I agree, though the ending seemed a little schmaltzy for me. I especially enjoyed Homer's sharing of "the birds and bees" with Bart, and how it spread. A great start to the season. These people seemed like a REAL family again, like the glory days.
Funny episode, I loved the spread of the birds and the bees (so true, isn't it?) but I do get annoyed these days with episodes that feature Lisa's overly heightened morality and/or political awareness and unfortunately they seem to have been doing a lot of these episodes in the past few years.
I just can't say I have enjoyed the way Lisa's character has "Evolved" over the years. When the show first started, Lisa was a bit more intelligent and erudite than the rest of the family, but at the end of the day, she was still a Simpson who enjoyed the antics of the family instead of being humiliated by them all the time. She even had occiasional episodes of Simpson obnoxiousness of her own. But now as I said she usually seems to want to distance herself from the rest of the family (with the exception of Marge), she is about 2 steps away from total estraingment from Homer. She's not a Vegitarian, Buddhist, Envrionmentalist etc. and her angst of being a Simpson gets a bit grating after awhile.
Wow! I figured I'd come into this thread and read a ton of hatred for this episode. I really didn't like it at all. It seemed like they ripped off so many past episodes that it lost it's 'uniqueness'.
But I guess (as South Park alluded to), The Simpsons have done pretty much everything, so I guess they kind of have to repeat themselves.
I guess the funniest part for me was when Homer pictured living next to himself and he had Separate Ways (by Journey) cranked.