Episode Recap: Fland Canyon

Hey hey friends! Wookiee here and up to my usual antics with another episode recap for my favorite Addicts. This episode recap will cover Season 27, Episode 19: “Fland Canyon”. One of the features we like to have on this site is recaps of new Simpsons episodes for all our friends who can’t watch them immediately or like our silly reviews of them. I love when there are new episodes of the Best. Show. Ever. on TV. It’s my privilege to not only watch new episodes, which I would do with or without this awesome site, but then break them down for all of you. I apologize for the delay with all of these but consider it some fun for the break where there are no new episodes. Without further ado… here’s my thoughts. If you’re not used to the style, it’s basically stream of consciousness style while I watch the episode live. Paragraph breaks usually indicate new scenes. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did writing about it.

To start this off for accidental clickers who just prefer the synopsis, here’s what my DVR describes this one as: “Homer recalls a family vacation to the Grand Canyon with the Flanders.”

Couch gaggery complete. This episode has a full intro which usually means less story but this is the one that Disneyfied my favorite cartoon and I love love love it.

Homer is singing Little Marge aka Maggie to sleep but she’s wide awake and it take a long time and a trip to Krusty Burger before it succeeds. Right when she’s finally out, Marge asks if he’s finished and Maggie is right back up. She wants Homer to read Little Red Riding Hood to her but Homer hates “to see a wolf get punished for having normal appetites.” Instead he tells her a story to put her to sleep about Luann using flavored Crisco instead of butter for shortbread cookies. The story ends up putting Homer to sleep instead and Maggie wakes him up. Instead he tells a story that happened before she was born and his “chances for a man cave went out the window.”

Woo hoo… flashback two years earlier. Springfield Skid Row: If You Were Homeless, You’d Be Home By Now. The First Church of Springfield shows up to help clean it up. Homer’s not too thrilled about God taking away his Saturday afternoon. Flanders isn’t happy with Homer’s grumbling. Two hours that felt like eight hours later, the church group is done with clean up. Sure Lenny got accidentally poked with a hypo and possibly addicted to smack but it was all in the name of helping others.

Ned Flanders wins a family vacation to the Grand Canyon for being the most selfless cleaner. The trip is for two families and Ned invites Reverend Lovejoy and his wife but the rev convinces Ned to take the Simpsons instead to build their neighborly relationship. They can bridge the “chasm of their own dischord” by visiting a chasm. Too funny that Ned contemplates the idea by thinking of Job’s burdens. If you read that name with an ‘ah’ rather than an ‘oh”, congrats, you’re as American as Homer. Homer agrees to go on the trip but the code word in case Flanders gets too annoying is octopus. We also learn Marge doesn’t like things with hidden beaks. So the family heads to Grand Canyon National Park and after ten hours of driving, Homer saw the most glorious sight, a bathroom.

The Grand Canyon is “like Disneyland for thin people.” It was created by erosion and once was called Big Canyon. Bart and Homer get right to squabbling, Homer uses a rattlesnake as a whip and Bart tosses scorpions at his dad. They have a lot of fun actually. The Canyon Is super beautiful “and they say we’re running out of room for our garbage,” But the fun and beauty can’t last forever. Here comes Flanders and the gang singing churchy songs. “Octopus. Octopus.”

The two families sit down to eat at Skobo’s. The Flanders kids are polite and Bart is normal and rude. The waitress’ son never said thank you either and ended up on death row (lights flicker) was on death row. At the motel, Homer is snoring and the Flanders can’t sleep. Flanders offers pink pills to Rod and Todd which they swallow. Too bad they were ear plugs lol.

Now for some Grand Canyon fun. Homer never thought he’d want to stare at something more than the car wreck on the way to the canyon. They visit the Skywalk which is somewhere I’ve been to and highly suggest. They then go on a Mule Ride. Lots of waivers to sign. Homer is excited because his favorite thing is to go downhill. Gotta love mules running away from him straight into a glue factory. El Gordo is there though to take him down the trail. Home proclaims the Grand Canyon to be “the most beautiful thing we’ve ever stole from the Indians.” As they head down the canyon, a bunch of billionaire’s race by in their SUVs. Stupid rich people.

Flanders finds God in everything including a Catholic church in the canyon. Homer also stole the Viza card of Hagwar Swanson, a CEO of Giant Corporation. Lisa is scared of the safeness of the trip and right then their guide disappears.

The story works to put Maggie to sleep but big Maggie, err Lisa, is there to hear the rest and even kept her piece of the canyon from the trip. Taking pieces “only makes the canyon grander.” The story continues and things don’t look good. Most of the food went missing with the guide. Ned and Homer take off to get help. Bart will be sad if Uncle Ned or El Gordo don’t return lol.

Rod has night terrors. The Simpson kids don’t but Lisa might now that she knows what they are. Bart is fine but claims other kids say he’s in their nightmares and if Milhouse is any indication, Bart is right. Homer and Ned enjoy the beauty of God’s creation. Ned sees God making constellations by finger point (sky finger anyone?) and Homer sees him shooting them with a shotgun.

The two find the camp of the billionaires who are awful people. Who diverts a river for a dance floor or sucks up groundhogs with reverse leaf blowers? Homer’s right. “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven.” Probably notable that Homer remembered a piece of the Bible. Ned is aghast at the rich folks having so much and not being willing to share. Homer suggests they steal supplies and Flanders agrees rather than resorting to coveting. The camp is full of CEOS for HBO, The Car Chase Channel, Channel Ocho, Netflix (theirs is shaped like the Taj Mahal), Tragedy Central, The Cheese Channel, and NBC (too funny that it’s a dilapidated tent). The two steal supplies but are caught and shot at. They escape by raft and Homer tosses off what they don’t need because the raft is too heavy… the life jackets and salad forks. The two celebrate their spoils with trout guitar playing and salami drumming. It’s all a success. Their raft isn’t even sunk when the guitar trout bites a hole in it. They just use NBC Sports tape to patch the hole. Ned and Homer make a good team. They arrive at their families with the haul. They lay out a huge elegant spread of food and Lisa enjoys eating bacon because it was before she was a vegetarian. She “had the arteries of a twenty-year-old.” The family is rescued and Homer says goodbye to El Gordo. Ned wonders if the vacation will “be one of those vacations where the friendship we made will last forever or start eroding the minute we enter our cars?” Homer’s reply? “Flanders, like all friendships between men. In the end, it’s up to our wives.”

The last scene is Maggie and Lisa asleep and Ned and Homer talking to each other from their house windows. Ned wishes the Grand Canyon between them wasn’t so large. Homer says Ned can still live in his carcass like he offered earlier but maybe Ned will just store old clothes there. Homer realizes he owes the Flanders a trip. Yosemite, Paris, Miami Beach, and Tahiti. Yup, Homer takes him to the Springfield Postcard Museum and they don’t sell postcards in the gift shop.

Fun story. The interplay between the Flanders and Simpsons was great and truly it was nice to see Maude again. All the imagery of the Grand Canyon was breathtaking and beautiful. The animators certainly showed off in HD. In between, the moments with Homer and Maggie were cute too although I was a little surprised when it was revealed that Homer hides beer in Maggie’s stuffed giraffe. Using action figures to show eight-year-old Bart and six-year-old Lisa was cute. I liked this story a lot. What did you think of the episode? Anything in particular that struck your fancy? Sound off in the comments. I’ll be back with more recaps soon.

TTFN… Wookiee out!