Homer and Lisa have the richest, most complicated relationship on The Simpsons. The series will no doubt continue doing Homer and Marge relationship episodes until the sun burns out, and Marge and Lisa have an undeniably special kinship, and Homer and Bart never fail to make a stellar comic duo. But Homer and Lisa are complete opposites who, nevertheless, love each other dearly. That means there’s always fertile ground to cover about how a father and daughter learn to relate to one another and, gradually, understand each other a little better.
But as I discussed on The Simpsons Show Podcast, it also ups the difficulty level for Homer and Lisa episodes, because those differences force the show really earn that sort of understanding. Even in weaker Homer and Marge episodes, the writers can coast on the idea that these two people simply belong together. In Marge and Lisa episodes, the show can always fall back on how Marge “gets” her daughter better than anyone else in Springfield. And in Homer and Bart episodes, the series can rely on the ways in which Homer is basically a ten-year-old boy in a grown-up’s body, and let him and Bart connect on that level.
There’s not the same wiggle room for Simpsons episodes centered on Lisa and Homer. Instead, those episodes have to find a good reason to bridge the yawning gap between a precocious, worldly, sensitive young woman, and her oft-thoughtless, always impulse-ridden, downright doltish father. That’s a challenge “Make Room for Lisa” admirably takes up, and not-so-admirably fails at entirely.
The plot of “Make Room for Lisa” is all over the place, but the basic premise is that Homer is continually oblivious and/or outright antagonistic to his daughter’s needs, to the point that she becomes physically ill. (Who’s ready for some laughs?!) His transgressions escalate from merely whining about taking her to a museum, to giving away her room to a cell phone company to help pay back a corporate sponsor for having defiled the U.S. Constitution (relatable problems!), to forcing her to bunk with Bart, ignore her homework, and take harsh antacids to cure her paternal-stress-induced tummy ache.
I mean, what family hasn't been in this situation?
The turning point of the episode comes when Lisa has had enough of Homer’s behavior and angrily tells him off. For an episode that tracks in zaniness and offers a liberal dose of “Jerkass Homer” at his worst, it’s a surprisingly human scene. Writer Brian Scully (brother of then-showrunner Mike Scully) and director Matthew Nastuk show Lisa pull no punches, calling out his blind solipsism in no uncertain terms. Dan Castellaneta’s delivery of Homer offering a simple “I’m sorry” in response is heartbreaking, revealing a parent who is, god bless him, too stupid to realize how much wrong he’s done by his daughter.
Lisa acknowledges this, telling Homer that it isn’t his fault — they’re just two very different people, and it’s hard to imagine the two of them doing anything but growing further and further apart as time goes by. Despite Homer’s promises that will never happen (an assurance undercut by an amusing visual gag involving an escalator), it’s a sad, heartfelt moment that adds emotional stakes at a time when the episode desperately needs them. There are, after all, fundamental differences between Homer and Lisa that could easily fester and become a permanent wedge between them.
Sometimes T.V. shows have to amplify certain facets of their characters to draw out points like that and reinforce those sorts of emotional stakes. It’s natural, in an episode about two people overcoming their differences, for the writers to highlight those differences. It’s fine, then, for Homer to be a little extra inconsiderate of Lisa’s needs and for Lisa to be a little extra hurt by his behavior in order to make their eventual reconciliation meaningful.
The problem is that “Make Room for Lisa” goes overboard on that count, almost completely wrecking the chances to realistically bring dad and daughter back together by the end of the episode.
Click. Click. Boom.
Homer is at his most unthinking, inconsiderate, and obnoxious here, to the point that at the halfway mark of the episode, you’re fully convinced that Lisa should just get away from her dad as quickly as possible. Homer tries to justify his whiny disregard by comparing himself to a deadbeat dad. He complains bitterly about indulging Lisa’s interests in the slightest degree. He doesn’t just misunderstand his daughter; he completely ignores her wants and needs and cares without a second thought beyond his usual, dim-witted, bull-in-a-china-shop mentality.
Some of that could be forgiven, or at least ignored, if the ways in which he was unthinkingly cruel to his daughter were at least a little more down-to-earth. “Make Room for Lisa” isn’t the first time Homer’s embarrassed Lisa in a museum. But despite present circumstances, few children have to suffer the indignity of their golden-domed fathers desecrating the Constitution in their presence. Fewer still arrive home to learn that their dads have given away their rooms in favor of just-built cell tower equipment. Homer’s behavior isn’t just rude; it’s so outlandish and so far removed from reality that it doesn’t even come close to working as a relatable issue to be overcome between daddy and daughter.
The best you can say for “Make Room for Lisa” on this front is that while it depicts Homer as insanely, impossibly ignorant as to how he’s treating Lisa, it at least shows him (rather belatedly) trying to be better once Lisa’s calls out his self-centeredness. When faced with the possibility of losing his daughter, Homer does a 180 and insists on trying the new age remedies Lisa was pushing as a cure for her stomach aches. And despite him being a bit of a boor about it, he strains to keep an open mind and try these new, Lisa-centric things.
That’s the best look for Homer as a dad — someone who is generally incompetent, but still means well, loves his kids deep down, and tries his best, even if his best isn’t particularly good. That approach keeps him sympathetic, while making room for him to, naturally, screw up over and over again.
Get used to that look being on Lisa's face in this episode.
“Make Room for Lisa” leans into that idea as an epiphany for Lisa. What had stuck with me from this episode were the superb scenes of Lisa in the sensory deprivation tank (the eventual treatment Homer and Lisa decide on at the “Karma-ceuticals” store) where she goes through a series out of body experiences. The episode includes a great sequence where Lisa sees the world through the eyes of her cat (presaging What Remains of Edith Finch). The animators present the scene in first person perspective — a rarity for The Simpsons — using neat angles and proportions that give the moment a sense of life and drive home how this exercise allows Lisa to step outside of her own viewpoint.
That lays the foundation for Lisa’s next spiritual jaunt, where she sees the world through the eyes of her father. When experiencing the world from Homer’s perspective, Lisa feels his shame after he embarrasses his daughter at the ballet, an event he only attended as a kindness and a means of connecting with her. There’s plenty of nice little details in this sequence too, from Yeardley Smith adopting a pleasantly Homer-esque timbre, to the “camera” showing Homer looking down at his hands and wrinkling his program in a combination of boredom and guilt.
The experience gives Lisa an epiphany — that however frustrated she may be with her father at times, and however oblivious he may be, Homer does care about her, as evidenced by how he embraces plenty of things he finds dumb or boring just to please her.
It’s a lovely sentiment, one that could absolutely work as the emotional catharsis of an episode like this one, but only if “Make Room for Lisa” had spent any of the previous twenty-two minutes of the episode showing Homer actually doing that rather than continually being the world’s most insensitive jerk.
I do like the gag of proto-Lindsey Naegle emerging from behind that turbine out of nowhere.
Instead, Lisa’s realization seems to come out of nowhere, or at least bear no relation to the self-obsessed dad who’s trampled on his daughter’s wants and feelings throughout the rest of the episode. You cannot depict your main character as a complete ass for 90% of the story, emphasize the harsh effect his behavior is having on a loved one, and then expect a “sometimes he means well, so I should be nice to him” ending to land with any emotional force.
If anything, it feels like the character arcs should be flipped. The natural trajectory of the episode seems like it would be Homer acting thoughtlessly, eventually realizing that his behavior is pushing his daughter away, and deciding to do something to make it up to her. Instead the episode closes with Lisa making it up to him for some reason, which is absolutely absurd. The best The Simpsons can muster as a bit of niceness from Homer to his daughter is him agreeing to go to a single new age store, where he’s again ignorant and rude for most of the visit, followed by him going on a wacky, pointless adventure.
That’s right, while Lisa is having her out of body experiences, Homer’s sensory deprivation tank is repossessed with him still inside it, only for it to fall off the back of a truck, be mistaken for a coffin by the Flanderses, get buried six feet deep, crash through into the sewers as a makeshift log flume, and then wash up on the beach where its identified and returned to the hippie boutique by Chief Wiggum, all without ever being opened or Homer realizing what’s happening.
It’s the sort of ridiculous, Looney Tunes-style insanity that would become the norm under Mike Scully, who served as showrunner for The Simpsons for Seasons 9-12. The outlandishness of that series of events in an at least semi-down-to-earth show is a problem in and of itself. But even worse, those zany adventures undercut the already miscalibrated emotional resonance the episode is trying so desperately to achieve with Homer and Lisa at the same time.
Still better than Splash Mountain.
In fairness, that’s not an easy mark to hit. There should be issues between these two characters given how different they are. And coming up with a non-platitude-based reason for them to overcome those differences isn’t a simple task.
But some of the very best Simpsons episodes have managed to mine the depths of that relationship. Every die-hard fan remembers the emotional punch of Mr. Bergstrom’s “You are Lisa Simpson” note from “Lisa’s Substitute.” But just as potent is the scene that follows, where Lisa lashes out at Homer after she considers the idealized father figure who’s just wisped through her life, compares him to the father she’s actually stuck with, and finds her real dad grossly lacking. Homer apologizes for his insensitivity to her plight, envisions the type of future for her a dope like him can only dream of, and in the process, forges a bond with his daughter.
In “Lisa the Greek” the pair grow close over a shared love for betting on football, only for Homer to seem ready to jettison their newfound bond after the NFL season ends. But in the end, Homer realizes he cares about his daughter more than any wager, and the episode closes with Homer embracing the father-daughter hike up Mt. Springfield that Lisa had suggested. Even “Lisa’s Sax”, an episode produced a year before this one, is a story of Homer nearly failing his daughter, only to make a sacrifice for her when she needs it the most.
There’s a common blueprint in these episodes, where Homer messes up, but learns the error of his ways and finds a means of showing that he cares about his daughter, even if he’s made some bad choices along the way. “Make Room for Lisa” gets two-thirds of the way there, showing Homer screwing up and coming to realize it, but then it chooses to have Homer tumble around in a drain pipe and belt out old novelty songs rather than grow as a character or a person.
"Next time on 'The Continuing Adventures of Captain Wacky!'"
Hell, there’s something admirable and ambitious about the writers trying to flip that formula a bit, and have Lisa be the one who grows and comes to understand her dad a little better rather than the other way around. But the episode completely botches the exchange by making Homer so repugnant, so outrageously, cartoonishly awful along the way that by the end, you don’t want Lisa to forgive him for any of it.
“Make Room for Lisa” does end on a sweet note, with the lingering image of Lisa nuzzling her dad’s arm at the demolition derby, a moment touching enough to cover for the insane path the episode took to get there for at least a minute or two. But then, reality seeps in, and you realize the absurd plot mechanics that led to that point, the failed emotional calculus that the episode never satisfyingly resolves, and the detestable, downright cruel behavior from Homer that’s initially played as a series of guileless goofs and then treated as though it’s somehow Lisa’s moral failing for not tolerating.
The differences between Homer and Lisa are an asset. The layers of complexity between a well-intentioned but clueless dad and his preternaturally bright daughter are fodder for tremendous stories about very different people nevertheless learning to love one another for who they are. And The Simpsons has successfully gone to that well several times in the past.
Another reconciliation facilitated by the demolition derby. Is there anything it can't do?
But in the wrong hands, it can also be a liability. With a misguided approach, exploring that dynamic can make Homer seem wholly irredeemable; Lisa seem utterly mistreated, and make any attempt to show a bond between them feel totally unearned.
Putting a pair of Scullies in charge of one of the show’s most rich, but also most delicate, relationships can result in total disaster. “Make Room for Lisa” aims high, but in the end, it lands about as well as a sensory deprivation tank tumbling through a sewage system.
Odds and Ends
– The episode’s B-story sees Marge becoming addicted to town gossip after the cell tower installed on The Simpsons’ home allows her to pick up other people’s conversations on Maggie’s baby monitor. It’s a pretty abortive subplot, only introduced in the middle of the second act and lasting for a little more than three scenes. But it’s good for a few laughs, and Marge has a minor but fully-formed arc over the course of it, which is more than you can say for anyone else in the episode.
– Kudos to Harry Shearer for his brief but superb line-read as Lenny here. Lenny’s response to the prospect of good gossip (“Well diiiiiiiish!”) tickled me pink.
– The idea of first act sequence that barely touches the episode’s main plot is a Simpsons cliché, but the one in “Make Room for Lisa” takes the cake. The episode begins with Homer mistakenly thinking he’s gone back and time and then circuitously ending up getting drunk at a Bennigans knock-off. That isn’t just stupid; it literally doesn’t connect to the main story of the episode at all, to the point where I legitimately wondered if the writers only included it to fill time.
– As dumb as Homer’s “back in time” shenanigans are, I did get a kick out of his recrimination to Carl of “Shut up! You haven’t even been born yet!”
– Early in the episode, a Smithsonian security guard complains about hating how people hide behind the Bill of Rights, while Homer literally cowers behind the actual document. It’s a corny gag, but one that got a chuckle out of me.
– It’s the least of this episode’s problems, but it’s a little odd that science-minded Lisa is on board with new age cures, while snake oil-guzzling Homer is the one resistant to them.
– One thing that stands out rewatching the episodes produced under Mike Scully is that there’s still a lot of great humor in the show at this point in its run. Scully & Co. would completely screw up important things like storytelling and character, and veer too hard into the characters’ meanness and stupidity, but the show’s writers’ room still knew how to get a laugh, even if those laughs were increasingly hollow. That is, I suspect, what persuades many to want to count Scully’s tenure as part of the show’s “golden years.”
– For example, there’s some of the show’s wry, clever cynicism in the moment where Homer tries to punish Bart for trading away his turn to pick the family activity in exchange for Lisa’s dessert. Homer tries to withhold Bart’s next dessert, only for Bart to immediately remake the same deal with Lisa to ensure he has sweets on his plate after dinner.
– There’s also some of the show’s patented social commentary about the unduly vaunted place television holds in Americans’ lives, with how the Smithsonian puts cheesy T.V. memorabilia on display alongside our nation’s most treasured artifacts (though Lisa pointing it out gilds the lily a bit).
– There’s even some solid setups and payoffs in the humor department. After Homer licks chocolate off the Constitution, the phrase “cruel and unusual” appears on his tongue in a later scene. And a seeming non-sequitur line of “I’m going to go eat mayonnaise” comes back later when Homer worries that his mayo-gulping is what upset Lisa.
– There’s also some solid notes of exhaustion from Marge, who reassures Lisa that the cell tower will only be there until they pay off Homer’s desecration of a priceless artifact and remarks that she “never thought she’d have to say that again.”
– I am oddly invested in the line of succession in Bart’s room.
– Say what you will about how “Make Room for Lisa” arrived there, but that last image of Lisa nuzzling her dad is still pretty damn sweet, and is likely responsible for me overrating how good this episode was in my memory. A nice final note can buy you a lot of (largely unearned) good will.
