TVSquad

(S19E15) "I'm not a nerd. I'm a jock who's too cool for sports." -- Bart Simpson

From the outside, the Family Simpson comprises a group of people who go from one wacky adventure to another. Yet, when you go beneath their four-fingered exteriors, each member of the family is actually fighting their own little battle. For Bart it's the fight against the establishment; for Marge it's finding order withing the disorder of her life; for Maggie it's getting through an entire day on one pacifier; and for Homer it is the philosophical dilemma of whether or not death brings forth life or life brings on death. That, or just trying to get between breakfast and lunch without starving to death...it really depends on the day.

For Lisa the long, uphill battle has been one of enlightenment of others in the ways they are destroying the world around them as well as themselves. Fact is, she was touting the dangers of environmental change long before Al Gore invented Global Warming (and, for all of those Al Gore fans, I'm just kidding. I know he began touting the dangers of Global Warming only after he invented the Internet.). She has never missed a chance at telling her family members, as well as many others, about all of the bad things they are doing. However, she is not invulnerable to the gifts that the things she is fighting against can give. Which means that, on occasion, it sneaks up behind her and bites her on the backside.

Take for example what happened in this week's episode of The Simpsons. After enrolling in a prestigious ballet academy Lisa becomes addicted to the second-hand smoke of the other ballerinas. In a normal situation Lisa would have probably gone to court to set up a perimeter around the ballet academy where smoking was prohibited. However, it seems that the secondhand-smoke made her a better ballerina. So, a moral dilemma ensued.

On the one hand, Lisa knew that any type of smoking was wrong. This was especially true after she saw that very special episode of The Suite Life of Zack & Cody. That brings me to this point...sometimes it's hard to remember that Lisa is really a 8-year-old girl and that she has similar interests to other tweens. On the other hand, the smoke was enabling her to perform to the best of her ability, and making her popular with the other ballerinas.

This is not the first time Lisa had to deal with a situation where the wrong thing fulfilled her, albeit momentarily. Back in "Lisa the Beauty Queen" Lisa needed to deal with another cigarette situation after being named the official Little Miss Springfield. In "Little Big Girl" Lisa began a series of detailed lies about her family origins in order to gain more notoriety. And, in "Girls Just Want to Have Sums" Lisa dressed as a boy in order to learn real math from Professor Fink.

At the end of all three of these episodes, Lisa came to the realization that the moral consequences of her actions far outweighed the accolades and popularity she was achieving. In other words, she understood the evils of her ways. The same thing happened this time around as well. Seeing how the other ballerinas acted when off of their required "dancer sticks", Lisa threw off the shackles of the ballet academy (by literally throwing off her shoes) and decried the treatment that ballerinas had to go through in order to achieve perfection. And, at the same time, she helped Marge realize that she should not be living the remnants of her broken dreams through her children, which is what started Lisa's ballet journey in the first place.

The other story this week, which back-ended into the main plot, involved Homer and Bart. Staying with the theme for this week's episode - 'Living the Dream' -- their plot focused on Homer's basement beef jerky business. While Marge and Lisa really lead two different lives, Homer and Bart tend to be on the same wavelength and manage to be closer. True, they've had their differences in the past, but they are usually able to rectify them in some manner, making them closer. This time around, they were together trying to find out who was stealing their beef jerky. Turns out, it was a family of raccoons that were stealing the dried meat. Towards the end of the episode the raccoons played a part in getting Lisa off of second-hand smoke.

As the two storylines were merging there was an interesting storyline that developed involving Homer once he found out that Lisa was smoking. It's fairly rare that we see Homer play the fatherly role in the way he raises Lisa. But, he was really disappointed in what Lisa was doing and had quite the dilemma when Marge told him she was fulfilled as both a wife and mother. Out of all of the silliness of this episode this was probably the most real moment.

I enjoyed this week's episode. While it wasn't as strong as the last two, it definitely had its moments. Heck, any episode that doesn't feature Homer losing his job and finding another wacky job is a better episode. Some of the other highlights from this installment:

• Apu and Flanders. We have barely seen these two characters this season, so it was good to have them back if only for a short period of time. I like how Ned was blacking out all of the 'hecks' and 'darns' from the Hardy Boys book.
• The parody of the Harry Potter franchise with all of Springfield waiting in line at the Bookachino superstore for the midnight release of the last Angelica Button's book. Of course, Comic Book Guy was there flouting his knowledge. Good think Lisa was there to refute his beliefs.
• Bart rising up from the piles of sweaty leg warmers in a parody of Martin Sheen's Captain Willard character from Apocalypse Now.
• Marge's Broken Dreams Box, which is located in her Disappointment Closet. Also, Marge's boobies came in one at a time. Luckily, Lisa will get Homer's breasts.
• Chazz Busby = Bob Fosse -- the great musical choreographer who directed the Academy Award winner All That Jazz.

Next time -- Which would be April 13th, the return of Lurlene Lumpkin.