Wow, the first five minutes of this show were PAINFUL! That alleged musical number nearly turned me off of this episode, but I'm glad I stuck with it.
It's official, Principal Lewis is the breakout star of the season for me. It's almost as if they knew that Roger was getting overexposed, so they wanted to give the spotlight to someone else. The letter to the math teacher had me in stitches.
Principal Lewis: Ok, then! Y'all gonna get cut! AAH! My Hip-Hop Hooray arm! Barry: Hahaha, they only fired 87! I knew there was one left! Principal Lewis: Why, Rain Kid? Barry: Never touch a fat kid's candy!
In fairness, the opening musical number was pretty faithful to the source, which is also horrible. I did like Roger's it descended into gibberish and I'll have no part of it.
I echo the enjoyment of Principle Lewis' bad Lieutenant-esque character.
The Stan / Fran plot was OK up until they bricked up the divide at which point it became meh.
Pretty solid episode overall. The musical number killed my ears, but I loved their interaction with Greg and Terry. And Stan talking to the newspaper. The b-plot was fine, too.
Anything with Stan and the boys this season has been great. Principal Lewis is just incredible. I am a little bored with Stan and Francine's breaking up all the time, but following Homer/Marge and Peter/Lois will have that affect on a show, I guess.
I was thinking the same thing after watching this. And kudos to Michael for sticking with Pam in Sales. I was thinking he would just have her back as a receptionist but it showed Michael's loyalty to the only person who left DM to be with him.