Sentence:  The Conan O'Brien-penned half-hour has the capacity to rip our collective hearts out the way the cute, funny bad girl next door does to Bart when she reveals that her new boyfriend is Jimbo Jones, but the show keeps shying away from genuine emotion in favor of jokes that, while overwhelmingly funny, <WSD>detract</WSD> from the poignancy and the emotional intimacy of the episode. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  To take away; to withdraw or remove.