10 Worst Things Lisa Simpson Has Ever Done
Despite being the ‘good’ child in the family, Lisa’s done some pretty unforgivable things...
There aren’t many characters on The Simpsons whose stock has fallen farther than Lisa’s; you could argue there aren’t many on TV full stop. In the Golden Era, though she didn’t have the recognition of Homer or Bart, she was a crucial part of the show and a lot of people had her down as their favourite.
These days, you’ll struggle to find anyone still watching who feels the same. She’s been twisted and contorted into an antagonistic figure, one who often steps in as the bad guy to act as roadblock to Homer’s or, more frequently, Bart’s antics.
Similar to Brian in Family Guy, the show uses her as a liberal mouthpiece for their own views. While the gist does fit in with Lisa’s ideals, she rarely acts in character as an eight year old girl anymore. Season 30’s Lisa centric episodes The Girl On The Bus, Girl’s In The Band and D’oh Canada were amongst the season’s worst. Lisa’s Substitute they ain’t.
Though she wasn’t without sin when the show was at its peak, she’s so far removed from where she started that cutting her worst deeds down to just ten meant a lot of close calls missed out.
10. Ruining Homer’s BBQ
Lisa The Vegetarian marked a new but meaningful direction for the character. Similar to She Of Little Faith (but arguably done better), the episode gave her extra depth and nailed the fact that, while she can show moments of maturity, she’s still an eight-year-old girl at heart.
Some of the later entries here show how lousy and lazy the writing has gotten for Lisa; this instance is note-perfect but still has her very much in the wrong, so definitely qualifies.
In the episode, she commits to vegetarianism after visiting a petting zoo and realising she can’t eat lamb, or any animal anymore. In typical Simpsons fashion, she doesn’t receive a whole lot of sympathy from Bart or Homer, while the school isn’t very accommodating either.
It causes a massive rift between Lisa and her father, culminating in Lisa stealing his suckling pig to ruin his BBQ (Or BBBQ, technically). Homer chases the pig but fails to catch it, while Lisa runs off, fearing she’ll never be accepted as a veggie.
However, after meeting Paul & Linda McCartney with Apu, Lisa finds confidence and learns to accept other people’s choices, then reconciles with Homer sweetly.