I can easily put him at fault for his kicking aside the camera woman in 'Trash of the Titans', probably Homer's most blatant case of being a jerk in all of season nine. Let's look at the scene for a moment. There is not a single motivation for Homer except for him to selfishly dominate a rock concert to campaign for himself. Now I'd also like to compare my views of 'Homer's Enemy' with 'Bart Star', as they both have Homer trying be well-meaning, but ends up being inconsiderate. In 'Bart Star', it seems more that Homer is being inconsiderate as a way to act out his well-meaning ideas. He cuts several players and demeans them out of his favoritism to achieve what he thinks is right, while never being able to understand what Bart really wants. He's clearly meaning to be inconsiderate to the other players in order to show his 'love' to Bart. In 'Homer's Enemy', he tries to be considerate to Frank Grimes first and foremost, but his attempts at being considerate are perceived by Frank Grimes as inconsideration. In 'The Trash of the Titans', Homer isn't trying to be well-meaning. Rather, he's trying to gain high status as a garbageman. As a result, he acts like a jerk to Ray Patterson for really no reason other than the fact that Marge wrote a letter of apology. There was not reason for him to strangle the parrot or to suddenly start insulting Ray; he was just being a jerk, plain and simple, the likes of which we had never started to see before in the series. I still think that my 'Realty Bites' point still stands as well, where I really and truly cannot find the well-meaning Homer of old.
I'll go on a bit more about 'Lisa the Skeptic', with the scene between her and Marge. First of all, let's study her in earlier seasons. She has always been portrayed as tolerant to other cultures and religions, and she herself is a church-goer, but early on in the episode, before she had excessive reason to get over-worked, she tells Marge that she feels sorry for her, in the most insulting way possible, because she believes in angels. It doesn't even have anything to do with the fact the angel skeleton itself. Marge just said that she believes in angels, just like millions of people, and Lisa said in the most inconsiderate way possible, that she felt sorry for her. Again, the episode was trying to satirize the battle between science and religion. 'Homer the Heretic' was an example of deep commentary on religion that offered many viewpoints, but never really chose sides. Here, the writers merely put easily thought out opinions on the problems of religion into Lisa's mouth. I'll make another comparison. 'Lisa the Iconoclast' showed Lisa in a similar situation, faced with the stupidity of the town as she tries to prove her point. Here, she behaves like an eight year old girl, and only once does she really go over the top. She is sensitive to the hurtful beliefs of others, and it's hard for her to continue doing what's right under adversity, but she does so as best she can. She is portrayed as nice and caring. In 'Lisa the Skeptic', it is a highly similar scenario, but instead, Lisa is rude and blatantly disrespectful, not just to the fools believing in the angel skeleton, but to religious beliefs in general. She rarely has the sweetness of an eight year old girl, and is instead incredibly mean to everyone. In 'Bart Carny', even if carnivals are often disgusting doesn't make disgusting jokes any more funny. Even if the jokes fit the setting, they still attempted to derive humor from tastelessness, accurate given the situation or not. 'Das Bus' really didn't parody Lord of the Flies, despite the well done ending. It merely paid a few homages to the key parts of the book, such as the conch and the glasses, while drawing a few similarities between characters. However, it doesn't fully parody the book. Most of the episode is spent showing the children in a dire situation, mostly complaining, only to result in a last-minute Milhouse trial. It hardly follows the themes of Lord of the Flies, and only tried to near the end. My main problem with 'The Trouble With Trillions' is that the writers just wrote themselves into a corner. The fact that the story wasn't able to end was a sign of bad writing. And even if the first and part of the second act were somewhat funny for me, I found the latter half and much of the first hurt by poorly characterized Burns, who is portrayed more a senile old man than an evil and malicious overlord. Homer spends his time being obnoxious, and there are really many tasteless jokes, that I could not laugh at. 'This Little Wiggy' was the start of weird Ralph. Even though after 'I Love Lisa', which portrayed him as merely insecure, he began being more of an unintelligent one-liner, this episode made Ralph really mentally bizarre, by showing that he undergoes delusions and fantasies, as opposed to being merely innocently stupid. I actually didn't feel for Ralph at that scene, because Ralph just didn't feel human to me. I didn't believe him as a character, because for the majority of the episode, he was shown to have too many qualities that transcended the Ralph I came to know over the years, that when Ralph suddenly start acting like his insecure self, I can't sympathize with him. I found that Kirk Van Houten's arm getting sliced off was the first of many cruel pain gags to come over the years. I'll cut this one a bit of slack, because it was, more than anything, a screw-the-audience gag, but I still think it was a step toward the excessive pain humor that would arise over the years. I still can't laugh at Marge saying 'I-C-U-P' because it is nothing other than that old childhood prank. It is a classic case of attempting to pass juvenile humor as intelligence, when essentially there is none. Unlike you, I don't find it funny just because of the fact that it is between two adults as opposed to children, because it is all the same childish crudeness, and just because it shows it in a different situation doesn't mean the joke is any different.
I really do appreciate the fact that you don't see the flaws that I do in these episodes, and many times do I wish I could be less of an anal viewer than someone who can simply enjoy this still-above-average comedy of this season. But the debater in me just feels like arguing. You're welcome to ignore this if you do want to avoid an argument.
