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Old Money
The Simpsons Season 02 Episode 17
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
"Look at us, we're staring at each other like a couple of punk teenagers." Courting old people are sort of charming. Oh god, their sensual consumption of their meds is just revolting! It is pretty crappy of Homer to assume Bea is Grampa's imaginary girlfriend.
There sure are a lot of lions in the discount safari. And why the hell did they all decide to eat a zebra on the Simpsons' car?
Wow, this is really dark. Bea's death comes out of left field. It's sadder than when Homer tried to kill himself.
The constant reminder of how awful the retirement home is is really disheartening. Are they really that bad? Do they really try to cheat every last dime out of old people?
DIZ-NEE-LAND not affiliated with Disneyland, Disney World, or anything else from the Walt Disney Company ... I bet it's more fun, though.
Boy, they really reel you back in with Bea haunting Abe. She's not really dead if she can come back and give him advice right? It's going to be okay, isn't it?
Oh screw Marvin Monroe! I hate that guy and his shame anxiety line.
The people waiting in line for Abe's money are pretty hilarious. They are mostly references to earlier episodes: one of the Springfield Isotopes, Bleeding Gums Murphy, Krusty the Clown, Nelson Muntz, the master sushi chef, the canine obedience college instructor, Princess Kashmir, Sideshow Mel, Darth Vader, Helen and Reverend Lovejoy, a man who looks like Joe Quimby, the Joker (!), some broad in a Star Trek uniform, Ned and Maude Flanders, and Principal Skinner ... right before Kent Brockman gets in line.
In this episode Mr. Burns and Abe Simpson don't seem to know each other. That clearly changes in later episodes. Oh screw you again, Marvin Monroe! Won't this guy die already?
As Abe goes off to find worthy causes to spend his money on, he poses in a homage to Edward Hopper's Nighthawks painting. Nice reference.
CONCLUSION
This episode is quite good. It delves deeper into Abe Simpson's character and deals with death in as nuanced a way as you can in a twenty-minute episode. I wouldn't call it one of the classics, but only because season two has been filled with such gems.
THIS EPISODE'S RATINGS
  2/5 donuts from Statler
4/5 donuts from Mrs. Waldorf
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RATINGS LEGEND
= LAME
= BAD
= MEH
= GOOD
= CLASSIC
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PLOT SUMMARY FROM WIKIPEDIA
After another lackluster Sunday with the Simpson family, Grampa meets Beatrice "Bea" Simmons, a resident at the Springfield Retirement Castle. They go on a date and fall in love. When Bea's birthday arrives on a Sunday, Homer makes Grampa come on a family outing to the Discount Lion Safari, because he thinks Grampa is making up that he has a girlfriend. The outing causes Grampa to miss Bea's birthday. At the safari, the family's car becomes stuck in the mud and lions begin circling it, trapping the family overnight. After a worker helps run the lions off, Grampa returns home expecting to see Bea. However, Homer pulls up just in time for the ambulance to pull away. Jasper told Grampa that Bea died of a burst ventricle when Grampa was out with the family. He is saddened by her death and attends her funeral. Grampa is very angry with Homer and refuses to speak to him, as he blames Homer for preventing him from attending Bea's birthday party and being with Bea in her final moments.
Grampa receives Bea's inheritance of $106,000 from Lionel Hutz. First, he looks at buying things for himself, but doing so brings him no joy. While on a roller coaster, Bea's ghost appears and suggests that if he is not happy spending it on himself, that he spend the money with other people. She also tells him to forgive Homer because deep down Grampa still loves him. After interviews with many people across Springfield who only want to spend Grampa's money on things for themselves, Lisa suggests that he should give the money to worthy causes. Grampa attempts to double his money by gambling at a casino but Homer stops him — and just in time, since Grampa would have lost the entire inheritance at the roulette wheel. Grampa forgives Homer and decides to spend the rest of the inheritance on renovating the retirement home and adding a new room named after Bea.
The episode was written by Jay Kogen and directed by David Silverman. The discount lion safari in the episode that the Simpson family visits was based on the drive-through Lion Country Safari, located in Loxahatchee, Palm Beach County, Florida, that Kogen used to visit when he was younger. "Old Money" was the first episode to feature Grampa's full name, Abraham Simpson. Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons, named the main characters after his own family members (except for Bart, an anagram of brat, which he substituted for his own name), but refused to name Grampa after his grandfather, Abraham Groening. He left it to the writers to choose a name and they chose "Abraham", not knowing that is was also the name of Groening's grandfather.
Accessed from Wikipedia on Mar. 13, 2010