While returning from a ski vacation, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie spend hours playing the repetitive and noisy game "Bonk-It" (parody of Bop It). Homer loses his patience and throws the toy out the window, where it is crushed by passing vehicles. Somehow, another Bonk-It lands in the back seat of the car. Homer then smashes the Bonk-It with his foot, but it becomes lodged under the brake pedal. He loses control of the vehicle, hits a deer, and ends up on a frozen lake, where a mysterious person drags them out and back to a ranch.
When the family wakes up, they discover that the mysterious person who saved them was Cletus. Cletus tells Homer about moonshine, and invites him to taste the latest batch. Homer impresses Cletus and his hillbilly friends with his moonshine-tasting skills and is invited to be the judge of a moonshine competition.
Meanwhile, Bart and Cletus's sons play with a box of grenades, and Lisa plays hide and seek with Cletus's daughters. They do not find her, and Lisa gets lost in the woods. Trying to find her way back, she encounters three girls who are Wiccans, practicing their full moon Esbat.
At the ranch, Homer invites Lenny and Carl to drink moonshine with Cletus, and they have a good time, having fun with each other.
Lisa becomes interested after she happens to mention in the witches' Circle that she wishes she did not have to hand in her unfinished art project, and her wish comes true when Miss Hoover gets a stomach virus. The girls ask Lisa to join their group and she accepts. But before she gets inducted, Chief Wiggum arrests the three girls on suspicion of witchcraft.
Outside the courtroom, the girls say a chant, asking their goddess to show their persecutors that they are blind. Many of the townspeople then suddenly become blind, and blame the three girls, who are then put on trial. When the judge dismisses the case, the townspeople decide to drown the girls in an impromptu witch trial.
However, Lisa proves that the real culprits behind the blindness are Homer and his friends, who threw their moonshine in to the town's reservoir after thinking that they were about to be arrested by the police. The girls are released and thank Lisa.
My thoughts:
Billboard Gag: Springfield Retirement Castle "Get Me Out Of Here!" (with Grampa Simpson in background). That's been mentioned in older episodes before. (B)
Chalkboard Gag: Teachers' unions are not ruining this country. Meh, I live in Canada. (C+)
Couch Gag Simpsons family at Thanksgiving table preparing plates, then sitting in front of TV eating and watching football. This one I enjoyed. (A+)
Storyline: The Bonk It gag went on and on, then came the hillbilly jokes. It seemed to take forever for the plot to really get anywhere, Homer's moonshine drinking and Lisa's approaching the Wiccans didn't come in until the end of the first act. Things got a little better from there, and even though Homer's decision to stick around with Cletus and the gang was "eh", It was funny to see the alcohol tie back into the main plot. I do think it would have been much funnier for Lisa to just reveal the jug instead of explaining what happened.
I did like the main plot with Lisa. The scene with Lisa and Bart in her room was great, from Bart's sax prank backfiring, Wiccapedia, and Flanders spying through the window. The modern age jokes about the girls were very funny, and I really liked Moe at the ranch. Then came the climax which again had an abrupt conclusion, but I enjoyed how they tied it all together. As for Lisa herself, I kind of liked her characterization here of skeptic turned believer, or at the very least curious.
Overall, a decent episode, but could be better.
My grade: B-
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