It’s deceptively simple. At the end of “Bart the Mother”, Bart understands his mom a little better after being a surrogate caregiver to some “kids” of his own. And Marge has her belief in the essential goodness of her “special little guy” rekindled when she sees his efforts to protect them, the same way she tries to protect him. By the time the credits roll, a mother and her son have been broken apart and fused back together, stronger and closer than ever.

There’s something a little T.G.I.F. about that. But as I discussed on The Simpsons Show Podcast, what separates this episode from its Miller-Boyett counterparts are the three things that always elevated The Simpsons above its contemporaries: smart storytelling, a keen understanding of its characters, and even in shaky Season 10, superb comedy that could still bring the laughs.

“Bart the Mother” uses these tools to examine the question of whether or not Bart is, deep down, a good kid. It puts him between two contrasting figures. In one corner there is Marge, someone whose intuitions he mocks early in the episode and whom he views as a wet blanket. Bart doesn’t like being told what to do by his mother or anyone. He finds her rules and restrictions oppressive, and he wants to be able to do what he wants, when he wants, without any maternal figures boxing him in.

In the other corner is Nelson Muntz, Bart’s rough and tumble schoolmate whom he sees as living the ideal life. Nelson lives in a house with absentee parents and thus one without rules, where he can go wherever he wants, hangout with whomever he wants, and do whatever he wants. He can use his (non-butterfinger) B.B. gun, carve messages into walls, and pressure his friends and acquaintances into whatever bad behavior he might like to see.

In that, “Bart the Mother” often feels like a non-yuletide redo of “Marge Be Not Proud.” When Bart remarks that Nelson is “so lucky” since his mom doesn’t care about his choices, it has shades of Bart looking at a rude boy angrily ordering his mom to buy him a video game and declaring that he must be “the happiest kid on Earth.” When Marge discovers that Bart “murdered a helpless animal” and decides he’s beyond punishment, it hits the same notes as her discovering that he shoplifted and deciding that he’s not her little baby anymore. And in both episodes, Marge has her faith restored when Bart’s furtive activities turn out to be concealing an act of kindness rather than more bad behavior.

But where the episodes differ is in their focus. While “Marge Be Not Proud” is about Bart learning to appreciate his mom’s dorky brand of love, “Bart the Mother” is about him understanding her better as a person, about the effort and toll of caring for someone, and about learning what it is to love something that everyone else thinks is bad news after he experiences that for himself in miniature.

That’s where the deft storytelling comes in. “Bart the Mother” follows The Simpsons’s usual three act structure, with each act building to some reversal or moment of catharsis. Act 1 sees Bart rebelling against his mom and palling around with Nelson, only to have his efforts end with a dead bird, a sense of guilt and regret, and the realization that mothers put certain rules in place for a reason.

Act 2 takes things from estrangement and reunion with Marge and Bart. When Bart tries to make good on his misdeeds by caring for the eggs of the deceased mother bird, he gets an eventual assist from Marge, who knows a thing or two about taking care of helpless young things. But the act ends in the twist that what Bart’s been protecting weren’t baby birds, but rather little egg-eating lizards that were deposited in their place.

Finally, Act 3 sees the family running afoul of Springfield’s local birdwatching group, anxious to eliminate Bart’s scaly babies. It ends with Bart’s efforts to protect them despite a mob who sees them as no good, something that both brings him closer to Marge and creates the opportunity for a daring escape.

It’s the kind of narrative build, alongside committed character development, that writer David X. (née S.) Cohen would later bring to Futurama, the series he co-created with Simpsons head honcho Matt Groening. There’s a clear progression in the story, from Bart’s friction with his mom leading to a big, regrettable choice, to his efforts to make up for his mistakes leaving him with a pair of lizards, to a race to identify, protect, and eventually free the little reptiles.

That’s matched with a progression in the characters’ emotional states. Bart starts out disdainful of his mom and cherishing his independence, ends up being wracked with guilt and glad for his mom’s help, and ends up acting like a mom himself. At the same time, Marge worries about her son, throws up her hands (however fleetingly) with the impression that nothing can be done, only to discover that she’s raised a kind-hearted boy who errs but also loves and tries to make good.

It all hangs together beautifully, but it might have come off too saccharine if there weren’t so many laughs in this one. Some of the humor comes from the main plot itself. There’s some of that cutting, but hilarious Simpsons cynicism when Marge declares that Nelson is a “troubled, lonely, sad little boy” and thus must be “isolated from everyone.” The show shows off its usual creativity with a dream sequence involving bird judges and a (sadly final) amusing educational video from Troy McClure. And Marge’s blithe “in the way” distraction has a funny “kill ‘em with kindness” faux-obliviousness that brings the laughs.

Homer is also in rare form here. This is definitely the part of the show where Homer gets dumber and more prone to slapstick gags by the second, but The Simpsons still knew how to wring all the chuckles they could from him as pure comic relief. In terms of physical comedy, while Homer’s incident at the batting cages proves a bit too much, his multiple falls down the basement stairs uses the “rule of three” to perfection, and him shaking off water is peak Homer-as-dog humor.

The episode also makes good on Homer’s childlike simpleness, whether he’s taking joy in go-karts despite complaining about driving a real car, remarking about the time that Halley’s Comet collided with the moon, or simply enjoying the scent of loganberry. And the episode does a great job of riffing on Homer as an inept parent, as he “punishes” Lisa by sending her on a beer run, and reminisces that the time “just flew by” during Marge’s 53-hour labor. Homer’s not much more than a source of laughs in this one, but they’re damn good laughs.

The only major problems in “Bart the Mother” come in the last minute or so, where the epilogue falls a bit flat. The show handwaves the fact that The Simpsons unleashed a blight of lizards unto Springfield by having Skinner mention a (McClure-esque) food chain that goes pidgeon-lizard-snake-gorilla and then ends in frozen death. That feels like too tidy of a write-off, and a little flippant. The Simpsons has always been a cynical show, and the town shortsightedly delighting in the lizards’ pigeon massacre is in line with that, but the grisly train of consumption presaged to come next seems more like the slightly harsher universe of Futurama than something right for Springfield.

At the same time, Lisa notes that this whole escapade began with Bart feeling guilty for killing one bird, but that now he’s totally fine with being indirectly responsible for killing thousands of them. That could be one of those sharp and amusing Simpsons observations about how morality is, in practice, much more personal than it is logical. But instead show waves that notion away in a fashion that seems to say “we acknowledge this as a flaw in Bart’s motivation, but we don’t really care.” And hey, that’s fine! But maybe don’t draw attention to it.

Still, aside from that sour note to close the episode, and a couple of Homer gags that go a bit too far, “Bart the Mother” is a gem in the last gasps of The Simpsons’s golden years, if for no other reason than the way the humor and the heart of the episode are rooted in who these characters are, and who they cannot help but be.

Bart wants to be a “hoodlum” like Nelson, running around without rules and acting without consequences. But when those consequences are unavoidable, he feels them, and they spur him to make up for his mistakes and show devoted love and affection to his unexpected reptilian nestlings.

Marge tries to give up, just a little bit, to give Bart the tough love she thinks he needs. But in the end, she cannot help but try to mind and monitor him, and discovers that despite her concerns, she has genuinely raised a special little guy, who’s good at heart and able to love something unconditionally, like she loves him.

The synchronicity of those arcs, the build of the story that supports them, and the great jokes the show packs in along the way make “Bart the Mother” a winner. It’s the type of story — of a growing understanding and reassurance between mother and son founded on something as weird as unexpectedly rearing a pair of lizards — that only The Simpsons could pull off.

Marge and Bart are not much alike. One is a caring, but square housewife, and the other is a well-meaning but irrepressible hellraiser. But in a pinch, when something he loves is threatened, there’s a bit of Marge’s ability to unreservedly care about something in Bart, and when her special little guy needs her help, there’s a bit of Bart’s troublemaking ingenuity in Marge. “Bart the Mother” digs into that rare overlap, and gives The Simpsons one of its last, great episodes in the twilight of its golden era.

Odds and Ends

- There’s a sad, underplayed sort of humor with Nelson here, where he delights in the notion of a hot meal, notes that his dad needs bail money, and cheers at the prospect of Marge taking him to a real home. It’s dark, but also tinged with social commentary that makes it work.

- There’s some great turns of phrase in this one, from Kent Brockman calling pigeons “chattering disease bags” to Mayor Quimby rewarding Bart for making Springfield a “less oppressive place to wile away our worthless lives.”

- Another great use of language comes when Bart is talking to the eggs and tells them that their mother was involved in “an incident [where] mistakes were made…by me.” It’s a nice, verbal way of showing Bart internally trying to shift blame but quickly realizing it’s all on him.

- That same idea is echoed by Marge’s line, “I don’t know and I don’t wanna know…and I’m going to find out!” Neither Bart nor Marge is capable of resisting their true natures.

- Like Homer at the batting cages, Milhouse nearly dying in a go-kart explosion is a little too much on the cartooniness/slapstick scale as well.

- I love the fact that one of the prizes at the family fun center is an ice cube — the perfect, absurdly pittling reward.

- Bart championing his independence and then blanching at inchworms is a delightful Simpsons reversal.

- This episode does a nice job of having Bart do a bad thing while keeping us on his side. He first tries to avoid the bird-shooting altogether, only giving in when pressured heavily by Nelson. Then he intentionally tries to miss and looks crestfallen when he succeeds. It’s good writing to move the plot toward a terrible act while also letting the audience feel for Bart.

- One of the things that keeps the comedy humming here is that the episode makes good use of a variety of townspeople in small doses. Monty telling Skinner to “kill the horrid beasts…and then do away with their lizards” is classic Mr. Burns.

- If only all of life’s problems could be solved with kickboxing. Maybe someday, Homer. Maybe someday.