Plot
Bart falls in love with Reverend Lovejoy's daughter, Jessica. However, when he approaches her, she ignores him. The next Sunday, Bart decides to attend Sunday school to try to convince Jessica that he is a good person, but she still ignores him. Frustrated, Bart goes to the park to play a prank on Groundskeeper Willie, and is punished with detention. Jessica approaches him to express sympathy and invites him to her house for dinner with her family.
During a formal dinner with the Lovejoys, Bart's crude mannerisms and language cause Reverend Lovejoy to forbid him from ever seeing Jessica again. However, Jessica realizes that Bart is a bad boy and tells Bart that she likes him. They begin secretly dating and causing mischief through the town. Bart quickly realizes that Jessica (an example of the preacher's kid stereotype) is even more badly behaved than he, and at the next church service, he tries to make her see the error of her ways. Although she seems to agree, Jessica immediately steals from the church collection plate before forcing it back upon the hapless Bart. The congregation mistakenly believes that Bart took the money when they see him with the empty plate. Bart attempts to explain, but they refuse to listen. Although Homer assumes Bart is guilty, Marge is willing to hear him out, but Bart claims he does not know who did it. The following day, Bart visits Jessica at her house, and admits that he does not like her after Jessica refuses to own up to the crime.
Upon finding out the truth, Lisa is determined not to allow her brother to take blame for something he did not do, and she tells the church congregation that Jessica is the guilty person. The townspeople then search Jessica's room, where the money is found under her bed. Rev. Lovejoy refuses to believe that his daughter is guilty until Jessica admits to him she did it to gain attention. She is punished by being forced to scrub the church steps, and Bart receives an apology from the congregation at Marge's insistence. Later, Bart approaches Jessica at church and tells her what he has learned, to which Jessica responds that she has learned that she can make boys do whatever she wants. Bart then agrees to finish Jessica's chores as she runs off with another boyfriend. However, as soon as she leaves, he snickers about how bad a job he is going to do on the steps to get back at her.
Read more about this topic: Bart's Girlfriend
Famous quotes containing the word plot:
“We have defined a story as a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence. A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality. “The king died and then the queen died” is a story. “The king died, and then the queen died of grief” is a plot. The time sequence is preserved, but the sense of causality overshadows it.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)
“If you need a certain vitality you can only supply it yourself, or there comes a point, anyway, when no one’s actions but your own seem dramatically convincing and justifiable in the plot that the number of your days concocts.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“Morality for the novelist is expressed not so much in the choice of subject matter as in the plot of the narrative, which is perhaps why in our morally bewildered time novelists have often been timid about plot.”
—Jane Rule (b. 1931)