Whiskey Business

"Whiskey Business" is an episode of The Simpsons, its name being a portmanteau of whiskey and Risky Business. It is the nineteenth episode of the 24th season and the 527th episode overall. It aired on May 5, 2013.^[1] In its original airing, "Whiskey Business" was delayed 25 minutes in Eastern/Central Time Zones due to the end of a NASCAR race at Talladega Superspeedway which was delayed more than 3¹⁄₂ hours due to rain.

Plot

Homer and Marge help a suicidal Moe get a new lease on life by buying him a new suit—and two venture capitalists help Moe make his dreams come true when they sample an aged bourbon he has been hiding for years and announce plans to make a ton of money (even letting Moe keep a little of it for himself). Moe enjoys his new brush with success, but is horrified when an elevator mishap destroys his suit. He later decides to believe in his product and himself, which does not go well at the initial stock offering once investors see him dressed in ordinary bartending gear and making a long list of damaging statements. Moe returns to his squalid existence at his bar, but has brightened up enough to pass on committing suicide...at least until the holiday season rolls around.

Meanwhile, Grampa is watching the kids while Homer and Marge are helping Moe, and an elaborate prank Bart and the school bullies, Dolph, Jimbo, and Kearney, are planning goes awry Grandpa falls off the roof and gets hurt. To keep from getting in trouble, Bart takes care of Grandpa, but each man is surprised with what a good job Bart ends up doing. Grandpa ends up hiding his recovery from Bart and getting busted for it, and each of them express appreciation for the other. Lisa protests against record companies using Bleeding Gums Murphy's image as a projected image. The great Sonny Rollins tells her via his own hologram that this is simply the way things are now, and Lisa groans when she sees Diana, Princess of Wales singing a rap about DVD and Blu-Ray and a hologram ad where Mahatma Gandhi touts a local bank.

Reception

Critical reception

Robert David Sullivan of The A. V. Club gave the episode a C–, saying "I’ve been complaining about the dark humor in many Simpsons episodes this season, but it’s unimaginative dark humor that’s disappointing. I’m a champion of the episode “Homer’s Enemy,” all the way to its grim conclusion, and I love every blood-spurting moment of the Itchy and Scratchy cartoons. But “Whiskey Business” just bangs on the one note of Moe being so depressed he can’t even muster the energy to end it all. An episode that actually depicted a suicide would at least win points for going to extremes."^[2] Teresa Lopez of TV Fanatic gave the episode two and a half stars out of five, saying "In addition to the Moe and Lisa plots, the show also tried to shoehorn another story involving Grampa and Bart bonding when Grampa gets injured on Bart's makeshift waterslide. There were some cute moments between the two, but the episode had far too many threads going to make any of them really satisfactory."^[3] John Blabber of Bubbleblabber lamented Bart and Lisa's stories with a 7 out of 10 noting,"I wasn't too crazy about either Bart or Lisa's plots as Lisa's looked like it could've been an episode all her own, but instead it got trimmed down until it was nothing whereas Bart's plot waded into cliche'd-island."^[4]

Ratings

The episode received a 1.9 in the 18-49 demographic and was watched by a total of 4.43 million viewers. This made it the third most watched show on Fox's Animation Domination line up that night, beating Bob's Burgers but losing to American Dad! with 5.00 million.^[5]

Cultural references

A chorus from the Gotye song "I Feel Better" features during a montage of Moe's tour of Capital City with Homer, Marge, Lenny and Carl.^[6]

References