Lisa the Drama Queen

"Lisa the Drama Queen" is the ninth episode of season 20. It originally aired on January 25, 2009. It was written by Brian Kelley and directed by Matthew Nastuk. Emily Blunt guest-starred as Juliet Hobbes. The band Fall Out Boy played the credits.

Plot
Homer takes Bart and Lisa to the Springfield Recreation Center for "fun activities". Whilst Bart takes part in a Shaolin Kung Fu class, Lisa takes part in an art class where she meets the imaginative Juliet Hobbes. When Juliet didn't do the class's task and instead painted a fantasy piece, the teacher complained about her work, but Lisa backed her up. Lisa and Juliet then went outside to play.

Outside, Lisa and Juliet realize they have things in common and become fast friends, both liking. Lisa then prepares for a playdate with Juliet, buying candy for it. She goes to Juliet's school, Tuition Academy, and from there Lisa and Juliet go to the Springfield Folk Art Museum. Back at the Simpson house, Juliet stays the night and asks Lisa if she wants to be best friends, and Lisa says yes.

The next day, Lisa and Juliet are writing a fantasy book about Equalia together. They then go and hang out together, making paper models of all the characters in the book. The Simpson family then goes to meet Juliet's parents for dinner at their house. Juliet's father angers her, causing her to storm out the house. Lisa follows her where together they start to imagine that they're in the world of Equalia.

Juliet and Lisa keep working on their fantasy book, which leads to Lisa doing worse in school as she's beginning to live more and more in Equalia than the real world. When Marge tells Lisa that she has to stop seeing Juliet as much, Lisa tries to sneak out the house but Marge stops her. After school the next day, Juliet and Lisa decide to run off together. They decide to live in a rundown restaurant, Clam-Elot Sea-Food, which is designed like a castle. When Lisa's parents find out that she's missing, they try to look for her and Juliet.

In Clam-Elot, Jimbo, Dolph and Kearney enter. They lock Lisa and Juliet up in lobster cages and whilst Jimbo and Dolph are out, Lisa and Juliet tell Kearney their story of Equalia, and Kearney becomes obsessed. When Jimbo and Dolph come back, Kearney fights them, for Equalia, and Lisa and Juliet escape. Outside, Lisa tells Juliet that she doesn't want to go to Equalia any more and wants to live in the real world. Upset at this, Juliet leaves Lisa and Lisa calls Juliet crazy.

Two months later, Lisa receives a publisher's rejection letter after attempting to get her "Equalia" book published, but she inspires Homer to create his own fantasy world (which goes no further than him re-imagining the family in forms more pleasing to him—Bart is a hot dog, Lisa is a starfish, Marge is a bottle of Duff Beer, and Maggie is a monster truck).

Production
This was the last episode in the series to be produced in in.

Reception
In its original airing, "Lisa the Drama Queen" had just 5.75 million viewers, at the time an all time low for the show. As of December 2017, the episode has a rating of 5.9 on and a 6.3 rating on.