Simpsons Did It!: “Meat Is Murder”

OK, so, I was going to comment that an actress named Edi Paterson plays a character named Jessica in this one but I wasn’t sure who that was here, but then something else occurred to me.  See, this episode is, among other things, a parody of HBO’s Succession.  And…it largely works.  There’s even a montage sequence that musically mixes and matches the Succession opening theme and The Simpsons opening theme.

So, as much as I adore John Lithgow, he’s here as the stand-in for the Brian Cox character on Succession, and Cox was actually in a pretty darn good pair of episodes this season!  Why not get Cox for this episode and not the other ones?  Or both?  He was really good in the episodes he did.  It might have made the parody a bit more fun if it was Logan Roy’s voice coming out of Gus Redfield’s mouth.

Eh, it was still a fun episode.

The fun starts with…a parody of The Founder?  OK.  Whatever.  Krusty is out doing a comedy show, he flops, but he discovers a small burger stand that gets him his order more or less immediately thanks to a triple flipper spatula as invented by Gus Redfield (Lithgow, see above) and his initially unseen partner working the grill.  Krusty offers to be their spokesperson (for a price) and eventually demands more than the restaurant can afford.  So, this being Krusty, he stole the triple spatula idea and founded Krustyburger, driving the Worth-a-Try-Burger out of business.

Wait, how old is Krusty anyway?

Regardless, it’s the present, and Krusty is throwing a big festival that will, among other things, sell his burgers for the same original price of 25 cents.  That’s all Homer needs to hear and off he goes.  Poor Marge had to cancel her yearlong plan to go to the Holland Michigan Tulip Festival, and there’s nothing sadder than Marge, dejected, walking away in her wooden clogs.

So, all the Simpsons go there, and Lisa, after getting a vegan burger, bonds a bit with Grampa who, for some reason, will not eat a Krustyburger product ever.  He says it has to do with the Simpson Curse, as seen not long after when Homer and Bart loose their huge collection of burgers to seagulls.  Homer bought them with a pillowcase full of quarters and everything.

Well, this is something, but then in comes Gus Redfield.  In a helicopter.  He’s now a very wealthy man.  So wealthy, he bought out all of Krusty’s stuff.  The Krustyburger.  The show.  The name.  Everything.  Krusty is out.

Again, how old is Krusty?

Regardless, Gus then goes to find his old partner:  Grampa.  He wants Grampa to sit on his board of directors, and Grampa wants Lisa to come along because they share a similar pessimistic outlook, and Lisa makes Grampa better.  Yeah, that’s news to me too.

Here’s where the Succession stuff comes in.  Gus has three adult kids:  Mav (who looks like Roman and sounds like guest star Seth Green), Colby (who looks like Connor and sounds like guest star Paul F. Thompkins), and Shelia (who looks like Shiv and sounds like guest star Krysten Ritter).

Man, I miss Krysten Ritter.  What’s she been up to recently?

Never mind.  She was on The Simpsons.

Anyway, Shelia wants control of the company.  She figures she can manipulate Lisa to get Grampa to vote a certain way in a vote of no confidence.  That means pointing out she wants to make the company more, I dunno, “woke” or something.  I really don’t like the term “woke”.  It sounds so darn ridiculous when most people seem to use it.  Never mind.  Redstar, which advertises guns for puppies, would become the more environmentally friendly and responsible Greenstar.  And, she claims, Gus could get a nice relaxing retirement where he isn’t playing burger guy with Grampa in the rec room.

Lisa falls for that and advises Grampa to vote with Colby, Mav, and Shelia for Gus’s own good.

So, there’s the board meeting.  The vote comes up.  All three kids vote “no confidence”.  Gus is devastated.  The rest of the board, a color-less bald man, Angela Merkel, and TikTok star Charli D’Amelio…whoever that is.  She seemed pleasant enough I suppose.  Wait, I forgot to finish that sentence.  The rest of the board votes in favor of Gus.  Now it all comes down to Grampa as the tiebreaker.  Will he vote in favor of his old friend?  Especially when the kids are already telling the old man he’ll be the next Cousin Greg (guest star Nicholas Braun, Succession‘s Cousin Greg).

Grampa votes in Gus’s favor when Lisa realizes she’s been tricked.

Ah, but then Gus also shows his true colors!  See, he knew something was up and brought in Grampa as a pawn to ruin the kids!

Wait, they’re all awful!

This is just like Succession!

Wait, there’s no Grampa on Succession!  He quickly makes like he’s old and senile and invalidates his own vote, meaning there’s a tie and everybody loses!

The Simpson Curse ain’t so bad it seems.

Oh, and that means Krusty gets all his stuff back if he can afford a notary fee.  He can.  Good thing.  He was the least funny guy in that Israeli socialist commune.