I'm watching Season 3 of The Simpsons right now but I still wanted to write about Season 2 so here's a post about an episode that I think really stands out and is also shows off what makes that season unique.
The synopsis of the episode is pretty simple: the Simpsons go to eat at a sushi restaurant (an exotic concept at the time), Homer eats some improperly prepared fugu, and spends the rest of the episode thinking that he's been poisoned and has twenty-four hours to live.
I was kind of ready for the Japanese restaurant bits to not age well, but I was honestly surprised by not-actually-racist that part was. Maybe that's too low of a bar, but it is a tv show from 1991 and there were already some parts of this season that felt pretty dated. (See also, my post about Bart Gets an F)
But it's the emotional resonance of the other half of the episode that makes it really special. This is a genuinely heartfelt episode, with Homer seriously grappling with the idea that he has just one day left to live. He makes a list of things he wants to do, and tries to wrap a bow on every single significant relationship he has in his life. But there's just not enough time, and he has to pick and choose what's important and what's not. And then he has to face the end.
It all works. It's solid emotional writing, and it feels pretty genuine. This is why I think it's also interesting as a Season 2 episode, specifically. As I went back and watched these episodes, I noticed that the general tone of them was a lot more earnest and heartfelt than I remembered the rest of the show being. A lot of episodes have somebody struggle with some kind of genuine personal or family issue, and then the writing gives them room to have these full emotional arcs without cynical gags coming in to undermine the tone or the message.
Season 2 is a show that hasn't really become The Simpsons as we know it, yet. It's on its way there, but the show is still figuring out what it wants to be. And that means some of the episodes drag a little, and some of them are corny in an old sitcom kind of way, but I think it also gives room for some of these episodes to stand out in ways later episodes really can't.
In Season 2, none of the characters have been set in stone through repeated jokes. Nobody's really reduced to a single set of gags, and lots of them are given room to grow and change and have these pretty engaging emotional arcs.
And this episode is about as emotional as the show can get.
