22 for 30

"22 for 30" is the seventeenth episode of the twenty-eighth season of the animated television series The Simpsons, and the 613th episode of the series overall. It aired in the United States on Fox on March 12, 2017. In a parody of 30 for 30, Bart goes from delinquent with detention to the star basketball player at Springfield Elementary. Lisa covers Bart's success for the school paper, and Homer becomes the team's coach. Things go awry when Bart gets involved with the mafia.

Plot

The story is a documentary about the rise and the fall of Bart Simpson's career on the Springfield Elementary School basketball team. It all started with a joke that got him in the longest detention in history, where he started shooting baskets in the detention room paper bin. Bart became a starter and then a star, reveling in his abiilties while also letting his success go to his head. Homer Simpson became the coach of the team, and Bart started disrespecting Homer, leading to ugly clashes between them. Fat Tony noticed this and came up with a plan to enrich both himself and Bart via Bart's unwitting point shaving practices (the mobsters would tell Bart how much they wanted the SES team to win by, and Bart didn't know this was based on a betting line that the mob would then cover and make a lot of cash from).

At the City Champions Final Four, Bart won the game after Homer choked him. However, Bart found out how much money Fat Tony was making, meaning that Fat Tony wanted him to lose the finals. The town hated him for that.

In the game, Milhouse (who was Fat Tony's other point shaving asset) tried to keep Bart from hitting the game-winning shot but failed. Lisa then used her journalism skills to get Fat Tony to back off his plan to murder Bart: it seems when the mob boss was Bart's age long ago, he was an incompetent player for a city league where he could only play (badly) for an all-girls' team.

Homer and Marge then tell the documentary crew that Bart's heyday didn't last much longer, as he was revealed to be a sub-par player the minute he moved up to a league where there was a tall kid on the court. The status of Lisa and Milhouse is outlined (along with a cameo by Stephen Curry), and the narrator of the story reveals itself to be Nelson's dad, Eddie Muntz, which gives him sleeves for his vest and stayed long enough just for a picture of the family to be taken before doing what Mr. Muntz does best: heartlessly abandoning his son.

Reception

Dennis Perkins of The A.V. Club gave the episode a B stating, "'22 For 30' dresses up The Simpsons’ formula in the gym togs of ESPN’s 30 For 30 sports documentary series, and, as far as stunts go, it’s a well-executed one. The arc of a traditional Simpsons episode and that of the average 'troubled sports figure' doc mesh up neatly, as Bart, after honing his crumpled paper ball shooting skills in an extra long detention, becomes the star of Springfield Elementary’s hoops team. Conflict comes in various forms: Bart adopts an entitled attitude; Homer coaching the team leads to father-son drama; and, naturally, Fat Tony pressures Bart into a little point-shaving. The episode—woven together further by the silky-smooth tones of professional sports voiceover legend Earl Mann—works by essentially wallpapering over the choppy and under-realized storytelling endemic to much present-day Simpsons with the glib packaging of the feel-good (or feel-bad) sports narrative. It’s a cheat, but an ambitious and well-realized one that results in a refreshing little season 28 detour."^[1]

"22 for 30" scored a 1.1 rating with a 4 share and was watched by 2.61 million people, making it Fox's highest rated show of the night.^[2]

References

External links

• "22 for 30" on IMDb
• "22 for 30" at TV.com