The Simpsons Season 32 Episode 8 Review: The Road to Cincinnati

At the start of the trip, Chalmers wants to die. But just as he’s pondering whether to be or not, he makes Skinner pick up a trio of hitchhiking improvisational Shakespeare performers. This gag is actually quite revelatory about both characters, as we see how accommodatingly easygoing Skinner is next to Chalmers’ Ophelia. The joke also pays off unexpectedly at the end of the episode, with iambic dividends. The Greasy Chain Bar sequence works as a skewering of biker bars. It turns out cyclists are scarier than bikers but not for the most obvious reasons. It’s just what happens when you can’t decide whether you’re a pedestrian or vehicle. It is very funny how, during the getaway, Skinner and Chalmers come to a full stop at a stop sign on a completely deserted road. That’s instructional driving humor, the kind which will save your life. For some reason, all the cars are being winterized, but both Seymour’s mother’s Buick and the judge J.T. Winchester’s Cutlass are convertibles with the tops down.