The Simpsons Season 21 Episode 2: Bart Gets A "Z"

At school, when Edna Krabappel sees her students distracted from class by their cell phones, she takes the devices away. Bart and his classmates decide Edna needs to "chill out". The students decide to spike Edna coffee with liquor they steal from their parents.





The next day, Edna she has drank a mug of heavily-spiked coffee and becomes intoxicated. She sings a song with her students drunkily, hits on Dewey Largo (the music teacher), and disrupting an assembly bidding farewell to foreign exchange students. Principal Skinner is forced to fire her, and Edna starts crying.

Skinner replaces her with a recent graduate of Tufts University named Zachary Vaughn. Zachary returns their cell phones and instructs them to use their electronic devices for classwork, and his first assignment to them is “Twenty minutes of Twittering”. Bart tells Marge how much fun it is to have Zack as a teacher, but Lisa doubts Zack's ability to teach.

Bart and Milhouse decide to get Edna rehired. They buy a book called "The Answer" which professes to have all the answers to help someone achieve their dreams. Edna is skeptical, but reveals her dream is to open a muffin shop. She a muffin shop and her business goes well. Bart then confesses that it was his fault he got Edna fired, but she gets angry and tells him that her real dream was to be a teacher.

Bart tries to get Edna's job back, but Skinner cannot just rehire her when Zack is doing a good job in her place. Their conversation is suddenly disrupted by a drunk Zack who mocks the children and tells them they have no future because their education will not help them achieve real things in life. Groundskeeper Willie drags Zack away with the remark and Edna is rehired.

My thoughts:

How many times have I watched it: 3 times

Blackboard Gag: Kwik-E-Mart - Porno Now on Lower Shelf. WHAT?! Lol. (A-)

Chalkboard Gag: Chalkboarding is not torture. You've done it for 21 (28 now) seasons. Good job. (B)

Couch Gag: The Simpsons wear cowboy hats and exchange gunfire around the couch. Short and sweet, liked Maggie's part at the end. (A)

Storyline: I liked it. I don't mind the lack of Lisa or Marge. If a character doesn't fit in a story, then it's better to just leave them out. But this was a pretty good one overall. The beginning started off great with the children getting ingredients for Edna's "coffee". It's just ending it that poses a bit of a problem because the ending was a bit rushed. The intro was well portrayed as we saw poor Edna; we got a substantial amount of her in this one and I really enjoyed that, along with Bart's involvement with her. I really do like the way their relationship was portrayed, however, it felt a little awkward for all of the kids to be in on the plan and then for only Bart to try to help her out.

Some moments went on too long, definitely, like the movie Edna was watching or Homer's crying or Zach's drunken ranting, but this one had some great moments as well. Skinner swivelling around in his chair to reveal a rabbit was a great one, definitely. The phone gags/scenes were fine, I questioned the "uncle" scene with Nelson and Martin. Zach, the cool teacher, was OK. He was irritating with the rock and roll at the end.



The jokes were good, The Answer was my favourite joke (Santa Claus!), Bart's dilemma and "I'm a Simpson and a Simpson never gives up until he's tried one easy thing" was one of the best quotes this season. Edna being drunk and Homer with the dog were funny.

At the end, not bad of a story, and the B-plot (Zach being a substitute) was good. It's better than an average HD (Part of S20 until today-S28) episode.

My grade: B