34 seasons in, there aren't too many character combinations left to experiment with for story ideas in the world of The Simpsons. But one pairing the hadn’t been explored just yet (as far as I know– I may have missed a decade or so worth of episodes between being a hardcore fan and writing these recaps and reviews) is that of goody-two-shoes Ned Flanders (voiced by series mainstay Harry Shearer) and mob boss Fat Tony (regular guest star Joe Mantegna).
That’s basically the premise behind this week’s new episode of The Simpsons, entitled “The Many Saints of Springfield” (a play on the title of the forgettable 2021 The Sopranos prequel movie The Many Saints of Newark). But the episode begins with an inventive couch gag that sees Homer (Dan Castellaneta) transformed into a stop-motion yarn-based version of himself that gets sucked into the recesses of the Simpson family’s couch, where he meets his long-lost Mickey Mantle rookie card, cheese doodles, and a decades-old TV Guide with ALF (voiced by original puppeteer Paul Fusco) on the cover.
Then as the episode proper begins, the Simpsons witness a series of attempts on Ned Flanders’s life, including exploding mailboxes, snakes, car bombs, and house bombs. Marge (Julie Kavner) sits Ned down for a frank discussion about what exactly got him into this mess, and the godly neighbor spills the beans about an incident– explicitly taking place during the 19th-season episode “Left Behind”– during which he stumbled into a local Catholic church after being ejected from his job as a teacher at Springfield Elementary School. There, he meets Fat Tony, who offers to help with Ned’s Leftorium business in exchange for a favor “that may never arrive, though it definitely will and sooner than you’d expect.” And Ned being the naive, trustworthy man he is, befriends the mobster and begins hanging out at the Legitimate Businessman’s Social Club– but not before ensuring that Tony is indeed a “good fella” and a “wise guy,” though he has no idea of those phrases alternate meanings. And speaking of coded speech, Ned just doesn’t quite understand what the mafia is all about, even when they fairly openly discuss numerous murder around him, until Lisa Simpson (Yeardley Smith) knocks on the club’s front door selling candy and clarifies to him what exactly he’s gotten himself mixed up in.
His eyes open to the reality of the mob, Ned confronts Fat Tony, and is essentially forced to go into hiding when the don explains in no uncertain terms that the only way out of the mob is through being whacked. So back in the present, Ned hides out in the attic of the Simpsons’ garage, while Bart, Lisa, and Maggie stay at Patty and Selma’s, and Rod and Todd Flanders visit their beatnik grandfather (in a nice callback to season 5). Tony’s goons visit Moe’s Tavern to grill Homer about Ned’s whereabouts, but when they eventually follow him home they all discover that Flanders is nowhere to be found. Then we cut to Ned confronting Fat Tony at the social club, a showdown that ends with Flanders revealing that he’s been wearing a wire under his moustache ever since Lisa clued him in. So the mobsters go to prison (where they get fed up with the library only being stocked with young-adult literature) and Ned Flanders rebuilds his house once again. “The Many Saints of Springfield” is a decent episode overall with some solid jokes and callbacks to earlier installments, though occasionally the plot resembles season 3’s “Bart the Murderer” (the first appearance of Fat Tony) just a hair too closely. I did like seeing the two undeniably polar-opposite characters of Tony and Ned bouncing off each other for a while, and then ultimately finding common ground in their mutual religiosity. But mostly this episode made me extremely thankful that the two vocal talents of Harry Shearer and Joe Mantegna are still around and willing to contribute to the long-running American institution we call The Simpsons.
New episodes of The Simpsons air Sunday evenings on FOX.