By: Matt ErnColumnist

The Simpsons- “The Day the Earth Stood Cool”
B
As someone who watched a lot of “The Simpsons” when they were younger and since cooled off on the show, watching a new episode for the first time in years was like visiting an old friend. And sure the show is showing its age, but it’s still finding ways to stay relevant, such as a pseudo-crossover episode with “Portlandia.”
Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein guest star as the cool new neighbors/parents in Springfield, essentially playing “Portlandia” characters (they’re even from Portland). Throw in the fact that their douchey hipster son is voiced by Patton Oswalt and you have a recipe for a pretty-okay episode of television right off the bat.
The amazing thing about the premise of this episode is that it’s been done to death, and yet “The Simpsons” finds a way to pack it with some pretty stellar jokes and gags. Virtually every sitcom does an episode about trying to impress cool new neighbors, and hipster jokes are incredibly easy and overdone these days. But comparing Flanders to a whimsical dad in a Wes Anderson movie and seeing Disco Stu dressed up like Daft Punk showed a little originality I found refreshing as far as poking fun of hipster/indie culture is concerned. Yes, the writers went for the easy jokes about vinyls and organic food, but seeing hipsters drawn to a crappy dive bar like Moes and drink Duff Blue Ribbon was pretty funny too.
Perhaps the best joke of the episode was the way Brownstein’s character had to explain to Marge what “The Onion” was, which prompts Marge to laugh at the “fake movie reviews” in the AV Club because they’re so mean (they gave “The Graduate” and “The Wizard of Oz” an F and a D+ respectively). As someone who regularly reads and enjoys the AV Club’s reviews, I got a huge kick out of this.
No, this wasn’t a classic episode of the “The Simpsons” but it certainly was a solid half-hour of TV, which is all you can really ask for sometimes.

Parks and Recreation- “Ron and Diane”
A
“Ron and Diane” represents “Parks” at its best. Like most shows in its fifth season, episodes that feel like instant classics have become rarer and rarer as it gets harder to balance the laugh out loud funny and sentimentality that was the hallmark of the show’s second and third seasons.
When Ron is selected to be honored at the Woodworking Association’s awards dinner, Leslie is excited for him and demands to come along so that she can finally meet Diane. When Tammy II shows up at the dinner Leslie fears the worst and switches into damage control mode. But Diane is more threatened by Leslie and Ron’s close friendship than Tammy’s increasingly bizarre attempts to seduce Ron.
This leads to a really touching scene in which Ron shows Diane just how much he cares about her, not through any sort of moving speech (which would have been totally unbecoming of Ron Swanson) but by taking her to see him perform as Duke Silver. It’s a sweet moment that shows how much Ron really loves this woman, enough to let her in on his most personal secret, one that not even Leslie knows about. April knows, but her relationship with Ron has always been a father/daughter one, which speaks to how close he’s been getting with Diane. It’s a great moment of character development for Ron.
Chris has also grown up a lot this season; he’s eating food with fat in it and not freaking out at finding gray hairs at Jerry’s Christmas party. The Jerry storyline is pretty touching too; April, Andy and Tom realize that they’ve been a little cruel to Jerry over the past year and eventually do something nice for him. It also fleshes out the idea that Jerry’s home life is infinitely better than his work life, which makes us not feel so bad about laughing at the fact that April once switched Jerry’s soup out for a bowl of glue. It’s okay to laugh at his office flubs when we know he has a hot wife and loving daughters at home.
And for an episode that Andy doesn’t have much to do with, Chris Pratt’s delivery of “Ann? I didn’t even know she knew Jerry!” got more laughs out of me than anything “Parks” has done all season.

Homeland- “In Memoriam”
B
And so goes Abu Nazir, “Homeland’s” principal villain for the past two seasons. Even though he got a lot more screen time this season, I don’t feel like he’s become any more developed. He was a fully realized character last year, and having him on the ground and directly involved in the terrorist plot this time around didn’t really do anything extra for me. In fact, his death actually left me feeling quite hollow, a sort of “that’s it?” question going through my head.
This wasn’t the sort of hate to see them go death of a great villain like Gus Fring on “Breaking Bad.” Most villains on television shows don’t stick around forever; few more than a couple seasons, so it was obvious that Nazir’s days were numbered. But when most villains leave, like Gus, you hope they get a proper sendoff that makes their death worthwhile. I didn’t have that sense with Nazir, who is discovered by Carrie to still be hiding out in the tunnels from last week.
It’s clear that “In Memoriam” is really just setting up the finale, in which Quinn is now free to carry out his assassination of Brody with Nazir out of the picture. Estes’ new role as an antagonist is still sitting weird with me. I understand his motives to have Brody assassinated since the man is (or was) a terrorist. But seeing him dismiss Saul and threaten him was very hard to watch. Estes has always been painted in a light that indicated he might be capable of something like this, but it’s still a bit jarring to see his plan in action and to know that we’re now supposed to be rooting against him.
I’m feeling very ambivalent about next week’s finale; the big Estes/Quinn twist wasn’t all that big to me and pales in comparison to all the back and forth we got last year with Walker. Not that I think the show should still be chasing Nazir around for a third season (I recognize this was probably the best time for him to go) but I wish the climax to the season wasn’t going to be this hit on Brody. It’s just not grabbing me the way last year did.