Whitey Bulger made a cameo in the all-Boston episode of ‘The Simpsons’
The notorious mobster has an unexpected appearance.
In “The Town,” the all-Boston episode of The Simpsons that aired Sunday, Homer Simpson’s hatred of Boston begins with the “cheating” ways of its local football team. But he learns to appreciate Boston from a very surprising source: Whitey Bulger.
Homer and Bart try out candlepin bowling for the first time, and Homer appreciates how the lighter ball doesn’t give him the usual pain in his “knees, back, wrist, shoulder, neck, and chest” that regular bowling balls do. But after two throws leave him one pin short, he’s ready to call it quits. That is, until the owner of Bulger’s Bowl-O-Rama, Whitey Bulger, tells him you get three balls in candlepin bowling. Homer’s third ball (which he uses to knock over the final pin) becomes an ongoing metaphor for Homer’s newfound love of the city.
Bart, Homer, and Whitey Bulger in “The Town.”
In an ironic twist, Bart spends the entire episode looking for his own crew of Irish hoodlums to run with, before eventually deciding that he dislikes Boston because it’s nothing like The Departed, a film loosely based on Bulger and crooked FBI agent John Connolly. (“This place is all PC brainiacs and Subaru owners wearing fleece vests! It’s nothing at all like The Departed!” Bart laments.) If only he had hung around the bowling alley a bit longer, things might have been different.
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