Why ​‘Homer’s Ene­my’ is my favourite Simp­sons episode

By 1997 The Simp­sons was the biggest show on tele­vi­sion. The week­ly antics of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Mag­gie con­sis­tent­ly pro­vid­ed hilar­i­ous takes on the mod­ern fam­i­ly and drew in an audi­ence of mil­lions. By now the cre­ators had the free­dom to explore new direc­tions and intro­duce bold ideas and in sea­son eight direc­tor Jim Rear­don and writer John Swartzwelder intro­duced a char­ac­ter who shone a very dark and pes­simistic light upon Springfield.

Frank Grimes is a man who has expe­ri­enced hard­ships through­out his life. Aban­doned as a child, he didn’t go to school and was forced into work at a very young age. After being caught up in a freak acci­dent, Frank began to edu­cate him­self and even­tu­al­ly earned a degree in the advanced field of nuclear physics. After his heart­warm­ing sto­ry is fea­tured in a news seg­ment, Mr Burns recruits the down­trod­den Grimes and gives him a job at his pow­er plant, only to for­get about him with­in his first week.

Drawn to resem­ble Michael Dou­glas in the 1993 film Falling Down, Grimes does not suf­fer fools light­ly. Ini­tial­ly, he tries to coex­ist with Homer despite him eat­ing his spe­cial dietary lunch and ruin­ing his per­son­al­ly engraved pen­cils. Shocked by Homer’s igno­rance, self­ish­ness and brazen lack of pro­fes­sion­al­ism, Grimes con­fides in his co-work­ers, Lenny and Carl, only to find that they, like every­one else in Spring­field, take no issue with Homer and his obvi­ous flaws.

In the his­to­ry of The Simp­sons up to this point, this is the strongest cri­tique of Homer. Despite his incom­pe­tent, insen­si­tive and idi­ot­ic nature, Homer nev­er gets his come­up­pance: Marge nev­er leaves him when one of his hair-brained schemes goes wrong; Lisa still loves him no mat­ter how many times he lets her down; Ned Flan­ders con­stant­ly trusts him even though he is a ter­ri­ble neigh­bour; and Mr Burns nev­er sacks him because he sim­ply can­not remem­ber his name. All of these fac­tors, com­bined with his cushy, well-paid job, have allowed Homer to coast through life and reap the ben­e­fits. Frank is his polar oppo­site, a decent hard-work­ing man who has got noth­ing to show for his years of struggle.

An already edgy Frank hits his break­ing point after Homer acci­den­tal­ly caus­es Burns to demote him. In a state of rage, he admon­ish­es Homer and declares that the two are now ene­mies. A vis­i­bly shak­en Homer attempts to appease the sit­u­a­tion by invit­ing his unre­quit­ed neme­sis to din­ner but that does not go to plan. Upon arriv­ing at the Simp­son res­i­dence, Frank is over­whelmed by the size of their home and Homer’s var­i­ous life achieve­ments, from win­ning a Gram­my to trav­el­ling to out­er space and meet­ing Pres­i­dent Ger­ald Ford. He lam­basts Homer in front of his fam­i­ly and declares him every­thing that is wrong with America.

Hid­den in this very fun­ny obser­va­tion of the amaz­ing life that Homer leads is a damn­ing com­ment on late 20^th cen­tu­ry Amer­i­ca. A soci­ety in which the wealthy are shel­tered from the every­day con­cerns of those less for­tu­nate than them. In turn, those low­er down the social lad­der only become more dis­en­fran­chised when exposed to how the oth­er half live. Homer doesn’t mean to offend Frank but he can­not help be insult­ed by these ges­tures, which to him are a form of gloat­ing insin­cer­i­ty. Even a seem­ing­ly harm­less sub­plot which sees Bart acquire a derelict fac­to­ry feels like a jibe at Frank’s expense.

Hank Azaria, who voiced Frank, is said to have based the role on the actor William H Macy, who is best known for play­ing hard-work­ing char­ac­ters who just can’t catch a break. His per­for­mance con­veys the frus­tra­tion and anger that Macy often brings to his roles while exud­ing a lev­el of ener­gy and emo­tion unlike any­thing seen before on the show. In lat­er inter­views and on DVD com­men­taries, Azaria admit­ted that the role required the most effort, prepa­ra­tion and exe­cu­tion he had ever put into a sin­gle episode. His career-best per­for­mance paid div­i­dends as the episode is one of The Simp­sons’ very best.

While attempt­ing to expose Homer’s pro­found stu­pid­i­ty, Grimes meets his untime­ly, gris­ly demise. But rather than show him respect, Homer inad­ver­tent­ly gets the last laugh – much to every­one else’s amuse­ment. It’s a brave, down­beat end­ing that forces the view­er to ques­tion whether to rev­el in Homer’s bad man­ners or find sym­pa­thy for Frank. There’s a broad­er infer­ence here too: should we live our lives bliss­ful­ly unaware of the trou­bles around us or should we try to make the world a bet­ter place for everyone?