The Kid Is All Right

"The Kid Is All Right" is the sixth episode of season 25 which aired on November 24, 2013. It guest starred Eva Longoria as Isabel Gutierrez and Anderson Cooper as.

Synopsis

 * "Isabel Gutierrez, a new student at Springfield Elementary, causes a stir when she ends up running against Lisa in the second-grade debate, where Lisa discovers Isabel is a Republican. Lisa's views on Republicans are mixed and tries to make her mind up, whilst Isabel is being hounded to partake in a future presidency campaign by the Springfield Republican Party."

Production
In June 2013, artwork of Isabel was released. This artwork portrayed Isabel with a lighter skin color than the final version.

Reception
This episode gained 2.7 million viewers from the previous week's episode "Labor Pains", gathering 6.78 million viewers, and a 3.0 million demographic rating.

The episode has received positive reviews. The A.V Club awarded the episode a B- rating and, although critical of the show's lack of humor and Longoria's voice-work, concluded, "the episode seems content to let Lisa learn (and teach) a lesson in plain old Lisa Simpson decency [...] As ever, Yeardley Smith imbues Lisa with genuine heart. Taking time out from its seemingly accelerating descent into gag-driven wackiness, The Simpsons taking an episode to engage in more character-based storytelling isn’t necessarily a bad thing." Den of Geek were also positive. They praised the episode's concept of debating the Democrats vs Republicans discussion in a fair light and enjoyed the brief return of Mr. Bergstrom. They ultimately gave the episode a 3.5/5 star rating. We Got This Covered lauded the episode. "Under different circumstances, I might begin by complaining about how The Simpsons is putting a lot of time and effort into making some overly complex title sequences and not investing as much time in doing if not original storytelling, at least comedic storytelling," their review reads, "However, it’s a pleasure to say that this week, the show had all the bases covered. Episode writer Tim Long kept a pretty tight focus on the main story, which was a fairly smart and even-handed political satire that trumpets the grand quality of bi-partisanship."

Fan reaction was mixed. On No Homers, a fan forum dedicated to Simpsons discussion, the episode received a 3/5 majority poll rating. While some fans praised the episode as Tim Long's best, others were critical of the episode's plot and labelled it one of the weaker political-themed episodes of the show's history.