TV-Reviewed

“Double, Double, Boy in Trouble” isn’t the best episode of The Simpsons, but it wasn’t entirely bad either. It focused on Bart’s bad behavior. It’s well documented by now that Bart isn’t the best behaved child and one could blame it on anything, but I liked that flashback of Marge swallowing that single drop of alcohol which supposedly turned Bart into a little monster when he was developing.

Things went bad for Bart when he caused Homer to lose out on a winning scratch ticket worth $50,000. The money ended up going to Lenny instead. Lenny blew the money in a lavish party which served as a way to thank all of his friends for being his friend. It was a nice tribute that I can’t imagine anyone actually doing in real life, but it served as another opportunity for Bart to misbehave.

Bart unleashed an army of robot vacuums on the partygoers, creating havoc. While in the bathroom, Bart met his doppelganger (his twin), Simon. Rich and intelligent, Simon agreed to swap lives with Bart for a while. Neither of the two boys found life particularly enjoyable, especially Bart. He found out that Simon’s half brother and sister want him dead so that they can collect their father’s inheritance. It put Bart in an awkward position of trying not to get killed.

It wasn’t until Lisa noticed something odd about Bart that everything came to light. For me, one of the most enjoyable things about this episode was learning about Mr. Burns. He and Bart (as Simon) shared an interesting little scene wherein he let Bart know that he was part of an enormous family who all bit the dust because of him. Mr. Burns was quite a monster, it seems, giving out poisoned potatoes to quite a few of his siblings.

Rating: 6.2