It’s been a little over three years since the COVID-19 pandemic escalated to global disaster that we’re still getting over, but that won’t stop the long-running animated sitcom (with a famously long turnaround time from concept to screen) The Simpsons from finally getting around to tackling a lockdown parody episode.
The almost complete lack of topicality aside, this week’s new installment of The Simpsons, entitled “The Very Hungry Caterpillars” (a reference to the beloved 1969 children’s book The Very Hungry Caterpillar) sees an invasive species take over Springfield and its streets to the point where the town’s residents are no longer permitted to leave their homes.
“The Very Hungry Caterpillars” begins with Marge Simpson (voiced, as always, by Julie Kavner) dealing with baby Maggie’s newfound refusal to eat anything without ranch dressing on it– this is a funny enough concept in itself, but things get much more complicated when the titular red-hued butterfly larvae flood Springfield, causing a lockdown quite similar to the one we all experience in March of 2020, though it doesn’t last as long. Naturally, the citizens of Springfield react in ways that should be familiar to anyone who paid even a slight bit of attention to real-world current events during that period– Kirk Van Houten (Hank Azaria) even rapidly descends into becoming a caterpillar truther, shouting conspiracy theories in front of Town Hall. But the real focus here is on the Simpson family, the members of which each go through their own travails during the week-long natural disaster. Lisa (Yeardley Smith) loses herself to fear-mongering on the internet and gets so wrought with worry that Marge and Homer (Dan Castellaneta) decide to give her a big Christmas present early– Malibu Stacy’s “invitation-only” mall. But this only distracts Lisa from the catastrophe for a short while; soon she’s imagining that Malibu Stacy and her friends are real and talking to her, then checking their own miniature toy phones for news about the caterpillar infestation.
Meanwhile, Bart (Nancy Cartwright) discovers that Principal Skinner (Harry Shearer) has left his home computer’s camera on after a remote learning session, and many of the local schoolchildren start tuning in to mock Skinner and his mother Agnes (Tress MacNeille) as they go about their absurd existence– made even more amusing by Seymour’s antagonistic relationship with his visiting cousin Peter (guest star Rob Lowe from The Outsiders and Parks and Recreation). Eventually the kids go from ridiculing Skinner to vowing to avenge him, with Peter having maliciously taken a Skinner family heirloom from a trusting Agnes. During all this, the Simpson parents continue their quest to get Maggie more ranch dressing, with Homer asking their do-gooder neighbor Ned Flanders (also Shearer) for some of his plentiful doomsday stash of the condiment. But Ned sees Homer as the grasshopper from another famous story about insects and only gives him a tiny splash of ranch to take home. This leads to Marge losing her cool– after Maggie refuses to take any substitutes– and plotting to steal the ranch in plastic bags from the giant barrel in Ned’s basement.
This is one of those Simpsons episodes that is made up of a number of smaller B-stories than one big central plot, although all the narratives are connected through an inciting throughline. It’s worked before, and it definitely works here, as a huge percentage of the jokes succeed (I loved Lisa observing that the caterpillar invasion was the third once-in-a-millennium disaster to occur in Springfield that year). And as this extremely strong episode went on, I couldn’t help but think about its writer Brian Kelley (an alumnus of NewsRadio, perhaps my favorite multi-camera sitcom of all time) and the team of scribes without whom this show and countless others like it would not be possible. It’s actually pretty rare that I even mention The Simpsons’ writers during these reviews, and that’s definitely an oversight on my part– sometimes it takes a movement like the WGA strike to remind us of who the people are who bring entertainment to life behind the scenes. Another talent I want to highlight here is voice-actor Harry Shearer, who isn’t often heavily featured in the show anymore but does double duty in “The Very Hungry Caterpillars” as Seymour Skinner and Ned Flanders. It feels like a special treat when Shearer’s characters are put front-and-center these days, so this episode was even better to me for that reason. Despite it being late to the pandemic party, there’s a lot to love about this breezy, fun installment that at times almost felt like peak Simpsons, and it makes me pretty happy when– every once in a while– the show figures out how to reach those highs again.
New episodes of The Simpsons air Sunday evenings on FOX.