The first part of the episode I thought was very well-done- Denis Leary was actually entertaining, and I enjoyed Bart’s international prank calls. But for some reason, even though it’s supposed to be the main point of the episode, it became somewhat weaker when the story started to revolve around the family spying on Bart. I also was surprised that what appeared to be a throwaway line about Lisa’s typical crushed dreams turned out to foreshadow the climax of the episode.
“How did you get a cell phone?”
“Same way you got me- by accident on a golf course.”
Good episode with some trademark scary intensity from Leary (“I’ll get you guys fired from show business”), and unlike some other tech-centric episodes, like the one where Marge got hooked on the Warcraft-y game and the one where the family finally gets a computer, this one didn’t feel dated. I liked Marge’s vision, too. But I didn’t go for the tracking chip part of the story either.
I did have one big problem with this one: they were tracking Bart via a chip in his cell phone, so why the hell didn’t they ever call him while he was “running away?” They just assumed he was running away and then tracked him all the way to South America based on the chip in his phone without actually calling the phone. Isn’t that the last thing a parent would actually do? I didn’t hear a line about “He’s not answering”- they just followed the chip.
I thought the idea was that that’s how he was covering for it. You kind of thrust your pelvis back, space your legs a little farther apart than normal, and… well, I’m not saying it actually works, but…
I liked Bart’s line “Cool! You can even watch commercials on it!” :cut to commercial:. Also, did anybody notice anything weird about Bart’s voice on last night’s episode? It just sounded weird, like he had a cold or something.
I can understand reluctance to show him with an obvious tent, but having him walking stiff?