At Long Last Leave
The Simpsons are evicted from Springfield and settle in the Outlands.
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"At Long Last Leave" is the fourteenth episode of the twenty-third season of The Simpsons and the 500th episode overall. It first aired on February 19, 2012, on the Fox network in the United States. The episode was written by Michael Price, who did not originally intend it for the milestone.
Plot
The Simpson family is told to stay in their basement for three hours during a citywide nuclear safety drill. Bored, they leave and explore the empty city, noticing many cars at City Hall. Inside, they find a secret town meeting where everyone has voted unanimously to evict them from Springfield forever. Mayor Quimby explains the city went bankrupt cleaning up after the family's antics.
Marge pleads to stay, but Quimby calls her the "worst Simpson. The townspeople celebrate the eviction; Ned and his family do not attend. The Simpsons drive into the wilderness and are taken to a lawless area called the Outlands. There they settle and meet their neighbor Julian Assange, who runs the WikiLeaks Headquarters.
Production
Michael Price wrote "At Long Last Leave" and titled it after the Cole Porter song "At Long Last Love." He did not write it as the 500th episode; the staff later chose it for the milestone because the story allowed a look back at the family's history. Price said he was "deeply honored" by the selection. The plot shares similarities with The Simpsons Movie, where the family flees to Alaska after Homer pollutes a lake. Price acknowledged the resemblance but noted the episode references the entire history of the show, unlike the movie's specific incident.
The staff liked the story enough to proceed. The plot was announced at San Diego Comic-Con on July 23, 2011. Guest stars include Kelsey Grammer as Sideshow Bob and Jackie Mason as Rabbi Krustofski. Alison Krauss and Union Station recorded a bluegrass version of the Simpsons theme for the episode and closing credits.
Promotion
Fox promoted the 500th episode by attempting to break the Guinness World Record for longest continuous television viewing. A marathon of Simpsons episodes was held at Hollywood & Highland starting February 8, 2012, with one hundred fans.
The previous record of 86 hours, 6 minutes, and 41 seconds was set in 2010 by viewers of the show 24. The marathon ended on February 12, 2012, after 86 hours and 37 minutes, breaking the record. The two remaining viewers, Jeremiah Franco and Carin Shreve, each won US$10,500 and attended the 500th Episode Celebration party on February 13, 2012.
Reception
The episode was watched by about 5.77 million people and received a 2.6 Nielsen rating among adults 18–49, a thirty percent increase from the previous episode. It was the most-watched broadcast in Fox's Animation Domination lineup that night and the second highest-rated among adults 18–49. Reviews were generally positive, especially for the couch gag in the opening sequence, which showed a frame-by-frame montage of previous couch gags pulling back into a photomosaic of the number "500."
Hayden Childs of The A.V. Club called the montage the best thing about the episode, hitting the nostalgia bullseye. Alan Sepinwall of HitFix praised the gag as marvelous and said it made him choke up; he found the story familiar but full of funny jokes. Tim Goodman of The Hollywood Reporter said he got a few laughs and liked knowing the show is still there, describing the couch gag as lovely. Matt Roush of TV Guide called the episode a keeper with a dazzling opening sequence, concluding that The Simpsons once again delivers the goods.
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Sources
Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.
- Wikipedia: At Long Last Leave (CC BY-SA 4.0).
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