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The Simpsons: Forgive and Regret (2018)
Forgive and Regret - Another great episode with Homer's mom.
I really like how they used a single plot that did a great job portraying Homer and Abe's relationship, which actually had some emotional moments. Its not really a new concept where Homer and Abe get into a fight and are expecting some form of forgiveness, though its fitting to Abe's character where he hasn't been a good father when Homer was young.
The couch gag was short and sweet. Kinda tired of all the Gunsmoke references at this point but at least this one went over fast. Moe's bar had some funny moments with the pickled eggs and Moe's way of preserving them. Liked the gag with Homer starting a conversation with Marge by starting with her name, which worries her. The gag with the sad dogs lasted to long though. Bart is actually wearing his lucky red hat in the car, and I really liked the sound proof window gags. The derby was for most part pretty fun with jokes like Truckasaurus II, ''Car-Rac- Obama'' and a genuine moment of Homer not being so selfish and escorting his dad to a hospital. This puts him in a much better light than how he acted in Homer Simpson in: "Kidney Trouble". Abe had some sad dying moments, which almost lead me to think he really died when Hibbert brought up his condition. Guess I should've known better.
I like how Abe acts jerkish to Homer that he already forgive him despite staying alive. Moe actually tried to bring them together which was a good scene. The escape room scenes were also fun but it felt rather short, would've loved to see them do more in the actual escape room. Got a good laugh at Abe tricking Homer to thrust a sword into a power plug, and Homer not wanting to leave the car as it shows how much it sinked in. Lisa leaving her body felt out of place, the show has done gags like these but it took the character a lot more effort and left them seizuring on the floor like Nelson once did to ''hah-hah!'' Bart. The flashback had some genuine moments with Homer and his parents. I like that they kept the kid designs from Moe, Lenny and Karl the same as in The Blunder Years.
The last act has the whole family angry at Abe, and considering the way he acted I don't blame them. Homer finding himself bonding with his family because they share the hatred towards Abe left yet another genuine moment... but Homer sang to long. I liked how the family practices to react to Abe and Lisa giving Homer the silent treatment as she prepares it to use on Abe, probably one of this episodes funniest moments. I pretty much liked the rest of the act with Abe trying to get the box with recipes back, he's willing to give his life so that Homer can get his box back... only to reveal that he was never in any danger. Its actually really fun to see Abe tricking Homer so often in this episode. Good to see that Mona's recipes went in the right hands aswell, though the waitress had no real reason to believe that the recipes where really from Homer's mother and to just hand them all over so fast.
Its a well written episode with a straightforward plot and solid bonding between Homer and Abe. The humor was not that great though, despite having some really funny moments with my favorites being the escape room scenes and Lisa's silent treatment. The pacing was for most of the part fine but it felt like they could've gone trough the first act faster to get to the Homer/Abe stuff. I appreciate that they kept the intro short and left out any sub plots, it really helped keeping the flow for the story. There's not much that I didn't like, though I find a couple of scenes like the overlong sad dog commercial and Lisa leaving her body to be unnecesary. The characterisation has been solid and I don't even mind how much Abe jerked around tricking Homer. Maybe they could've done more with the flashbacks and just leave the whole scene with Homer's bet with the pickles out. Yes, this deserves a 10/10.
The Simpsons: The Serfsons (2017)
The Serfsons - Review.
I liked this one. Very good and interesting alternate universe episode and a solid way to start the season (best season premiere the show has had in a while). It's nice to see them doing something different with an entire episode about what just could easily have been an Treehouse of Horror segment and I liked how they expanded the surrealist of a Treehouse segment into a full length episode that wasn't limited to just 5-6 minutes. I'm not a fan of Game Of Thrones (I honestly don't care for it to say the least) and I thought they would pretty much only parody that, but I'm glad they didn't focus only on it too much and made it feel like a general medieval fantasy tale where they parodied other fantasy works too such as Lord of The Rings, The Hobbit, Narnia, Warcraft and Harry Potter as well as more generic fantasy stuff that was sprinkled throughout. I must say it worked better here than in many similar Treehouse stories and even the fantasy sequences in Marge Gamer; they clearly put some effort into this and it showed despite the flaws.
The plot was pretty good, interesting and overall well written (and nice use of Marge's mother Jaqueline whose role here probably is the biggest one yet; they could easily have gone with Grampa instead but I liked that it was Jaqueline instead and it made for a good mother- daughter element), the pacing was overall pretty good (it could have been tighter but I liked the pace they went with, allowing it to feel more natural) and the music was suitable. The alternate character designs for the family and others were pretty good and suitable & I liked how they had some fun (even portraying some of the characters into non-human fantasy creatures) and the animation was probably what I liked the most; the backgrounds were really neat and detailed and some of the animation was really fluid (the first scene with Aslan the lion man stood out but I also really liked Lisa doing her magic and Jaqueline confronting the dragon and walking towards it through it's fire breath, which was surprisingly great- looking and epic).
The humor wasn't the strongest aspect (maybe the weakest one) and the ones at the start were pretty lame (especially Homer kissing the hooves of the horse and the ice walker trying to woo Jaqueline) but it got better and even though the humor never got great there were some some decent-to-good and sometimes fairly kind of inspired jokes in there (the blob monster in the family's house, the slave wheel powering nothing, one of the wizards trapping Homer in a prison made of his extending toenails, "Take a peasant, leave a peasant", Aslan trying to convert people to his religion, the Milhouse goblin horde & Jaqueline's story all come to mind as jokes I liked) and some nice referential gags (such as the spider forest as seen in The Hobbit as the retirement home with the elderly hanging upside down while wrapped in webbing which made me laugh a little). Nothing was great but it had quite a bit of stuff I liked (and I really liked the LOTR & Hobbit styled end credits with the sketches of the characters and the song based on that from the last Hobbit movie; that was pretty neat).
Overall, I can understand those who find it just okay or a meh episode since the writing wasn't really that strong, it was partially kind of obvious and uninspired, a lot of it was just okay and it really could've used better humor (and those who don't like fantasy especially much probably doesn't get as much out of it as I did so I guess that I'm biased as a fantasy fan) but I enjoyed it a lot for being an fairly entertaining and inoffensive special episode without any forced modern references that took me out of it (they were careful with keeping the style and tone within the parameters of the medieval fantasy genre even with the spoof names and sign jokes and all). To be honest, I wouldn't say no if they did a sequel episode set inside this weird alternate universe (or even if they did another alternate universe story) since I found this one good, simple fun and nicely entertaining.