Better Off Ned
| "Better Off Ned" | |
|---|---|
| The Simpsons episode | |
| Episode no. | Season 31 Episode 16 |
| Directed by | Rob Oliver |
| Written by | Teleplay by : Joel H. Cohen & Jeff Westbrook Story by : Al Jean |
| Production code | ZABF11 |
| Original air date | March 15, 2020 |
| Episode features | |
| Chalkboard gag | Lisa writes "Bart is at a Doctor's appointment" |
| Couch gag | A person is tracking the family trip home on Uber, then rates the trip 1 star and doesn't tip the driver. |
"Better Off Ned" is the 16th episode of the thirty-first season of the American animated sitcom The Simpsons, and the 678th episode overall. It aired in the United States on Fox on March 15, 2020. The episode was dedicated to actor Max von Sydow who died on 8 March, 2020 and had previously guest-starred in the episode "The War of Art" as Klaus Ziegler.
Plot
At the Springfield Retirement Castle after telling him a war story and pranking him with it, Grampa gives Bart a dud grenade.
Bart takes it to a school assembly and pranks them the same way Grampa did, scaring everyone away while ambulances and fire workers get called. Ned Flanders however puts himself on top of the bomb to sacrifice himself to save the school and Bart is forced to reveal the prank. Superintendent Chalmers wants to suspend Bart from school, but Ned intervenes, volunteering to supervise Bart to the right way with the three P's: persistence, prayer and persistent prayer.
At the Flanders house, Bart pranks him and so Ned takes him fishing. Bart manages to catch a fish and Ned teaches him how to roast it on a fire. At the church, Bart also joins the choir and everyone congratulates Ned for the work, and Homer gets jealous. When Marge takes Homer to bring a pie as a thanks, Homer finds Lisa there too, supervising Bart's math work.
Feeling useless, Homer walks around the city until he finds a sad Nelson Muntz at the Springfield City Dump, crying due to his situation at home. Homer brings him to Krusty Burger and offers to become his mentor, making Bart jealous of it. Seeing the distraught that he is causing, Lisa asks Homer to seek counseling, paying for it. Homer goes to the therapist that disagrees with his method. Homer goes then to see Nelson, but finds his mother which asks him if he is going to leave them too like all the other men have in the past, breaking Nelson's heart.
When Homer explains to Nelson the truth behind it, Nelson prepares a plan to get even with Bart at the Christian Pride Parade, trying to activate the mechanism that Bart and the Flanders built, the praying hands, when Bart passes through instead of after. Homer spots him using the slingshot and activating it, and pushes Bart away in time, getting squashed by them. The two ride the ambulance together, before Homer goes to apologise to Nelson and guides him to Ned, who has Nelson and his mother joining him for dinner at the Flanders house.
At a baseball game during the credits, Bart asks Homer why he traded places in mentoring with Ned. Homer humors him by throwing a peanut at Ned.
Reception
Dennis Perkins of The A.V. Club gave this episode a C-, stating that “‘Better Off Ned’ isn’t just a lousy half-hour (minus commercials, minus three episode-ending tags in place of any sort of resolution) of The Simpsons because it’s double-dipping on the same premise. It’s a truly lousy episode because it fairly rings with indifference, glib cruelty, and enough lamp-shading of creative exhaustion to serve as platonic ideal for late-run ‘is that show still on?’ disposability.”[1].
Den of Geek gave this episode 3 out of 5 stars[2]
References
- ^ "When everyone sucks, The Simpsons sucks". TV Club. Retrieved 2020-03-09.
- ^ "The Simpsons Season 31 Episode 16 Review: Better Off Ned". Den of Geek. Retrieved 2020-03-16.
