Can you believe we’re exactly one hundred and ten episodes in and still getting defining episodes that explore new nuances and depths to these characters? “Bart’s Girlfriend” is a critical episode in the mythology of Bart, with that oh-so-defining line: “You’re turning me into a criminal when all I want to be is a petty thug.” I’ve complained before about romances that try to expand the characters and only flatten them, and this is a much better example of that kind of thing. At first, Jessica is everything Bart isn’t, which creates a lot of great fish-out-of-water comedy (my favourite: “Must… resist… Satan… make it… up to him… later!”). It’s when Bart discovers Jessica is also a ne’er-do-well that the great storytelling happens. What we see at this point is what Bart looks like when he’s with a true equal for the first time in his life, someone who shares his worldview and interests, who he’s not interested in controlling the way he controls, say, Milhouse. The emotion is escalated when Jessica turns out to be more reckless and malicious than Bart, when Bart finds his limits as a person. If Homer is sympathetic because he wants to give his family everything they want and funny because he’s incapable of delivering it, Bart is funny because he’s destructive and sympathetic because he doesn’t really want any lasting consequences – I think of the phrase used in the webcomic The Last Days Of FOXHOUND, “Don’t traumatise him beyond what’s reasonably funny”. Bart enjoys being shocking and disrupting order, he doesn’t enjoy being evil.
Jessica is at minimum indifferent to the feelings of other people, perhaps best shown when Lisa tries playing on her guilt only to get nothing. The episode throws in a last-minute reveal that she’s doing all this as a cry for attention from her father, but come on, Bart does what he does for attention too. She’s one of the great Simpsons villains, I’d say. The episode ends with a joke that Bart thinks he’s come out of this a little wiser, only to have him throw it away, but it is interesting considering what is to be learned from his experience. I suppose the chief thing is to trust your instincts over a charming face (which is definitely something I’ve gotten myself into trouble over in life); Bart recognises where the wrong path is multiple times and ends up pulled in deeper by Jessica’s charms. Perhaps this is also a lesson in one’s reputation preceding one; Bart knows he would never steal from the collection plate, but nobody has any reason to believe that.
This is also quietly a good Lisa episode. We’ve discussed what happens to all the other characters when they slip into the background, how they each have their own strange inner life, and Lisa’s is based around being extremely well-read and extremely idealistic, popping in to add what Pablo Neruda would say about the situation and providing key advice. Here, she extends that into actual action, so offended by Jessica’s actions that she outs her as the culprit behind the collection plate money theft, and gets one of the greatest action-movie-one-liner parodies ever (“Oh yeah? Well I eat Froot Loops for breakfast.”). Homer gets his more traditional Captain Wacky antics pushed into the background here – crying over “Yes, we have no bananas” is funny, but I love how I can be reduced to tears of laughter from him simply saying “Stop him! He’s headed for the window!” way too late.
Chalkboard Gag: I will not send lard through the mail.
Couch Gag: The eyes come in first in the dark, followed by the rest of the family’s bodies in the light.
This episode was written by John Collier (who is, as far as I can tell, unrelated to Collier’s magazine) and directed by Susie Dietter; Dietter liked giving Jessica things other than Bart to pay attention to in scenes, like playing with the baton or cleaning the steps, a choice that is at minimum an interesting visual detail and even better plays into Jessica’s general seeming lack of interest in Bart. There are also a bunch of visual details I love scattered throughout the episode, with my favourites being Bart’s dorky outfit and Moe using a car jack to lift Jessica’s mattress. Meryl Streep guest starred as Jessica, and insisted on recording her lines with Nancy Cartwright, an effect that plays well in the episode.
Nelson’s line, “Records from that era were spotty at best!” to justify having futuristic weaponry in a game of Cowboys and Indians is a perfect comic representation of exactly what the ‘bully’ kids did when I was growing up. Alongside “Lisa’s Substitute”, this is Nancy Cartwright’s favourite episode, and alongside “Homer The Great”, it’s David Mirkin’s favourite episode of the season.
Homer sings “Sunrise, Sunset” from Fiddler On The Roof, “Cat’s In The Cradle” by Harry Chapin, and “Yes, We Have No Bananas”, which makes the most expensive joke and references the show ever did. The opening scene of the kids being rounded up for church (and the one Jewish kid being rounded up for violin lessons) is a parody of Planet Of The Apes. Bart plays with a Troll doll in church, singing a parody of “Soul Man”. Bart is restrained in a manner like that of Hannibal Lecter in Silence Of The Lambs. Bart compares Jessica to Sarah, Plain And Tall. The Lovejoys have a copy of Leonardo Da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” hanging up.
Iconic Moments: 3. Bart strutting is an iconic image. | “Probably misses his old glasses.” | “Yeah, and then we’d get the chair.” / “That’s not what I meant.” / “It was, Marge, admit it.”
Biggest Laugh: 
