User blog:AustinDR/Friend or Faux: My Thoughts

"Friend or Faux?" It was a pretty good Lisa episode. Going into it, I wasn't expecting much. As many of you know, I don't really like Lisa; I consider her boring, pointless, and downright creepy at times. With that being said, this was a pleasant surprise. In the episode, Lisa receives her first report card. Everything seems to be in order, until her eyes catch an "F" on social skills. Lisa's teacher strikes up a deal with her saying that she'd bump up Lisa's grade if she were to make a friend. Knowing Lisa, she has extreme difficulty with the aspect of making a "human" friend. After some investigation, Lisa befriends a young girl named Darcy. Darcy slowly begins to see her as a friend, at least until she realizes that Lisa was using her from the beginning. And thus, Lisa is the titular faux friend of the episode.

For starters, Darcy was actually a pretty good character. Her voice was adorable, as well as how she tried to get a basic understanding with Lisa's interests, but she misinterprets them several times, such as taking her words seriously. And then when Darcy realizes the truth, you actually do feel sorry for her, and probably reach out to give the poor girl a hug. Of course, everything's back on track when even though she knew that Lisa used her, Darcy still wants to be friends with her, and gives her half of her cookie. Really, it's how she bounces off Lisa's personality that makes her an endearing character. So much so, that she's one of the few minor characters I want to see in a few more episodes.

Lisa herself was also a surprise in this episode. I was really convinced that I wasn't going to like her more than I already did (which is minimal), but in this episode, she is actually kind of relatable. When the series first began, I had formulated a theory behind Lisa where I believed that she most likely had Asperger's. She has a few primary symptoms of it such as her intelligence, her monotonous tone of voice, and how she has no social skills, or she's not really the most sociable of people. While I'm not saying that the theory is true, it actually made me feel as though I could relate to Lisa here. Having Asperger's myself, I always had difficulty with forming relationships with others. Really, much like Lisa, I didn't really see that much of a point to having friends. I was primarily motivated by what entertained me, or what I could benefit from. Even when I do find some people I could call "friends," I still feel distant from them. Sometimes, it would get to a point that I would even forget their names if I hadn't seen them in years. Even if I called them "friends," I just never really saw a real point with being involved with them. They didn't share any of my interests after all. So in short, I could actually see where Lisa was coming from in this episode. However, my overall opinion on her remains unchanged. Well, with her realizing her mistake and actually befriending Darcy is great, but one episode doesn't automatically change my core feelings about a character.

Anyway, that was "Friend or Faux." On the score for this episode, I'd say I'd give this a 5 out of 5 stars according to my grading system.