REVIEW: THE SIMPSONS “Penny-Wiseguys”

Guest Cast Joe Mantegna: Fat Tony Steve Carell: Dan Gillick

Spoilers Below

Meet Dan Gillick, accountant and new member of Homer’s “Pen Pals” bowling team of whom just quit because he had a call at work. Turns out Dan is the accountant for Fat Tony’s mob and he just got a promotion to become the head of the mafia after Tony gets called into jury duty. Dan’s not exactly the most confident leader but hell he’s gonna give it a shot. Being an accountant, Dan just cares about the bottom line in terms of cost savings and as a result gets a lot of flack for his ideas in fat-trimming. Like most disgruntled employees, Dan turns to alcohol which means a trip to Moe’s where Moe inspires Dan to grow some hair on his balls and stand up to his colleagues at work.

Trouble ensues when Tony tells Dan to order some hits on some of the staff so that they can cut costs even further, problem is Dan isn’t a killer and shudders at the thought. So who ya gonna call?? Homer! It’s here Dan spills the beans to Homer about what he’s been up to. Dan wants to kill his targets but he doesn’t want to actually KILL them so Homer helps out by tying up the mob boss in the basement.

Being a vegetarian as its shortcomings(like not being able to eat meat) and Lisa learns this the hard way when during a concert she passes out in front of everyone! Fortunately, she’s OK but Dr. Hibbert recommends she gets more iron but the pills she gets are terrible. The lunch lady decides to help out by recommending that Lisa takes up eating insects although it is kind of infringing on her ridiculous diet. Wierdly enough there are a bunch of insect eaters throughout Springfield and they like to get together for buffet socials. Back at home, Lisa starts a bug farm and almost eats a piece of shrimp but after a nightmare decides to quit eating them altogether. Lisa asks Bart to help but he ends up dropping the aquarium in the basement therefore letting loose everything in Lisa’s repertoire.

You can see where this is going, right? With Dan tied down in the basement he can’t escape all the recently released insects from Lisa’s aquariums and as such he gets swarmed. Dan gets so pissed off that he escapes from the basement and starts in on his killing spree but he doesn’t actually kill anyone. Homer actually ends up shooting Snake all the while Lisa releases all her bugs into a corn maze saving a family from certain disaster.  Dan gets fired from the mafia thereby saving Tony money while Dan learns a NEW trade.

This week’s episode was maybe the best guest starring role in YEARS. Steve Carell was absolutely fabulous as Dan, cracking jokes that weren’t TOO over the top and therefore instilled a lot of charm into his character. Always one to being the wing man when high-profile stars come to Springfield, Homer offered up a great close to the story line, but for the most part was able to leave Dan alone long enough for us to fall in love with him. Lisa’s insect plot was kinda silly and really was just grade ‘A’ soft ‘B’ plotting that helped put in a rather novel climax, but really it probably could’ve been replaced by ANYTHING else and it would’ve worked. That said, The Simpsons know how to play with their new toys, and this week was no different.

(8.0 out of 10)