Review: The Simpsons “Now Museum, Now You Don’t”

 

 

Overview:

While Lisa is at home sick from school she decides to hop into some light reading, The Illustrated History of Western Art.  The book causes her to have a dream about life during the Renaissance.

Lisanardo Da Vinci is an extremely talented artist.  Unfortunately, her natural skills make her a target of her community.  When her inventions are used for war, Lisanardo retires to France to complete her masterpiece.

Bart is at the centre of the French impressionist movement.  While his unique ideas and thought-provoking work is not appreciated by his scholars, Bart and company win over the Emperor by working with his own interests.

Finally, Homer and Marge play Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo.  The established artists moved to America in hopes of propelling their careers. However, as Diego finds work painting a mural at the Rockefeller Centre, Frida shows her frustrations through self-portraits.  Though it is his wife that teaches Diego not to compromise his art in the name of fame and fortune.

 

Our Take:

Over the years, The Simpsons has garnered criticisms from fans for going in new directions and changing things up from the early seasons.  Though, what often gets ignored in these arguments is the versatility that has come out of The Simpson’s 32 years of growth.

The amount of content that this show has provided has given us a mixed bag of themes.  From parodies to character stories, to beloved science-fiction horrors.  The Simpson family has gone everywhere and done everything.  More than real humans could fit into one lifetime at this point. And as fans, we are rewarded with a catalogue of adventures, themes, and plots.

This week, The Simpsons offered us something completely unique by giving a crash course in art history in the matter of 22-minutes.  This was not some half-witted episode, instead, there was an intellectual and informative tone that covered parts of history many of us would normally be ignorant to.

There is the downside to covering historical topics, in that real-life stories lack the basic plot points that are typically required for sitcom television.  Therefore, despite the amount of content in this episode, it is a lesson and not a story.  Instead, we get short snippets of significant events in art history none of it collecting into a plot with a beginning, middle, and end.

The showrunners combatted some of the more boring elements of the episode with some highlighted moments. Like a variety show, this episode offered a few bonus songs and cutscenes.  One featured Maggie as a baby cupid attempting to preserve the love of Marge and Homer.  Another moment featured El Barto in a Zorro-esque scene.  And the show concludes with Vincent Van Moe singing a hilarious ballad, that may have been the highlight of the episode.

Unfortunately, this episode would have probably been more impactful had it not aired as a follow-up to last week’s standout “I, Carumbus”.  That episode featured your favourite Springfieldians transformed to ancient Rome.

Airing these two intelligent episodes in back-to-back weeks takes away from what makes them special. Would there have been a more traditional story to break them up, it would be more difficult to compare them.

As it stands, this episode is the one that loses out on the added appreciation.  And it will probably hurt more in the long run after it is followed up with next week’s “Treehouse of Horror” episode.  Which is truly a shame considering the amount of beautiful work that went into creating this art-themed episode.

There are going to be a lot of mixed reviews on this unique episode.  Some of us will be missing classic Simpson’s storytelling, others will dislike the direction, and it is sure to go over some heads.  Though, when you add “Now Museum, Now You Don’t” to the complete Simpsons collection, it is a special piece that showcases something that other television shows cannot at the risk of being boring.  The Simpsons pulled this art history lesson off without feeling like school.