This was originally an Extra Seconds review, but found myself bored writing about the nuts and bolts of why Homer's Enemy works. I feel like everyone intuitively understands that. So I switched to this more gimmicky approach. One of my favorite things about this episode is that it allows viewers to approach Grimes' situation from multiple angles, so I thought it would be fun to go over some of them. (Also, maybe I am just nostalgic for doing those "Who REALLY Shot Mr. Burns" videos.) 🤣
If you were going to a video on the 2 part episode Who Short Mr Burns what would it be about a review or history behind the scenes the video that comes to mind is that of Eddache Video on the episode go watch for anyone interested in the foreshawing of who the shoter was
That a good choice since reviewing the greatness about this episode is like reviewing the greatness of star wars, or the godfather or even breaking bad. What can you and i can say that everyobe elae didn't said yet?
I like the idea that everything EXCEPT homer is the cause of his death. The world treating him like garbage his whole life, burns giving him double standard treatment, the other plant workers shared apathy to his concerns with no one trying to help him in some form. Grimes misguided anger at homer instead of these people actually causing the problem. As well as the will of the writers not allowing a status quo change. Homer however, is the only person in the episode who even shows an interest in grimes feeling better on some level (and marge technically). Grimes is being effected by everything else in his life and yet blames the one person who wishes him no ill will. The only innocent in "homer's enemy" is homer. Its perfect irony.
I’d never noticed that before, but it makes perfect sense. The world hated Grimes, Homer was the only person who tried to earnestly like him and be friends with him (probably throughout his entire life)
While Grimes acted like a jerk for most of the episode and treated Homer as the scapegoat for his problems, I can't help but find his death and how its treated afterwards very unsettling. Obviously, Simpsons loved satirising America so it's not surprising (and it's not really a flaw) but the ending of the episode ended on a note that was the opposite of inspiring. Especially if you're watching this episode as someone in the younger generation who's studying to get a job. It is however an important message of not letting envy take control of your life.
Technically, burns is responsible because he allowed the extremely high voltage wires to just hang out without any cover An OHSA violation if nothing else
@@JVBDPaoli IKR!! Subtle clues like dark, foreboding music, a dramatic (sorry, I meant understated) zoom in to have the dog’s face fill the screen and then squinting its eyes and looking left and right gives the eagle-eyed viewers hints on exactly what to think
Being a real person in a Simpsons episode is why the electric shock killed him, had it been any other character they wouldn't have died, just comically zapped.
Wow. If they act like continuity doesn’t matter anymore, then why is Maude Flanders still dead? they could just as easily make the last 25 years of the show a bad dream.
There are a few characters that died, Dr. Monroe, bleeding gums and yes of course Maude but they were not self aware so in their ignorance of being cartoon characters whose to say they can't die? It's a will that characters bring onto themselves, also as stated from the creators this episode is very meta, and in Grimes realization of the insanity of his world brought him swift death as the curtain of his reality was pulled back. @@AlexiaHoardwing
I think a lot about Bill Oakley saying that Grimes' actual foil is Superintendent Chalmers, a man who understands and accepts that everyone around him is insane but does not question or confront it and is able to live in peace because of this.
That's because Chalmers found his hapiness on the mundane of a normal life. He's happy working an office 9 to 5 job, go back to his house and cook for his family (Shauna doesn't deserve him). But Grimes wanted everyone to praise him for being a hard worker and the ones that don't work hard to suffer. And he was SO wrong for that. Who wants to work hard for a dead end job anyways? Most people just want to do their job, no more or less, go home and just be happy.
Yeah I love that and I’ve been thinking about it since I saw the comment on therealjims video on him. If Grimey had just left it alone and accepted the insanity around him (which he would see, if he took the time, has never lead to a single incident despite the plant being open for an inconclusive number of decades) and gone with it he would be have died, if he’d just stuck with cartoonishly hating Homer while doing his job competently he could’ve ended up being the Chalmers to his Skinner or something. It makes you wonder, in Grimey’s world, how many of his tragedies stemmed from his inability to accept the cartoon logic universe he lives in - because most of those incidents, while miserable for him, were wacky as hell.
@RubyBlueUwU In a weird way, I kind of feel for Grimes in this situation. It must he beyond frustrating to exist in a world that bends entirely around a specific family, and everyone else is just expected to go along with that. Grimes understandably doesn't want to be in that same state of casual contentment like Lenny and Carl. It's unfair, but at the same time, his frustration at the unfairness leads to him being unfair to others. And all because he refuses to accept that the cartoon world around him is inherently unfair because he's not Homer Simpson.
Also Grimes wanted immediate gratification and praise while on a position he just acquired out of chance (even when he had a degree, he didn't even apply for the job) unlike Homer who has been there against his own interest and has been nothing but a drone to Burns.
Grimes said he was Homer Simpson earlier in his raving though and Homer said "no you're not". Thus implying how Grimes isn't unaffected by the out there illogic of the show that Homer is.
My favourite part of this episode is how crucial the B plot is for the A plot. Normally, Bart is not a son that one would envy Homer for having. However, because Bart happened to be a factory owner at the same time Frank came over for dinner, it makes Homer’s life look perfect. What if the factory plot didn’t happen that week? Would it have humanized Homer and make Frank realize that Homer’s existence isn’t so perfect after all? Would Frank have survived?
Imagine if part crashed or pranked the dinner. Or caused parts of the house to be shown to only hold together through duct tape and gum. Showing Grimes that the lobster and the "perfect" family were just a small facade put up
Maybe the high voltage electric wires shouldn't have been out in the open, with no shielding or protective insulation. This is not the reactor or cooling tower. It's a random corridor.
Yeah, I guess he was too tired to think clearly and to keep his anger in check... In reality, that's another vote for (our current version of) capitalism being to blame. In a sane world, we would provide for hardworking survivors of childhood medical trauma so that they didn't have to live in a comically terrible apartment.
In a late '90s economy, how was it that Grimey could only afford to live between two bowling alleys? He would've been making the same salary as Homer or close to it.
@@karrihart1 medical expenses? He's been recovering from that explosion for years, and might still have costs associated with it on top of his student debts. Plus, he has no workplace experience because of that recovery, so would have had a less attractive CV and no interview skills. Burns dumped him in 7G as an afterthought, so probably wasn't paying him much, and he would have struggled to compete against other people with the same degree, had he looked for other jobs elsewhere.
I really like that you point out that Homer isn't being an asshole here. I actually tear up on rewatches on the observation that basically only Homer asks Grimes if he is ok, he actually does care about the man.
ironically is the only thing that keeps the episode working and not falling into a "generic cruel joke of morden adult animation", if homes was the slightly mean the whole episode becomes into a sad fest.
Its actually a lot better because Homer isn't portrayed to be a jerkass at all in this episode, which is why the contrast works and you don't blame Homer for what happened. Homer didn't do anything but just be himself (when he is likable) but Grimes couldn't understand how he was just how he is.
He died of a delayed allergic reaction to the lobster Marge cooked, coincidentally a microsecond before he's about to touch the wires, which his body slumps onto. (I actually can't remember if he ate any lobster, I think he might have stormed off before dinner... Maybe he was so allergic that the smell was enough...)
Can we talk about how Clancy and Sarah Wiggum, while both present at the plant model building contest, don't seem to be sitting next to each other? I'm wondering what's the story there.
Yeah, I thought it was strange that you could see Sarah in the audience but not Clancy. Was he doing side work as security at the door, or was he a ghost? Or just a simple animation whoopsie
I blame the canine Executive Vice President. Had he not pulled a child out of the path of a moving vehicle and pushed a criminal in front of it, Frank Grimes would have been Executive Vice President and would likely not have had to interact with Homer.
If Grimey got the EVP job, he most likely would have fired Homer within his first few days as EVP due to being useless, but due to the cartoon logic Homer would somehow get rehired to the plant. Grimey would fire him again and Homer would get rehired again for an even more ludicrous reason, maybe even with a fat promotion to boot. Rinse and repeat until poor ol' Grimey loses his mind and electrocutes himself on EXTREMELY high voltage.
@@Alex-ju3xr It came to a point where Homer would just say stuff like "I got fired from Footlocker" implying we should know by now he just gets fired every episode.
I'd say it's simply "all of the above". That's the beauty of the episode. The tragic, dark, but very funny beauty. Frank Grimes was just another unlucky but ambitious guy in a horrible world filled with stupid/horrible people who finally snapped after meeting the luckiest/laziest/dumbest individual in said world, and all of it was probably a meta-joke about cartoon logic. So yeah, to reduce the perpetrator to one particular aspect of the simpsons world as a whole is, in my opinion, quite silly in general. It's just that springfield, and the show's world in general, by realistic logic, is hell.
The thing that really sells it is that Homer was the only one that wanted to be Frank's friend and didn't see anything wrong. Sure, Burns felt bad enough for him and took him in as an employee, probably the least amount of struggle for employment Frank ever had. Other than that, everyone else antagonized him for NOT getting Homer. And as I've always said about the Simpsons, they're somehow always the underdog despite the fact Homer should be a town hero (inconsistently he either is or isn't). That said, I wonder how this would have played out in an episode where the town HATES the Simpsons, and if Frank would have become the town hero for calling Homer out.
A year later, Homer proved Frank Grimes was right when they had to move Springfield because of him and what he did as garbage commissioner after his successful smear campaign against Ray Patterson. Steve Martin seriously did a good job of being the straight man to Homer in that episode.
What people fail to grasp at too is also what "Homer's Enemy" was trying to teach audiences. You see, around the late 1980s, several sitcoms were being released where unlike how they usually are tight-knit, moderate, and had all their characters almost perfect people, who solved whatever flaws they had through their friends/family, The Simpsons was sort of a satire on those tropes. As a lot of the characters, including Homer Simpson himself are ignorant, inconsiderate, reckless, self-centered, and even come off as jerks sometimes. Yet, for some reason, audiences ignored this as we couldn't help but laugh when these characters commit or get involved in such absurd shenanigans they were in. I'd argue that this comes down to that 4th wall barrier the creators unintentionally created. A type of dissonance between what we're seeing and how we respond to it. An invisible handshake that lets us know that we can laugh all we want at the the characters on the Simpsons do, but should never attempt to emulate that in real life. Because in real life, Homer Simpson would literally be a nightmare to be around. As no matter how many times he seems like an all-around happy dude, any man who drinks excessively at his job, acts very neglectful, reckless and inconsiderate of his duties, caused a whole lot of collateral damage (even if some of it was by accident), and commits several acts of child abuse in each episode, would probably have nobody liking him. But of course, that wouldn't make for an entertaining show. Therefore, some audiences know when to hold their suspension of disbeliefs for some laughs. But ONLY SOME....as others may not get this memo. Others may be laughing to hard, even take what they're seeing to seriously wish to be like one of those characters. Heck, I saw this show as a teen and laughed a little too hard when I see Bart being strangle, but my parents scolded me, saying that if I saw them doing that one of my siblings, would I be laughing? But with “Homer’s Enemy”, I feel like the creators made this episode to be a response to that dissonance. To remind those who are laughing that in the end, that Homer is pretty awful and that we should never be identifying with him. The writer of the episode even stated, "What if a real life, normal person had to enter Homer's universe and deal with him? And in real life, being Homer Simpson could be really dangerous and life threatening, as Frank Grimes sadly learned.". That scene of Frank flipping out when Homer won that contest, chastising everyone for applauding for him says it all. Frank is literally the creators asking the audience, "What's wrong with you people? Stop comparing yourselves to these characters on this show.".
Springfield is only Hell if you refuse to adapt to it. With how Lisa became more and more of a shallow writers' mouthpiece character, being heavily detached from the lunacy and stupidity of Springfield, I'd argue that she's just One Bad Day away from becoming a Frank Grimes herself. tl;dr: git gud at Springfield Souls
@@maliciousbugman Lisa does have a shitty side. i just takes quite a bit to get it out. She may be smarter and more sophisticated than her brother, but she can be just as bad as he is if given the opportunity.
This just reminds me of your Who Shot Mr Burns series and how you somehow missed the most obvious candidate: Mr Snrub. For those who don't recall, Mr Snrub is the name of a minor character in the Simpsons who appeared only once, in one scene in Marge Vs The Monorail. We know relatively little about him, just that he comes from 'someplace far away,' that he has a luxurious mustache, but otherwise looks coincidentally very similar to Mr Burns, and that he values the nuclear power plant immensely, to the point where he wanted the town's money to be invested in the plant. But why am I saying that the mild-mannered Snrub is the true shooter in Who Shot Mr Burns? Well, think about it: he's someone who's looks nearly identical to Burns, so when Burns acted so terribly that the whole town wanted to kill him, then Snrub would be in danger too! Snrub could be killed due to a case of mistaken identity. He might have wanted to kill Burns to either eliminate that possibility (as soon as Burns is publicly known to be dead, then no one is hunting him and so no one is shooting at people like Snrub, who happen to look like Burns,) or as revenge for Burns's actions having endangered his life in this way. Or he could be doing this as revenge for how Burns's actions have affected Smingers, who we know sees eye to eye with Snrub and has helped Snrub in the past. Alternatively, he may be disgusted that the nuclear plant that he clearly loved so much, was being run by a tyrant. He fits the sundial clue left by Burns, because his name starts with MS, (we don't know his first name, but if we assume that Mr Snrub is what he's known as, then it fits. And for all we know his first name begins with M. His name could be Mailliw Snrub, or Mada Snrub, or any of the other common boys names starting with M). He's around about the same age as Burns, so he's likely close enough in strength with Burns for a fight between the two of them to be a struggle, rather than just a cakewalk; explaining the sounds of struggle we hear between Burns and his assailant. And as for why Burns chose not to accuse him, and to accuse Maggie Simpson instead..? Possibly because Burns wanted to keep Snrub around, so that he could use Snrub as a patsy for one of his own crimes in the future. As an evil billionaire, Burns has a ton of uses for a doppleganger, Snrub could be a walking get out of jail free card for Burns. Since if Burns was caught doing another crime in the future, with eye-witnesses or on CCTV, he could insist that it was actually Snrub who did it... But he can't make that accusation if Snrub's already in jail.
You know, I never really considered Mr Snrub because he was a one-hit wonder. However in this episode, Mr Burns isn't acting like his Capitalistic self and behaves like somebody unfamiliar with the CEO position. With that idea alone, I'm willing to believe Mr Snrub and Grimes were responsible for Grimes' death.
I think what killed Frank Grimes was ultimately a severe personality clash with Homer. Homer is everything Grimes isn't, and Grimes is everything Homer isn't. Putting them together in a situation for an extended period of time is bound to end in disaster. Grimes felt invalidated his own life, whilst through the entire episode, Homer was validated. He felt like the loser in life and broke down, unable to bear it. As for who's to blame, honestly, I think it's one of those situations where you can't just put the majority of the blame on one person. It's just a bad situation with everything working against Grimes. If anything, I kind of consider Lenny and Carl to kind of be the heroes of the episode, trying to teach Frank to let it roll off him, and he ultimately can't.
Grimes should have quit before going crazy. That's something people need to learn. Don't let your job or others break you. Make a change before that happens.
@@shorewall Couple of reasons why Frank didn't quit: 1: There wasn't anywhere else for him to really go except be stuck in even worse jobs. It was only by chance that Burns saw that segment and got him a high-paying position there. 2: Frank was too proud to quit. That's probably one of the things that did him in.,
Frank was also an obsessive perfectionist who thought that he could waltz into an established situation and completely change everyone and everything to his unreasonable (bordering on irrational) expectations of "perfection". Those irrational and unreasonable demands not being met are what ultimately drove frank into first enacting a spectacularly childish revenge fantasy out of pure envy, and then ultimately pushed him over the edge when he was finally met with the sort of resistance too his hubris and arrogant attempts at bullying others that he wasn't used too. This episode did one important thing for homer: It established that while he's not especially intellectually gifted in terms of practical intelligence he does possess more than enough emotional intelligence to understand what is going on around him, realize how lucky he is and most importantly: understand that what he needs to do when he's at work is get along with his co-workers/management, not cause too many problems (when the story doesn't require him to be a problem for others) and be competent enough at his job (when the story doesn't require him to be stupid and inept) that he keeps things running smoothly and they'll forgive him when he makes mistakes because they all know that deep down he does mean well in everything he does.
Frank Grimes’s death kind of reminds me of how another show a year before this episode aired did a similar action. For those who remember the show Seinfeld, that episode being “The Invitations”, where George and Susan we’re supposed to get married in that episode, but George, being the coward, he is decides he doesn’t want to be with her anymore, but doesn’t want to tell her no. Therefore finding any excuse that he can make to stall the wedding or make Susan be the one who decides not to marry him. Not to spoil the episodes ending, but, from what I read, it was one of the few episodes where audiences turned on George, for what he did to her in the end. As Susan was a pretty innocent woman, who was so different than what the four leads in the show were like, and really did nothing to deserve what was happening to her.
Hands down, this is the best video essay on 'Homer's Enemy' I've seen. Having it be a mystery like this forces you to approach the story from a totally different angle. Super meta, but totally highlights just how much depth is in this episode ❤
@@Attmay I like Renegade Cut's analysis of the episode, even if I don't completely agree with his assessment of Mr. Burns. Mr. Burns is not some greedy capitalist manipulating everything, he's a perfect representation of 'free market capitalism', with its completely arbitrary, random, chaotic nature in who succeeds at getting what they want and is happy vs. who fails and struggles all their lives, even if they did everything they thought was right.
I think Millhouse's comment questioning if that job for Bart is where he'd end up in life, while thinking he was at least "doing better than dad" at an old dingy factory, says a lot too add as a tie in the theme of the episode.
The environment is what dug his grave. When you're coming from a lower position in life, you and only you know what the struggle feels like. How much it hurts to have to work extra hard, while everybody else seemingly has everything laid out right in front of them. You and only you know what it's like to be left all by yourself. How much it hurts seeing everyone around you be constantly cheered on and comforted by other people who genuinely care about them, while the most they have for you are quick words of reassurance, while keeping a somewhat distanced stance between the two of you, as if simply saying to you "yeah yeah you'll be fine don't worry now leave me alone." The worst that can happen to you in this case, is to come into a group with someone, who's clearly not really meant to be getting away with as much as they do, all because they appear very likable and charming to everyone. And you being the only one who sees past it. So naturally, if you're in the scenario like Frank, where you come into a new environment, with new people, you'll be picked on for a while since you're the fresh meat aboard, and you'll also have to put in extra work into finding enough time to fit in with the other guys, while also proving yourself to your higher-ups. And while all this weight is already resting on your shoulders, you see the happy-go-lucky guy, getting away with pretty much anything you'd never be able to. Just because everyone likes him so much for some reason, that you just don't understand. It gnaws at the back of your head, and leaves you restless. Especially when getting scolded from this point on. Whenever you're being talked down to, you ask "but what about that other guy? why didn't you say anything to him when he did X or Y?" To which all you're replied with "oh why do you care what other people do, how about you care about you doing your job right next time instead?" What really got me talking about this is the roaring applause Homer receives in the contest. This drives you MAD. Seeing someone be constantly celebrated, almost lifted up to the skies like a god, for even the simplest, seemingly stupidest thing they do. While nobody really talks about your hard work. Your effort and soul you've put in your own work. You can do nothing but to compare the roaring applause to words like "oh that's cool" or "hey nice thing you made" that you've heard from others, if even that. And so, a bug buries itself into your head. One that is REALLY difficult to get rid of. All you can do now, is keep swimming against the current. Keep on running against the wind. Knowing you may never be as beloved as that happy-go-lucky guy is every single day. You can keep on fighting against your fate, until you either die forgotten, or lose your marbles somewhere along the way. If you've reached the end, thank you for reading. This is something I'm pouring out from my own heart, as I've been in this situation many times myself. If you're in a similar boat, what does help tremendously is to stop chasing after that guy. Just accept the bitter truth of you never being able to get up to their level of success, and instead, build yourself up to your own standards. Essentially, give up trying to win over someone else's crowd, and instead, be your own crowd. And one day, you may be able to persuade other people into joining your crowd, and form a circle around yourself, who will have you as their happy-go-lucky guy. This part isn't really something I know from personal experience, but I'll get there one day, or die trying.
That part you mentioned in the six paragraph about being your own crowd and not to follow someone else's crowd is the reason I like being a nerd. I went through the same stuff Frank Grimes went through and didn't get any recognition for it while people like Homer Simpson got all the breaks. I couldn't help but to feel sorry for Frank in that episode and what happened to him in the end. Insipite of what other people think of you or what you do, ( even be a nerd), you can persuade other people to join your nerdy crowd as well. As you said:" one day you may be able to persuade other people into joining your crowd and form a circle around yourself, who will have you as their happy -go lucky guy." Being a nerd is the best thing in my life. I'm a 66 year old service-connect navy veteran and for the last ten years I'm doing fine with my government benefits(@ 100 percent ), from both veterans affairs and Social Security. Sure it does make me mad when I see people who are incompetent, lazy, and do not want to work yet they get hired on the spot, but as long as you know you're a good hard worker is enough to keep you going. Thanks for the comment.
Another part that's important is grimes has a "grass is alwahs greener" outlook. He doesnt know Homer's life, Homer got his house because grandpa sold his old home Homer won grammy cause he was in a successful band And homer went to space Because he's an average idiot, that's what NASA wanted. He went to space for being the very thinf grimes Hates, an average idiot.
Homer also had his own set of hardships to overcome. His mom abandoned him at a young age. His dad did care for and make sacrifices for Homer but was also emotionally abusive and cruel. Homer's in-laws hate him, his son disrespects him constantly and he's always hiding at Moe's Tavern to escape his marital problems. He gave up his dream job at a bowling alley to work at one he hates. The house has constant issues like pipe leaks and a sinking foundation. All the good things that happened to him like winning a Grammy, meeting Gerald Ford and going to space were lucky one-offs that didn't improve his life long term. He still has to go back to working at the plant, which he hates but does it to support his family.
Supposedly, Frank Grimes is what happens when a "normal person" enters the world of The Simpsons, even though Grimes is far from a normal person, since his backstory has him essentially falling out of the frying pan and into the fire, while at the same time working ridiculously hard just to get by (as well as pay off the occasional hooker, as revealed later on). Really, it's his hang-ups about Homer getting undeserved praise and recognition by the equally stupid people around him that ended up being his undoing. He figured Homer is the exception to the rule, a quirk in the system, and once he reveals Homer's incompetence to the world, everything will go back to the way it's "supposed" to be, not realizing that the world of The Simpsons is set up so that people like Homer will benefit more often than not. It kind of sucks for Homer, though, since while he's insensitively oblivious in this episode, he's not a jerk, and is nothing but friendly to Grimes, but the fact that Grimes looks down on Homer's oafish stupidity and expects everyone else to as well is what really sets him off on a downward spiral towards his death. Still, the fact that Homer steals the spotlight from Grimes's own funeral as he's lowered into his grave, like damn, what a dark, cruel joke to end on. That's probably why Homer's Enemy is such a fan favorite, dissecting the character of Frank Grimes is fun and fascinating, and I appreciate that the writers had the audacity to go to such a dark ending.
Was Grimes really a "normal person"? Most normal people don't have both their parents abandon them at age four, work to support themselves before the age of ten and still manage to complete their schooling by correspondence. He's really more like the anti-Homer, a parody of the myth of the rugged individualist. Most normal people are raised by parents or taken in by relatives if their parents can't care for them until at least their early 20s and hopefully maintain contact with them into adulthood (as long as they're not abusive). It's extremely difficult to finish college or university without any kind of support, the number one reason people drop out of college is financial problems.
@@Sorcerers_ApprenticeThat's what I'm saying, it's weird to see a Simpsons writer describe this episode as "a normal person reacting to the world of The Simpsons" when Frank Grimes clearly is not a normal person.
You COULD view Kent and Burns as two sides of the same coin, societal indifference and short attention span leaving people like Grimes to rot. Even when they do showcase the problem, it’s never a lasting change, just a token effort that at best just brings short term improvement. Kent does one showcase on the troubles of Grimes and then moves on to cute animals. Mr. Burns takes one moment to think about Grimes, but forgets and gets distracts immediately for something else, landing him in yet another dead end working job instead of the VP role that could have pulled him out. Lenny and Carl also fit into this. Really, this would make Homer the tragic good guy of the situation. He’s the one person who’s trying to connect and isn’t just moving on, but he’s the wrong person for the job and it’s the worst possible time
They don’t see Grimes as a person but a concept of a self made man which Kent exploits for a fluff piece and Mr. Burns sees as a exciting new toy to play with
@@rootfish2671 Exactly. Lenny and Carl aren't THAT bad, but they still basically do nothing to help him. Homer is the one person trying to help Grimes. It's just...he's Homer Simpson. He is the one person who shouldn't.
The way I look at it is that Frank Grimes' downfall was the result of a man whose entire understanding of reality was based off of the Just-World Hypothesis being put into a situation that refuses to conform to those expectations. Ever since the earliest episodes, The Simpsons has always kind of built off the idea that every institution in modern society is run by the apathetic and incompetent. So many episodes leading up to Homer's Enemy have featured Homer in roles where he's thrust into positions of power that he's neither qualified for nor wants by outside forces who have no idea what they're doing. In so many respects the plot of the show is built around this idea that, at the societal level, competence doesn't at all translate to success - No one has any idea of what they're doing and the worst person for the job is often appointed to that job. Then you have Frank Grimes, who's a guy who is constantly being randomly dumped on by the universe through absolutely no fault of the decisions he's made. Random misfortune is just thrust on him at random. But the idea that we live in a world where our fates are ultimately out of our control is for a lot of people a prospect that is too unpleasant and existentially horrifying to handle, which is where the Just World Hypothesis falls into this. In simple terms, The Just World Hypothesis amounts to "People get what they deserve" - If you perform the "Correct" actions and make the "Right" choices in life it will lead to success, and this is definitely the guiding principle of Grimes as a character. He works hard and expects to be rewarded for it...And then he comes to Springfield and is confronted by the random absurdity of the reality he inhabits. He meets Homer, a man who is grossly incompetent at not just his job, but most aspects of life in general and, in spite of all of these failings, Homer is much more successful than Grimes. Worse yet, every attempt Grimes makes to get the system, nay the very world itself, to conform to his worldview and punish Homer for his incompetence fails in spectacular fashion. And so Grimes is confronted with an existential crisis, where he's confronted with the hard truth that reality doesn't conform to the order he's tried to impose on it, that life in fact may just be a bunch of random stuff that happens without any coherent system guiding one's actions. And this knowledge destroys him. It was not Homer, or Lenny and Carl, or Mr. Burns or even Grimes himself who killed Grimes, it was a man's inability to grapple with existentialist philosophy.
The thing that sells it as being the writers' fault for me is the unquestionable fact that, if *any* other power plant worker had touched those wires, they would have been fine. Homer has been electrocuted hundreds of times. Burns canonically has every disease that ever existed and glows in the dark due to how much radiation is in his body. Every plant worker has survived at least one meltdown, and safety standards at the plant are so low that radioactive material drips from the ceilings. There are multiple people and events who can be potentially blamed for Grimes touching the wires, but the reason he died is because he wasn't a Simpsons character.
This is the winner. Grimes is more than a "normal" person in an "abnormal" world - he's a representation of american meritocracy and protestant work ethic thrown into a world designed to mock those very ideas.
I know the ending is supposed to be tragic, but part of me wants the ending to be "Hey Grimey, i'll sell you the factory for 10 bucks." Grimes get's land, a business right, and something to live on. Bart get's 10x his money back. Everyone comes out happy. It also adds to the wackiness of springfield, the man who is unlucky in everything starts succeeding when he moves to Springfield because it's just so backwards. That raises a question too, is Springfield the weird cousin town of Shelbyville instead of the other way around?
What irks me though is that Frank Grimes completely misreads Homer. He blames Homer for his wrongdoings yet Homer had a really tough childhood and did everything he could to provide for his family.
Hey. I have noticed an easter egg I never heard anyone talk of. When Homer first meets Marge in a flashback episode, the walls in the room turn from grey into pink. Homer is still with Marge and the world around him, his house and his car - are all full of pink and purple colors. That refers to the fact that Marge turns Homers life into a fairy tale. Makes it brighter. Maybe you should make a video about some other easter eggs.
No one told Grimes to grab those electric cables. He did it to himself. It's called "survival of the fittest." He was so angry, he forgot how electricity works. His own fault.
Tell me about it. I was working at a research facility in the 2000s, and they had this anomalous materials research project going on. They almost caused a resonance cascade until the new owner bought out the facility and put a stop to it.
I'm going with Grimes himself. When Homer actually made an attempt to improve himself and take his job seriously, Grimes shot down his attempt and prioritized his hatred.
He also took Homer's actions a bit way too personally, even though he wasn't really acting out of malice, just in his usual "acting without thinking" phase.
Frank hates Homer, but Homer doesn’t hate him. It’s a one-sided resentment based on having to struggle for everything in life and taking it out on him when by all right, Homer should be on Skid Row, and anyone else who made this many bad life choices would be.
@@AttmayThe kicker is rather than Frank confronting or dealing with the things directly affecting his quality of life (Why doesn't he have a low opinion of Burns/Lenny/Carl/etc.?) he's caught up on being envious on someone with zero power over his life.
Personally, I blame Milhouse. Because no one likes Milhouse. If Frank wasn't making a satire of the satire though, perhaps he would have survived the electrocution. He wouldn't be the first Simpsons character to have suffered a crazy strong shock and not die after all. Perhaps it's like the underwater fire scene from Spongebob - once you call attention to the lack of logic, logic starts up like a kick to the head.
To be fair, if Grimes was someone who was wholly logical and believe in hard work, then he would have left the job. We don’t expect this from Homer because…it’s Homer. He would have moved on to another town rather than stay and make it a problem. So yeah, he kind of orchestrated his own downfall
Hard to afford a better place anywhere on his salary. 😥 An (apparently expensive) apartment wedged in between two bowling alleys was all that was affordable to Grimey, who'd needed a second job to pay rent; partly because of Burns cutting his salary, too.
Ever since I started reading about Simpsons opinions online, and how meta they seemed to think everything around Season 8-11 was, I can only interpret Frank Grimes’ breakdown in one way. As he’s screaming, the Simpsons writers are gifting/burdening him with the knowledge of his existence. He realises he’s a cartoon character and can’t handle the world he’s been drawn into. When imitating Homer at his console, he says “D’oh! D’oh! D’oh!” Homer didn’t say that once throughout the whole episode.
Yeah but Grimes missed the important Roger Rabbit rule: he can do anything 'as long as it's funny' and nobody was laughing at that point.(it's pointed out in other comments that if Homer had touched those wires and got electrocuted, he would've lived and played for laughs)
Fran Grimes perished due to his inability to adapt to his environment. For someone that praises himself for being smart he really can't take the hint that Homer, despite his supreme incompetence, is a well known and loved employee at the plant: His friends like him and are used to his laziness, his boss likes him as he's easy to pick on for his evil schemes and he's the easiest to vent to and get a satisfactory reaction out of him (extreme fear). What killed Grimes that he wanted things HIS way instead of going with the flow and was unable and uncompromising to accepting any other outcome, he's basically a reddit user. (minus the education, hard work)
If it was season 1, Grimes would probably get shocked, survive and go to the hospital, and than quietly move away. It'd be one of those "oh the Simpsons ruined someone else's life" thing like with Herb
I've always considered Grimey to be the author of his own demise. He saw other people were happy and just couldn't allow for that to be the case. He believed that because he was wronged by society, that everyone else should pay, and suffer the way he has. How dare Homer have a good life. How dare other people not experience misfortune like he has. He's the guy who, upon learning that other people have it better than him, doesn't demand better treatment for himself, but demands worse treatment for everyone else. So when his schemes and plans to make Homer suffer don't work, he can't accept that the world doesn't work the way he wants it to, and goes crazy.
3:57 - Remember, Mr. Burns CANNOT FIRE HOMER. It's covered in the earlier episode, where part of the deal to end the nuclear power plant worker's strike, that the leader of the union, Homer simpson, would be in charge of security at the power plant and that Homer CANNOT BE FIRED. Burns doesnt hold onto Homer because he doesn't care, but because that deal FORCES Burns to keep homer or face another power plant shutdown over security issues. Home is in the position he is nowadays, because he TOOK ACTION and FOUGHT for worker's rights, and actually succeeded in improving things, very little, but it's satire, so it counts. Grimes completely ignores that all important factor; Homer is in this position because of his own effort to fight for his fellow workers, and he fought HARD for them.
Ralph Wiggum and/or Martin Prince caused Frank Grimes' death. If they made their model power plants just a little better, they would have beaten Homer in the contest and Frank wouldn't have gone crazy.
I’ve always seen it as a meta-episode. It’s fun to analyze and re-interpret scripts to get more out of them. But at the end of the day, it’s a show created by a fun, self-aware writers room who definitely had a kick out of putting a more “realistic” character in their cartoon.
@@Attmay the great writers lost their touch or moved on to other things. I still can't believe me and the Simpsons have been around for 35 years now lol
as far as my take on the culprit I think I land somewhere in the middle of your last two theories. I have no doubt you've heard of it too but I remember hearing through the grapevine that a character like Chalmers can see the riduculous nature of the show and world around him, not in a Deadpool way but just as a general "This is a normal dude in a wacky cartoon" sort of way. But the difference between Grimey and our beloved Super Nintendo is that Chalmers grumbles and just tries his best to deal with it or roll with it otherwise. I don't think that's really a deep seeded concept of the character, but the general idea of such an observation makes enough sense. Grimes is just what is likely to happen if Chalmers starts really challenging the ridiculous nature of Springfield and trying to force it to make sense.
If I think everyone else is crazy, maybe I'm the one who's crazy. And on a cartoon show with cartoon logic, Grimes was indeed the crazy one. We can pity him, but he didn't fit in, and didn't want to fit in. But he could not change the world around him. There is a quote that goes like, when I was young, I wanted to change the world. Then I got older and just wanted to change my country. Then I got older and just wanted to change my town, or family. And as I lay on my deathbed, I realized, that I should have started by changing myself. Then I could have changed my family, and with their help I could have changed my town, etc. And in the end, I might have even changed the world. Grimes should have realized that he was the one who needed to change, in order to fit in and find happiness. Springfield is a fun house mirror of the real world. It satirizes aspects of our daily life, but it is far from realistic. Grimes had a realistic worldview, but that doesn't work in an unrealistic cartoon world.
Honestly? This is how I interpret the "Lenny and Carl" theory. They're the specific people around Homer, but really they're as much a stand-in for the apathetic everyman.
@@LeRoiEnJaune If we're all being honest, I made my comment as a joke before the video barely started, but now that I've gotten through that part, I actually accidentally made a good point! XD
Franks beef was really more with Mr Burns. It’s not Homers fault that the systems and structures at the power plant are flawed and would hire someone like him in the first place (likely to cut costs) That’s a management issue. Grimes was powerless to fight against Burns, so Homer was basically the scapegoat for his frustration. Homer was just the working man (or non working man in this case), the lovable oaf that coasted on his teddy bear charm. And Grimes couldn’t deal with the fact that Homer had it so easy comparatively. When Mr Burns’ life is a lot easier than Homers.
Thing is, Homer doesn't even TRY to live up to the responsibilities given to them - actually considers being asked not to sleep while on the clock as management "trying to screw you".
It's not just Mr Burns tho, when he goes to supper at the Simpson place, he sees all the other accomplishments Homer has had. That turned it from just a work thing, to a life thing. Like, imagine coming across someone like Homer, and finding out they've been to space, earned a grammy, and don't treat it as anything special, cause that kinda stuff happens to them all the time.
I think Grimes had every reason to expect that someone in the orbit of Homer Simpson would be sane, and it's not unreasonable from Grimes' POV to think a billionaire owner of a nuclear plant would be the Only Sane Man around. Above all, Grimes couldn't cope with the reality of living in a place where merit and competence are held in complete disregard by everyone
Mr Burns comparing an actual self-made man to himself is one of the episode's best bits. This rich, out-of-touch millionaire, with money to burn (get it? 😅), owns a power plant he didn't found, and a fortune that was left to him; already you know Frank is in for a treat working for Burns.
All I know is that Frank has been haunting the series since his passing. His grave in particular. I love seeing all of the Easter eggs referencing one of my favorite one-time characters. He was even in hell on the 750th episode.
Grime’s worldview was a self-defeating one and that’s what led to his monumental declaration. That rugged individualism demonstrated what ultimately happens when incompetent people are given charge over the life of others, and all this while our resident nuclear scientists (lenny and carl) act as a foil to this demonstrating the reality that competency and principle does not always equal success and privilege.
The thing that really gets me about this episode is the final funeral scene. Reverend Lovejoy calling him "Grimey" and everyone laughing at Homer feels like the final insult to Frank's miserable life. Not even at his own funeral does he get respect. Frank Grimes may have caused his own downfall, but the world did nothing to prevent it.
That's the thing about people like frank grimes. They always think that they're "highly respected" by everyone around them, but what they don't realize is that everyone shit talks and makes fun of them when they're not around.
This is going to sound crazy, but you answered the question in the three previous segments in the run up to Grimes himself. His conditioning, his worldview and how the world reacts to it. These three things are what killed Grimes. We see in "Kent's people" that Grimes worked from an early age so already he is being conditioned for work. He works all through his life. Even when je was recovering from the silo explosion he was working to make himself feel pain and hear. We also learn he spent all his leisure time studying science. So already he is working hard and then ultimately he is given his diploma in Nuclear psychics which reinforces his view that working hard gets you rewards. When he comes onto the scene we see Grimes as a workaholic. Given the fact he has worked hard all his life (even when injured) he expects the world to reward him like the time he got his diploma. Hence he has a second job which he mentions when Homer invites him to his home for dinner. We never see ANYTHING good about Grimes. He's always working, a stickler for the rules and lays down the law for others. Grimes has let life beat him down and he has grown bitter, cynical, jaded and spiteful because of it. It seems like he saw the rich kids at their expensive houses when he was a kid and believed this was how the world worked, you get successful and you get rewarded. Also another big thing is Grimes can't or rather won't change. We see Homer being his usual uncaring self and in the first part Grimes did have a point about Homer not taking things seriously. After the blowout, Home changes to try and fit into Grimes world view. However, Grimes more then likely saw this as either Homer mocking him or as competition. Grimes expects the world to conform around him instead of conforming to the world. It's why he goes and moans to Carl and Lenny after the blowout, looking for something in the world to react the way he wants it. The main thing is Homer went out and got most of the things he has, some of it fell into his lap but most of the time he's a personable person and people like hanging around Homer. Grimes on the other hand wants things handed to him on a silver platter, he wants everyone around him to congratulate him and offer him all the prizes he thinks he is entitled to. In the second half we see Homer make an effort to change and fit in Grime's world view as I stated but we also see what drives Grimes and why he hasn't made ANY headway in the world. He's petty, envious, spiteful and mean. This shows us EXACTLY why Grimes is failing because HE is the problem with America. People expect others to have the world mold and shape around them and to be the most important person in the room rather then altering themselves to fit into a world that has rewards if one is willing to let go of ones own self importance and fit into a world that they have no control over. Also Grime's expected the world to make fun of Homer during the contest but it didn't react as to how he expected it. Grimes meltdown was due to the fact his whole life was built on a basis that hard work would reward you and the world would punish the lazy. It's down the Grimes own inability to change. We see Homer change from his usual bumbling self to a more work focussed and professional person. Grimes is incapable of change as he is still the same whiny, petty, bitter little man we have seen through the whole episode. Homer's enemy is an amazing episode and Frank Grimes is an interesting character study.
He let the fact Homer didn't need to put the work in, bother him to the point of insanity. If i remember the actual episode, no one is stopping him from progressing and eventually being able to attain the material wealth he perceived homer to have. Or They put a sane, self aware man in a town of willfully ignorant characters to see how long it'd take him to break, For the fun of it.
The thing is the universe is literally conspiring against grimes to always fail, as in the writers making him the constant failure. He can’t escape himself and he is forever doomed to fail which sounds like being in super hell
One thing i do like is how Frank never takes his issues he has with Homer out on his family as after his big rant when hes at there house he leaves before telling Marge and the kids " It was very nice to meet you all " Showing that whatever beef he has with Homer hes not going to drag his family members with him
I remember watching this episode during my first time binging The Simpsons. When I got to the climax (Frank freaking out and losing his mind) I thought, "Okay, this is the part of the episode where Homer finds a way to solve the situation, and they eventually become friends. Classic Simpsons." But I looked at the time stamp and saw the episode was almost done and thought, "Wait... it's almost over, I don't think they can fix thi- Oh... damn..."
I see it as an allegory for Simpsons - Lenny and Carl are just viewers that just enjoy the show, sometimes responding to the negative comments about it saying that it's just a show. Burns is the CEO of Simpsons who rewards Homer over and Over. Homer is just Homer, or maybe Simpsons as the series. And Grimes is the people that dislike the show thinking that it's stupid.
We can't even blame Frank Grimes for being frustrated with Homer, a man constantly rewarded despite his buffoonery. Like Grimes, WE are also from the real world, and we might feel the same way when we see how Homer really DOES have everything. You'd need the lifetimes of 50 different people to fit all the experiences and accomplishments Homer Simpson has made. A palace of a house. Two cars. A loving wife. A genius daughter. A son that owns a factory.. and is also the "I Didn't Do It" boy! A Grammy Award winning member of the Be-Sharps. Friends with not just Gerald Ford but HUNDREDS of other celebrities and famous people. Sent into space by NASA... The list goes on. And how does he achieve it all? Homer is simply a likable oaf who's always in the right place at the right time. And the only reason all these things don't also happen for Grimey is because - and he can't even help it - like us, he's from the real world, where life isn't a cartoon sitcom with wacky hijinks around every corner.
If Grimes had gotten to know Homer better he may have thought differently of Homer & realised that despite Homer's good luck with his current position in life, he also had a rough life growing up with many challenges & despite this through his perseverance & love for Marge he managed to turn his life around & maintain an up beat attitude. Grimes' cynical attitude (due to his life), jealousy, misdirected anger & obsession to tear down Homer got him cooked.
I know that those high-voltage cables had a warning sign, but they still shouldn't have been exposed like that in the middle of the hallway. There really should have at least been a some kind of locked glass casing door over them or something, as well. And seeing as Homer's supposed to be the safety inspector, we can therefore say that Frank's death *was* Homer's fault in that regard.
In the real world Homer would initially be held responsible for letting electric death wires be out in the open, even if they were properly marked. Then Burns would be held responsible for employing someone who clearly isn't mentally competent as safety inspector despite numerous major safety incidents happening under Homer's watch. Then I think the blame would ultimately fall upon Smithers since Burns' mental state can be called into question too - Burns is a 100+ year old man and is literally unable to remember or recognise Homer which explains why Homer was never removed from his position despite safety concerns. Smithers is Homer and Grimes' supervisor and Burns' assistant/carer, he fully knows who Homer is and has dealt with him numerous times - He is the one responsible for letting a terminally incompetent man be the safety inspector, let numerous major safety incidents happen under his watch and still keep him in that position and then a safety incident results in death. Waylon Smithers killed Frank Grimes.
You say that but I have a friend who is a nuclear engineer and he has a lot of nuclear power plant stories from around the 50’s that are Simpsons level horrific. Like when a guy making nuclear pucks got fired and the next guy to do it accidentally made a triple puck and they had to cut off his hands and died of radiation hours later. Or people being sealed into entire rooms with their sandwich because they were so irradiated.
Shout-out to Hank Azaria for nailing this character with his performance. If he had been voiced by William H. Macy like Azaria originally wanted, I don't think this episode would have landed the same way. He would have been more sympathetic and Homer would have come off as a clueless jerkass. He still is, but Azaria makes Frank Grimes unlikable enough to where Homer is lovable on top of being a clueless jerkass. It's a small note, but it is absolutely critical to the success of this episode.
Wonderful analysis! I remember feeling confused by this episode because I still thought of Homer as the underdog from the earliest era, and it seemed random for Burns to be rewarding him when usually getting a promotion just caused more problems for homer. So that's where the meta on the status quo comes in. Homer gets a lot of comeuppance, but granted, it's nothing that lasts or really changes his mind.
The frank grimes episode is such a masterpiece, although i didn't like how he handled the whole situation with homer, i did feel bad for him for his childhood and the way he lost his mind at the end
I think the message of this episode should be ''don't let envy and self-pity ruin your life.'' Frank was a highly accomplished man and he got there entirely on his own merits in a world that apparently hated his guts. He broke through every single terrible thing thrown his way and lived to tell about it. But he just could not let his hatred of Homer go and in the end it cost him everything. We can feel sorry for Frank Grimes, but he was not a good person.
He is but he isn't. Frank had a hard unfair life where he fought for everything he had and everything he has isn't much. Thats probably what gets him most, he probably was coping since childhood that it would mean something thst hed get his happy ending. Seeing Homer up close put the doubt in him and the fear his life would be endless meaningless suffering.
To a point although I'd say homer grassing him up to burns for the acid, costing Grimes his job and acting as if that was completely reasonable point of hatred. If you save someones life and less than 30 seconds later they throw you under the bus and act like nothing is wrong with it a significant dislike is not unexpected.
@@leonconnelly5303 Grimes is honestly concerned about public safety so his actions are consistent, Homer did it for no apparent reason and with anyone else would have just kept quiet.
It's pretty obvious to me watching the episode that Grimes doesn't seem to have a problem with any of the bad stuff that happens to him - he just wants everyone else to suffer as well. That's his problem with Homer. You see this attitude a lot in real life - for example people being against student loan forgiveness because they already had to pay their own student loans back.
4:00 you could argue that the more checked out Mr burns represents the indifference of cappatalism and him going for homers bad design is representative of how companies risk averse nature leads to crippling development. Though I admit this is a stretch
I always hated that he had a son. It would’ve been better if he had a twin brother who was the opposite of Frank and had a good life. Since Frank was abandoned it could be because they favored the other son more and thus had everything handed to him. One day he learns about Frank and decides to look him up and find that he’s dead. He goes to visit his grave and is saddened because he never had a brother so he thought it would be nice to meet him. He goes to moe’s to drink and he runs into Homer. They both talk about things and Franks brother brings him up in the conversation and Homer remembers him. Homer says he was good guy, but a little weird. Franks brother would later find out Frank killed himself because of Homer and now plots his revenge against Homer.
Now you make me wonder what would've happened if Grimes directed his "Your everything that's wrong with America" speech towards Burns instead of Homer I almost wonder if that would effect Burns.
Fantastic job! A really wild funny way to look back at this classic episode! The b-plot is also a huge favorite of mine! This episode will definitely always be one of the all time favorites from this show!
My main takeaway from this episode has always been “pick your battles”. I was very like frank grimes as a kid, very much a stickler for the rules and would get personally upset whenever anything unfair happened - I would tie myself in knots trying to correct it when nobody around me cared. And I learned pretty early that the harder you push in those situations the more people ignore or just get mad at you over it. Like, it feels very “Reddit edgelord” to say, but things aren’t always fair, some people are just more likeable and charismatic or even just lucky, and sometimes they don’t even have to try to gain the benefit of the doubt, you’re best to just focus on being a nice person and not worrying about what is and isn’t fair. Heck, for all the hell he’s been put through the simple fact Grimes has had all these opportunities just fall into his lap is, in its own way, not that different to how he sees Homer. For all his misfortune, he’s had his fair share of luck as well, he just refuses to acknowledge it.
Given the experimential nature of an alternate take on Cape Feare in the latest Treehouse of Horror I would love to see an alternate take of Homer's Enemy where Frank lives and see how he connects with his son Jr.
I have a pretty similar take on this episode to that shared in the end. I think it's actually a much more optimistic episode than people give it credit for. Sure, Homer's flaws are played up for comedic effect, but at it's heart it's an episode about how Homer's friends and family love and accept him for who he is despite those flaws, and Grimes is the weird one out for not accepting that.
@shorewall I haven't watched pretty much anything past season 9 so if it's later than that I haven't seen it. I always remember him from Simpsons Hit and Run being so downtrodden and knackered by the world 😂
I was always on the boat of Frank being responsible for his own fate. He could've just moved on from Homers success and focused on his own work. But instead, he tried to ruin Homer out of spite.
As soon as you framed the question I shouted "Lenny!" Love the framing of that take. Also, that Swartwelder interview from a few years ago was such a joy. I couldn't believe 20 years after the commentaries (cameo aside) I was finally getting answers straight from the horse's mouth. Bless that man
i doubt it would have changed anything Grimy thought of Homer but when Grimy was listing all homer's "sucsess" afterwards marge could have gone after him and pointed out Homers many many "accidents" and subsequent pain killer addiction/ the "masion" having more than 1 mortage or any of the other unseen problems the family have
This was originally an Extra Seconds review, but found myself bored writing about the nuts and bolts of why Homer's Enemy works. I feel like everyone intuitively understands that. So I switched to this more gimmicky approach. One of my favorite things about this episode is that it allows viewers to approach Grimes' situation from multiple angles, so I thought it would be fun to go over some of them.
(Also, maybe I am just nostalgic for doing those "Who REALLY Shot Mr. Burns" videos.) 🤣
Ok
Those series of videos are some of my favorites of yours
If you were going to a video on the 2 part episode Who Short Mr Burns what would it be about a review or history behind the scenes the video that comes to mind is that of Eddache Video on the episode go watch for anyone interested in the foreshawing of who the shoter was
Can we get a CB guy vid or a crazy cat lady vid? Great job on this one btw!
That a good choice since reviewing the greatness about this episode is like reviewing the greatness of star wars, or the godfather or even breaking bad. What can you and i can say that everyobe elae didn't said yet?
I like the idea that everything EXCEPT homer is the cause of his death. The world treating him like garbage his whole life, burns giving him double standard treatment, the other plant workers shared apathy to his concerns with no one trying to help him in some form. Grimes misguided anger at homer instead of these people actually causing the problem. As well as the will of the writers not allowing a status quo change. Homer however, is the only person in the episode who even shows an interest in grimes feeling better on some level (and marge technically). Grimes is being effected by everything else in his life and yet blames the one person who wishes him no ill will. The only innocent in "homer's enemy" is homer. Its perfect irony.
How can funni broccoli man have such deep thoughts of wisdom, I wonder
I’d never noticed that before, but it makes perfect sense. The world hated Grimes, Homer was the only person who tried to earnestly like him and be friends with him (probably throughout his entire life)
Goobus Doobus, you're not who I expected to be here
YOU
BROCCOLI GOBLIN IS HERE IN THIS TIME OF THE YEAR IN THIS PART OF THE TH-cam
if Millhouse had been a harder working employee, Frank Grimes wouldn't have died
the dud really ruined it
You're both wrong, clearly a wizard did it
At least he did better than his dad
I agree, everything can and should be blamed on Thrillho!
What do you mean he didn't work hard enough? Milhouse was the watchman, and he watched the whole thing!
Frank Grimes was a man in a cartoon who didn’t understand cartoon logic.
You think he would've learnt about cartoon logic when the bird stole his diploma
But ‘Man Getting Hit by Football’ has ‘Man Getting Hit by Football’
While Grimes acted like a jerk for most of the episode and treated Homer as the scapegoat for his problems, I can't help but find his death and how its treated afterwards very unsettling.
Obviously, Simpsons loved satirising America so it's not surprising (and it's not really a flaw) but the ending of the episode ended on a note that was the opposite of inspiring. Especially if you're watching this episode as someone in the younger generation who's studying to get a job. It is however an important message of not letting envy take control of your life.
Exactly this
He's the opposite of Chalmers. Chalmers sees how ridiculous the world around him is and just goes with it.
Technically, burns is responsible because he allowed the extremely high voltage wires to just hang out without any cover
An OHSA violation if nothing else
And also burns allowed most of homer's achievements despite being well... HOMER
@@GarkKahn Mr Burns is barely aware of an employee by the name of Homer Simpson even existing 😂
Homer is the safety inspector, he should have flagged that up.
Ok, you win.
The cables were clearly marked, he should be more careful in the future.
Remember that Mr. Burns originally hired Frank Grimes to be his executive vice president. If only he hadn't seen that dog on TV.
Ur on to something with this one!!!!!!!!
I don't know, maybe if the dog had shifty eyes I'd agree with you...
@@baetheistbaetheist2593 It's clearly the dog's fault
@@mikeydflyingtoasterPeople whould have suspected this if the writers had shown the dog doing shifty eyes.
@@JVBDPaoli IKR!! Subtle clues like dark, foreboding music, a dramatic (sorry, I meant understated) zoom in to have the dog’s face fill the screen and then squinting its eyes and looking left and right gives the eagle-eyed viewers hints on exactly what to think
"[He] refused to become a nameless background character, and paid the price for it."
Man, what an incredible quote.
But named background characters get names like Guy Incognito and Joey-Jo-Jo Jr. Shabadoo
I just realized something. If the real Homer grabbed those wires like Grimey did, he likely would've survived and it would've been played as a joke.
Like Batman he has plot armor
So you DON'T need safety gloves if you're Homer Simpson.
@@connordarvall8482 nope he is essentially has quantum immortality because no matter what he does something else with save him no matter what
Homer literally eats a uranium rod in the new intro sequence, and is fine!
Remember when Homer survived a van becoming so hot with radiation, it melted into the ground?
That was a season 5 episode
Being a real person in a Simpsons episode is why the electric shock killed him, had it been any other character they wouldn't have died, just comically zapped.
Very true
Unless the VA dies or demands a raise. "After all, No one ever died from a T-shirt cannon." - Homer Simpson S26 Ep17
Wow. If they act like continuity doesn’t matter anymore, then why is Maude Flanders still dead? they could just as easily make the last 25 years of the show a bad dream.
Lets be real, Maude was the realist character on the show lol @@Attmay
There are a few characters that died, Dr. Monroe, bleeding gums and yes of course Maude but they were not self aware so in their ignorance of being cartoon characters whose to say they can't die? It's a will that characters bring onto themselves, also as stated from the creators this episode is very meta, and in Grimes realization of the insanity of his world brought him swift death as the curtain of his reality was pulled back. @@AlexiaHoardwing
I think a lot about Bill Oakley saying that Grimes' actual foil is Superintendent Chalmers, a man who understands and accepts that everyone around him is insane but does not question or confront it and is able to live in peace because of this.
That's because Chalmers found his hapiness on the mundane of a normal life. He's happy working an office 9 to 5 job, go back to his house and cook for his family (Shauna doesn't deserve him). But Grimes wanted everyone to praise him for being a hard worker and the ones that don't work hard to suffer. And he was SO wrong for that. Who wants to work hard for a dead end job anyways? Most people just want to do their job, no more or less, go home and just be happy.
Yeah I love that and I’ve been thinking about it since I saw the comment on therealjims video on him. If Grimey had just left it alone and accepted the insanity around him (which he would see, if he took the time, has never lead to a single incident despite the plant being open for an inconclusive number of decades) and gone with it he would be have died, if he’d just stuck with cartoonishly hating Homer while doing his job competently he could’ve ended up being the Chalmers to his Skinner or something. It makes you wonder, in Grimey’s world, how many of his tragedies stemmed from his inability to accept the cartoon logic universe he lives in - because most of those incidents, while miserable for him, were wacky as hell.
@RubyBlueUwU In a weird way, I kind of feel for Grimes in this situation. It must he beyond frustrating to exist in a world that bends entirely around a specific family, and everyone else is just expected to go along with that. Grimes understandably doesn't want to be in that same state of casual contentment like Lenny and Carl. It's unfair, but at the same time, his frustration at the unfairness leads to him being unfair to others.
And all because he refuses to accept that the cartoon world around him is inherently unfair because he's not Homer Simpson.
@@frankielovejoy9928Nah, screw Grimes.
Two spins of the same coin: Both are fairly normal men in a cartoon world, but one breaks against it, and the other more or less rolls with it.
When Homer realizes Frank doesn't like him, he backs off, stops trying to spend time with him. But Frank just had to keep pushing.
Yeah Grimey as his friends called him wanted his cake and to eat it too
Exactly. I didn't feel bad for Grimes at all. He was an aggressive jerk.
Deadass
Also Grimes wanted immediate gratification and praise while on a position he just acquired out of chance (even when he had a degree, he didn't even apply for the job) unlike Homer who has been there against his own interest and has been nothing but a drone to Burns.
Good ole Grimey!
wasnt it the baby
i mean if maggie was never born, homer wouldn't have remained at the nuclear plant so you could argue kinda???
Who Shot Mr. Grimes (Part One)
@@usermcskull4713 babies don't spawn in, they're created
Correct, if Maggie had done a better job shooting, Burns would have never hired Grimes and he would have never met Homer. Damn you Maggaggy.
Might be the dog tho
Why Homer Simpson did of course, it was his last words “I don't need safety gloves, because I'm Homer Simpso--"
Well no. It was Homer Simpso then.
Well we never seen homer not use gloves
and given he died from it no way has homer ever not used gloves in front of frank
What kind of safety inspector would let there be unshielded high voltage wires? Homer Simpson
@@doggydude98Guy Incogni
Grimes said he was Homer Simpson earlier in his raving though and Homer said "no you're not". Thus implying how Grimes isn't unaffected by the out there illogic of the show that Homer is.
And eventually they found out that Grimes was killed by oh... lets say... Moe
*zooms in on the Dog with Shifty Eyes*
Add it to Moe's rap sheet of felonies
My favourite part of this episode is how crucial the B plot is for the A plot.
Normally, Bart is not a son that one would envy Homer for having. However, because Bart happened to be a factory owner at the same time Frank came over for dinner, it makes Homer’s life look perfect.
What if the factory plot didn’t happen that week? Would it have humanized Homer and make Frank realize that Homer’s existence isn’t so perfect after all? Would Frank have survived?
Imagine if part crashed or pranked the dinner. Or caused parts of the house to be shown to only hold together through duct tape and gum. Showing Grimes that the lobster and the "perfect" family were just a small facade put up
I never even realized. I wonder how Bart being his usual troublemaker self would've changed things.
@@KylerWulff Either ignore it as he is already filled with hate or calm down "Oh guess his life isnt perfect/not as lucky"
@@lurkingone7079 He won't calm down, because even with Bart being a troublemaker, Homer still has other kids and Marge, while Frank has no one.
Grimes would have focused on Lisa anyway.
Maybe the high voltage electric wires shouldn't have been out in the open, with no shielding or protective insulation. This is not the reactor or cooling tower. It's a random corridor.
There was also a beaker with acid in the lunch room.
Someone should talk with the safety inspector about that! ...ohhhhh
I feel Homer also envy Grimes at times. He lives between two bowling alleys, something that was Homer's dream job.
It's Homer's fault. His job is security inspector in sector 7B.
I blame whoever owns both bowling alleys.
Yeah, I guess he was too tired to think clearly and to keep his anger in check...
In reality, that's another vote for (our current version of) capitalism being to blame.
In a sane world, we would provide for hardworking survivors of childhood medical trauma so that they didn't have to live in a comically terrible apartment.
In a late '90s economy, how was it that Grimey could only afford to live between two bowling alleys? He would've been making the same salary as Homer or close to it.
@@karrihart1 medical expenses? He's been recovering from that explosion for years, and might still have costs associated with it on top of his student debts.
Plus, he has no workplace experience because of that recovery, so would have had a less attractive CV and no interview skills.
Burns dumped him in 7G as an afterthought, so probably wasn't paying him much, and he would have struggled to compete against other people with the same degree, had he looked for other jobs elsewhere.
And he happened to like hookers.
@@karrihart1 He happened to like hookers, okay!?!
I really like that you point out that Homer isn't being an asshole here. I actually tear up on rewatches on the observation that basically only Homer asks Grimes if he is ok, he actually does care about the man.
ironically is the only thing that keeps the episode working and not falling into a "generic cruel joke of morden adult animation", if homes was the slightly mean the whole episode becomes into a sad fest.
@@mechakirby9576 Technically, Homer is mean for a bit, but not because he meant it.
@@ChiefMedicPururu this is pretty soft even in season 8 standars. Like jim said homer is a giant teddy bear after the pencils scene
Its actually a lot better because Homer isn't portrayed to be a jerkass at all in this episode, which is why the contrast works and you don't blame Homer for what happened. Homer didn't do anything but just be himself (when he is likable) but Grimes couldn't understand how he was just how he is.
@@GeteMachine Yet I have seen people say that this was the birth of Jerkass Homer. Funny how they weren't paying attention.
that's right. the REAL killer of frank grimes was....marge simpson. *cue simpsons mysteries intro music*
He died of a delayed allergic reaction to the lobster Marge cooked, coincidentally a microsecond before he's about to touch the wires, which his body slumps onto.
(I actually can't remember if he ate any lobster, I think he might have stormed off before dinner... Maybe he was so allergic that the smell was enough...)
@@apocrypha5363you might be onto something!
TheRealJims really walked into that one
Well, she does have a life outside the house, y'know.
Can we talk about how Clancy and Sarah Wiggum, while both present at the plant model building contest, don't seem to be sitting next to each other? I'm wondering what's the story there.
Trouble in paradise.
Laughs in moe @@DD-qo1tw
getting photos of Ralph on stage from different views since they both love their son.
Yeah, I thought it was strange that you could see Sarah in the audience but not Clancy. Was he doing side work as security at the door, or was he a ghost? Or just a simple animation whoopsie
@@stm7810 Aww that's honestly really cute and in line with their characters
A line from Tommy Boy occurs here; "Son, you strike me as a smug, unhappy little man, and you treat people like they were idiots."
based Tommy Boy quote in the wild
@@AnAverageGoblin Athankya.
thats deep and very on point.....especially because everyone on the simpsons are idiots so its kinda hard to not have that viewpoint XD
@@Gojiro7 And yet their world mostly functions unless somehow required not to.
@@AnAverageGoblin Boo!
I blame the canine Executive Vice President.
Had he not pulled a child out of the path of a moving vehicle and pushed a criminal in front of it, Frank Grimes would have been Executive Vice President and would likely not have had to interact with Homer.
This is what I came to post. The real truth.
So ... "Homer's Enemy" is just the "trolley problem" played out for twenty-two minutes? =D
If Grimey got the EVP job, he most likely would have fired Homer within his first few days as EVP due to being useless, but due to the cartoon logic Homer would somehow get rehired to the plant. Grimey would fire him again and Homer would get rehired again for an even more ludicrous reason, maybe even with a fat promotion to boot. Rinse and repeat until poor ol' Grimey loses his mind and electrocutes himself on EXTREMELY high voltage.
@@Alex-ju3xr You cannot escape your fate
@@Alex-ju3xr It came to a point where Homer would just say stuff like "I got fired from Footlocker" implying we should know by now he just gets fired every episode.
Maybe blame the engineer who builds rooms with easy access to deadly high voltage death cables.
They have already violated safety codes before, what’s one more?
@@Attmay That’s a vast understatement.
They put a sign up warning people, what more do you want?
I took that as deliberate in case anyone wanted to end it, which they did.
I'd say it's simply "all of the above".
That's the beauty of the episode. The tragic, dark, but very funny beauty. Frank Grimes was just another unlucky but ambitious guy in a horrible world filled with stupid/horrible people who finally snapped after meeting the luckiest/laziest/dumbest individual in said world, and all of it was probably a meta-joke about cartoon logic.
So yeah, to reduce the perpetrator to one particular aspect of the simpsons world as a whole is, in my opinion, quite silly in general. It's just that springfield, and the show's world in general, by realistic logic, is hell.
The thing that really sells it is that Homer was the only one that wanted to be Frank's friend and didn't see anything wrong. Sure, Burns felt bad enough for him and took him in as an employee, probably the least amount of struggle for employment Frank ever had. Other than that, everyone else antagonized him for NOT getting Homer. And as I've always said about the Simpsons, they're somehow always the underdog despite the fact Homer should be a town hero (inconsistently he either is or isn't). That said, I wonder how this would have played out in an episode where the town HATES the Simpsons, and if Frank would have become the town hero for calling Homer out.
A year later, Homer proved Frank Grimes was right when they had to move Springfield because of him and what he did as garbage commissioner after his successful smear campaign against Ray Patterson. Steve Martin seriously did a good job of being the straight man to Homer in that episode.
What people fail to grasp at too is also what "Homer's Enemy" was trying to teach audiences.
You see, around the late 1980s, several sitcoms were being released where unlike how they usually are tight-knit, moderate, and had all their characters almost perfect people, who solved whatever flaws they had through their friends/family, The Simpsons was sort of a satire on those tropes. As a lot of the characters, including Homer Simpson himself are ignorant, inconsiderate, reckless, self-centered, and even come off as jerks sometimes. Yet, for some reason, audiences ignored this as we couldn't help but laugh when these characters commit or get involved in such absurd shenanigans they were in.
I'd argue that this comes down to that 4th wall barrier the creators unintentionally created. A type of dissonance between what we're seeing and how we respond to it. An invisible handshake that lets us know that we can laugh all we want at the the characters on the Simpsons do, but should never attempt to emulate that in real life. Because in real life, Homer Simpson would literally be a nightmare to be around. As no matter how many times he seems like an all-around happy dude, any man who drinks excessively at his job, acts very neglectful, reckless and inconsiderate of his duties, caused a whole lot of collateral damage (even if some of it was by accident), and commits several acts of child abuse in each episode, would probably have nobody liking him. But of course, that wouldn't make for an entertaining show.
Therefore, some audiences know when to hold their suspension of disbeliefs for some laughs. But ONLY SOME....as others may not get this memo. Others may be laughing to hard, even take what they're seeing to seriously wish to be like one of those characters. Heck, I saw this show as a teen and laughed a little too hard when I see Bart being strangle, but my parents scolded me, saying that if I saw them doing that one of my siblings, would I be laughing?
But with “Homer’s Enemy”, I feel like the creators made this episode to be a response to that dissonance. To remind those who are laughing that in the end, that Homer is pretty awful and that we should never be identifying with him. The writer of the episode even stated, "What if a real life, normal person had to enter Homer's universe and deal with him? And in real life, being Homer Simpson could be really dangerous and life threatening, as Frank Grimes sadly learned.". That scene of Frank flipping out when Homer won that contest, chastising everyone for applauding for him says it all. Frank is literally the creators asking the audience, "What's wrong with you people? Stop comparing yourselves to these characters on this show.".
Springfield is only Hell if you refuse to adapt to it. With how Lisa became more and more of a shallow writers' mouthpiece character, being heavily detached from the lunacy and stupidity of Springfield, I'd argue that she's just One Bad Day away from becoming a Frank Grimes herself.
tl;dr: git gud at Springfield Souls
@@maliciousbugman Lisa does have a shitty side. i just takes quite a bit to get it out. She may be smarter and more sophisticated than her brother, but she can be just as bad as he is if given the opportunity.
This just reminds me of your Who Shot Mr Burns series and how you somehow missed the most obvious candidate: Mr Snrub.
For those who don't recall, Mr Snrub is the name of a minor character in the Simpsons who appeared only once, in one scene in Marge Vs The Monorail. We know relatively little about him, just that he comes from 'someplace far away,' that he has a luxurious mustache, but otherwise looks coincidentally very similar to Mr Burns, and that he values the nuclear power plant immensely, to the point where he wanted the town's money to be invested in the plant.
But why am I saying that the mild-mannered Snrub is the true shooter in Who Shot Mr Burns?
Well, think about it: he's someone who's looks nearly identical to Burns, so when Burns acted so terribly that the whole town wanted to kill him, then Snrub would be in danger too! Snrub could be killed due to a case of mistaken identity. He might have wanted to kill Burns to either eliminate that possibility (as soon as Burns is publicly known to be dead, then no one is hunting him and so no one is shooting at people like Snrub, who happen to look like Burns,) or as revenge for Burns's actions having endangered his life in this way.
Or he could be doing this as revenge for how Burns's actions have affected Smingers, who we know sees eye to eye with Snrub and has helped Snrub in the past.
Alternatively, he may be disgusted that the nuclear plant that he clearly loved so much, was being run by a tyrant.
He fits the sundial clue left by Burns, because his name starts with MS, (we don't know his first name, but if we assume that Mr Snrub is what he's known as, then it fits. And for all we know his first name begins with M. His name could be Mailliw Snrub, or Mada Snrub, or any of the other common boys names starting with M).
He's around about the same age as Burns, so he's likely close enough in strength with Burns for a fight between the two of them to be a struggle, rather than just a cakewalk; explaining the sounds of struggle we hear between Burns and his assailant.
And as for why Burns chose not to accuse him, and to accuse Maggie Simpson instead..? Possibly because Burns wanted to keep Snrub around, so that he could use Snrub as a patsy for one of his own crimes in the future.
As an evil billionaire, Burns has a ton of uses for a doppleganger, Snrub could be a walking get out of jail free card for Burns. Since if Burns was caught doing another crime in the future, with eye-witnesses or on CCTV, he could insist that it was actually Snrub who did it... But he can't make that accusation if Snrub's already in jail.
You know, I never really considered Mr Snrub because he was a one-hit wonder. However in this episode, Mr Burns isn't acting like his Capitalistic self and behaves like somebody unfamiliar with the CEO position. With that idea alone, I'm willing to believe Mr Snrub and Grimes were responsible for Grimes' death.
*We're through the looking glass here.*
@@Shoxic666 I think Mr Snrub lives next door to Guy Incognito... I'm not sure though...
@apocrypha5363 Yeah, across the street from Lester and Eliza.
you genius
Martin is to blame, he was providing too much power to the building.
I think what killed Frank Grimes was ultimately a severe personality clash with Homer. Homer is everything Grimes isn't, and Grimes is everything Homer isn't. Putting them together in a situation for an extended period of time is bound to end in disaster. Grimes felt invalidated his own life, whilst through the entire episode, Homer was validated. He felt like the loser in life and broke down, unable to bear it.
As for who's to blame, honestly, I think it's one of those situations where you can't just put the majority of the blame on one person. It's just a bad situation with everything working against Grimes. If anything, I kind of consider Lenny and Carl to kind of be the heroes of the episode, trying to teach Frank to let it roll off him, and he ultimately can't.
Grimes should have quit before going crazy. That's something people need to learn. Don't let your job or others break you. Make a change before that happens.
@@shorewall Couple of reasons why Frank didn't quit:
1: There wasn't anywhere else for him to really go except be stuck in even worse jobs. It was only by chance that Burns saw that segment and got him a high-paying position there.
2: Frank was too proud to quit. That's probably one of the things that did him in.,
Frank was also an obsessive perfectionist who thought that he could waltz into an established situation and completely change everyone and everything to his unreasonable (bordering on irrational) expectations of "perfection".
Those irrational and unreasonable demands not being met are what ultimately drove frank into first enacting a spectacularly childish revenge fantasy out of pure envy, and then ultimately pushed him over the edge when he was finally met with the sort of resistance too his hubris and arrogant attempts at bullying others that he wasn't used too.
This episode did one important thing for homer:
It established that while he's not especially intellectually gifted in terms of practical intelligence he does possess more than enough emotional intelligence to understand what is going on around him, realize how lucky he is and most importantly: understand that what he needs to do when he's at work is get along with his co-workers/management, not cause too many problems (when the story doesn't require him to be a problem for others) and be competent enough at his job (when the story doesn't require him to be stupid and inept) that he keeps things running smoothly and they'll forgive him when he makes mistakes because they all know that deep down he does mean well in everything he does.
Frank Grimes’s death kind of reminds me of how another show a year before this episode aired did a similar action. For those who remember the show Seinfeld, that episode being “The Invitations”, where George and Susan we’re supposed to get married in that episode, but George, being the coward, he is decides he doesn’t want to be with her anymore, but doesn’t want to tell her no. Therefore finding any excuse that he can make to stall the wedding or make Susan be the one who decides not to marry him. Not to spoil the episodes ending, but, from what I read, it was one of the few episodes where audiences turned on George, for what he did to her in the end. As Susan was a pretty innocent woman, who was so different than what the four leads in the show were like, and really did nothing to deserve what was happening to her.
A lot of people feel bad about their life but few grab power cables to make a point. It’s all Grimey. Can’t blame the others for being themselves.
Hands down, this is the best video essay on 'Homer's Enemy' I've seen. Having it be a mystery like this forces you to approach the story from a totally different angle. Super meta, but totally highlights just how much depth is in this episode ❤
What’s the second best one?
@@Attmay I like Renegade Cut's analysis of the episode, even if I don't completely agree with his assessment of Mr. Burns. Mr. Burns is not some greedy capitalist manipulating everything, he's a perfect representation of 'free market capitalism', with its completely arbitrary, random, chaotic nature in who succeeds at getting what they want and is happy vs. who fails and struggles all their lives, even if they did everything they thought was right.
I hear you, but EmpLemon’s video essay was really good too
I think Millhouse's comment questioning if that job for Bart is where he'd end up in life, while thinking he was at least "doing better than dad" at an old dingy factory, says a lot too add as a tie in the theme of the episode.
If Frank Grimes stayed alive, he would've been the leader of the mob in the movie telling Lenny and Carl " I told you guys about Homer "
Burns killed him, in revenge for shooting him in Who Shot Mr. Burns
the gun had simpson dna because frank grimes let his hatred of homer simpson consume him to the point he manifested his dna
@@prageruwu69 When Grimes met Homer he took everything from him, including DNA
The environment is what dug his grave. When you're coming from a lower position in life, you and only you know what the struggle feels like. How much it hurts to have to work extra hard, while everybody else seemingly has everything laid out right in front of them. You and only you know what it's like to be left all by yourself. How much it hurts seeing everyone around you be constantly cheered on and comforted by other people who genuinely care about them, while the most they have for you are quick words of reassurance, while keeping a somewhat distanced stance between the two of you, as if simply saying to you "yeah yeah you'll be fine don't worry now leave me alone."
The worst that can happen to you in this case, is to come into a group with someone, who's clearly not really meant to be getting away with as much as they do, all because they appear very likable and charming to everyone. And you being the only one who sees past it. So naturally, if you're in the scenario like Frank, where you come into a new environment, with new people, you'll be picked on for a while since you're the fresh meat aboard, and you'll also have to put in extra work into finding enough time to fit in with the other guys, while also proving yourself to your higher-ups.
And while all this weight is already resting on your shoulders, you see the happy-go-lucky guy, getting away with pretty much anything you'd never be able to. Just because everyone likes him so much for some reason, that you just don't understand. It gnaws at the back of your head, and leaves you restless. Especially when getting scolded from this point on. Whenever you're being talked down to, you ask "but what about that other guy? why didn't you say anything to him when he did X or Y?" To which all you're replied with "oh why do you care what other people do, how about you care about you doing your job right next time instead?"
What really got me talking about this is the roaring applause Homer receives in the contest. This drives you MAD. Seeing someone be constantly celebrated, almost lifted up to the skies like a god, for even the simplest, seemingly stupidest thing they do. While nobody really talks about your hard work. Your effort and soul you've put in your own work. You can do nothing but to compare the roaring applause to words like "oh that's cool" or "hey nice thing you made" that you've heard from others, if even that.
And so, a bug buries itself into your head. One that is REALLY difficult to get rid of. All you can do now, is keep swimming against the current. Keep on running against the wind. Knowing you may never be as beloved as that happy-go-lucky guy is every single day. You can keep on fighting against your fate, until you either die forgotten, or lose your marbles somewhere along the way.
If you've reached the end, thank you for reading. This is something I'm pouring out from my own heart, as I've been in this situation many times myself. If you're in a similar boat, what does help tremendously is to stop chasing after that guy. Just accept the bitter truth of you never being able to get up to their level of success, and instead, build yourself up to your own standards. Essentially, give up trying to win over someone else's crowd, and instead, be your own crowd. And one day, you may be able to persuade other people into joining your crowd, and form a circle around yourself, who will have you as their happy-go-lucky guy. This part isn't really something I know from personal experience, but I'll get there one day, or die trying.
That part you mentioned in the six paragraph about being your own crowd and not to follow someone else's crowd is the reason I like being a nerd. I went through the same stuff Frank Grimes went through and didn't get any recognition for it while people like Homer Simpson got all the breaks. I couldn't help but to feel sorry for Frank in that episode and what happened to him in the end. Insipite of what other people think of you or what you do, ( even be a nerd), you can persuade other people to join your nerdy crowd as well. As you said:" one day you may be able to persuade other people into joining your crowd and form a circle around yourself, who will have you as their happy -go lucky guy." Being a nerd is the best thing in my life. I'm a 66 year old service-connect navy veteran and for the last ten years I'm doing fine with my government benefits(@ 100 percent ), from both veterans affairs and Social Security. Sure it does make me mad when I see people who are incompetent, lazy, and do not want to work yet they get hired on the spot, but as long as you know you're a good hard worker is enough to keep you going. Thanks for the comment.
Another part that's important is grimes has a "grass is alwahs greener" outlook. He doesnt know Homer's life,
Homer got his house because grandpa sold his old home
Homer won grammy cause he was in a successful band
And homer went to space Because he's an average idiot, that's what NASA wanted. He went to space for being the very thinf grimes Hates, an average idiot.
Homer also had his own set of hardships to overcome. His mom abandoned him at a young age. His dad did care for and make sacrifices for Homer but was also emotionally abusive and cruel. Homer's in-laws hate him, his son disrespects him constantly and he's always hiding at Moe's Tavern to escape his marital problems. He gave up his dream job at a bowling alley to work at one he hates. The house has constant issues like pipe leaks and a sinking foundation.
All the good things that happened to him like winning a Grammy, meeting Gerald Ford and going to space were lucky one-offs that didn't improve his life long term. He still has to go back to working at the plant, which he hates but does it to support his family.
Supposedly, Frank Grimes is what happens when a "normal person" enters the world of The Simpsons, even though Grimes is far from a normal person, since his backstory has him essentially falling out of the frying pan and into the fire, while at the same time working ridiculously hard just to get by (as well as pay off the occasional hooker, as revealed later on). Really, it's his hang-ups about Homer getting undeserved praise and recognition by the equally stupid people around him that ended up being his undoing. He figured Homer is the exception to the rule, a quirk in the system, and once he reveals Homer's incompetence to the world, everything will go back to the way it's "supposed" to be, not realizing that the world of The Simpsons is set up so that people like Homer will benefit more often than not. It kind of sucks for Homer, though, since while he's insensitively oblivious in this episode, he's not a jerk, and is nothing but friendly to Grimes, but the fact that Grimes looks down on Homer's oafish stupidity and expects everyone else to as well is what really sets him off on a downward spiral towards his death. Still, the fact that Homer steals the spotlight from Grimes's own funeral as he's lowered into his grave, like damn, what a dark, cruel joke to end on. That's probably why Homer's Enemy is such a fan favorite, dissecting the character of Frank Grimes is fun and fascinating, and I appreciate that the writers had the audacity to go to such a dark ending.
Was Grimes really a "normal person"? Most normal people don't have both their parents abandon them at age four, work to support themselves before the age of ten and still manage to complete their schooling by correspondence. He's really more like the anti-Homer, a parody of the myth of the rugged individualist. Most normal people are raised by parents or taken in by relatives if their parents can't care for them until at least their early 20s and hopefully maintain contact with them into adulthood (as long as they're not abusive). It's extremely difficult to finish college or university without any kind of support, the number one reason people drop out of college is financial problems.
@@Sorcerers_ApprenticeThat's what I'm saying, it's weird to see a Simpsons writer describe this episode as "a normal person reacting to the world of The Simpsons" when Frank Grimes clearly is not a normal person.
You COULD view Kent and Burns as two sides of the same coin, societal indifference and short attention span leaving people like Grimes to rot. Even when they do showcase the problem, it’s never a lasting change, just a token effort that at best just brings short term improvement. Kent does one showcase on the troubles of Grimes and then moves on to cute animals. Mr. Burns takes one moment to think about Grimes, but forgets and gets distracts immediately for something else, landing him in yet another dead end working job instead of the VP role that could have pulled him out. Lenny and Carl also fit into this.
Really, this would make Homer the tragic good guy of the situation. He’s the one person who’s trying to connect and isn’t just moving on, but he’s the wrong person for the job and it’s the worst possible time
They don’t see Grimes as a person but a concept of a self made man which Kent exploits for a fluff piece and Mr. Burns sees as a exciting new toy to play with
@@rootfish2671 Exactly. Lenny and Carl aren't THAT bad, but they still basically do nothing to help him.
Homer is the one person trying to help Grimes. It's just...he's Homer Simpson. He is the one person who shouldn't.
The way I look at it is that Frank Grimes' downfall was the result of a man whose entire understanding of reality was based off of the Just-World Hypothesis being put into a situation that refuses to conform to those expectations. Ever since the earliest episodes, The Simpsons has always kind of built off the idea that every institution in modern society is run by the apathetic and incompetent. So many episodes leading up to Homer's Enemy have featured Homer in roles where he's thrust into positions of power that he's neither qualified for nor wants by outside forces who have no idea what they're doing. In so many respects the plot of the show is built around this idea that, at the societal level, competence doesn't at all translate to success - No one has any idea of what they're doing and the worst person for the job is often appointed to that job.
Then you have Frank Grimes, who's a guy who is constantly being randomly dumped on by the universe through absolutely no fault of the decisions he's made. Random misfortune is just thrust on him at random. But the idea that we live in a world where our fates are ultimately out of our control is for a lot of people a prospect that is too unpleasant and existentially horrifying to handle, which is where the Just World Hypothesis falls into this.
In simple terms, The Just World Hypothesis amounts to "People get what they deserve" - If you perform the "Correct" actions and make the "Right" choices in life it will lead to success, and this is definitely the guiding principle of Grimes as a character. He works hard and expects to be rewarded for it...And then he comes to Springfield and is confronted by the random absurdity of the reality he inhabits. He meets Homer, a man who is grossly incompetent at not just his job, but most aspects of life in general and, in spite of all of these failings, Homer is much more successful than Grimes. Worse yet, every attempt Grimes makes to get the system, nay the very world itself, to conform to his worldview and punish Homer for his incompetence fails in spectacular fashion.
And so Grimes is confronted with an existential crisis, where he's confronted with the hard truth that reality doesn't conform to the order he's tried to impose on it, that life in fact may just be a bunch of random stuff that happens without any coherent system guiding one's actions. And this knowledge destroys him.
It was not Homer, or Lenny and Carl, or Mr. Burns or even Grimes himself who killed Grimes, it was a man's inability to grapple with existentialist philosophy.
The thing that sells it as being the writers' fault for me is the unquestionable fact that, if *any* other power plant worker had touched those wires, they would have been fine.
Homer has been electrocuted hundreds of times. Burns canonically has every disease that ever existed and glows in the dark due to how much radiation is in his body. Every plant worker has survived at least one meltdown, and safety standards at the plant are so low that radioactive material drips from the ceilings.
There are multiple people and events who can be potentially blamed for Grimes touching the wires, but the reason he died is because he wasn't a Simpsons character.
That expectation of incompetence is one of the themes of *Garfield* in its early years and during the years Film Roman animated the TV cartoons.
This is the winner.
Grimes is more than a "normal" person in an "abnormal" world - he's a representation of american meritocracy and protestant work ethic thrown into a world designed to mock those very ideas.
"Grimes refusing to adjust his philosophy about how life and the universe works" isn't an answer I expected to see 😂
Knowledge killed him. That's why I refuse to learn anything
"The themes are certainly present." *Frank Grimes holding a present*
I see what you did there.
I know the ending is supposed to be tragic, but part of me wants the ending to be "Hey Grimey, i'll sell you the factory for 10 bucks." Grimes get's land, a business right, and something to live on. Bart get's 10x his money back. Everyone comes out happy.
It also adds to the wackiness of springfield, the man who is unlucky in everything starts succeeding when he moves to Springfield because it's just so backwards.
That raises a question too, is Springfield the weird cousin town of Shelbyville instead of the other way around?
What irks me though is that Frank Grimes completely misreads Homer. He blames Homer for his wrongdoings yet Homer had a really tough childhood and did everything he could to provide for his family.
Hey. I have noticed an easter egg I never heard anyone talk of. When Homer first meets Marge in a flashback episode, the walls in the room turn from grey into pink. Homer is still with Marge and the world around him, his house and his car - are all full of pink and purple colors. That refers to the fact that Marge turns Homers life into a fairy tale. Makes it brighter.
Maybe you should make a video about some other easter eggs.
No one told Grimes to grab those electric cables. He did it to himself. It's called "survival of the fittest." He was so angry, he forgot how electricity works. His own fault.
As someone who has worked in a scientific setting where nobody else cared about health and safety, I do sympathesize with Grimes more now.
Are they hiring?
Also, are you able to cover for me? I'm kinda busy tomorrow.
Why would you ever sympathise with Grimes? He's an entitled, self-absorbed schmuck.
I'm gonna eat your special name stamped lunch
Tell me about it. I was working at a research facility in the 2000s, and they had this anomalous materials research project going on. They almost caused a resonance cascade until the new owner bought out the facility and put a stop to it.
Why would you? He's nothing but a sad, pathetic and bitter man.
I'm going with Grimes himself. When Homer actually made an attempt to improve himself and take his job seriously, Grimes shot down his attempt and prioritized his hatred.
He also took Homer's actions a bit way too personally, even though he wasn't really acting out of malice, just in his usual "acting without thinking" phase.
Frank hates Homer, but Homer doesn’t hate him. It’s a one-sided resentment based on having to struggle for everything in life and taking it out on him when by all right, Homer should be on Skid Row, and anyone else who made this many bad life choices would be.
@@AttmayThe kicker is rather than Frank confronting or dealing with the things directly affecting his quality of life (Why doesn't he have a low opinion of Burns/Lenny/Carl/etc.?) he's caught up on being envious on someone with zero power over his life.
Personally, I blame Milhouse. Because no one likes Milhouse.
If Frank wasn't making a satire of the satire though, perhaps he would have survived the electrocution. He wouldn't be the first Simpsons character to have suffered a crazy strong shock and not die after all. Perhaps it's like the underwater fire scene from Spongebob - once you call attention to the lack of logic, logic starts up like a kick to the head.
i think it was mr snrub
To be fair, if Grimes was someone who was wholly logical and believe in hard work, then he would have left the job. We don’t expect this from Homer because…it’s Homer. He would have moved on to another town rather than stay and make it a problem.
So yeah, he kind of orchestrated his own downfall
Hard to afford a better place anywhere on his salary. 😥
An (apparently expensive) apartment wedged in between two bowling alleys was all that was affordable to Grimey, who'd needed a second job to pay rent;
partly because of Burns cutting his salary, too.
I never really thought about Lenny and Carl's role in this episode but it really does make a lot of sense
Ever since I started reading about Simpsons opinions online, and how meta they seemed to think everything around Season 8-11 was, I can only interpret Frank Grimes’ breakdown in one way. As he’s screaming, the Simpsons writers are gifting/burdening him with the knowledge of his existence. He realises he’s a cartoon character and can’t handle the world he’s been drawn into.
When imitating Homer at his console, he says “D’oh! D’oh! D’oh!”
Homer didn’t say that once throughout the whole episode.
We don’t see all the time they spent together at work, just the parts they could fit into a 30 minute TV episode.
Yeah but Grimes missed the important Roger Rabbit rule: he can do anything 'as long as it's funny' and nobody was laughing at that point.(it's pointed out in other comments that if Homer had touched those wires and got electrocuted, he would've lived and played for laughs)
Maybe if Ol' Grimey had lived, he would've heard Homer's *annoyed grunt,* realize they're not so different and become his closest ally.
Alas.
It wasn't a suicidal break down, it was a moment of lucidity.
That "Never Ever" video on this episode is so good
EmpLemon!
Fran Grimes perished due to his inability to adapt to his environment. For someone that praises himself for being smart he really can't take the hint that Homer, despite his supreme incompetence, is a well known and loved employee at the plant: His friends like him and are used to his laziness, his boss likes him as he's easy to pick on for his evil schemes and he's the easiest to vent to and get a satisfactory reaction out of him (extreme fear).
What killed Grimes that he wanted things HIS way instead of going with the flow and was unable and uncompromising to accepting any other outcome, he's basically a reddit user. (minus the education, hard work)
I think what inevitably killed Frank Grimes was that he was a grounded, season 1 style character in a season 8 Schwatzwelder episode.
If it was season 1, Grimes would probably get shocked, survive and go to the hospital, and than quietly move away.
It'd be one of those "oh the Simpsons ruined someone else's life" thing like with Herb
That sums him up in a nutshell. Early Simpsons meeting it's then current self.
I've always considered Grimey to be the author of his own demise. He saw other people were happy and just couldn't allow for that to be the case. He believed that because he was wronged by society, that everyone else should pay, and suffer the way he has. How dare Homer have a good life. How dare other people not experience misfortune like he has. He's the guy who, upon learning that other people have it better than him, doesn't demand better treatment for himself, but demands worse treatment for everyone else. So when his schemes and plans to make Homer suffer don't work, he can't accept that the world doesn't work the way he wants it to, and goes crazy.
Yeah, it is a villain style reaction. "The world should know my pain!"
It was like an episode of Tales from the Crypt where the antagonist meets a gruesome ironic death due to their own actions
Carl and Lenny told Grimes to let to go, but he refused. He should have listened.
3:57 - Remember, Mr. Burns CANNOT FIRE HOMER. It's covered in the earlier episode, where part of the deal to end the nuclear power plant worker's strike, that the leader of the union, Homer simpson, would be in charge of security at the power plant and that Homer CANNOT BE FIRED. Burns doesnt hold onto Homer because he doesn't care, but because that deal FORCES Burns to keep homer or face another power plant shutdown over security issues. Home is in the position he is nowadays, because he TOOK ACTION and FOUGHT for worker's rights, and actually succeeded in improving things, very little, but it's satire, so it counts.
Grimes completely ignores that all important factor; Homer is in this position because of his own effort to fight for his fellow workers, and he fought HARD for them.
Ralph Wiggum and/or Martin Prince caused Frank Grimes' death. If they made their model power plants just a little better, they would have beaten Homer in the contest and Frank wouldn't have gone crazy.
Spot on, if Martin had managed to include some heart in his design then Frank would still be with us today
“Even if he’s incompetent he still doesn’t fail” Homer must’ve gotten in through ESG because he’s yellow.
I’ve always seen it as a meta-episode. It’s fun to analyze and re-interpret scripts to get more out of them. But at the end of the day, it’s a show created by a fun, self-aware writers room who definitely had a kick out of putting a more “realistic” character in their cartoon.
*well, realistic in terms of his reaction to Homer. His cartoonishly sad backstory is a different story.
To think that in less than five years, it would all turn to shit.
@@Attmay the great writers lost their touch or moved on to other things. I still can't believe me and the Simpsons have been around for 35 years now lol
as far as my take on the culprit I think I land somewhere in the middle of your last two theories.
I have no doubt you've heard of it too but I remember hearing through the grapevine that a character like Chalmers can see the riduculous nature of the show and world around him, not in a Deadpool way but just as a general "This is a normal dude in a wacky cartoon" sort of way. But the difference between Grimey and our beloved Super Nintendo is that Chalmers grumbles and just tries his best to deal with it or roll with it otherwise.
I don't think that's really a deep seeded concept of the character, but the general idea of such an observation makes enough sense. Grimes is just what is likely to happen if Chalmers starts really challenging the ridiculous nature of Springfield and trying to force it to make sense.
If I think everyone else is crazy, maybe I'm the one who's crazy. And on a cartoon show with cartoon logic, Grimes was indeed the crazy one. We can pity him, but he didn't fit in, and didn't want to fit in. But he could not change the world around him.
There is a quote that goes like, when I was young, I wanted to change the world. Then I got older and just wanted to change my country. Then I got older and just wanted to change my town, or family. And as I lay on my deathbed, I realized, that I should have started by changing myself. Then I could have changed my family, and with their help I could have changed my town, etc. And in the end, I might have even changed the world.
Grimes should have realized that he was the one who needed to change, in order to fit in and find happiness. Springfield is a fun house mirror of the real world. It satirizes aspects of our daily life, but it is far from realistic. Grimes had a realistic worldview, but that doesn't work in an unrealistic cartoon world.
We all did, RealJims, we all killed Frank Grimes
Honestly? This is how I interpret the "Lenny and Carl" theory. They're the specific people around Homer, but really they're as much a stand-in for the apathetic everyman.
@@LeRoiEnJaune If we're all being honest, I made my comment as a joke before the video barely started, but now that I've gotten through that part, I actually accidentally made a good point! XD
@@superdude4383Literally a Homer Simpson moment 🤣
@@Randomaccount9470 I am so smart! Smarty smart smart, S-M-R-T, I mean, S-M-A-R-T
I think the people who argue that Homer is a bad person in this episode are actually Frank Grimses in real life.
You just describe the modern simpsons writers
Franks beef was really more with Mr Burns. It’s not Homers fault that the systems and structures at the power plant are flawed and would hire someone like him in the first place (likely to cut costs) That’s a management issue. Grimes was powerless to fight against Burns, so Homer was basically the scapegoat for his frustration. Homer was just the working man (or non working man in this case), the lovable oaf that coasted on his teddy bear charm. And Grimes couldn’t deal with the fact that Homer had it so easy comparatively. When Mr Burns’ life is a lot easier than Homers.
Thing is, Homer doesn't even TRY to live up to the responsibilities given to them - actually considers being asked not to sleep while on the clock as management "trying to screw you".
It’s Kurns, stupid!
It's not just Mr Burns tho, when he goes to supper at the Simpson place, he sees all the other accomplishments Homer has had. That turned it from just a work thing, to a life thing.
Like, imagine coming across someone like Homer, and finding out they've been to space, earned a grammy, and don't treat it as anything special, cause that kinda stuff happens to them all the time.
I think Grimes had every reason to expect that someone in the orbit of Homer Simpson would be sane, and it's not unreasonable from Grimes' POV to think a billionaire owner of a nuclear plant would be the Only Sane Man around. Above all, Grimes couldn't cope with the reality of living in a place where merit and competence are held in complete disregard by everyone
Mr Burns comparing an actual self-made man to himself is one of the episode's best bits.
This rich, out-of-touch millionaire, with money to burn (get it? 😅), owns a power plant he didn't found, and a fortune that was left to him;
already you know Frank is in for a treat working for Burns.
All I know is that Frank has been haunting the series since his passing. His grave in particular. I love seeing all of the Easter eggs referencing one of my favorite one-time characters. He was even in hell on the 750th episode.
Every time you post is a dopamine hit
Grime’s worldview was a self-defeating one and that’s what led to his monumental declaration. That rugged individualism demonstrated what ultimately happens when incompetent people are given charge over the life of others, and all this while our resident nuclear scientists (lenny and carl) act as a foil to this demonstrating the reality that competency and principle does not always equal success and privilege.
The thing that really gets me about this episode is the final funeral scene. Reverend Lovejoy calling him "Grimey" and everyone laughing at Homer feels like the final insult to Frank's miserable life. Not even at his own funeral does he get respect.
Frank Grimes may have caused his own downfall, but the world did nothing to prevent it.
Nor did they do anything to prevent the terrible sequel episode.
@@AttmayUgh don’t remind me
That's the thing about people like frank grimes.
They always think that they're "highly respected" by everyone around them, but what they don't realize is that everyone shit talks and makes fun of them when they're not around.
It's the bumblebee-man's fault.
This is going to sound crazy, but you answered the question in the three previous segments in the run up to Grimes himself. His conditioning, his worldview and how the world reacts to it. These three things are what killed Grimes. We see in "Kent's people" that Grimes worked from an early age so already he is being conditioned for work. He works all through his life. Even when je was recovering from the silo explosion he was working to make himself feel pain and hear. We also learn he spent all his leisure time studying science. So already he is working hard and then ultimately he is given his diploma in Nuclear psychics which reinforces his view that working hard gets you rewards. When he comes onto the scene we see Grimes as a workaholic. Given the fact he has worked hard all his life (even when injured) he expects the world to reward him like the time he got his diploma. Hence he has a second job which he mentions when Homer invites him to his home for dinner. We never see ANYTHING good about Grimes. He's always working, a stickler for the rules and lays down the law for others. Grimes has let life beat him down and he has grown bitter, cynical, jaded and spiteful because of it. It seems like he saw the rich kids at their expensive houses when he was a kid and believed this was how the world worked, you get successful and you get rewarded. Also another big thing is Grimes can't or rather won't change. We see Homer being his usual uncaring self and in the first part Grimes did have a point about Homer not taking things seriously. After the blowout, Home changes to try and fit into Grimes world view. However, Grimes more then likely saw this as either Homer mocking him or as competition. Grimes expects the world to conform around him instead of conforming to the world. It's why he goes and moans to Carl and Lenny after the blowout, looking for something in the world to react the way he wants it. The main thing is Homer went out and got most of the things he has, some of it fell into his lap but most of the time he's a personable person and people like hanging around Homer. Grimes on the other hand wants things handed to him on a silver platter, he wants everyone around him to congratulate him and offer him all the prizes he thinks he is entitled to. In the second half we see Homer make an effort to change and fit in Grime's world view as I stated but we also see what drives Grimes and why he hasn't made ANY headway in the world. He's petty, envious, spiteful and mean. This shows us EXACTLY why Grimes is failing because HE is the problem with America. People expect others to have the world mold and shape around them and to be the most important person in the room rather then altering themselves to fit into a world that has rewards if one is willing to let go of ones own self importance and fit into a world that they have no control over. Also Grime's expected the world to make fun of Homer during the contest but it didn't react as to how he expected it. Grimes meltdown was due to the fact his whole life was built on a basis that hard work would reward you and the world would punish the lazy. It's down the Grimes own inability to change. We see Homer change from his usual bumbling self to a more work focussed and professional person. Grimes is incapable of change as he is still the same whiny, petty, bitter little man we have seen through the whole episode. Homer's enemy is an amazing episode and Frank Grimes is an interesting character study.
He let the fact Homer didn't need to put the work in, bother him to the point of insanity.
If i remember the actual episode, no one is stopping him from progressing and eventually being able to attain the material wealth he perceived homer to have.
Or
They put a sane, self aware man in a town of willfully ignorant characters to see how long it'd take him to break,
For the fun of it.
The thing is the universe is literally conspiring against grimes to always fail, as in the writers making him the constant failure. He can’t escape himself and he is forever doomed to fail which sounds like being in super hell
One thing i do like is how Frank never takes his issues he has with Homer out on his family as after his big rant when hes at there house he leaves before telling Marge and the kids " It was very nice to meet you all " Showing that whatever beef he has with Homer hes not going to drag his family members with him
I remember watching this episode during my first time binging The Simpsons. When I got to the climax (Frank freaking out and losing his mind) I thought, "Okay, this is the part of the episode where Homer finds a way to solve the situation, and they eventually become friends. Classic Simpsons." But I looked at the time stamp and saw the episode was almost done and thought, "Wait... it's almost over, I don't think they can fix thi- Oh... damn..."
Frank Grimes is such a Nixonian figure. In his own head, Nixon definitely saw the 1960 race as Grimes (Nixon) versus Homer (Kennedy)
I agree. He is a D-FENS charactrer as well
I see it as an allegory for Simpsons - Lenny and Carl are just viewers that just enjoy the show, sometimes responding to the negative comments about it saying that it's just a show. Burns is the CEO of Simpsons who rewards Homer over and Over. Homer is just Homer, or maybe Simpsons as the series. And Grimes is the people that dislike the show thinking that it's stupid.
We can't even blame Frank Grimes for being frustrated with Homer, a man constantly rewarded despite his buffoonery. Like Grimes, WE are also from the real world, and we might feel the same way when we see how Homer really DOES have everything. You'd need the lifetimes of 50 different people to fit all the experiences and accomplishments Homer Simpson has made. A palace of a house. Two cars. A loving wife. A genius daughter. A son that owns a factory.. and is also the "I Didn't Do It" boy! A Grammy Award winning member of the Be-Sharps. Friends with not just Gerald Ford but HUNDREDS of other celebrities and famous people. Sent into space by NASA... The list goes on. And how does he achieve it all? Homer is simply a likable oaf who's always in the right place at the right time. And the only reason all these things don't also happen for Grimey is because - and he can't even help it - like us, he's from the real world, where life isn't a cartoon sitcom with wacky hijinks around every corner.
If Grimes had gotten to know Homer better he may have thought differently of Homer & realised that despite Homer's good luck with his current position in life, he also had a rough life growing up with many challenges & despite this through his perseverance & love for Marge he managed to turn his life around & maintain an up beat attitude. Grimes' cynical attitude (due to his life), jealousy, misdirected anger & obsession to tear down Homer got him cooked.
Dude would have a breakdown If he met Ned.
OMG I love Grimey! Good ol’ Grimey
I know that those high-voltage cables had a warning sign, but they still shouldn't have been exposed like that in the middle of the hallway. There really should have at least been a some kind of locked glass casing door over them or something, as well. And seeing as Homer's supposed to be the safety inspector, we can therefore say that Frank's death *was* Homer's fault in that regard.
A Wonderful well thought out essay Jim I never realized how many layers this story has.
In the real world Homer would initially be held responsible for letting electric death wires be out in the open, even if they were properly marked. Then Burns would be held responsible for employing someone who clearly isn't mentally competent as safety inspector despite numerous major safety incidents happening under Homer's watch. Then I think the blame would ultimately fall upon Smithers since Burns' mental state can be called into question too - Burns is a 100+ year old man and is literally unable to remember or recognise Homer which explains why Homer was never removed from his position despite safety concerns. Smithers is Homer and Grimes' supervisor and Burns' assistant/carer, he fully knows who Homer is and has dealt with him numerous times - He is the one responsible for letting a terminally incompetent man be the safety inspector, let numerous major safety incidents happen under his watch and still keep him in that position and then a safety incident results in death.
Waylon Smithers killed Frank Grimes.
You say that but I have a friend who is a nuclear engineer and he has a lot of nuclear power plant stories from around the 50’s that are Simpsons level horrific. Like when a guy making nuclear pucks got fired and the next guy to do it accidentally made a triple puck and they had to cut off his hands and died of radiation hours later. Or people being sealed into entire rooms with their sandwich because they were so irradiated.
Shout-out to Hank Azaria for nailing this character with his performance. If he had been voiced by William H. Macy like Azaria originally wanted, I don't think this episode would have landed the same way. He would have been more sympathetic and Homer would have come off as a clueless jerkass. He still is, but Azaria makes Frank Grimes unlikable enough to where Homer is lovable on top of being a clueless jerkass. It's a small note, but it is absolutely critical to the success of this episode.
Wonderful analysis! I remember feeling confused by this episode because I still thought of Homer as the underdog from the earliest era, and it seemed random for Burns to be rewarding him when usually getting a promotion just caused more problems for homer. So that's where the meta on the status quo comes in. Homer gets a lot of comeuppance, but granted, it's nothing that lasts or really changes his mind.
The frank grimes episode is such a masterpiece, although i didn't like how he handled the whole situation with homer, i did feel bad for him for his childhood and the way he lost his mind at the end
I think the message of this episode should be ''don't let envy and self-pity ruin your life.'' Frank was a highly accomplished man and he got there entirely on his own merits in a world that apparently hated his guts. He broke through every single terrible thing thrown his way and lived to tell about it. But he just could not let his hatred of Homer go and in the end it cost him everything. We can feel sorry for Frank Grimes, but he was not a good person.
He is but he isn't. Frank had a hard unfair life where he fought for everything he had and everything he has isn't much. Thats probably what gets him most, he probably was coping since childhood that it would mean something thst hed get his happy ending. Seeing Homer up close put the doubt in him and the fear his life would be endless meaningless suffering.
To a point although I'd say homer grassing him up to burns for the acid, costing Grimes his job and acting as if that was completely reasonable point of hatred. If you save someones life and less than 30 seconds later they throw you under the bus and act like nothing is wrong with it a significant dislike is not unexpected.
@@BardicGMgrimes constantly tries to grass Homer lol
@@leonconnelly5303 Grimes is honestly concerned about public safety so his actions are consistent, Homer did it for no apparent reason and with anyone else would have just kept quiet.
It's pretty obvious to me watching the episode that Grimes doesn't seem to have a problem with any of the bad stuff that happens to him - he just wants everyone else to suffer as well. That's his problem with Homer.
You see this attitude a lot in real life - for example people being against student loan forgiveness because they already had to pay their own student loans back.
4:00 you could argue that the more checked out Mr burns represents the indifference of cappatalism and him going for homers bad design is representative of how companies risk averse nature leads to crippling development. Though I admit this is a stretch
I always hated that he had a son. It would’ve been better if he had a twin brother who was the opposite of Frank and had a good life.
Since Frank was abandoned it could be because they favored the other son more and thus had everything handed to him. One day he learns about Frank and decides to look him up and find that he’s dead.
He goes to visit his grave and is saddened because he never had a brother so he thought it would be nice to meet him.
He goes to moe’s to drink and he runs into Homer. They both talk about things and Franks brother brings him up in the conversation and Homer remembers him.
Homer says he was good guy, but a little weird.
Franks brother would later find out Frank killed himself because of Homer and now plots his revenge against Homer.
He liked hookers, gotta find something to feel happier.
You know it’s stupid when even Homer is questioning Frank Grimes having a son.
"That's our Homer!" -Lenny
Kent brockman claims another victim. When will we start holding him accountable?
Now you make me wonder what would've happened if Grimes directed his "Your everything that's wrong with America" speech towards Burns instead of Homer
I almost wonder if that would effect Burns.
12:35 We either put the blame on powerless people we can hurt easily or very powerful ones who are out of our reach
Fantastic job! A really wild funny way to look back at this classic episode! The b-plot is also a huge favorite of mine! This episode will definitely always be one of the all time favorites from this show!
My main takeaway from this episode has always been “pick your battles”. I was very like frank grimes as a kid, very much a stickler for the rules and would get personally upset whenever anything unfair happened - I would tie myself in knots trying to correct it when nobody around me cared. And I learned pretty early that the harder you push in those situations the more people ignore or just get mad at you over it. Like, it feels very “Reddit edgelord” to say, but things aren’t always fair, some people are just more likeable and charismatic or even just lucky, and sometimes they don’t even have to try to gain the benefit of the doubt, you’re best to just focus on being a nice person and not worrying about what is and isn’t fair.
Heck, for all the hell he’s been put through the simple fact Grimes has had all these opportunities just fall into his lap is, in its own way, not that different to how he sees Homer. For all his misfortune, he’s had his fair share of luck as well, he just refuses to acknowledge it.
I'm glad you're talking more in depth about good old Grimes
Given the experimential nature of an alternate take on Cape Feare in the latest Treehouse of Horror I would love to see an alternate take of Homer's Enemy where Frank lives and see how he connects with his son Jr.
I have a pretty similar take on this episode to that shared in the end. I think it's actually a much more optimistic episode than people give it credit for. Sure, Homer's flaws are played up for comedic effect, but at it's heart it's an episode about how Homer's friends and family love and accept him for who he is despite those flaws, and Grimes is the weird one out for not accepting that.
Frank Grimes is honestly the only Simpson character I’ve pitied more than anyone else in Simpsons, at least off the top of my head.
Ol' Gil for me, he was so consistently beaten up over the years.
"The wolf is at Ol' Gils door!"
@@LordBathtub I think the episode where he lived with the Simpsons and took advantage of them killed my pity for Ol' Gil. :D
@shorewall I haven't watched pretty much anything past season 9 so if it's later than that I haven't seen it. I always remember him from Simpsons Hit and Run being so downtrodden and knackered by the world 😂
Gil is symbolic of post-Frank Grimes *Simpsons.* Way over the hill and still trying to get back what once was.
I own no DVDs after season 12 other than having the movie on Blu-ray. That status will never change.
I waited a decade for you to cover Homer's Enemy in a more long form format, and the end result did not disappoint. Thank you!
Homer's Enemy says a lot about society
Yeah, mainly that we get what we put up with.
I was always on the boat of Frank being responsible for his own fate. He could've just moved on from Homers success and focused on his own work. But instead, he tried to ruin Homer out of spite.
Frank Grimes will go down as the most normal person in the Simpsons Universe ❤😂😂😅
As soon as you framed the question I shouted "Lenny!" Love the framing of that take. Also, that Swartwelder interview from a few years ago was such a joy. I couldn't believe 20 years after the commentaries (cameo aside) I was finally getting answers straight from the horse's mouth. Bless that man
With my clues I gathered I'm betting it was Bumblebee Man.
lol that scene was brilliant.
i doubt it would have changed anything Grimy thought of Homer but when Grimy was listing all homer's "sucsess" afterwards marge could have gone after him and pointed out Homers many many "accidents" and subsequent pain killer addiction/ the "masion" having more than 1 mortage or any of the other unseen problems the family have