Simpsons Did It!: “Homer’s Crossing”

Season 35.  Did I think I would still be doing write-ups of this show at season 35?  Nope!  I figured I would have quit a long time ago.  But apparently, Jimmy actually reads these…eventually.

Anyway, Homer becomes a crossing guard in this one.

The story begins with Otto, tripping massive balls off LSD-laced brownies, driving off with the school bus for parts unknown.  No one knows where he went.  No one really goes looking for him.  And the parents of Springfield can’t be bothered to drive their own kids to school or even set up a car pool.  They can allow their kids to walk to school, but they need another crossing guard.  Gil, Hans Moleman, and the Squeaky-Voiced Teen aren’t enough.  Will one more parent volunteer?

Homer will.  It’s an accident.  He was cheering for a Revenge of the Nerds remake with John Cena as Booger.

I’ll say it here:  Revenge of the Nerds is an awful movie on many levels, and that is all I am going to say about that.

Anyway, will Homer do it?  He doesn’t want to, but he’s feeling especially useless after he learns at work that his safety console doesn’t actually do anything, and when things go wrong, it’s up to Lenny, Carl, Charlie (remember him?), and Mr. Burns to prevent a disaster while trying not to hurt Homer’s feelings.  They succeed at the more important one.  Homer has never saved anyone at his job.  He can’t even do the crossing guard thing all that well, embarrassing Bart and Lisa when Nelson, Milhouse, and Martin all team up to mock Homer and make him look silly.

Martin?  Really?  Man, Homer was low.

But then Homer saved Ralph from being hit by a car.  He was even stopped before he could spike Ralph in celebration.  That gets Homer a lot of attention, starting with Chief Wiggum, then on to the Mayor, and that means…the crossing guards get actual town money.

I did not expect the season premier to comment on the militarization of the police and the “Defund the Police” movement, but here we are.  But yeah, Homer gets money, hires more crossing guards, starts buying weapons for some reason, and even managed to get a budget increase when his crossing guards massively screwed up traffic control at a school event.  He even got a surveillance satellite.  But when Homer started attacking the Mayor, to the point where randos online wanted Quimby dead when…holy cow, that’s something I wasn’t expecting on the season premier of The Simpsons.  Wiggum is the only one in town who seems to see through Homer, but that’s mostly because Homer stole the cops’ whole thing.

And that leads to a stand-off:  Homer and his crossing guards vs. Wiggum and his cops, all claiming they were the ones that deserves to be running a militarized, rigid hierarchy that answers to no one.  But so does ICE.  And the TSA.  And the Parking Authority.  And Citizen Watches from Open Carry States.  And maybe the lifeguards who actually do save lives everyday.  Will Homer prevail over Wiggum?

Nope!  Otto comes back and accidentally runs Homer over.  Wiggum won’t even arrest Otto for that.  Homer goes to the hospital where Lisa says there’s a problem when your only tool is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail…and Homer sees himself as a hammer while his bickering family are nails.

Well, looks like season 35 is off and running…

Jimmy may check in by 2030.