Season finale! Already through 2 seasons, and man do I have to say that I’m loving this show again. I’d really forgotten how great it was, and just focused on how bad it got. And now I’m remembering why I was obsessed with this show growing up. It’s so hilarious, and manages to mix in just the perfect amount of humor that really makes for a perfect series. Although I have to admit, as much as I’m loving these classic episodes, I’m starting to dread when I get to the seasons that made me quit. I’ve been trying to figure out exactly where I fell off, and I’m not quite positive, but man this blog may change when I get there. Instead of a lovefest for an amazing show, it may become the bitter ramblings of a crazy person, before I fall into self-imposed Stockholm Syndrome.

Anyway, enough rambling. The episode starts off with Mayor Quimby dedicating a new sign for the Nuclear Power Plant that will inform Springfield of any impending apocalypses that the plant may be causing. They get increasingly fatalistic until the final one, which is “Core Rupture, Repent Sins,” which makes Homer laugh, because if the core’s ruptured, there wouldn’t be power to make the sign say that. But as the dedication goes on, Mr. Smithers realizes that Mr. Burns isn’t there, and something must be wrong. He races back to Burns’ mansion, and finds him passed out on the floor. Turns out Mr. Burns has hypohemia, a disease that causes too little blood, and he has a rare blood type, so it won’t be easy to find a donor. Smithers puts out a call to all the plant employees, urging them to donate their blood if they have double O negative. No one else wants to do it, but Homer is all about donating the blood, mainly because Burns is rich, and he assumes he’ll get a good reward.

We cut back to the Simpsons house, where Lisa is trying to teach Maggie about all sorts of strange animals, giving her advantages that Lisa never had. Homer runs in, asking Marge what his bloodtype is, and of course she knows. She also shows off the fact that she knows all sorts of random things about the family, like shoe size, ring size, and allergies. But Homer is devastated to learn that he doesn’t have the right bloodtype, but Bart does. Bart is initially not on board to donate his blood, but Homer tells him the story of Hercules and the Lion, which he claims is a biblical tale. It’s basically the mouse and the lion story, where a rich lion gets a thorn in his paw, and Hercules shows up and yanks it out, and give him riches as a reward. I love that Bart’s question on “why does a lion have riches?” is answered with “it was the olden times.” So Bart’s convinced, and the next day they go to the Blood-Mobile at the Nuclear Plant, that’s apparently ran by Otto, because he’s just the type of dude I want drawing my blood. Bart’s blood is then rushed to Mr. Burns, who is on death’s door and dictating his epitaph to Smithers. It starts off pretty bleak, but as the blood starts to get into him, he gets more and more feisty, until he’s back to his regular self.

We then see Mr. Burns enjoying life with a new verve that he’s never displayed before, since it turns out all he needed to give him more pep was the blood of a ten year old boy. He then sends the Simpsons a thank you card for the blood. Homer gets the card, and gathers the family around to see the reward, which turns out to be just a card, and Homer gets furious. He then dictates a very angry letter to Burns, while Bart writes it and Marge is embarrassed. Homer gets ready to storm off to the post office to mail the letter, but Marge convinces him to sleep on it, and after he has some angry dreams that turn into a dream about pancakes, he decides Marge is right, and doesn’t want to mail the letter any more. But the message didn’t get passed down to Bart, who has already mailed it. While we see Mr. Burns getting ready to write an autobiography we pan back to see Bart and Homer try to get the letter back, with no success. First Homer tries to ruin all the letter with a hose, but the mail-lady showed up first. Then he tries to get it from the post office by pretending to be Burns, but he didn’t know Mr. Burns’ first name, so that one didn’t work either. Finally he tries sneaking into Burns’ office to steal the letter, but Burns turns out to be there, and he ends up reading the letter with Homer there, and getting furious.

Homer is dragged out of the plant by Burns’ goons, and he decides to crush him like an ant. After not getting the usual enjoyment he does out of firing someone, he decides to have Homer beaten to a pulp also. But when Smithers is ordering the beating, he starts to feel bad, since Homer did save Mr. Burns’ life after all. He ends up canceling the beating, disobeying Burns’ order. But much to Smithers’ shock, Mr. Burns is okay with it, he actually admits that it’s a good call. We pop over to Moe’s quickly to get a great prank phone call with Mike Rotch, which then leads to a particularly messed up Moe blowup, which led him to saying that he’s going to carve his name into Bart’s back with an icepick. After that little scene we pop in on Burns and Smithers going through the mall, trying to find a good present for the Simpsons. And he finally does find one, though we don’t get to see it. Then the two show up at the Simpsons house, and show off the present, a giant carved Olmec head of Xtapolapocetl, a god of war, and a copy of Burns’ book “Will There Ever Be a Rainbow?” Marge and Homer are not happy with the “big, ugly head,” but Bart is, so they keep it. Then the family sits down for dinner, and tries to decide what the moral of the story was, and they end up not being able to find one.

This was a really funny episode, and another great Mr. Burns one. It’s pretty obvious that the writers started to love the character pretty early on, and were always looking for excuses to put him in episodes, and flesh the character out with episodes like this. Burns is so great in this episode, plus we get the origin of the Olmec head, which will pop up in the basement for the rest of the episodes, to my memory at least.

Take Away: Give blood, it’s good to help people, even if you don’t get a good reward. And lions had riches in the olden days.

“Blood Feud” was written by George Meyer and directed by David Silverman.