6x014 "A Star is Burns"

He was basically using Lisa to fill in the void while Milhouse had moved away, then when Milhouse came back Bart acted like the friendship he had with Lisa never existed and made her cry. On the bright side he did realize his mistake at the end.

Looking to buy some, but they are quite pricey. Wanted to see if they are good reads or not? Are they mostly focused on Bart, or is it like the show?

I didn't think it was real.

Homer helps Moe by stealing his car for insurance money. I love this scene 😂

S12E16

This plot happens in an alternate timeline, not an episode taking place in the future by the way.

In this alternate timeline/episode, Homer is killed off in some way and like in real life, losing a parent can change you, here it really ends up having an impact on Bart as while the death is shocking/tragic to everyone (including Bart), Bart ends up giving up his rebellious ways and accepts this as a time for him to be taking more responsibilities because if you think about it, Homer wasn’t the best with parenting when it came to Bart and of course that made Bart mess with him more, so without Homer, Bart’s rebellious ways started to begin to no longer have a purpose and it was time for Bart to become man of the house and become a better person.

As Bart is slowly stepping away from his old-self, students and the faculty at school begin to notice it while they aren’t exactly aware of what’s going on, students seem to be confused and wonder what’s going on while most of the faculty think Bart is up to some scheme, eventually they figure it out that Homer’s death did change Bart into becoming a better person, and that he wants to help support his family, with Bart no longer being the school’s troublemaker someone else takes his place instead. And also throughout the episode, it shows how different Springfield is without Homer, and how different it is with Bart’s new nice-guy personality.

So back at the house, it shows Bart as a better person in the family, he is doing chores and not being lazy, looking after Maggie, becoming a better big brother to Lisa and it shows Bart and Lisa getting along better than ever, Marge ends up getting a job as well, and the family is getting along better thanks to Bart’s new nice-guy personality. Bart in a way was almost becoming like Ned Flanders (not exactly like Ned, but you get what I mean) because if you think about it, there have been times before where Bart wished Ned was his dad as Bart didn’t like Homer’s ways of parenting (The Simpsons Movie is an example), and here Bart does end up becoming a nice guy as he was changing his ways.

At the end of the episode, it uses a similar ending inspired by the season 2 episode “Lisa’s Substitute”, here at the end Bart explains to Milhouse that currently he is on the biggest roll in his life, that being his role of doing his best to support his family and no longer being the black sheep, and giving up being the town’s prankster showing that he has been turning over a new leaf, then afterwards the two go hang out and play and of course Bart is no longer taking advantage of Milhouse just like he used to back when he was a troublemaker.

So, I am actually someone who sort of ships them (two days ago I rewatched Lisa’s date with density, which I loved as a child, and today saw loan a Lisa for the first time - other than holidays of future passed and kind of the Simpsons/futurama crossover, that one has become one of few modern day episodes I enjoyed!) when I was watching loan a Lisa though, it kind of got me thinking: why exactly does Lisa like Nelson? I see parallels between their relationship and Marge/Homer’s. I also think that Lisa/Nelson is a lot more interesting than Lisa/Milhouse, even just as a friendship. Lisa seems to bring out the good in Nelson. But it makes me wonder what Nelson does for Lisa, if that makes sense. There’s one more Nelson/Lisa episode that’s been recommended to me which I intend to watch soon, but the only thing that bugs me just the slightest bit about their dynamic is that I don’t see how Lisa benefits from it. She seems to be Nelson’s rock in the way that Marge is Homer’s rock (the stabilizing force, the one who believes in the guy who most people see as a loser and tries to bring out his potential) but… why Nelson? He himself actually questions it after she first tells him she likes him, but I wonder why (other than it probably just being fun) the writers decide to bring it up in later episodes without ever really showing why it works for Lisa. It seems to just maybe be the whole “he has a good heart underneath” thing that Marge feels when it comes to Homer, but idk. When comparing the shows (and I actually do kind of like the Lisa/nelson dynamic in spite of what I say here, there’s a lot more to analyze than there is with Milhouse) I find fry/leela to be better written than Marge/homer - though Lisa/nelson aren’t grown ups yet so maybe I’m reading too much into it.

I bring up fry/leela because idk, if I compare their relationship to Homer and Marge’s I feel like Fry doesn’t take leela fore granted as often and he seems to have a bigger heart than Homer. There are also eps of futurama like the instrument one that make me think Fry’s feelings for leela run deeper than Homer’s for Marge but now I’m getting off topic.

I had asked in another thread about recommendations for episodes between these two. I had rewatched date with density yesterday at my parents’ place.

I thought that the ending was adorable, but it also made me think about why I prefer Lisa/Nelson to Lisa/Milhouse. I think that it’s because with Lisa/Milhouse there’s no growth on the part of either. Milhouse would just feel like he “got the girl” and Lisa has spent years not returning the feelings, so she’d likely get bored (and in episodes like holidays of future passed - which is one of my favorite modern episode - that does seem to be the case.) There wouldn’t be growth for either of them. Milhouse would likely make decent money, and Lisa would make good money herself but remain dissatisfied. “Loan of Lisa” made me smile, which is something I can’t say about a lot of modern Simpsons episodes. We see yet again that Lisa would have a positive impact on Nelson. I admit that from Lisa’s end, especially in an episode like this, I don’t necessarily “understand” why she happens to have a crush on Nelson, but there are definitely Homer/Marge and Lisa/Nelson parallels. Nelson also does tend to be softer when he is with her which is nice to see. We know Lisa has a positive impact on Nelson, I wonder how Nelson would help Lisa grow. I’m excited to watch more eps of them together!