TV Recap/Review: Rachel Bloom Puts Lisa to the Test in The Simpsons “Testing 1-2-3”

Is Lisa Simpson neurodivergent? That’s the central question of “Testing 1-2-3,” the 5th episode of The Simpsons' 38th season. It’s a trilogy of shorts framed around Lisa having her needs assessed by special guest star Rachel Bloom (Crazy Ex-Girlfriend). Let’s recap!

Season 38, Episode 5: “Testing 1-2-3” - Written by J. Stewart Burns

When Mrs. Hoover (Maggie Roswell) administers a standardized test and gives the class 30 minutes to complete it, Lisa (Yeardley Smith) finds herself too distracted by the noises her classmates make. Worse, their efforts to cheat off her test make it impossible to concentrate, especially with a drone hovering over her paper. Seeing Hubert across the hall in a private, quiet, zen-like room, Lisa wanders over, wondering why she can’t have that kind of treatment, too. Groundskeeper Willie (Dan Castellaneta) tells Lisa it’s for Willie’s unique needs, and that he also gets more than 30 minutes to complete the test. Lisa wants to level the playing field.

At Humon Learning Center, Lisa asks the receptionist (Dawnn Lewis) if she can take an assessment. Annette (Rachel Bloom) leads Lisa to a private office to administer a series of questionnaires. Each of these leads Lisa to think not of herself, but of other people in her life. Three shorts emerge about Springfield's neurodiversity.

Into the Neurodiverse

Lisa was once so enraptured in a book report that she didn’t realize the school cafeteria was on fire right away. But it wasn’t as bad as Principal Skinner (Harry Shearer), who was so distracted by balancing the school’s budget that Lisa had to try several times to get him to respond to the emergency. Superintendent Chalmers (Hank Azaria) sent Skinner to speak to the school board.

The unfamiliar environment made Skinner uncomfortable, but State Comptroller Atkins (Castellaneta) summoned him to praise him for the school budget and promote him to Principal of Springfield High School. Upon arrival, he struggles to understand sarcasm from his boss’ daughter, Shauna Chalmers (Tress MacNeille).

Struggling to change his routine, Skinner hands out so many detentions that by Saturday, the library looks exactly like The Breakfast Club. As the teens bond over their differences, Skinner becomes overstimulated by all the noise. He is disappointed they’ve somehow learned a lesson from detention and become friends, so he quits and returns to Springfield Elementary, where he is relieved to be back in familiar surroundings. 

Attention Deficit Homer Disorder

“Are you easily distracted?” That’s the question on the next evaluation that leads Lisa to think of Homer (Castellaneta). Upset by his scale results, Homer consults WebRFK to learn how to get healthy, but a series of mobile alerts distracts him, eventually leading to a coupon for meat sandwiches that becomes an unhealthy family outing.

While waiting in an hour-long line, Homer is constantly restless, and Marge (Julie Kavner) pulls activities from her bag, which isn’t big enough. When they finally reach the front of the line, Homer struggles to decide what to order from the limited menu, and when he sees a Renaissance Fair across the street, he decides he wants a turkey leg instead.

Homer’s reckless behavior lands him in a human catapult while he chows down on turkey legs. The catapult breaks, saving him. Seeing a leather shop, Homer decides to make himself a new belt but has trouble finishing, so he bounces to glass blowing and then jousting. He only meant to watch, but forgetting how he got there, he ends up on a horse and gets injured. 

After Dr. Hibbert (Kevin Michael Richardson) treats him, Professor Frink (Azaria) lures the Simpsons into his Leonardo da Vinci tent, where Homer fixates on the flying machine Da Vinci couldn’t get to work. “Maybe I can finish this flying machine,” he says. Meanwhile, Chief Wiggum (Azaria) catches Bart (Nancy Cartwright) picking pockets and throws him in the stocks. Lisa finds herself there for arguing over period accuracy, and Marge is also punished for having outside food in her purse. They seem saved when they see Homer flying toward them in the Da Vinci machine, but from the sky he sees the meat sandwich shop and decides he wants one again, flying over there. 

The Neatly-Arranged Adventures of O.C.D. Man

On the next exam, Lisa is asked if she gets upset if things aren’t arranged a certain way. She recalls how Comic Book Guy (Azaria) yells at the kids when they don’t put comics back exactly where they belong. His wife, Kumiko Albertson (Jenny Yokobori), wants to redecorate The Android's Dungeon & Baseball Card Shop to improve its energy flow. It turns out that Comic Book Guy believes that the exact order of everything in his store creates a protective forcefield.

He’s horrified when he comes into the store the next day to find that Kumiko has rearranged everything and added lots of indoor plants. As he tries to put everything back, he repeats several actions a specific number of times. We see his unpleasant thoughts as a meteor crashes into the shop since the forcefield is down. In this moment, we learn that Kumiko has the same issue, imagining the plants creating a protective barrier around the store that shields it from a tsunami. “Oh my Zod,” Comic Book Guy says as he and his wife bond over their shared O.C.D.

Suddenly, all of Springfield joins in a musical extravaganza about the town’s neurodiversity. Marge, Lenny (Shearer), and Carl (Alex Désert) are revealed to also have O.C.D. We see Bart taking prescription medication that keeps him from acting out, and Krusty the Clown (Castellaneta) crushes it into a fine powder to inhale. Lisa teaches Maggie to say “Echolalia” from a book called “Baby’s First DSM” (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders).

Then Lisa wakes up after falling asleep during the third exam. She is worried that she has a neurological condition, begging for more time, which Annette refuses.

“Testing 1-2-3” Review

This episode was a total misfire to me. It’s weird to have another trilogy-of-shorts episode immediately after this season’s “Treehouse of Horror,” and the message seems to be that everyone has unique needs, which is true, but it doesn’t negate the fact that some students need unique accommodations to succeed. Lisa has always been an empathetic star student, so the episode's premise feels somewhat foreign to her nature.

The episode's core flaws aren't made up for by any exceptionally funny or memorable moments. The entire Skinner sequence is merely a setup to pay homage to The Breakfast Club without doing anything meaningful with it (obligatory fist in the air to “Don’t You Forget About Me” included).

The best I can say for this episode is that it has a few fun Easter eggs, and quite a few Disney in-jokes. While waiting to buy a meat sandwich, Homer draws a picture of Buzz Lightyear. Homer's voice actor, Dan Castellaneta, voiced several characters on the long-forgotten animated series Buzz Lightyear of Star Command. And when Chief Wiggum appears at the Renaissance Fair, he is dressed like the Sheriff of Nottingham from Disney’s foxy animated version of Robin Hood.

But the biggest Easter egg of all is a forward look to the next episode, which features a parody of the ill-fated Star Wars hotel, Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser. Inside The Android's Dungeon is a poster for the “Kosmic Kruiser: Now and Forever at Krustyland,” which will play a major role in next week’s episode.

Season 38 continues next Sunday, November 8th, at 8/7c on FOX, with “The Kosmic Kruiser.”

Bart and Lisa break into Krustyland’s most notorious failed attraction, only to discover that it hasn’t been completely abandoned.