A surprisingly dark episode where Mr. Burns, abandoned by everyone after a health scare, fakes his own death and lives in the Simpsons’ attic. It’s a bleak character study — Burns losing everything, even Smithers’ loyalty — and ends with a failed redemption. Not laugh-out-loud funny, but it showed the writers could still handle melancholy and moral complexity.
Yet even mediocre Season 22 episodes have a certain craft. The show never feels lazy; it feels experienced . Like a veteran band playing their hits with slight variations, occasionally veering into a deep cut that reminds you why they mattered. Critically, Season 22 was met with a shrug. Metacritic aggregates weren’t common for individual seasons then, but fan reception on forums like No Homers Club was mixed: some called it a mild improvement over Season 21; others dismissed it as more of the same. The IMDb episode ratings hover mostly between 6.5 and 7.5 — respectable for a show in its third decade. the simpsons season 22 dthrip
Notably, Season 22 did not win any Emmys (it was nominated for Outstanding Animated Program for “Treehouse of Horror XXI” but lost to South Park ’s “It’s a Jersey Thing”). Still, it was nominated for multiple Annie Awards, and voice actor won a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance for his work in the season. A surprisingly dark episode where Mr