Sometimes the political commentary in episodes of the Simpsons TV cartoon show is fairly sharp. Not so with tonight's 20th season finale episode written by Brendan Hay called "Coming to Homerica", which wasn't more than a hamfisted harangue in support of illegal immigration. It featured Norwegians (i.e., Mexicans) from Ogdenville who emigrated en masse to Springfield and ended up doing jobs such as roofing. Homer, Bart, and even Marge were presented more as oafs than usual, blaming the "Norwegians" for incidents they caused themselves. Eventually the town decided to do something and stationed Chief Wiggum on the border. When that didn't work, they used "vigilantes", with the minor characters depicted as yahoos and an attempt to imply that they were KKK or Nazis. When that didn't work, they built a wall complete with barbed wire. After the wall was completed - with labor provided by the Norwegians - everyone had second thoughts and the Norwegians came through a door in the wall and everyone had a big party.

Perhaps this wasn't just hamfisted propaganda in support of massive immigration, and perhaps Brendan Hay was actually satirizing the position of open borders advocates. However, considering that most of the sight gags and the other comedy wasn't up to the standards of previous shows, I'm pretty sure he was actually serious.

If the Simpsons want to do a non-superficial episode about this issue, they could, for instance, feature Montgomery Burns buying KBBL and then using it to broadcast misleading reports about immigration in order to help "Burns Bank" profit from the money sent home to "Norway". It would feature Mayor Quimby constantly lying and misleading about the issue because he receives donations from barley growers. It would feature the moral hazard of the City of Springfield trying to profit from money that was earned illegally. It would feature "humanitarians" in effect encouraging people to cross the Ogdenville desert, with some dying along the way. It would feature the leaders of Ogdenville obtaining political power inside Springfield which they used to enable further immigration and in order to keep bringing in the money sent home to Ogdenville. And, much, much more.

An episode that looked at this issue in a realistic way could be fairly powerful. The problem, of course, is that it would never get made because there's too much money at stake. Brendan Hay is simply a hack, serving the interests of corrupt politicians, corrupt businesses, and corrupt governments whether he knows it or not.