Things started with Homer preparing for his big, backyard Mardi Gras party. The party offered up a few gems. I liked the theme of the Simpson float: "super jet dinosaur fun monkeys." I also laughed hard after Moe's make-out session: Moe: "Man, you really are into me, huh?" Drunk Woman: "What are you, some kind of talking dog?" Moe: "Eh… sure." The party even helped reestablish the difficult relationship Homer has with his neighbor Ned Flanders. Not that this would really need reestablishing, but it's always good to get a quick reminder in case you haven't been paying attention for the last 20 years. With the party in full swing, Homer reluctantly invited Ned to join. And then at midnight, in the middle of the debauchery, Ned declared, "It's Ash Wednesday! Set down your gins and confess your sins." He was met with boos and bottles.
As the evening ended, Lenny asked Homer how he afforded such a lavish party every year. Homer explained that he had a magical thing called a home equity loan, so "the house gets stuck with the bill." This, of course, is not how that works, and Homer's adjustable rate mortgage was about to reset. Unable to pay the new monthly rate, the house went into foreclosure and was auctioned by the bank. It's hard to find comedy in a situation like this, especially with this being such a common occurrence in today's market. Things weren't helped by having Homer attempt to hang himself right in front of his kids. Sure, the tree fell over and crushed his car, but it's hard to laugh (animated or not) at a father trying to kill himself in front of his children.
Instead of losing their home, Ned bought it and let the Simpsons live as his tenants. As their landlord, Ned felt obligated to make home repairs and Homer and Marge took full advantage. But when Homer became dissatisfied with the way Ned was performing, he went to the local media to try and expose Ned has an evil, uncaring landlord. This would have been a fine, if expected, twist if it had been a bit funnier. Instead, it was a lot of Homer acting mean, which isn't the same (or as humorous) as Homer acting stupid. Plus Marge's reaction to the situation was a bit out of character. She's not the type to take advantage of Ned's kindness, so this had the episode not feeling quite right.
Eventually, Ned was able to evict the Simpsons. The family spent some time in an absolutely packed homeless shelter. Again, this was a little too real to be very funny, though I did like Bart's line about "kicking is the only toy I have." As Ned readied to rent to new tenants, he had a change of heart and invited the Simpsons back. This entire ending felt a bit tacked on, but I'm blaming that more on the structure of the episode than on the writing. Since switching to hi-def, The Simpsons have gone from having three acts, to four, with act four being relatively short. This breaks up the story too much and then the ending feels rushed. The worst part of last week's fantastic episode was the ending. And this week's quick change of heart did the story no favors. Weak episodes can be saved by a great ending, but "No Loan Again, Naturally" simply remained weak.