Overall pretty good. Certainly nice to see Homer being competent and thoughtful and still resulting in comedy. I liked both plots. (The involvement of Lovejoy in restoring the train was a nice touch.) I didn't know till tonight that Seth MacFarlane was going to be guest starring - so I guess the demonstration of no bad blood continues (interestingly, I spied Hank Azaria's name in some Family Guy credits tonight, though I think that's not a first). I noticed that he did a voice unlike those he usually tends to do, though his singing voice and Stewie-esque voice did creep in. The only thing that bugged me was the way the tech worked - the inclusion of speech on the cheating website somewhat and certainly the way Ben's vision worked in the webcam window (looking up into the corner where Marge was, seeing Homer's photo, and especially peeking around the other window when it covered his). Oh well.
DYN: ...Patty pronounces Mozart without the "tz" sound (moes-art)?
Previous episode stuff 4F17: The train (and apparently inspiration for her name) is called Li'l Lisa (EABF18: Connecting Bart with San Francisco's BART) 3F05: Imagining of fat Homer with a cleaning stick, like Bart imagining fat Bart with "a rag on a stick"
Meta -Marge is a fan of animation -Marge returns a message from Convict RABF17 (see also RABF14 earlier tonight) -"Finally, a reason to watch TV on Sundays" (says Seth MacFarlane, for good measure) -Homer's suggestion that he's singing a song because it's in the public domain might count -"You think we'll last 25 years?" "Nothing should!" (with a painfully self-aware glance at the viewer)
No act 4 Unless you count a 23-second head start on the credits (given that the Executive Producers showed up at the beginning of that segment, this feels more like an extended credits sequence). See my notes on RABF14 earlier tonight. If there is a return to a 3-act format I'll be cool with that, as long as the credits don't get lost in the shuffle.
(The silly clouds-and-couch-and-no-TV opening we've been getting several times lately, on the other hand...)
Couch gag So, weren't we supposed to get a fan-suggested couch gag for the season finale or something? Was this it? Or was it attached to RABF15 (originally scheduled to be the finale) and going to be used whenever that runs (air season 25 premiere maybe)?