"Sorry Not Sorry" is about a feud between Lisa and her second grade teacher Miss Hoover which all started with Miss Hoover unfairly gave Lisa a -B (because she wasn't feeling too well) and Lisa called her a hack because of this. As the title states, why is this an episode? Let alone an episode that portrays Lisa in the wrong, which she wasn't. Lisa is correct, Miss Hoover is a hack, just like the rest of the staff in this sorry excuse for an elementary school. The principal is a wimp; the lunch lady feeds the students god-knows-what; the original gym lady was alright, so much so they replaced her with this bully male gym teacher; the school is perpetually broke; and teachers don't care about their job and it shows in many ways. In fact, Mrs. Krabappel stated that all these kids will end up working a blue collar job anyways and Miss Hoover was repeatedly shown sneaking out of class and gleefully letting the likes of Ralph Wiggums (who's I. Q is a single digit) in charge; yet Lisa is the bad guy for one day rightfully calling her sorry teacher out. If anything the episode should be about attempting to reform the public school system, but that's too complex for the likes of the modern Simpsons writers.
This episode also sucks because they did a terrible job writing anything remotely sympathetic to Miss Hoover. Yes, it's terrible that Miss Hoover back is hurting, even though she should be getting treatment. Again, this would potentially would make a great attempting to reform the public school system because how underpaid and the lack of benefits for teachers is a real problem, but instead we get a crabby teacher grading based on how she feels and using irrational taunts on a irrational little girl who thinks everything will get her rejected from Yale. Why can't these clown writers take a page from "Bart the Lover" or that episode where Bart gets Mrs. Krabappel fired by tainting her coffee with booze? Or even episodes with that focuses on her relationship with both Skinner and Flanders? Those episodes and more are the reason why in its was a noticeable loss when her character was ultimately shelved. We've seen her in both professional and personal life so many times to the point she's a well established character, and when they made her sympathetic it actual works. Miss Hoover, on the other hand, doesn't get the same treatment as Edna, but when they do they fail hard. It's like the writers want to use the bully female substitute teacher who hates Lisa for no reason trope, while trying to make her sympathetic as Edna and it doesn't work. In order to make her sympathetic, again, the episode should be changing the public school system. This is why I can't stand modern Simpsons, they take potentially great in-depth stories and reduce them to sheer idiocy.
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