one, you take what you can get.

Overall, this one is just dull. There’s few jokes that will make you cringe, but lots that will make you just close your eyes, and a flat, redundant guest character and straining, outlandish plot do nothing to help the episode’s cause. Well worth skipping but for the Nedna stuff.