R&R Who Shot Mr Burns part Two

[Nauru-1]

The Who Shot Mr. Burns? two-parter is the epitome of an episode to me that is classic but is sometimes underacknowledged because it's just another classic. It doesn't help that it is divided between two seasons so it's hard to completely associate with one. People like that rigid organization, especially me. 5/5

[Denis Dufek]

One question.i have a german vhs where they show how they destroy the sun blocker, and a english verzion on div-x where there is not...

Also dr. collosu had one more scene in german verzion,with elevatin boots or shoes...

[Uosdwis R. Jewoh]

4/5 not nearly as good as the first part

[Green Man]

Slightly worse than the first part. A+

[Green Man]

One question.i have a german vhs where they show how they destroy the sun blocker, and a english verzion on div-x where there is not...

Also dr. collosu had one more scene in german verzion,with elevatin boots or shoes...

Both those scenes are in the english version.

[Quazie89]

I liked both parts of Who Shot Mr. Burns but part two is my favorite so I guess I would have to give it a 5/5.

[amr diab]

These are the same grades I gave part 1
By itself A
Together A+

Why are so many people here giving this episode anything other that 5/5

because the conclusion was stupid

[cloneasaurus]

Kind of a let down, some good gags and Wiggum and Smithers were great but it lacked the suspense of Part One and it lost steam in the middle when the episode was pretty much "Wiggum talks to citizen x, Wiggum talks to citizen y" etc. I've also never been that content with Maggie as the shooter. Feels like an easy way out to me. Still very good, favourite part was when everyone was racing to the hospital (because it was actually fairly dramatic), the Senor Burns song and the speedway squad beginning.

B+

[RachaelLane1984]

I thought that susepnse was pretty good. I mean, with how the previous part had left off it was anybody's guess of who the shooter may have been. Logically it could have been anyone in the town that had tried to kill him, however, most people suspected that it was Smithers considering the falling out they had before part 1 ended. That is why I think it was such an interesting twist to find out that it was Maggie who had been the one who had shot Mr. Burns. I give it 5/5 rating!

[Blobulle]

I prefer the second part to the first.
Great animation here :


I like Wiggum's dream :


Speedway Squad! in colour, the lie detector...
And I like that Maggie is actually guilty.
Very good episode. A

[Homer Defined]

I thought this was a great episode. I think they executed the "whodunit" plot very well with the clues, when I first saw this I honestly didn't even consider Maggie even though her initials were M.S. Part one was a hair better only because the rising action/climax was being built up in part one making it more intense. 4/5

[tvguy347]

I definitely agree with SpeedwaySquad. I felt like it sort of shut down halfway through; just falling action, though. Typical mystery plot. :P I liked a few of the gags though, which earns it a solid B in my book.

[Lolrus]

3.5/5. Part 1 is one of the very best Simpsons episodes, but part 2 is kind of dull in comparison. It's essentially a 3, but Wiggum's dream added .5 for pure awesomeness.

[Collector Charlie]

I found it convenient that it was the baby, because then they dont have to incarcerate any characters lmao.

[eal]

4/5 Everything seemed to be going a little fast and it didn't have the emotional weight that the first part had.

[bhartman36]

I really loved Pt. 1, but Pt. 2 left me feeling cheated. I think it was laziness on the writers' part not to make it Waylon Smithers, after they had laid the groundwork for that. Sure, I understand that that would have required some additional writing to solve the practical problem of what to do with him, but having it be Maggie made no sense. Especially after they'd run a contest and put so much emphasis on people deducing who shot Mr. Burns. To have it turn around and be someone no one could've reasonably figured out just seems wrong to me.

[JessicaTea]

To the people who say this episode is average- why don't you write a better Simpsons episode?

[Old painty-can Ned]

To the people who say this episode is average- why don't you write a better Simpsons episode?

What? I actually like the episode but this can't be a reason to like the episode. If we went by that logic no one here has written a real episode(other than fan fic) so there are no bad episodes in the series.

[Jesse Pinkman]

is the challenge to write a better simpsons episode, or a better conclusion to Who Shot Mr. Burns??

nah, i just don't get the 'if you dislike the episode, you should try and write a better one' defense. obviously the quality of an episode I, a simple viewer, write is going to be vastly different then the one that was actually written by professionals.

[bhartman36]

is the challenge to write a better simpsons episode, or a better conclusion to Who Shot Mr. Burns??

That's generally my beef. It's not that I didn't like Part 1. I even liked Part 2, up to a point. Where I lost it was with the conclusion to Part 2. Having the shooter be Maggie was a big cop-out.

[Jesse Pinkman]

maggie as the shooter personally didn't bother me a whole lot. maybe because i knew it was her from reading reviews of the episode, i dunno, but having her be the shooter never struck me as anything bad. i actually thought it was funny

[Jims]

I admit, I also felt kinda disappointed at the time that it was Maggie. I mean, they spent all that time building up the town's motives and the suspense and everything, really raising the stakes on the mystery... And then they just pull the rug from under you with Maggie and that stupid piece of candy. I do see the humor behind the decision, almost subverting the whole mystery genre by having the baby do it.

Of course, "Who Shot Mr. Burns" isn't a real mystery anyway. It's not really a solution built on deductive reasoning on evidence. The solution is arrived at by more symbolic and abstract clues (mainly the W.S. and M.S rigmarole). They clearly weren't trying to write a Golden Age of Detective Novel kind of mystery, so I guess it does seem unfair of me to judge their solution by those standards.

On the other hand, that also didn't stop me from writing a lengthy fanscript about it.

EDIT: By the way, happy 13K, Mr. Miller.

[bhartman36]

I admit, I also felt kinda disappointed at the time that it was Maggie. I mean, they spent all that time building up the town's motives and the suspense and everything, really raising the stakes on the mystery... And then they just pull the rug from under you with Maggie and that stupid piece of candy. I do see the humor behind the decision, almost subverting the whole mystery genre by having the baby do it.

Of course, "Who Shot Mr. Burns" isn't a real mystery anyway. It's not really a solution built on deductive reasoning on evidence. The solution is arrived at by more symbolic and abstract clues (mainly the W.S. and M.S rigmarole). They clearly weren't trying to write a Golden Age of Detective Novel kind of mystery, so I guess it does seem unfair of me to judge their solution by those standards.

On the other hand, that also didn't stop me from writing a lengthy fanscript about it.

EDIT: By the way, happy 13K, Mr. Miller.

The reason I thought it was a little cheap, at the time, was because they even had a contest connected to it. It could've been a "real" mystery, in a sense, if the writers didn't just say, "Aw, to hell with it. The baby did it!". From the sundial scene, I think the original intent was to have Smithers be the shooter, but someone punked out.

[Jims]

See, I don't get the whole Smithers thing because it seemed like he was very obviously going to be the red herring suspect. And there are instances where they do the double fake-out and the obvious suspect does it, but with a contest going on, it seemed unlikely they were going to go that way.

You make a good point about the contest. The contest made it a double-edged sword because making a real deductive mystery might be too easy to figure out... Hence why they went with the symbolic abstract stuff. In a "real" mystery, they would leave some random object, say, a sheet of wax paper at the crime and part of the deductive reasoning would be, "Why would the murderer need a piece of wax paper for the crime?" and then the solution logic would be built on that. And they'd have to be so super-careful to not make it super-obvious (like if a school object was left behind pointing to Skinner) but not too obscure and complex either (like the wax paper example).

Mysteries are hard to write, I guess. It's no wonder they went the way they did.

[bhartman36]

See, I don't get the whole Smithers thing because it seemed like he was very obviously going to be the red herring suspect. And there are instances where they do the double fake-out and the obvious suspect does it, but with a contest going on, it seemed unlikely they were going to go that way.

I do agree that Smithers would've been a good red herring suspect. But I don't necessarily think that having it be obvious would've necessarily been a deal-breaker. Whoever did it, there would've been thousands of people who figured it out, so making it someone obvious wouldn't have hurt them, in that sense. By making it Maggie, I think they engaged in a fakeout that made a lot less sense. Hell, if they wanted to go with "MS" as the symbolism of the sundial, they could've made it Moe Szyslak, which would've made more sense. Even having it be Marge would've been better.

You make a good point about the contest. The contest made it a double-edged sword because making a real deductive mystery might be too easy to figure out... Hence why they went with the symbolic abstract stuff. In a "real" mystery, they would leave some random object, say, a sheet of wax paper at the crime and part of the deductive reasoning would be, "Why would the murderer need a piece of wax paper for the crime?" and then the solution logic would be built on that. And they'd have to be so super-careful to not make it super-obvious (like if a school object was left behind pointing to Skinner) but not too obscure and complex either (like the wax paper example).

A school object could've easily been Krabappel, or even Chalmers. The problem is, they wouldn't have a lot of symbols like that to work with for the other characters. Would there have been any way to indicate Moleman did it? What about Jasper? Even with Maggie, they resorted to DNA, which was kind of cheap. I don't think it would've been that hard to do, but it's hard to think about it after the fact, because if they were going to do something like that, they'd have to set up beforehand what would give the murderer away. Because they didn't do that, it's hard to look back and imagine what they could've done (e.g., could a character have been wearing unusual shoes)?

The thing is, they never went with any of these other avenues, because they didn't think they had to. It's their show, so that's their right, but it made for a frustrating episode, for me.

[Jesse Pinkman]

would maggie being the culprit bug people so much if part one aired one week, and then the following week, part 2 aired? like, the contest revolving it did not exist, it was a simple week-long cliffhanger so we wouldn't have to wait 4 months to find out; only 7 days. would this bug people too, or is the fact that we had to wait 4 months and the contest surrounding it was some big thing, that adds to people being disappointed it was her?

I'm not only asking bhartman36, I'm asking anyone who was annoyed that Maggie was the one who shot mr. burns, just for the record

[bhartman36]

would maggie being the culprit bug people so much if part one aired one week, and then the following week, part 2 aired? like, the contest revolving it did not exist, it was a simple week-long cliffhanger so we wouldn't have to wait 4 months to find out; only 7 days. would this bug people too, or is the fact that we had to wait 4 months and the contest surrounding it was some big thing, that adds to people being disappointed it was her?

I'm not only asking bhartman36, I'm asking anyone who was annoyed that Maggie was the one who shot mr. burns, just for the record

I think it being only a week-long cliffhanger would've made it a little more tolerable, if there wasn't a contest around it. I still think it's a cheap ending, but without the long wait and the contest, at least it wouldn't have been any worse than any other illogical episode.

[Prune Tracy]

I don't think Smithers would have worked as the culprit, especially with the contest going on. He's just way too obvious, IMO.

I didn't mind that Maggie was revealed to be the culprit; I found it kind of funny actually. I guess I'd find it less funny if I actually participated in the contest, though. :P

As for the rest of the episode, it was very enjoyable, but not quite up to Part 1's standards. I'd give it a 4/5.

[Jims]

would maggie being the culprit bug people so much if part one aired one week, and then the following week, part 2 aired? like, the contest revolving it did not exist, it was a simple week-long cliffhanger so we wouldn't have to wait 4 months to find out; only 7 days. would this bug people too, or is the fact that we had to wait 4 months and the contest surrounding it was some big thing, that adds to people being disappointed it was her?

I'm not only asking bhartman36, I'm asking anyone who was annoyed that Maggie was the one who shot mr. burns, just for the record

I think you're right. I wouldn't have been nearly as annoyed if they were just back-to-back weekly episodes like that.

Having it be a season finale with the long layover was designed to increase the suspense, and they just promoted the hell out of it at the time as being a big deal. So it kind of raises your expectations that you're really going to get an amazing solution to the mystery.

It kind of reminds me of when I used to watch King of the Hill the first couple of seasons and they had a big cliffhanger that was hyped as "Who is going to die?!?!?!?!?"... And then it ended up being the most minor, incidental character at the time who was actually killed off. In this case, at least you should be able to assume that they're not going to kill off Luann or Hank Hill, but the amount of hype they push at it kinda makes the anticlimax inevitable.

[bhartman36]

I don't think Smithers would have worked as the culprit, especially with the contest going on. He's just way too obvious, IMO.

I didn't mind that Maggie was revealed to be the culprit; I found it kind of funny actually. I guess I'd find it less funny if I actually participated in the contest, though. :P

As for the rest of the episode, it was very enjoyable, but not quite up to Part 1's standards. I'd give it a 4/5.

I admit there's an element of obviousness to Smithers being the shooter, but who, if they were the shooter, (other than Maggie) couldn't have been said to look "obvious"? Moe had a good reason and had a shotgun. Barney could've done it. Anyone in the Simpson family doing it would've seemed unlikely, I guess, but no moreso than Maggie.

Also, let's remember that we're looking at the episode many years after the fact. Did the bit about the sundial look as obvious then as it does now? I think it's Part Two itself that makes Smithers look like the most obvious suspect. All Part 1 really did was establish that Smithers wasn't going along with Burns anymore.