Uncorked - Cheap Thoughts

There’s an interesting blend of formula and concept here. Uncorked very much plays out like a typical narrative, a young man with a dream that’s outside of his comfort zone, the struggles he goes through to achieve it including going against the family business and the conflicts that ensues. All of the hardships and training to be better to achieve their goal as well as better themselves as a person. This is usually the narrative for a majority of sports films and to an extent coming of age films, and yet in this regard the film is about wine tasting.

In this sense this is the strongest way director Prentice Penny could have presented this story through a familiar structure. Wine tasting is not a practise most audiences would be familiar with, the technicalities, the jargon and culture around it is a rather niche market. Rather than having to waste time by explaining the necessary background to the audience, Penny let’s the details be explained through convention. You don’t need to know how wine tasting works, you just need to know basic film theory that you naturally accumulate over watching films. You know when the protagonist Elijah (Mamoudou Athie) is doing well and when he’s doing poorly because habit dictates when it happens.

For some this might not be enough to save the film. A conventional structure still means the film plays out in a predictable and safe manor regardless of what fancy new framing they use to coat it over with. It’s an understandable perception, it entirely depends on what the viewers sees as important. There are many out there where this will work perfectly well, that the intrigue opened up from the discussion of such a specific topic would qualify as enough of a new concept that presentation is merely an afterthought to your engagement.

It goes further than just the structure, the characters within the film all follow the basic rules, the dreamy-eyed protagonist, the supportive mother, the apprehensive father, the girlfriend who exists merely to be the girlfriend. Some of these work better than the other, his mother Sylvia (Niecy Nash) is given the most character and story outside of her son, but then characters such as his previously mentioned girlfriend Tanya (Sasha Compère) serves no purpose other than to be a character for Elijah to bounce off of. We accept it because again this is how these stories work, but then there are times where the film really likes to push its luck, such as with the best friend character Richie (Gil Ozeri) is nothing less than an asshole. He’s arrogant, obnoxious, rude and seemingly has no similarities to our main character other than their love of wine but that is not enough to make them a believable friendship, especially when he is given no positive qualities to speak of and will probably end up being the one thing everyone walking away from the film will agree as a stand out negative.

-Danny

Breaking Down The Mahjong Scene from Crazy Rich Asians (2018)

If we’re able to get the TL;DR out of the way first the point of this opinion piece is this: Watch Crazy Rich Asians, it’s one of my favourite romantic comedies, it’s incredibly entertaining & charming, and filled with plenty of hot people and is endlessly rewatchable, that about covers most of the things needed for this genre. To go even further than that let’s actually discuss one scene that stands out to me as a highlight of the film showing off the talented writing, and that is the Mahjong Scene near the end of the film.

Now, if you’re anything like me you have absolutely no idea how Mahjong works yet thanks to Jon M Chu’s direction that is completely irrelevant, regardless of your knowledge it is perfectly clear throughout the scene who is winning the match, but even then that’s not what’s important, Mahjong is just a template to allow the true competition between our two characters Rachel (Constance Wu) and Eleanor (Michelle Yeoh) to play out.

By this point in the film it has been long established that Eleanor does not like Rachel despite how happy she makes Eleanor’s son Nick (Henry Golding). Rachel has all but given up on convincing her but still requires closure and hopes to use the game as a chance to have an honest conversation with Eleanor before she leaves for good. At the opening of the game Rachel begins by mentioning her mother, saying she taught her how to play, Eleanor admits to learning the same way. It establishes a common ground, a similarity between the two creating a neutral ground. From there Rachel jumps right into the deep end, asking why Eleanor disliked her from the beginning, regardless of her status, but her views on family. Eleanor’s ideology and lifestyle is based around protecting and growing the family, doing what’s best for everyone over oneself.

We then get a close-up of this one tile piece Rachel picked up, focusing heavily on it as Rachel then discusses Nick’s proposal to her, Eleanor’s greatest fear and what would have been Rachel’s happy ending. The tile is the symbol for Rachel’s winning story as well as her literally winning the game. Again, I know this is far more obvious for those who know the rules to Mahjong and it’s less symbolic and more literal there but shush! The point of this piece is to point out you don’t need to know these things to understand who’s winning the game. She confesses to turning down the proposal and puts the piece back into the shuffle, confessing that is not truly a winning hand as Nick was forced into said ultimatum of picking his girlfriend or his family when really he shouldn’t have to sacrifice either.

Eleanor wins the game as she has “won” the conflict, but Rachel gets the last word. Her actions have proved that Eleanor’s perception of her was wrong, that Rachel is more than capable of making sacrifices for the sake of those she loves. The comes the big closer; as Rachel leaves we see her mother Kerry (Tan Kheng Hua) was sat at the other end of the room, she makes eye contact with Eleanor and despite a word been spoken, an entire argument begins and ends within a matter of seconds. Two mothers, both of wildly different backgrounds but both uphold their children as the most important things in their lives, Eleanor no longer viewing Rachel as just ‘Nick’s girlfriend’ but also as someone’s daughter, someone’s family who likewise they care about their happiness and well-being above everything else, and while Kerry encouraged her child, Eleanor has failed hers.

The succinct storytelling and conflict portrayed in this scene through its visuals is purely wonderful, the change in dynamics and imagery used to represent who wins is incredibly well done. The scene is simply a microcosm of greatness that a large majority of the film contains and I truly hope more people check it out.

-Danny

Blow The Man Down - Cheap Thoughts

Well this was an unexpected recurrence, two films in a row that feature the death of a small-town prostitute as a plot point. Though unlike the last film where it was the driving point, it is merely a subplot in this one. Blow The Man Down unveils the dark underbelly of a corrupted small town and how the setting in itself becomes a witness. The common characteristics of charming villages and small towns is this idea of community, everyone knows everyone and almost no change goes unnoticed, this film exploits that concept and turns it into incriminating evidence. Early on in the film our two protagonists Mary Beth (Morgan Saylor) and Priscilla (Sophie Lowe) have to cover up a manslaughter and it leads them down a rabbit hole of the town’s dark secrets that they are now involved in as despite their efforts to cover up their evidence, as stated earlier, no change goes unnoticed.

The more information and history of this town is explored the film plays more into this identity of the quaint ordinary town. They’re often placed build on legacy, they have old families that have spent generations there as well as their own customs. Yet again this is a feature transformed into something dark, as the girls learn more about the distressing history of their own family and even some of the most charming residents that they’ve known their whole lives have acted in immoral ways. As if to say their actions are not their own, but merely partaking in tradition, their actions are controlled by their family and their environment and they cannot escape from it. There’s an air of unconscious corruption in the town, the police chief doesn’t even assume hostile intent and takes many bad people’s word as fact simply due to knowing them for so long he has no objective view, or perhaps he is fully aware of his friends misdeeds and simply chooses to do nothing.

There’s definitely a voyeuristic nature to the townspeople. Early on we see one of the citizens witness an assault and they simply choose to view it from their window like a nosey neighbour. Knowledge of crime and depravity is not so much a motivation to enforce justice, but to consume as gossip and at most blackmail. There’s a moral greyness to the citizens but to leave it at that feels like an understatement, as if this has been the way of the land for so long the idea of morality faded away a long time ago, nothing they do is good or evil, it’s just the status quo. There’s no possibility of change if no one can acknowledge that their system is broken, and that might be the bleakest message of the film.

-Danny

We Shouldn't Like Kratos He's Pretty Evil

Back in 2018 I played the brand new instalment of the God of War series, it being my first ever dive into the franchise and I quite enjoyed myself. Well now that I’ve found myself with a lot more free time these days I decided to go back and partake in the original Playstation 2 games of the series to learn more of the franchise's roots. Granted while I knew I could expect a story of a different calibre (To put it kindly) I was quite surprised and the absurd levels of depravity, violence, simplicity and complete immortality that was Kratos the Ghost of Sparta. While yes, I expected it to be a game more shallow in the story but high in the entertainment value, I truly could not have guessed the games would have us play as a literal genocidal maniac and ask us to side with him.

*Spoilers for God of War 1 & 2*

For a little more context here, I am currently only two games into the original series, I’m taking a break for a chance to play through other classic games and mostly needed a break from the sheer decadence that is this "hero". But I will get to the third one eventually because I am in awe of the pure tenacity Santa Monica Studios got away with over how purely evil Kratos is a character and at no point are we the players meant to criticise or question him, because anyone in the stories who does is swept away rather quickly (and by swept away I mean brutally murdered). This means I absolutely have to know how this story is going to end, it’s maddening. Also know I’m not planning on playing any of the prequels or spin-offs because I don’t frankly care.

Let’s go back to the beginning. Kratos’ backstory sees him as a Captain of a Spartan military, he himself is a violent and skilled warrior who sought to conquer land after land. Unfortunately for him, one battle nearly saw him on the brink of death, and in an act of desperation he begged the god of war Ares to come to his aid, swearing loyalty to the god should he lend him his power. Ares complied, making Kratos stronger than ever and now takes with slaughtering hundreds in the name of Ares with no concern of who or why, until one day when he ended up slaughtering his own wife and child. Now leaving Kratos with unyielding guilt and PTSD he swore to get revenge on Ares no matter what.

This takes us into our first game, where within the opening sequence we see Kratos kill a Hydra that is attacking a ship of innocent sailors, not only does Kratos not have any concern over the sailors, but in some cases even goes out of his way to harm them…for no reason. One sailor gets eaten by the Hydra, Kratos climbs in and steals his key and then procedes to throw this sailor into the Hydra's stomach, killing him. Once this sequence is done we cut to Kratos just having finished a threesome with two beautiful women because even though he’s meant to be a blood-thirsty lunatic who only seeks to kill and is suffering from the trauma of his dead loved ones, still gotta have him bang those chicks because wish-fulfillment I guess. This would in fact feature yet again in the sequel where now you’re an active participant in which it rewards you with health and mana for doing so…classy.

Morality in videogames is not a simple topic, especially considering the majority of games are action based and the implications of your actions go ignored but that’s also because it’s not always relevant. No one ever questions the ethics of Mario stepping on a Goomba for example. But in the case of God of War, a game that if it wasn’t clear from that prior paragraph has a huge focus on wish-fulfilment, you’re not playing a character, you’re playing a figure you want to be. Kratos lacks most of what would define a personality outside of ‘angry’ and his best defining features particularly from this opening is that he is incredibly powerful, important and a great lay. Granted one might say this is tacky…because it is, there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with wish-fulfilment, especially in videogames where audience participation is an inherent feature, the game doesn’t happen without your input. The choice to have wish-fulfilment take-over distinct characterisation does come across as tacky as an easy investment tool, because why care about a character when you can imagine that’s you(!). God of War then takes it a step further by not only saying this is you, but you are also a psychopath.

Roughly half the first game takes place in the city of Athens, which is being attacked by Ares and his monsters and you have been tasked by Athena to stop him because well, Kratos wants to kill Ares so why not? Throughout this portion you’ll see many soldiers and innocent civilians be killed by these monsters and at best Kratos has a complete disinterest in their safety, at worse he is an active participant in their deaths, ergo, you are an active participant in their deaths. Two stand out examples for me while playing it is at one point a civilian has raised a bridge to protect himself so no one can get to him, and the game instructs you that the only way to lower the bridge is to kill this scared innocent civilian by shooting a lightning bolt at him. Later on while fighting several trolls in the town square, a multitude of civilians are trapped with you and will get crushed by the trolls, but what you quickly learn is these civilians will produce health for you to regenerate, so the game actively encourages you to take part in the slaughter of this terrified citizens trying to run for their lives after being caught in a war they have no involvement in.

At this point it should be mentioned that Kratos is “technically” not a game original. There is in fact a character in Greek Mythology who shares the name and several distinct characteristics, specially their brute strength and intemperate nature. However that is where their similarities end, their backstories, relationships and tales are completely different. This is because the naming is complete coincidence and they are in fact not connected at all, Stig Asmussen who was a developer on all three games referred to this coincidence as a “happy mistake”. Even if this intentional it wouldn’t matter, this series hasn’t exactly sworn loyalty into accurate retellings of these Greek Myths, its very much an interpretation of these characters, sometimes for the better some for the worse, mostly Athena, she gets completely screwed over in this series.

Moving on to the sequel, where I didn’t think it was possible but they somehow made Kratos even more of a homicidal madman. Now having taken his place as the new god of war (Oh that's where the title comes from!), Kratos continues to send the Spartan army into war after war to conquer lands now in his name-and the irony that he is now doing the exact same thing that lead to Ares tricking him into killing his own family is never mentioned-and the Gods of Olympus believing Kratos is too dangerous to have all this power steal away his abilities and kill him. Kratos being so stubborn he literally comes back from the dead out of spite, also with the help of Gaia who has boobs for some reason (WHY SANTA MONICA? WHY DID YOU GIVE HER BOOBS? SHE’S A FUCKING TITAN, SHE HAS NO USE FOR THEM). Thing is, the rest of the game is then basically proving exactly why the gods were right!

Kratos’ journey in this game sees him travel to the Island of Creation with the goal of having the Sisters of Fate send him back in time to stop Zeus. On that journey he will come across a number of fellow travellers also trying to seek the sisters for help, some of whom become challenges for Kratos, others simply wish to be left on their own, none of this will stop Kratos from killing them all. Including two scholars who pose no threat to Kratos, seek no power of their own but in order to progress on your journey, you have to brutally murder both of them in cold blood. Eventually you gain the powers to travel through time (After killing the Sisters of Fate, because of course) and you then go to fight Zeus, all of a sudden Athena shows up and takes the killing blow from Kratos, letting Zeus escape. Athena, the god of wisdom, craft and warfare was taken out by accident with a single blow, didn’t so much as get a boss fight, told ya she got screwed over in this game. Now I could go on about how this would be representative of some unconcious sexism in the game series, what with every other woman being either dead prior to the story, a sex object or if they are in fact an enemy they’re portrayed as fat ugly monsters so here we have Athena, who is none of those things so they only thing they can do is unceremoniously kill her off…so I think I just did.

Thus the game ends with Kratos teaming up with all of the Titans to bring destruction to Olympus and kill the gods, proving exactly what the gods were worried about and in fact that they were right the entire time. Seriously, how messed up of a person do you have to be to give Zeus the moral high-ground!?

In case it wasn’t obvious, I am quite taken aback by the abhorrent amounts of cynical, violent, immoral actions that take place within this game that it somehow did a 180 and I cant bring myself to hate it but instead be fascinated by it. It’s beyond comprehension that no one involved in the production of these games ever questioned the implications of what they were making, it’s almost impressive. Then again it could also be softened by the fact the games are simply a lot of fun to play, they’re challenging yet exhilarating and offers plenty of variety. I will certainly be getting round to the third instalment at some point because I am highly curious to see how it ends and if this debauchery will go any further.

At the end of the day these are games and the gameplay is always going to matter more than the story being told. It also certainly makes me appreciate the newest instalment much more, it’s no longer just a technical masterpiece with beautiful visuals, stellar gameplay mechanics and an incredibly talented cast. It now actually has brought some nuance and thought to the series, actually critiquing our protagonist and showing a more complex side and telling a difficult story that tells us that maybe we shouldn’t like this person. Because we really fucking shouldn’t.

-Danny

Lost Girls - Cheap Thoughts

Well, the world may have stopped and cinemas may be closed down, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t new films being released that can be discussed and critiqued. Lost Girls is a crime drama that originally premiered at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year and was recently released onto Netflix. The film follows the story of Mari Gilbert (Amy Ryan) a working-class mother of three struggling to cope with the disappearance of her eldest daughter and the failures of the police investigation as a result.

The qualities of the film can be summed up quite neatly, it’s has a simple plot but with an important message behind it and represents through emotional and tragic characters. Mari is a struggling mother, she’s unable to provide them the financial or medical support needed to properly raise them, and this has lead to internalised conflict between the family members, yet when push comes to shove, Mari goes above and beyond to try and find justice for her missing daughter, unlike the justice system which failed all of them. The film is heavily critical of the police department that didn’t treat the crime with the severity or importance as they should, their lack of urgency or even interest in solving the situation forces this woman to do their job for them and results in a more hostile and bleak situation because of it.

Most of this is held together thanks to Amy Ryan’s performance which portrays a character blended between anger, fragility, love and exhaustion. Fused with Igor Martinovic’s camera and director Liz Garbus tells a truly drab and depression film but in exactly the right way needed for the picture. Though this does raise the question on if Netflix was the right choice to release the film. While streaming platforms have allowed for wider and easier releases for a plethora of independent films, they have also created somewhat of an identity of being the easy watches, the ones that you can sit down, relax and enjoy the next 90 minutes of your life. Lost Girls is anything but enjoyable, it’s smart, well-made and engaging, but certainly not easy, and unlikely to be a film to be watched more than once. Lost Girls doesn’t offer any easy answers, it doesn’t give much sense of catharsis, never even teases you with the possibility of hope, but merely closure and saying that will have to do because this is reality and sometimes that’s all you get.

So if you’re looking for something entertaining and uplifting during this time of global crisis, this is very much not the film for you, but if reality still hasn’t jaded you enough to make you angry and depressed constantly, then feel free to let this film finish you off.

-Danny

I started watching and fell in love with Haikyu

Haikyuu!! (Or Haikyu!!, I’m still not certain on the spelling) is a sports manga created by Haruichi Furudate in 2012 and received its anime adaptation in 2014, both still going on to this day. The series follows Shoyo Hinata, a first year student at Karasano High School who has an infatuation with volleyball, despite his natural disadvantage with his height, but refuses to let that stop him as he practises and strives to improve himself every opportunity it gets. Joining his High School Volleyball team the series follows this ensemble of teenagers and all the trials and obstacles they face as they seek to better themselves, win matches and make their way to Nationals.

If you’re anything like me, you probably don’t have the slightest interest in volleyball, heck, you probably don’t even know the rules of the sport, and yet that will somehow not matter in the slightest in getting you invested in this series and they know that. Pacing wise the show is glacial at introducing the rules and tactics of the sport, simplifying it down to the necessities at first simply so you as the audience can follow a game. As the series goes along they will nurse you with more complicated matters but never so much to overwhelm you or disrupt the momentum of the plot with monologues of exposition filled with gibberish and jargon. None if this will actually affect your enjoyment however, because through the course of watching this show you will come to care about volleyball, because these characters care about volleyball.

The YouTube channel SuperEyePatchWolf once made a video discussing what he referred to as ‘non-battle battle anime’. In which he presented a multitude of shows that weren’t focused around action but used the conventions of the genre to advance their own story and character arcs. Haikyuu!! Being a perfect example of this, during each volleyball match and practise you will see characters overcome their own personal demons and insecurities to better themselves both as players and as people, the excitement coursing through your veins as you see the manoeuvres they’ve practised all season being executed perfectly in the middle of a match, understanding the importance of each win, the power of each spike and the bone breaking amount of effort these people put into each of their matches.

Take the two protagonists of the series, Hinata and Kagayama, two individuals who went to opposing middle schools, come from different backgrounds and have two wildly different personalities. Initially the two are established as your typical Shonen rivals, but once they realise they’re attending the same high school and will be playing on the same team, the two quickly come to learn that their differences make them a perfect pairing on pitch, with Kagayama’s precision and thought out strategies combined with Hinata’s raw natural athleticism making them a perfect pair. Furthermore as the two continue to play together they also help each other in their personal struggles, not intentionally of course but simply through the process of playing volleyball. Hinata is naturally talented but lacks refinement, while Kagayama’s anti-social tendencies and perfectionism make him a difficult teammate. The one thing the two inarguably have in common is their passion for volleyball and determination to be better than they already are. Every member of the cast face similar challenges throughout the series, whether it be the Ace player Asahi suffering from anxiety, the cool and calculating Tsukishima letting his barriers down or captain Daichi struggling with the pressure of leading the team during his final year playing for them. Even the bench-warmers like Ennoshita and Tadashi acknowledging their lack of importance in the team or show and using that as motivation to prove their worth.

This is not just limited to the main team either. Every single match Karasano has gone up against, their opponents will be filled with strong characterization to make each opposing team unique with individual identities, stand out players and personal goals that they also seek to achieve. No team is ever just a blank obstacle to overcome, instead they’re swimming with personality and interpersonal relationships amongst their own teammates as well as our core cast. Because of this the matches become more intense as it’s not simply a matter of which team wants it more or who believes in themselves the most much as most Shonen series use as the main resource behind a protagonists win, because we the audience understand that both teams want it just as much, and if one of them has an advantage then we’ll see how the other team adapts and strengthens themselves to overcome that advantage.

As I’m writing this I have just finished season three, a season consisting of 10 episodes and are entirely focused around one single match, while the prior seasons would establish an important match by taking up 3-4 episodes, this one had a whole season to emphasise the weight of this one. I can safely say it has been a very long time since I was this heavily invested in a plot line, getting ecstatic over every point earnt, nervous when the opposing team took a lead, dreaded seeing the exhaustion and pain begin to take over our team. But most of all seeing how far these characters had come as individuals and as a team, their skills refined, their insecurities crumpled and their trust in their teammates be unbreakable. Acknowledging and building on every victory and defeat before them to build up to a climactic showdown that I am still riding on the adrenaline of.

Haikyuu!! Is empathetic storytelling done to an excellent degree, the effortlessly woven in character progression mixed in with great music, animation and voice acting has made it one of the best shows I’ve seen in a while, and its main appeal can come down to what I said earlier. You will come to care about volleyball, because these characters care about volleyball.

-Danny

The Invisible Man - Cheap Thoughts

In a lot of ways Horror is one of the purist genres of cinema, and as bold & pretentious as an opening line like that may seem, there’s a lot of truth behind it. From film’s earliest days dating back to German expressionism, it was a genre that allowed filmmakers to experiment and challenge both themselves and the audience, giving us as a chance to explore the darker and more uncomfortable sides of humanity, to focus on the emotional rather than the logical, and more often than not the best of the genre will follow this description, The Invisible Man follows it to a tee.

Though not subtle in its message, it is in its execution thanks to Leigh Whannell’s direction and Stefan Duscio’s cinematography, highlighting the implication of what’s there, filling the frame with mostly negative space and let the lack of clues fill the audiences imagination, yet still treating the titular Invisible Man as a perceivable being and framing him as so. From scene one of our protagonist Cecilia (Elisabeth Moss) trying to sneak around the house, the tension is instantly present and never lets go. There’s an argument to be made that Invisible Man is simply using an aged formula, after all flashy comments such as “It’s what the audience doesn’t see that’s scarier” it’s hardly an original perspective, and true it’s a tested and proven system that applies to most of the best horror films, and Invisible Man is so obvious in its message that it’s hardly worth commenting on as you’ve probably already figured it out simply by the trailer.

There’s an undeniable simplicity to Invisible Man, that can’t be argued, but rather than treat that as a flaw, it instead gives way to allowing the filmmakers to craft a film with creative visuals, adapting the story for a modern setting & technology, and an emotionally raw performance from Elisabeth Moss as a broken woman suffering from paranoia, abuse and rage to combine it all into a complex protagonist who is forced to deal with the trauma of being psychologically and physically abused by this intangible psychopath.

Blumhouse Pictures created a name for themselves for developing low-budget horror films that turned a massive profit that always made them admirable from a business standpoint, but it also resulted in many years of garbage forgettable horror, but in the past several years they’ve turned that around and made them one of the more interesting production companies in the industry right now. Should this film lead to a trend of allowing auteur filmmakers take their crack at adapting the original horror monsters into a modern setting then this is certainly a strong introduction. Hell, you could probably make an argument for Guillermo Del Toro’s The Shape of Water being the one to kick start this trend with his interpretation of Creature From The Black Lagoon but after Universal’s several failed attempts to start their own reboot of these characters, putting everything into the hands of Blumhouse might not be such a bad idea if they were to turn out other stellar flicks such as this one.

-Danny

My Favourite Simpsons Episode

Recently YouTuber Patrick H Willems made a video discussing his favourite episode of The Simpsons (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWVKDPRYwg8&t=1321s) and encouraged other people to discuss their's. Naturally being as big a Simpsons fan as anyone can expect, it inspired me to delve into the subject matter and discuss what is and always has been my personal favourite episode of The Simpsons, season 7 episode 8 Mother Simpson. Directed by David Silverman and written by Richard Appel.

Much like Patrick’s video I’m going to focus on the storytelling structure of the episode and the elements at play that make this an incredibly tight plot with poignant character development and subtle foreshadowing. If you haven’t seen the episode in a while here is a recap on the episode’s events: Our story begins with Homer in an attempt to get out of doing mandatory litter pick-up with work, fakes his death to enjoy his weekend. Eventually Homer is forced to make his way to city hall to confirm he is alive, while there he learns his mother Mona Simpson is also still listed as alive, going to visit the grave in which he thinks she’s buried, he meets her there fully alive. Reunited, he introduces Mona to his family, after initially bonding with everyone she reveals her story. Back in the 60s Mona was a political activist who sabotaged one of Mr Burns environment destroying facilities, being the only identified figure, she had to go on the run to avoid prosecution. Returning to the present, Mr Burns learns of her return and informs the FBI, in order to avoid capture Homer helps her go on the run yet again, finally getting to say goodbye properly this time.

It’s amazing how in just a simple 21 minutes the writers were able to fill the story with so much set-up and pay off and no story element goes underutilised while also never being glaringly obvious in its purpose and still having such comedic irony to it all. For example, the episode opens with Homer faking his death to prevent helping Mr Burns clean up the environment, while Mona initially faked her death to prevent Mr Burns from damaging the environment. Another great example being Patty & Selma having a tombstone ready and made for Homer’s death, which is certainly in character for them but also ends up being the plot device that reunites Homer & Mona while they’re both at the graveyard, and then later on being what separates them again after the FBI are investigating the matter. Finally it being Mona’s actions in the past that cured Chief Wiggum of his asthma, and so he’s the one that helps them escape at the end of the episode.

Then there is the matter of having to develop a believable connection between Mona and The Simpsons family to get both them and us the audience invested in her, and they take advantage of what’s at hand. Mona’s big crime was being an environment activist, meaning she both cares about the environment like Lisa, while also having a rebellious nature like Bart. There’s also a joke about Maggie also embracing the rebellious nature of the hippies, which considering last season she tries to kill Mr Burns, isn’t out of character for her. When Mona is first introduced to the family Bart’s first reaction is to try and guilt her into paying him, and later on he finds her fake IDs while rummaging through her purse, he learns of Mona’s criminal activities by he himself committing a criminal activity, and she’s shown to be intellectually stimulating for Lisa and developing an instant rapport.

None of this is to say the show doesn’t offer a fulfilling relationship between Homer and Mona, with Homer it’s a different story as she doesn’t have to win him over, he already loves her and instead regresses to a childlike state to catch up on time lost. This is until we get to the end of the episode, where they finally get to say their goodbyes, and Mona bangs her head on the door shouting “D’oh!”, which is the only time the line is used in the episode, establishing it as her initial trait that was passed on down to Homer, solidifying their connection. I never would have thought a “D’oh!” could have such emotional weight to it.

Speaking of the ending of the episode, this is the moment that settles this episode as my favourite, as it contains the most emotionally intelligent and artistic frame in The Simpsons history. After saying their goodbyes, we transition from evening to night as the credits role, we’re treated to Homer sat on his car, all alone just looking up at the stars as Alf Clausen’s beautiful score plays over it. Never before or since has Homer been given such a simple moment of reflection, being on his own just to think of his emotions and without us even being able to see his face or even suggest what he might be thinking of feeling, it entirely being left to the audiences interpretation, it’s a moment filled with such nuance, I cannot think of a time where Homer has been treated with such emotional dignity.

This is not the first time The Simpsons has told deeply emotional stories. Other episodes such as Lisa’s Substitute, Bart Gets An F or The Way We Was have all done this before and are fantastic episodes in their own right, but what this episode has over them is I think it is equally as funny as it is emotional. Now analysing comedy is difficult to do, especially in The Simpsons where it can easily dissolve into just simply listing all the good jokes because they’re so good they don’t need explaining and to do so would just spoil the humour…but I’m still gonna do it.

“Damn you Walt Whitman! Leaves of Grass my ass!” – A perfect blend of expectations being both met and broken. Homer knowing who Walt Whitman was is unexpected, but his critical review being “Leaves of Grass my ass!” is very much in character.

Moleman being buried alive – Moleman suffering is always funny, him being too polite to mention being buried alive makes it even funnier.

A Pelican vomits a fish into Homer’s pants – Speaks for itself

FBI Agent Joe Friday – Half of the comedy in The Simpsons comes from the incredibly talented voice cast. Harry Shearer delivering such a monotone yet no nonsense fast talking Noir Pastiche makes every line this character says quotable and hilarious.

It is in my opinon Mother Simpson is the only episode of The Simpsons that strikes a perfect balance between great comedy and great drama, while being an incredibly tight script and artistically beautiful, and it is my favourite episode of The Simpsons.

-Danny