Rate/Review Kiss Kiss, Bang Bangalore (HABF10)

[sean]

everything in this episode missed so badly i was embarrassed to be watching it. i mean, it's hard for me to explain why i found it utterly without laughs because i guess that's a kind of subjective thing, but i just didn't even smile at a single joke. sorry.

1/5

[That Jerk]

I just made the assumption that Smithers arranged the family to come over since he seemed to be the only one who cared that Homer was in charge. Also, there was plenty to show Homer was to go mad with power. As if they didn't foreshadow it enough (with one of the best lines of the season - "But sir, doesn't absolute power corrupt?" "Absolutely not!") there was also the bit with Lenny & Carl.

There were a few chops that could have been made to strengthen the plot, I'll give you that. But I didn't feel that key information was missing. And this is coming from someone who says almost every week - "If they just cut *this* and added to *this* the episode would be so much better."

The dance at the end, trust me, in any other episode I would be up in arms over it. That kind of ending ruined Pranksta Rap and Grift of The Magi, but what seperates this is that they used it after the plot was resolved, and not as a distraction from not having a conclusion. The Simpsons can be as wacky as they want in my eyes as long as they don't obscure the plot.

[The Homer]

5/5

Loved a rare joke about the shape of Homer's head.

[Willmak5389]

I didn't like this ep. that much, the jokes were pretty stupid and the plot was pretty weak. I gave it a 2 for great animation.

[Homer Jay]

I'm having a really tough time giving this episode a grade. On one hand it's funny and both of the plots were solid. Most of the India jokes were funny, and I think the episode worked better than other episodes in other places because of the jokes about outsourcing. But on the other hand, I never thought the characterization was particularly strong, and the plots were a little crazy. I'll give the episode a B- for now, although it's almost certain to change upon rewatches.

[Faucet]

I enjoyed the episode. It was funny and made me laugh. And there was a quote in there from Burns "You know 'I told you so' has a brother named shut up" or something. It was pretty funny, i actually liked the burns's snake entrance and the ending was mediocre but not terrible.

[Gatorgod]

Great Episode! The Simpson's Went and taught me something about India (Thanks) and Outsourcing (Thanks again) and I got to see Patty's Chinese baby again. and I guess Selma does like dudes as long as its McGyver. *Has this ever been discussed or explained?*
I liked the Apocalypse's Now parody,..Thats always cool!
And the Gator likes all this Green in the forum ..Very Gatorey

[DotheBartman]

I can definitely see the criticism of Homer's power-corruption being underdeveloped, but I don't think it was such a big deal in this case. For one thing, it kind of (if I'm not mistaken, it's been a while) echoed the sudden nature of it in "Apocolypse Now!", but for another, there wasn't as much to really develop. Homer wasn't actually corrupt to begin with, after all; the whole twist was that they assumed he would be, but it turns out he was really doing all these great things for the workers. Not to say that there shouldn't have probably been more buildup, but it's not as big a problem as people are suggesting I think.

Anyway, this is yet another episode that felt a little inconsequential, but it was fun and sort of cute. It had a lot of nice elements that have been missing for a while (Homer actually at work, Patty and Selma's film-strips, Burns being evil, etc.) and was pretty consistantly funny. The guest star, which I was actually looking forward to for once, was also really funny and well used. And the episode stuck to its story (however underdeveloped it may have been in places) and derived most of the humor from that, instead of getting lost in having the family make (un)"funny" observations about the location and the culture for 22 minutes like in most vacation shows. In that sense, it was a good call to not have the rest of the family come in until late in the episode. I did think they could have done more with the outsourcing theme though; there were some great scenes (Apu's relative putting on all those phony accents was great), but overall I think they kind of missed the boat on what could have been a great satirical topic. Still, the episode was pretty funny despite a couple things going on too long (Burns' snake entrance, and moreso the Bollywood scene), and the "Apocolypse Now!" parody was fantastic. I didn't expect to ever see another movie parody done that well, in all honesty. B/B+

DYN:
-At the DMV, there's a "Give a Hoot: Don't Drink and Drive" (or something similar) poster with Krusty?

[John Jay Smith]

A very good episode. I give a 4/5. One of the first in a long, long time that I just sat back and enjoyed without thinking much about. I thought the thing about Moe's bar as funny (Moe's shotgun is the only American item) and I liked Apu's cousin being a telephone operator for various companies. Not too much worng with it.

[TheFlandersMan]

3/5

It was okay. There was barely any buildup to the conflict (or lack thereof). The story was there, so much potential, but the plot and conflict just bombed. Mcgyver offered the best jokes. It was handled fairly well. Basically it was treading on great episode territory until act 2.

And is anyone else tired of those random "pulls out a book/movie/poster by *insert author here* joke". It seems like it's done every episode, within the past few seasons. It's like something along the lines of that George Foreman mail sorter, or Homer Gone Wild. They're kind of lame.

The jokes were very hit and miss. I liked to see the powerplant, and Homer wasn't too bad for the most part. A lot of things that plague every other episode are in this one. The ending was pretty bad too. Overall I'd give it a C+.

[KMDSimpson]

When they showed the band getting on the "Booze Cruise" boat, they should have had a Minnesota Vikings player getting on too.

[Matt B.]

4/5 Very funny episode. Best "Simpsons going to another counrty" episode in a while

[TheFlandersMan]

Wow, you must have not seen too many episodes then. Bart vs. Australia and Blame it On Lisa open up quite a few cans of woop ass on this episode.

[Keller]

This was a pretty cool episode with some great satire. My mind's blank right now, but I remember a lot of really funny parts. I was angry at the ending at first, until I realized what it was a parody of. Anyways, not a terrific episode, but not bad at all.

4/5

[Jeremy]

This was a notch below the Gervais ep, but far better than last week's show. The ending song was really inspired, and the whole show had striking imagery. Burns kneeling on the boat, the eerie skies of the India plant after Homer took over, and then the gigantic appearance of the Homer towers all made that scene stand out for me. The MacGuyver stuff was fun, and reminded me of Adam West being nuts in Mr. Plow. There weren't any parts that struck out as being bad, and Dan did some amazing voice work in it. Stumbling over his Indian speech really could have turned out bad, but he turned it into something great. 4/5

[Cerpin Taxt]

4/5. I thought it was actually pretty funny, especially Mr. Burns: "I told you so has a brother, and his name is shut the hell up."

[ScottNak]

I thought this was a near flawless episode... I don't think I've ever LOL'd so loudly and consecutively as I did during the convention slice with SG-1 Lt. Whatever. (McGyver) My roomie and I had a nice laugh with that.

Nice little nicknames for the gods. (Papa Smurf... haha.) And the tiger-door trap. "One is named Homer Simpson". Haha. Nice.

And then there's the subplot. Which you can hardly call a sublot. Done very magnificently. The gimpy "convention", followed by trashing his own show... Then a complete reversal. Amazing.

The scene with the family coming into the power plant, with all the people around the water in Homer's attire. And then a dome (i assume) refitted to look like Homer. Now that was slightly creepy.. Haha.

And then the ending. It was AWESOME. I can't believe the negativity about it. It's a PERFECT ending to this. How can you have an Indian theme and NOT have some song and dance. It just doesnt work that way!

And Homer can now say that he wasn't corrupt and he ISNT going to die for it!

An EASY 5/5 for me.

[Valhum]

5/5 I really enjoyed this episode. For me this has been one of the funniest in a while, it had me laughing all the way.
The whole Macgyver thing was priceless and the voice acting of Dean something something was great, he felt right in place.

Loved it.

[Corkus]

I can't believe nobody's caught this yet - The writer was Dan Castellaneta. Didn't see that one coming. Certainly slaughters his previous crap that was "Gump Roast". I was expecting Matt Selman.

This episode had what was probably the best sub-plot in years, in addition to the best guest star. It was also one of the more random episodes, which is why it's sort of difficult to break it down into acts, so I won't be doing that tonight. Some good laughs tonight, which no jokes truly bombing horribly. Loved the Apocalypse Now parody. Unfortunately, I did not understand the Stargate references. Liked seeing Ling again. Since we haven't really seen Patty/Selma since "Goo Goo Gai Pan", we really couldn't determine if she was being kept in the show. The only real letdown was the ending, which should have been cut at least 30 seconds short.

Certainly one helluva lot better than last week's, but that's not necessarily a huge feat in itself. B+

[bovine_university]

Not a great episode, but it was a nice surprise nevertheless. This episode seemed to have trouble settling on which plot it was more interested in (like with The Last of the Red Hot Mamas earlier this year), but at least the humor and plot were done reasonably well in both cases. I have to say that the subplot was one of my favorites of this year (and possibly last year as well), what with it's plentiful humor and the plot points that it took. I was honestly expecting the whole thing to just be about Anderson repeatedly trying to escape or perhaps a Misery parody, but what was done instead was very fresh and funny and resolved itself quite neatly. Maybe it's because I liked the subplot too much (and so much time was spent on it), but I was just underwhelmed as a whole by the main story. The first act ended really quickly with only a few scenes actually devoted to Homer. On top of that, very little time is spent actually watching Homer work at the new plant or implement any of his ideas. As a result, his realization as a god just felt really thin and uninteresting. I suppose this could have been done deliberately though to make the ending a surprise. Despite coming out of nowhere, I did like the Apocalypse Now parody and finding out Homer was actually being a fair and reasonable boss was a good way to avoid an unnecessary action-filled climax or the "Homer does his job incompetently" cliche. Still, I have to say that the resolution was bland and forgettable, and the dance sequence at the end was funny at first but seemed to drag on. I was frequently surprised by the twists and turns that this episode made, but in the end it felt like there wasn't quite enough to make this episode great. I'll give it a highly respected 3/5.

[bluemoose]

Great 1st and 2nd acts - the drawn on phone/thermometer and Mr. Mac I thought was a great joke. Homer was funny in India, especially when he kept using the book badly. Patty + Selma subplot was quite funny. Richard Dean Anderson was funny, especially for a guest star playing himself. 5/5 for 1st and 2nd acts.

Pretty good 3rd act - The 3rd act was pretty good (The Patty + Selma subplot stayed strong). However, it had a week ending, bringing it down to 4/5 for me.

Overall - 4.5/5 actually, but I gave it a 5/5 on the poll because of the 1st and 2nd acts.

[Tomacco]

Maybe I'm just in a really good mood, but that kind of reminded me of a classic episode. It wasn't outstanding or anything, but the jokes all worked, the celeb guest was very well-used, Patty & Selma having their own storyline was a real treat (nice to see the baby again too), and great spots by Lenny, Carl, Burns and Smithers. Definitely not a serious episode by any means. Just pure fun and well-executed character humor (Apu's cousin on the phones was hysterical) and parody (Apocolypse Now, Bollywood).

4/5

PS: Yeah yeah, another good review for a season 17 episode from me.

DYN: Cow moo instead of crow sqwak in exterior shot of nuclear plant. That was a treat for us Simpsons fans.

[Green_Peaness]

That was a busy, out-there episode for sure. But the humor was about 90% hitting, and the phone sequence was hilarious. Homer was very well written (...cowritten by Dan Castelleneta, hmm). The ending was puzzling, I think I'll need to rewatch it to catch what was going on in the third act.

Most of the typical season 17 problems seemed to be gone, this episode was very refreshing.

B/B+

[Talking Pie]

2.5/5 a few good jokes here and there mostly from the MacGyver plot but the rest of it felt too forced.

[schwnj]

The jokes were only so-so for me, especially anything in the third act. I think they went too big with it--it would have been just as good without the over-the-top god subplot and musical ending. The animation was fantastic though, some of the best in the series. 3/5

[Deanodriver]

Not a bad episode at all, certainly better than Million Dollar Abie.

I did like the segment where Apu's cousin was working for several companies, and it was good to see Mr. Burns in a major role in an episode, but I felt the ending was a bit rushed (the whole Homer being a god thing, and how the rest of the family was suddenly in India). The subplot was fairly decent, as well.

Did anyone else notice that there were two iPod references in consecutive episodes? Also, that's not the first time Homer has been to India (Homer and Apu was the first).

I thought I'd give it 3.5/5 (so voted for 3), but I'm leaning towards a 4 now.

[lethifold]

Really good episode. Made me laugh out loud quite a bit, shame about the ending

8/10

[Veryjammy]

Main 'plot' was terrible; a few decent jokes, mainly in the first act. But it was as messy as anything I've ever seen on the show, constantly filled out with random jokes that had little to do with anything. Might be acceptable if they were funny but they weren't (example being Lenny and Carl and the tigers - what the hell?) And there were some howlingly unfunny moments like Homer and the cow or Burns being a snake. Very little else to say about it, just absolute shit.

What makes it harder to grade is the fact that the subplot was actually pretty good, probably the best conventional subplot of the season, maybe of the past few seasons; it was original, had most of the best moments and was very well directed; and it's nice to see Patty and Selma taking a prominent role again. Still, can a subplot atone for the main plot? Not enough for this to get a decent grade, no.

D+/C-

Edit - I can't believe an episode like this is getting those poll results

[Zilla]

What I found more interesting than the sub-plot itself was that the writers actually remembered that Patty was mothering Ling.

It's actually Selma who adopted Ling.

I got to see Patty's Chinese baby again. and I guess Selma does like dudes as long as its McGyver

Once again, it is Selma who adopted the baby and Patty who came out as the lesbian.

[Nameless]

The subplot was good, all around solid and funny.

The main plot was OKish, but the problem was, as already said, the ending was a letdown. B- for now, although it probably needs a rewatch.

The writer was Dan Castellaneta.

And Deb Lacusta...he appears to be writing an episode every two seasons, so I suppose one written by him was coming some time.