Don’t panic. Character continuity emerges triumphant in “Dark Knight Court,” in which Mr. Burns becomes a crime-fighting superhero named Fruit Bat Man. He’s not in the game for truth or justice, but for the chance to strut around in a cape and collect huzzahs from the hoi polloi. When he does something useful at the end of the episode and is on the verge of collapsing from exhaustion, he asks his sidekick (or enabler) Waylon Smithers, “Which side won, good or evil?” Told that good has prevailed, he’s genuinely curious: “And which side was I on?”
Aside from Mr. Burns’ mockery of Batman tropes and superhero ethics, “Dark Knight Court” busies itself with a parody of legal dramas, as Bart is hauled in front of a “youth court” (i.e., a shadow legal system that puts regular characters in roles that ordinarily require law degrees) and tried for filling certain instruments with raw eggs ahead of the marching band’s Easter concert. (Martin Prince: “Who could have shoved eggs up our brass?”) The judge is former attorney general Janet Reno, a past-sell-date celebrity guest who has irritating, kind of self-deprecating lines like, “God, I love gavelling.” Reno does set up one of the better “open the door” courtroom jokes I’ve seen, telling defense attorney Lisa, “Your grandstanding summation contained a grievous error. By calling your brother ‘sweet’ and ‘lovable,’ you opened the door to testimony from anyone who doesn’t think he’s sweet and lovable.” Prosecuting attorney Seymour Skinner is unusually quick on the uptake: “The prosecution calls everyone in the world.”
For a moment, it looks like we’re in for a reprise of the Seinfeld finale, but the Simpsons writers show some restraint and go no further than putting Moe in the witness box to relive the trauma of Bart calling his bar and asking for “Mike Rotch,” leading Moe to call out to his inebriated patrons, “Has anyone seen my crotch?” Moe’s testimony drags on more than it needs to, but it’s funny because it would be in character for Moe to put on a clutching-of-pearls act just to screw with Bart. (Which is why I could have done without the later gag that repeats the revisionist idea that Moe is terrified, rather than incensed by Bart’s prank calls.)
While this is going on, Mr. Burns living out his childhood fantasy of traipsing in tights, thinking that he’s foiling robberies and kidnappings all over Springfield when Smithers is actually paying people to pose as hapless victims and hopelessly inept criminals. There are some groaners in the Batman parody department. When the Bat Signal is turned on, there's the far-off image of a plane flying into it, and we hear “What the hell is that?” as the aircraft plummets into a ball of flame. This is part of the lazy sick humor I’ve often criticized this season, with people falling to their deaths as a placeholder joke. (The bird’s view of Springfield that opens the title sequence often goes this route; this week the Easter Bunny and a leprechaun collide in mid-air and apparently disintegrate.)