35x12 Lisa Gets an F1

[3.7/10 on a Selman era Simpsons scale] Let’s start with the good. There’s a decent idea here. The idea that Lisa is typically riddled with anxiety, while Homer obliviously or angrily contributes to it, only for that dynamic to flip after Lisa gets therapy, is a solid emotional throughline. Lisa finding some measure of control through exposure therapy, and Homer finding that without Marge doing the emotional labor, he starts fretting like mad, could provide the foundation of a good “seeing how the other half lives” story. Hell, I even appreciate the call and response of Homer freaking Lisa out with his brake-checking early in the episode, only to save Lisa with it at the end.

That's about where my compliments for this one end. The execution of that idea is abysmal. There's only so much you can do in a twenty-two minute episode, but so much of Lisa’s emotional journey here is painfully reductive. Reducing Lisa’s anxieties to a cause as straightforward as Homer’s reckless driving is facile. The show at least winks at how quickly doing a kids’ version of F1 resolves that problem, but it still comes off like a narrative shortcut. And Homer turning into a cartoonish worry wart once Marge stops fretting over Lisa is a little too fast and too easy.

This is also a terrible, caricatured version of the Simpsons’ patriarch. The current era of The Simpsons has largely managed to avoid the dreaded “Jerkass Homer” who haunted the show during its worst years. But Homer’s over-the-top road rage, and virulently combative reaction to the idea that it could be contributing to Lisa’s mental illness is the most unlikable he’s been in years. Likewise, his transition to an abject worrier makes him more cartoon than character, with his transition never feeling rooted in an emotional shift, just a narrative lightswitch going off.

Not for nothing, this is also a largely laughless half hour of television. I chuckled precisely once, when Lisa realizes how she’s able to remain calm despite everything going wrong on the track, praising her extraordinary therapist, only to have said therapist freaking out in the stands. Otherwise, this is a barren wasteland of awful racing jokes, bare Mario Kart references, and miserable character moments. The episode almost entirely wastes guest star Rachel Bloom, who’s given little of any substance or humor, and Disenchantment regular Matt Berry earns points for his characteristically amusing delivery, but the material he’s given to work with is dreadful.

So are the jokes around Lisa’s Italian racing rivals. My god, this is some of the hackiest, hoariest, most painfully unfunny material the show has delivered in years. Italians like gelato! They like fancy pasta! They speak in a different language! That's all The Simpsons has apparently! I don’t say this lightly, but Paola, the young racer who’s crosswise with Lisa, may be the most annoying guest character the show’s ever had. His voice is grating, his character is an irksome shell of a personality, and his “boof” catchphrase is the absolute pits. Nuke everything about his abortive subplot with Bart as a venal hanger on from orbit.

At best, this episode manages to vindicate the bond between Homer and Lisa, which is something I;’m always on board with, but it does it in the most tortured, unlikable, unfunny way imaginable. This one gets points for having a core emotional idea, but loses many more for making an utter hash of it.