Courtroom Gossip

Alternatively titled: Now Don't Be Breaking Ol' Gil's Heart Now!


You know you're in trouble when Lionel Hutz calls you an incompetent fool!

Okay, so! Time for the explanation behind this. I'll never not be sad about the retirement of Lionel Hutz's character, as is the case with many Simpsons fans. Don't get me wrong; I don't hold a grudge against the creators or anything. They did the right thing. The whole situation is just unfortunate.

So now Springfield is short by one lawyer, and they need a character to fill Lionel Hutz's place when the Simpsons need to hire a not-too-expensive lawyer. Gil Gunderson was selected for this role! Don't have anything against Gil; he's a great character, and I understand that they need someone to fill the role now. But the simple fact is that Gil can never live up to Lionel Hutz, and every time we have a scene where Gil is acting as a lawyer I get a bit sad because Hutz would definitely be in that role otherwise.

Here's what I think is really interesting though. We know Hutz as a hopeless lawyer, who is also hopeless in pretty much every other aspect of his life too. But wait! In Realty Bites, we get introduced to a whole other side of him, where he is leading a successful real estate business. In contrast with what we'd seen of him before this episode, Hutz is actually super competent and successful at this job!
But wait - it gets even better. None other than Gil is working there, with Hutz as his boss. Gil is still as hopeless as ever, while Hutz is super competent. And we see Hutz treat Gil with utter contempt. Gil even gets intimidated by and trampled all over by Lionel Hutz. And it made me think - what would Hutz think of Gil taking over his role when necessary? (My headcanon is that Hutz like. Moved out of Springfield and went somewhere else).

So now that we can safely say that Gil is less competent than Hutz, I'm also going to headcanon that Blue Haired Lawyer dislikes him even more than he dislikes Hutz - at least for the sake of this picture. (BHL probably honestly couldn't care less or may think of Gil as a welcome relief to Hutz's shenanigans and he can be easier to intimidate too, which is convenient).

Lionel Hutz and Blue-Haired Lawyer usually can't stand each other, but they're both united by their dislike and utter contempt for ol' Gil. I've drawn a rare scene where the two are actually getting along, and it's to trash-talk somebody! Headcanon that Blue-Haired Lawyer would much prefer, and misses having Lionel Hutz as the lawyer he goes up against instead of spineless old Gil.

And of course Gil overhears them because the poor guy just can't catch a break. Gosh, Gil is a great character. I read through his wiki page before uploading this (and watched some clips with him) and I just couldn't stop cracking up.

"What's wrong with ol' Gil? "