This episode made me laugh quite a lot and I would highlight it as one of the funnier episodes of season 20. Yes, the story-line is slightly cliché (Although the way it resolves is not necessarily) and yes one could argue it is a slightly reworked version of a previous episode where Bart has a girlfriend, but after 20 seasons I'm not particularly bothered if they revisit some ideas and neither am I overly bothered about the use of clichés. In fact the only clichés i'm bored of as I attempt to watch every season of The Simpsons are of people talking about "How far the great juggernaut of the 90's as fallen" and phrases like "Zombie Simpsons". I enjoyed the subplot of Lisa's sudden bout of hopeless depression and thought some of the gags involving her happy pills were very amusing. "Who wants to see Lisa Simpsons get high?"... well why not? Perhaps season 20 is one of the slightly weaker seasons, but I felt this episode stands out as one of the best in the season and thus deserving of an above average rating. 8/10
4 Reviews
Happy, Happy, Happy
e_daneva4 February 2024
The Good, the Sad and the Drugly was an okay episode. I have watched 3 bad, 5 okay, 5 good, and 5 really good episode. From what I said at the very beginning of this review, this is an okay episode. Bart has another love interest? Seriously. I'm sick of Bart and Lisa having so many love interests. When it started it was interesting but now it's constant. The only love interest that I would like for Bart and Lisa is if that love interest stays with them, well, expect Milhouse. Man I don't even understand why Bart is friends with him. They're literal polar opposites. Anyway, the Simpsons need to stop doing this. Yes, they still do it. Bart and Lisa have experienced to much love. A case of loveagytis. The plot for the A-story is really good, but it gets ruined by having no comedy and have a kid character sound like an adult again. Seriously, every guest star ( besides Emily Bunt ) doesn't sound even remotely like a kid. My goodness. Can't they even try to sound like a kid? I talked a little about this when reviewing the DeBarted so I think this is enough talking about the guests stars voices. The episode didn't have a lot of humor, but we got to see the Squidport ( featured in the fun Simpsons: Tapped Out game ). The A-plot was just, okay, not bad but not good. The B-plot was just great. It would be spectacular if the B-plot was the A-plot. It was just superb. The B-plot was very comical and it satiricaly portrayed drugs. Do you know what I feel about the B-plot. Happy, happy, happy, happy, happy, happy, happy, happy. I really liked it so much and it is probably one of the funniest B-plots of the season. In all, I give this episode a 6.6 out of 10.
So nice and so great
arielsiere23 September 2022
The couch gag starts when The Simpsons family meet their monkey counterparts, it starts with Bart and Milhouse destroying the school, things start to go wrong, then Milhouse goes to the principal's office with Skinner and Chalmers, telling that he will lose the taco wendsday, Milhouse got grounded because of his actions now he has to listen to his father Kirk screaming at the tv like crazy, back in the car we see that Homer is talking to Bart that he was glad that Milhouse got suspended, he says that Milhouse aka El Barto is a bad influence, so Homer drops Bart in the Springfield Retirement Castle, when he meets his grandpa Abe and talks to him, then all of a sudden a girl named Jenny arrives she has the voice actress of Jewel (Río 1&2) and Ella Enchanted, she seems sweet in the beginning, while on Lisa fails a project i don't know, she takes a pill making her see happy faces while it plays the song called What A Wonderful World just heard in the episode Every Man's Dream which was a bad episode, when the girl named Jenny comes to dinner, Milhouse gets jealous when Bart lefted him for a girl, on a boat ride we see the three school bullies named Jimbo, Kearney and Dolph playing with the egg of a duck pretending to be a ball or something. Then Bart stands out to this three bullies or else there will be no Shauna, Bart Gets pushed in the lake and Jenny saves him, they have a picnic, they walk in the bridge, Bart tells the truth to Jenny, she leaves him dumped, making Bart to start crying, while Marge and Homer try to cheer him up, then he asks Apu for a little more drink while sad. Then Lisa appears tells her to Bart what happened and in the end Bart and Milhouse make the school floor an ice skating floor ice, even though in the episode Moonshine River when Bart tries to apologize to Jenny she says eat my shorts one of Bart's common phrases after he lies to her.
Reused Ideas, Reduced Stories, Recycled Plots.
zacpetch14 January 2015
Warning: Spoilers
This episode sees Bart get a new girlfriend. As such it is easy to compare it to season 6 classic "Bart's Girlfriend". The problem is that doing so only heightens how far the mighty juggernaut of 90s TV has fallen.
That episode actually had Bart trying to pretend to be what he wasn't to win over his love interest, Jessica, by making himself look like a good person but soon learn that she was pretending too. Here it reuses that for Bart but not for new girl Jenny: She's the real deal so a lot of the cleverness that made it work is gone. Not only that but both episodes even use the cartoon cliché of the heavenly light to show us 'look this girl is really nice' but while The Simpsons openly mocked it here we have Zombie Simpsons flat-out using it. Twice! There's also the issue of telling a story. Where that episode had Bart in trouble for a 'crime' he didn't commit, here there is no story development. At all. It looks like there might be at one point when Milhouse is about to expose Bart as the fraud he is but never really goes anywhere with it; Also it turns Milhouse into a crazy psycho in a series of 'jokes' that go on too long such as when he walks backwards at the church fête.
There's an unusual (that's putting it politely, trust me) subplot where Lisa grows depressed and is given Happy Pills (?) which make her see everything as cartoon smiley faces (?!) but eventually she gets into a dangerous situation where she starts kissing the faces (!!) so she stops taking them and... that's literally it. Did you ever want to see Lisa Simpson get high? No? Well that's tough! This plot is a very emptied version of season 13's "Weekend At Burnsie's" anyway but with Lisa in Homer's position and none of the fun parody elements or cold turkey scenes which made it enjoyable.
It's not actually too bad an episode, my problem is just that there's virtually no plot and all we have that comes even close to one is recycled-and-watered-down. It's not terrible just a bit... empty. Not enough material for a full half-hour-minus-adverts show but it's gonna get dragged out for that long anyway. 3/10
That episode actually had Bart trying to pretend to be what he wasn't to win over his love interest, Jessica, by making himself look like a good person but soon learn that she was pretending too. Here it reuses that for Bart but not for new girl Jenny: She's the real deal so a lot of the cleverness that made it work is gone. Not only that but both episodes even use the cartoon cliché of the heavenly light to show us 'look this girl is really nice' but while The Simpsons openly mocked it here we have Zombie Simpsons flat-out using it. Twice! There's also the issue of telling a story. Where that episode had Bart in trouble for a 'crime' he didn't commit, here there is no story development. At all. It looks like there might be at one point when Milhouse is about to expose Bart as the fraud he is but never really goes anywhere with it; Also it turns Milhouse into a crazy psycho in a series of 'jokes' that go on too long such as when he walks backwards at the church fête.
There's an unusual (that's putting it politely, trust me) subplot where Lisa grows depressed and is given Happy Pills (?) which make her see everything as cartoon smiley faces (?!) but eventually she gets into a dangerous situation where she starts kissing the faces (!!) so she stops taking them and... that's literally it. Did you ever want to see Lisa Simpson get high? No? Well that's tough! This plot is a very emptied version of season 13's "Weekend At Burnsie's" anyway but with Lisa in Homer's position and none of the fun parody elements or cold turkey scenes which made it enjoyable.
It's not actually too bad an episode, my problem is just that there's virtually no plot and all we have that comes even close to one is recycled-and-watered-down. It's not terrible just a bit... empty. Not enough material for a full half-hour-minus-adverts show but it's gonna get dragged out for that long anyway. 3/10
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