In this week’s episode of The Simpsons, Lisa meets a new friend who encourages her imagination to soar, and threatens to get her in a mess of trouble in this week’s episode of The Simpsons, “Lisa The Drama Queen”.

Kredit Kookies: Ahh, final standard-definition opening sequence!   We’ll have a new credit sequence, to go with the show’s move to HD.  Chalkboard Gag: “I will not use permanent ink on the chalkboard.” Couch Gag: A close-up of OFF rushing to the couch pans back to reveal that they’re actually a boxed set of action figures.  Comic Book Guy slaps a sticker on the box (It’s on sale for $19.95) and proclaims “Worst.  Couch Gag.  Ever” with a sniff.

We open at the Springfield Recreation Center – Bart and Lisa bitterly resent being dumped there for the afternoon by Homer, who gleefully speeds away. 

Bart takes a Shao Lin Kung Fu class led by the Comic Book Guy, whose chi is promptly thrown off-center by a full assault by his own class.  Meanwhile, Lisa takes an arts and (no) crafts class, and her pursuit of excellence is once again thwarted by an uncaring adult.  Another student is unwilling to lower her own expectations as well, and the teacher informs her that “(her) art is personal, and wrong!”  Juliet has drawn a painting of Josh Groban attacking a dragon.  The teacher offers them both a way out of class – if they don’t like the way she teaches, they may leave.  Both do, and she requires the rest of the class to paint her twenty laps.

Juliet and Lisa bond in the rec center’s playground over the music of Mister Groban.  Juliet has just moved to town, her father is a professor. 

At the Kwik-E-Mart, Lisa nervously prepares for her fist play date with Juliet.  She rejects Bart’s help in picking out candy for the day.  Bart’s suggestion of a Charleston Chew draws scorn.  “What is this, Brooklyn in the fifties?”.  Apu suggests Almond Joy, which Lisa picks up as helpful advice.  “If she doesn’t like coconut, you’re screwed!” Bart shouts.

Lisa arrives for her play date, meeting Juliet at her school, Tuition Academy (A scholarship-free environment, to Lisa’s dismay).  Lisa hasn’t been on a play date in so long that she doesn’t know what to do – she and Juliet, at Juliet’s suggestion, go to the folk art museum and have a fun time. 

Marge is delighted that Lisa finally has someone to play with, and expresses her joy to Homer (Bart, helping his mother set the table, contemptuously suggests it won’t last).  Lisa asks is Juliet can spend the night, even though, as Bart points out, she has no idea what sort of people they are (“We could be axe murderers!” “Could have been, if we didn’t have kids,” pouts Homer.).

It comes out over dinner that Juliet’s father is the world’s foremost expert on John Grisham, which delights Homer. 

That night, Lisa and Juliet write a story together about a fictional kingdom Juliet names “Equalia”, in which the two girls are a pair of fictional co-rulers.  To Marge and Lia’s mutual delight (the former is eavesdropping outside the door), Lisa and Juliet become best friends.

The following morning, Marge loads Lisa down with best friend advice, not that she needs the help.  The twosome become more and more entranced with their fictional universe, in which Lisa becomes “Queen Helvetia” and Juliet “Queen Valedictoria”.  They have a twonicorn (a twin-horned unicorn) – their foe is an ogre named “Homeroni” (who obviously is based on Homer). 

The Simpsons soon find themselves dining with Juliet’s parents.  The family desperately tries to gussy themselves up so that they might be taken seriously by the academics.  Unfortunately, Juliet’s interest in Josh Groban is deemed an obsession, while her father’s scholarly interest in the works of Grisham (every pre-meal discourse includes a reading of a passage from one of his works).  Juliet runs sobbing into the night, and Lisa runs off to comfort her.

Juliet comforts herself with visions of Equalia, delusions that Lisa embraces.  Surrounded by Giraffopuses and their magical twonicorn, the twosome comfort themselves with their magical world, fully believing it to be real.

The following morning, Marge serves the twosome breakfast, and tries to participate in the fantasy, but the girls won’t let her.

Marge and Homer soon find themselves called on the carpet by Principal Skinner, who explains that Lisa’s become so distracted by her obsession with Equalia that she’s begun losing focus in school (Homer, unfortunately, thinks the entire conversation’s about Bart).  Marge instantly recognizes that the excessive amount of time Lisa’s been spending with Juliet has damaged her (Skinner’s already aware of Juliet – he searches his student’s Facebook pages for unflattering references to him).

That night, Marge gently suggests to Lisa that she should break off her friendship with Juliet.  Lisa’s confused and angry; she threatens to “disobey”.  “I’m Bart Simpson’s mother.  You think you’ve got any tricks I haven’t seen?” Marge gently retorts.  Lisa promptly crawls out her bedroom window and climbs down the tree outside – she falls into Marge’s basket of laundry.  “Bart Simpson, age three,” Marge retorts in a blasé tone, and carries Lisa back inside.   Bart Simpson, age ten, meanwhile, hides inside the trunk of the tree and jumps the family’s fence in a ninja outfit.

After school the following day, Juliet draws Lisa’s attention by dropping an acorn (and then a lunchbox) can upon her head.  Leaping from her hiding place among the branches, Juliet informs Lisa that she’s running away, and wants her to come.  Lisa’s reluctant to follow (she has a model UN meeting that weekend).  Juliet passionately tells Lisa that she and Equalia need her.  The two girls run off together.  This brings about a flashback from Groundskeeper Willie, where he flashes back to his emigration from Scotland (where, apparently, he was once a doctor).

The two girls ride their bikes to the abandoned “Clam-elot” seafood restaurant – it went downhill very quickly since Juliet’s family ate there last week.  The two girls decide to live there.

Meanwhile, the Simpsons eat dinner.  Marge wonders if Lisa has threatened the model UN with her rice tariff yet – a phone call from Martin Prince confirms that it’s two minutes from roll call, and Lisa isn’t in attendance (she’s Azerbaijan).  Marge freaks out.  “If I’d just let her continued her obsessive relationship with that troubled little girl, everything would have been fine!”.  Bart coolly pin-points Lisa’s location (“Somewhere in a lame-o castle”), and, after a brief fashion diversion from Homer, the family’s in pursuit.

While Juliet and Lisa scribble away at their Equalia book (Lisa muses about the abandoned restaurant, “no one wanted to drive to the middle of the forest for clams”), a car pulls up outside – a Marge-shaped, Homer-shaped, and Bart-shaped shadow.  Lisa’s overjoyed, but when the door bursts open to reveal the rest of the Simpsons clan, it turns out that they’re at the wrong castle (the one at Sir-Putt-a-Lots).   The threesome breaking into Clam-elot are Kearney, Dolph and Jimbo, Jimbo’s hat being stuffed with stolen peaches and Dolph wearing a Jughead hat.  They tie the girls up.

Lisa and Juliet are studded into lobster cages – a hungry Dolp and Jimbo take off in pursuit of food, leaving Kearney to guard the girls.  Juliet begs Lisa to escape with her to Equalia – “Equalia’s not real!” Lisa cries, and Juliet responds reasonably that it’s “better than this.”  The two girls join hands and recite their story, eyes closed.  Kearney interrupts  - he’s been listening the whole time and is enthralled.  At Juliet’s behest, Lisa injects a dragon theme into the story, and he unlocks their lobster cages.

Some time later, Kearney remains enspelled by Juliet and Lisa’s story – they’re interrupted by a returning Jimbo and Dolph, who snatch the notebook from Juliet and decide to torch it.  Kearney – still enthralled by the story, snags the book from Jimbos’s hand, and happily endures a beating from the other two bullies, still ensorcelled by the book’s magic.

Juliet and Lisa escape and peddle toward home.  Lisa gently tells Juliet that she doesn’t want to go to Equalia anymore, for she wants to live in the real world – Juliet sniffs that “the real world is for people who can’t imagine anything better.”  She bids Lisa farewell, and, once Juliet’s fully out of sight, Lisa declares her “cuckoo”. 

Two months later, Lisa’s submitted a manuscript for “The Chronicles of Equalia” to a publisher.  They unfortunately reject it, leading Bart to mock her.  Marge gently encourages Lisa that the letter came “all the way from New York” for her – that’s something.  Homer tells Lisa that she and her friend “princess nutjob” have inspired him to write his own novel, based on his experiences as a dad.  Unfortunately, he can’t get far beyond reinvisioning his family in forms more pleasing to him (Maggie is a monster truck, Bart’s a hot dog, Lisa’s a starfish, Marge is a bottle of Duff and there’s a line of doughnuts with arms and legs kicklining behind them).  Writing, Homer decides, is really very hard 

Over the end credits, the show’s theme is reinvented by the band Fall Out Boy.

Red Dress Press: I never thought I’d see the day where I could say “The Simpsons have just parodied Heavenly Creatures”, but here we are.  The film that gave the world at large Kate Winslet for the first time is based on the Pauline Parker/Juliet Hulme case hasn’t been a ripe target for parody before, and the Simpsons’ version of the story (obviously) strips out the murder itself along with the more intense elements of obsession that existed between Parker and Hulme, yet it still manages to make an amusing and even sort of poignant statement about the power of choosing to live in the real world versus a fantasy universe.  The moral could even interpreted as being left open-ended – is Juliet, who’s been made miserable by her father’s Grisham-centric world, so amiss in immersing herself in a world less mediocre than his?  It was, after all, Hulme (whom, obviously, the Juliet character is based on) who ended up resurfacing as the successful mystery novel writer Anne Perry.

The episode simultaneously promotes the power of good fiction (it is good fiction that saves Lisa and Juliet from losing their story and allows them to escape the bumbling bullies).  While the world at large rejects Lisa’s prose as being “not what they want at the time”, anyone who’s been run through the publishing mill before can testify that it usually takes more than a single submission to a single house to get in print.  It could, of course, be worth something later to someone else.

Other facets of the episode were wonderful – Marge’s characterization was particularly beautiful, and nothing she did felt OOC for one second.  Bart – despite his brief screen time – also felt mostly true-to-character, with Homer having a brief amount of screen time and displaying some irritating post-season-ten traits (wishing he’d become a serial killer; gleefully ridding himself of his children).

Emily Blunt put in a decent performance as Juliet, and though it wasn’t terribly distinguished I rather enjoyed the new character.

Take note – we now know that Groundskeeper Willie’s name was once Dr. William MacDougal, and, as indicated by his title, he was once a doctor in Scotland (thanks to reader Sean for the tip here!). 

What The Screwballs Think: This episode drew a 2.7, second in its timeslot, on par with this week’s new American Dad and drawing .3 million fewer viewers than a repeat of Family Guy.

Springfield Shopper: The next new episode of The Simpsons, entitled “Take My Life, Please”, will air on February fifteenth, for the very first time, in HD!  Please check back here on the sixteenth for a full recap!