Bart rediscovers the joy of both farming and caring for a pet in this week’s Simpsons, "Apocalypse Cow". Can the show pull off a re-exploration of these often-explored themes?

Kredit Kookies: Blackboard Gag: "A Person Is A Person, No Matter How Ralph". Couch Gag: the terrific tapestry couch gag is re-used from E Pluribus Wiggum.

We open at Casa De Simpson, where Lisa and Bart are having breakfast on a Saturday morning. The entertainment: Krusty the Klown’s Saturday morning cartoon block. They watch "Transclown-o-morphs", and when the lead character is abused by the villain, he begs his audience to buy Transclown-O-Morph Cereal or he’ll die. Lisa and Bart ask Marge to throw out the Krusty cereal and by the requested brand – Marge tells them they’ve been subjected to far too much advertising and orders the kids to turn the channel. They flick the TV to a golf game, and are soon asking Marge for golf clubs. She intervenes quickly, asking Lisa to help her make a batch of banana bread and telling Bart to go with Homer to Shelbyville to fix the family’s beanbag chairs.

A less-than-enthused Bart finds himself exchanging stories with Homer as they pass through the farmlands on the outskirts of Springfield. They come upon a huge combine machine baling hay and are both somewhat amazed to see that its driver is Martin Prince. Martin explains to them that he’s joined the 4-H society, and Bart, tempted by the lure of driving cool things and encouraged by Homer’s desire for an afternoon alone, finds himself taking the interminably long 4-H pledge.

Bart’s soon driving a harvester, baling water into cubes and compacting manure into Pirates of the Carribean 3 DVDS. He finds he’s enjoying his time in 4-H, and enthusiastically dives in when their instructor explains that their troop will engage in a competition for the Springfield County Fair. Each person is required to care for and feed a cow, with the winner getting a blue ribbon. Before Bart can blink, everyone’s paired off with a cow (even Ralph Wiggum’s discovered companionship with a saw horse). He’s left with the runt of the liter, whom he takes under his wing when no one wants to trade cows with him.

Bart soon runs into difficulties – he doesn’t know that a bottle goes in the cow’s mouth, for instance, or that his cow is a bull. He runs into a learned girl named Marry who gives him helpful tips, and soon his bull – named "Lou" because "it rhymes with moo!" – begins to thrive. As time passes, Lou becomes stronger than the other cattle, and when the Springfield County Fair arrives, inexpert judging allows Lou to win the blue-ribbon winner. Bart is proud of his bull, but discovers that Lou and all of the other cattle will now be sold to a slaughterhouse for processing.

Marge and Homer can’t afford to take the bull home, and Bart can’t deal with the guilt he feels over his helpless situation. "Please," he begs the universe when the anguished sound of Lou’s lowing begins to haunt him at night – "I’m just a little boy!" He soon figures out that the sound of Lou’s moaning comes from a CD being played beneath his bed, the sounds of animals being made by "Tress MacNeille?!", as Bart exclaims. Lisa enters his room and encourages Bart to explore vegetarianism – Bart can’t handle that idea, but he promises Lisa if she’ll help him rescue his bull he’ll stop stirring his lemonade with sausage links.

Bart and Lisa embark for the ranch holding Lou at daybreak – they’re met by a couple of Lisa’s animal rights activist friends, "Compost" and "Solar Panel" – Lisa is "Wind Song" to them, though all they can muster up for a nickname for Bart is "Lisa’s Brother". The activist friends cut through the ranch’s wire fence, and Bart frees a growth-hormone enlarged Lou with a forklift (after flinging another cow into a distant lake, causing Bart to term it a "practice cow").

Bart and Lisa take Lou to Marry’s house – we discover that she’s one of the Spuckler children. A treat for continuity mavens - all of the Spuckler kids who appeared in "Yokel Chords" show up here. Everyone seems thrilled with the new animal, and all seems well, until Cletus assumes Bart’s cow is part of a dowry for his impending marriage to Marry – "We name all our kids after what’s gonna happen to ‘em in the future, don’t we, Stabbed In Jail?" – and he and Brandine begin planning Marry and Bart’s wedding, set to take place the following afternoon.
 
Bart and Marry don’t want to be unified under the bonds of Matrimony, but neither want Lou to die, so they decide to go through with the wedding. Lisa flees home, interrupting Marge and Homer as they use sock-puppets to encourage Maggie to eat her spinach. She begs them to help her – Marge grabs her sewing equipment and Homer runs next door to punch Ned so he "won’t bug them".

Meanwhile, Cletus and Brandine are putting together a fancy hillbilly-style wingding for Marry, who has dreams of going on to Dairy Queen University and tries to convince her mother to call off the ceremony last minute. But Brandine encourages her daughter to go through with the marriage, and the reluctant kids are within inches of being married when Marge stops the wedding and objects, due to Bart’s age. Cletus declares the match off and calls the slaughterhouse.

Bart is heartbroken as Lou’s seemingly carted off by the slaughterhouse truck. As it pulls away, the cow "D’Oh’s", and Bart realizes that it’s Homer in a Lou suit. Bart, Lisa and Marge head to the airport, where Bart says a Casablanca-style goodbye to his cow buddy before Apu arranges for the bull to be transported to India. This part of the plan finished, Marge prepares to take the kids to the slaughterhouse to pick up Homer, preferably before he hits the killing floor. 

She'd turned her cell phone off – when she turns it back on, she has hundreds of text messages – it’s Homer, who is within inches of being slaughtered ("Hey," he observes on his way to possible death, "that sounds like Tress MacNeille!"). The family turns up just in time to save Homer, who swears he’ll never eat steak again (every other kind of meat and ground beef – even human flesh – appeal to him still, however). We take our leave of the Simpsons again for another week as a soothed Bart declares to a picture of Lou that, for once, he’s glad he had a cow.

A refreshing episode – Bart was given depth, and his friendships with Lou and Marry were well-enacted. Some over-the-top moments (such as Lou’s training sequence, the impossibility of Bart combining water) were nicely contrasted with the emotional reality of Bart’s situation, Marge and Lisa’s resourcefulness and Homer’s willingness to put his body on the line for his son. Marry was a nice addition to the cast, and she was given a personality in the brief time she was onscreen. When it comes to brief animal companions for Bart, Lou ranks above Furious D but below Stampy on the scale; an enjoyable addition to Bart’s Roster Of Animals. Even the meta-jokes were amusing, and funny on several different levels.

The episode pulled a 7.7, which is on-par for what the show’s been drawing lately. Theories that Oprah’s Big Give was drawing away the three million viewers the show’s been bleeding can be laid to rest with last week’s season finale. Either the NBA semifinals and Stanley Cup playoffs are siphoning viewers in unusually large amounts or Fox’s animation block is in serious trouble.

The next new episode of The Simpsons airs May fourth, and is entitled "Any Given Sundance". Be sure to check back here on the fifth for a full recap!