33x09 Mothers and Other Strangers

[2.4/10 on a post-classic Simpsons scale] This episode fails at so many levels. It fails as an exploration of Homer’s relationship with his mom. It fails as an attempt to play with the show’s established history. And it fails as a comedy. There’s very little redeeming here, and a lot that could do retroactive damage to some of the series’s best work if you let it.

Chiefly, that comes down to the fact that Homer reputedly hadn't seen his mother in decades when he runs into her in “Mother Simpson”. Can you square that with him seeing her briefly as a teenager and having an “I thought it was a dream!” moment with her when Bart was born? Sure, if you do enough mental contortions. But it diminishes the impact of that superb older story of Homer reuniting with his mom and making peace with her absence if you dilute it with all these other mini-reunions in between.

I’ve reached the point where I don’t care about The Simpsons’ continuity anymore. It’s always been loose, and the show’s turned it into laffy taffy with how far they’ll stretch and contort it at this point, so it’s not worth worrying about. But there’s something sacred about Homer’s complicated history with his mom, and I dislike how often the show’s gone back and mucked it up.

Even taking it on its own terms, this is just a badly-written story about Homer and Abe’s relationship with Mona. Writer/showrunner Al Jean tries to get meaningful and even serious with how both of the Simpsons patriarchs dealt with her leaving, but the chops aren’t there anymore. Instead, we get tepid jokes about alcoholism and poor efforts at a kitchen sink drama. The show wants to be soulful and melancholy, with a touch of cynicism, like it was in “Mother Simpson”, but there’s no more gas in that tank, and it shows.

Likewise, this is a profoundly unfunny episode. The show can't wring any laughs from its “psychiatry via apps” setup in the present. Its gags centered around a dog-based version of Netflix are tepid. And the humor in the flashback, from Homer’s youth to Grampa’s wartime experiences, result in more face-palms than yuks. Some of the show’s damage to a venerated piece of the show’s history could be forgiven if “Mothers and Other Strangers” were at least amusing or entertaining, but it fails that test too.

Overall, this is a real nadir for season 33. Almost nothing about it works, either conceptually or in execution. There’s merit in exploring the lingering scars Homer carries from his mom abandoning him, but this absolutely isn’t the way to do it.