Girl's in the Band
"Girl's in the Band" is the 19th episode of the thirtieth season of the American animated sitcom, The Simpsons, and the 658th episode overall. It aired in the United States on Fox on March 31, 2019. It's also the first episode written by Nancy Cartwright, voice actor of Bart Simpson among others, making her the third of six main cast members to have an episode to their name. Many scripts since season 11 having been cowritten by Dan Castellaneta, who voices Homer Simpson among others, and Harry Shearer, voice of many main supporting characters, writing the season 28 episode "Trust But Clarify". This also makes Cartwright the first female main cast member with a writing credit for the show.
| "Girl's in the Band" | |
|---|---|
| The Simpsons episode | |
| Episode no. | Season 30 Episode 19 |
| Directed by | Jennifer Moeller |
| Written by | Nancy Cartwright |
| Production code | YABF11 |
| Original air date | March 31, 2019 |
| Guest appearance(s) | |
J.K. Simmons as Victor Kleskow | |
| Episode features | |
| Chalkboard gag | I am not a grandmother |
| Couch gag | Homer arrives at the couch, with the whole scene, except him, in black and white, then he D'ohes. |
Actor J. K. Simmons makes his fifth guest appearance in the series as Victor Kleskow in homage to his abusive instructor role in the 2014 film Whiplash.
Plot
Springfield Elementary School's music teacher and band director Dewey Largo wakes up from a nightmare next to his unnamed gay partner and recalls how even though he graduated top of his class, his once-promising musical conductor career failed and led him to teach elementary music where he is now unhappy.
At Springfield Elementary School, Largo is conducting the school orchestra when he receives an email from Victor Kleskow, the musical director of the Capital City Philharmonic, saying he will be attending the concert the next night. Largo, newly inspired to impress Kleskow, starts training the students with "The Stars and Stripes Forever." The next night the concert is a success, with the children playing "Troika" from Lieutenant Kije, but Largo is sad when instead of poaching him, Kleskow chooses to take Lisa Simpson for his youth orchestra.
Homer and Marge Simpson struggle to find a way to schedule and pay for Lisa's new extracurricular school work. Once they arrive at Capital City, Lisa finds it difficult to work with Kleskow, as he reveals his true menacing personality, and how just one mistake can make him angry.
To earn extra money Homer starts working the night shift to pay for Lisa's participation in the orchestra. Meanwhile, at the new orchestra's campus, Bart is confined in a closet with the siblings of the other student musicians. Lisa wins the first chair for saxophone in a competition by out-performing another student, but she realizes how selfish she has become, and how she has failed to realize the toll of her new music lessons and associated travel times are taking on her family.
Kleskow offers to advance Lisa to the next class, which costs more and is farther away. Meanwhile, Homer is seemingly sleep-deprived and starts hallucinating during his shift at the nuclear power plant: dancing and drinking with the bartender Lloyd from The Shining. To avoid more problems for her and her family, Lisa, in trying out for the upper-level orchestra, instead fails on purpose, destroying her saxophone career.
Reception
Dennis Perkins from The A.V. Club gave the episode a B- stating, "Working through a conflict on The Simpsons is a lot harder than it looks. We have to start at one and return to one, all in 20-odd minutes, and all in a world that can never fundamentally change. So the conflict here means Lisa and her family each have to come to terms with a seemingly insoluble problem, all while staying true to each character, and not short-changing anyone in the necessary resolution. It’s harder, I maintain, on a show like this than on a more conventionally serialized show, where arcs can affect the whole in a more permanent way going forward. Still, a great episode of The Simpsons finds a way to do that... 'Girl’s In The Band' isn’t a bad effort at finding that narrative and the comedic sweet spot that made The Simpsons, The Simpsons—but it’s an incomplete and unsatisfying one."[1]
"Girl's in the Band" scored a 0.8 rating with a 4 share and was watched by 2.07 million people.[2]
References
- Perkins, Dennis (March 31, 2019). "Nancy Cartwright pens a sweet and sour Lisa story in her first Simpsons script". Avclub.com. Retrieved March 31, 2019.
- Welch, Alex (April 2, 2019). "'Good Girls,' 'NCIS: Los Angeles,' and others adjust up: Sunday final ratings". TV by the Numbers. Archived from the original on April 2, 2019. Retrieved April 2, 2019.
