(originally aired May 5, 2002)
Funny how we got two John Swartzwelder episodes in a row, with the last one being surprisingly sharp, and this one being… well, the exact opposite. This series has handled the delicate premise of infidelity before in such great episodes as “Life in the Fast Lane” and “The Last Temptation of Homer,” but in this show, Apu actually does commit and have an affair. It’s not so much about the emotional connections Homer and Marge had with others as it is Apu getting his rocks off. It’s a different kind of story, but with serious ground to cover. However, this episode is not interested in any of that. The story is treated as callously as possible to make stupid jokes and wrap itself up in a nice status quo bow as clumsily and illogically as possible. There’s a lot I hate about this episode, so let’s begin. One late night, Homer witnesses a shocking sight: Apu canoodling with the Squishee machine vendor after hours in the back room. Marge eventually gets the information out of him, and tells Homer he needs to tell Apu what he saw. Eventually Manjula finds out, and files for divorce soon after.

So there’s not much story here, but that’s fine because it’s dealing with a serious issue that has a lot of avenues to explore between the two characters involved… oh wait, we gotta cram the Simpsons into every frame, right? They’re all over Apu and Manjula’s lives. Where the hell is Sanjay? But surprisingly, I was more annoyed with Marge here than Homer, who spends the whole episode meddling and manipulating to get things to go the way she sees fit. I reminded me of Buck McCoy in “The Lastest Gun in the West” when she injected herself into his affairs. It’s a bit different here since Apu and Manjula are friends of theirs, but her actions go from normal concern to abrasively rude and pushy for reasons that escape me. When Kirk and Luann got divorced, at her own party, no less, Marge lamented and stood by Luann as a “friend” like a normal human being. Here, she’s made it her life’s mission to get Apu and Manjula back together. She randomly appears in their apartment, having trained the octuplets to plead for their father back, which is a one-off gag that has some severely creepy undertones to it. She also has her kids dressed in a crude Ganesh costume commanding them to get back together, which she refers to as “this thing.” How unbelievably offensive must that be to them? I can see Homer dressing up like him and being a buffoon at their wedding, but for Marge to do this? She should have more sense.

Characters continue to act weirdly, and combined with callous jokes about suicide and sex puns, it really detracts from any serious intentions this episode ever even thought about covering about adultery. I have no idea if they wanted this to be treated with any kind of seriousness whatsoever, because the episode is completely aloof from beginning to end. The biggest indicator is the ending: to come back home and be “forgiven,” Apu must perform a list of tasks for Manjula, which are all jokes, like changing his name to “Slime Q. Slimedog,” and performing My Fair Lady with the octuplets. Why should I even bother? But that also presents us with a telltale scene. I’m sure there are others just like it, but it rung completely false and awful with me, and indicative of problems we’ve seen and problems we will continue to see as seasons go on. After the performance of Lady, we have this exchange between Homer, Lisa and Bart (“It was magic. He took a cockney flower girl and turned her into My Fair Lady!” “I liked all the roles filled by minority actors.” “Why, I didn’t even notice!”) Those three would never say these lines. These are lines that were written, and then just given to the characters. Even if they were saying it all jokingly, it wouldn’t play right. But that’s what this show is now, characters aren’t really speaking lines that feel true to themselves, they’re just spewing jokes and one-liners that don’t feel the least bit natural. And when you’re doing an episode about a serious subject like infidelity, dialogue like that really stands out, especially when the whole episode is full of it. This episode sucks, big time.

Tidbits and Quotes
– This is a nice exchange, and feels like classic bonehead Homer (“Are you sure you don’t want to come, Apu? In a Civil War re-enactment, we need a lot of Indians to shoot!” “…I don’t know which part of that sentence to correct first, but I cannot come.”)
– The Squishee Lady is voiced by… go on, guess! …Tress MacNeille. Is she the only voice actress on the planet now?
– The Civil War re-enactment doesn’t really have any laughs, though I kind of like how they comment how absurd it is in concept (“The Second Battle of Springfield was fought by the North, the South, and the East, to keep Springfield in, out of, and next to the Union respectively.”)
– The end of the first act with Homer walking backwards stunned goes on for faaaaar too long. Then they do it again at the very end with Homer on the ladder, after he had just been spying on Apu and Manjula having sex. When did he become a creepy stalker? First Flanders, now Apu? What a lovable perverted scamp that Homer is.
– The bit during badminton with the repeated sex slang terms might have been amusing, except they bash you over the head with setting it up and pointing at it. Marge comments how they have their game the next day, and very directly points out, “Oh, I hope no one makes any double entendres!” Thanks for setting that up, Marge! Then after every line, they cut to Homer and Marge doing the Charles Nelson Reilly collar tug. Couldn’t they have just let it play? Or do we think the audience is stupid and won’t notice unless we illuminate it with a big sign?
– I’m really not sure why Marge cares for goddamn much about this situation, to the point that she’s sitting on the couch crying watching Apu and Manjula’s wedding tape. She must have known other couples who have broken up in the past, who acts like this other than a crazy person?
– I don’t understand the gag with Homer wanting to involve Krusty in everything. More bizarre, out-of-character “jokes.”
– Instead of giving her any semblance of a personality, the Squishee Lady is just a hot girl who’s down to fuck. I guess that’s okay for what she represents for the story though. The “Do Me” licorice thing was kind of dumb and crass.
– My favorite bit in the episode is Apu’s poorly disguised cover when Manjula asks if he’s hiding anything in bed, it’s just a great performance by Hank Azaria (“How can you even accuse me of repeated infidelity! I’m so angry I could just fall asleep!”) Then he fakes sleeping, muttering “Completely innocent” under his breath. But then later on the convenience tape, it’s played too far, with Apu during sex doing a Johnny Carson “Mmmm, that’s good adultery!” What’s that about?
– The Inside the Actor’s Studio bit with James Lipton is pretty good, except it feels like complete padding.
– Why the fuck would Homer and Marge need to tell the kids about Apu and Manjula’s separation? Why would they need to know? Or care? It’s just another desperate excuse to try to shoehorn the Simpsons into this story of which they don’t belong.
– Oh, and an overused Homer quote that I’m tired of, is when he goes into his low voice after a proclamation and goes, “And if they [blank]…” “Yeah! ‘Cause if they don’t…” “How much sex will be involved? ‘Cause if it’s some…” Enough already…
– I get the feeling that the writers don’t like lawyers. Maybe it’s the grossly cartoony lawyer at the start of act three that tipped me off, who laughs maniacally and dances atop his desk in devilish glee. What a pathetic attempt at “commentary.” Were a lot of the writers going through divorces at this time?
– I guess Marge is a pervert now too, wanting desperately to go to a strip club with Manjula. Like husband, like wife, I guess…
– Manjula walks in on Apu with a noose around his neck. Her response? “Oh, Apu, you’re such a drama queen.” That’s right folks, people with suicidal tendencies? They’re just being dramatic. What a bunch of whiners, amiright?
– The whole third act is garbage. Apu completes Manjula’s stupid inane tasks, he moves back in with her, the two of them are fine, the end. It couldn’t feel any less sincere or meaningful. Or funny.

(originally aired April 7, 2002)
While “Blame It On Lisa” got all the controversy, FOX executives were much more worried about this episode featuring Homer using medical marijuana. They were very dodgy at what the show could and could not do, especially on the point that they couldn’t actually show Homer smoking, so I guess it wouldn’t be teaching kids exactly how to do it. The episode kind of talks about the benefits of medicinal weed and the legalization of the drug. There are several different interesting avenues this show could have gone down regarding this topic. Not that I’m expecting any meaty, serious discussion on the matter, just an comedic perspective on the issue. Or we could just have Homer become a stereotypical stoner and make jokes off of that. A big chunk of this episode is basically the most hacky material one could write for a stoner character, and it couldn’t feel more lazy. Add on a truly bizarre third act that serves only to make the parody title make sense and you get a very strange episode.

Following our first act where Homer gets his eyes viciously attacked by crows, Dr. Hibbert prescribes him medical marijuana to cure what ails him. After some brief hesitation, Homer eventually tokes up and spends the entire second act high as a kite, with his pupils doubled in size and a permanently glazed look in his eyes. What shenanigans does he get up to? Listening to Lisa’s saxophone for hours, laughing at everything, watching the Three Stooges in the attic with fellow pothead Otto, it’s the easiest material you can possibly come up with. And it all feels so removed from Homer, I began to stop thinking him as himself for the second half of the act, which would have worked as the point if the rest of the episode was truly focused on him going cold turkey and sticking with it. Homer springs into action when anti-marijuana legislation threatens to harsh his mellow, so he arranges a pot rally. And he got Phish to play at the benefit! How? Doesn’t matter. But here’s the kicker. Turns out the vote for the proposition was the day before! They were so stoned they forgot what day it was! What a hilarious twist! Of all the hacky shit this episode, hell, this season, this is the most uninspired comedic “twist” I’ve ever seen. The lack of originality is staggering.

With pot banned, Homer is stuck living clean and sober, relenting to Marge in promising the kids he’ll never do drugs again. There’s a disheartening undercurrent here though, similar to “Jaws Wired Shut,” where people yearn for the status quo for reasons that even they can’t justify (Lisa comments, “I want the old Dad back, the one who was yelling all the time, and… you know, I’m not really sure what I want…”) He may have been dodgy and slightly off, but stoned Homer is a lot more bearable than wild, out-of-control “regular” Homer. But anyway, his penchant for laughing at everything got him promoted by Burns, who needs someone to yuck it up at all his zingers during his upcoming investor’s meeting. However, without dope, Homer is unable to laugh on cue, and since he promised Marge he wouldn’t smoke anymore, he has Smithers do it instead. But the two lose track of time while Burns is in the tub, and find the old man has seemingly drowned. And the investor’s meeting is in twenty minutes! What to do? Pull a Weekend at Bernie’s, and have Smithers work a super complicated marionette routine with Burns’s corpse, which for some reason works flawlessly, and revives Burns in the end. Even though it’s set up in act two, the ending is so jarringly out of place; it has nothing to do with Homer redeeming himself in any way. But whatever, I should be used to this shit making no sense by now. So yeah, uninspired and clumsy, and for a show about such a controversial topic, it sure did play it safe.

Tidbits and Quotes
– As if marijuana wasn’t enough, the beginning of the show takes on genetically modified foods, with the joke being that the food has become sentient. Not bad, but it’s a gag that takes three times the length as it really should.
– The Pop-Up Video stuff with all of the old Simpsons artifacts is kind of clever. Not to be too detrimental, but that’s as high praise as I can give it.
– Homer and the crows is kind of bizarre. The only thing I like is this exchange with Marge (“I’m very uncomfortable having a gang of crows in our bedroom.” “It’s a murder, honey. A group of crows is called a ‘murder‘”)
– We get a flashback to Homer’s past traumatic experience with pot. Hiding a toke from the cops in his underwear, a police dog sniffs it and bites his groin, whipping him back and forth. Hysterical.
– I like Lisa commenting the smoke-filled house smells like the art teacher’s office.
– Homer is slightly cruel to Lisa making her play until the wee hours of the morning, but at least he’s paying her. Better than when he forced her to cut lemons for his garage bar that he didn’t even use. Again, I’d much rather have stoned Homer than insane regular Homer.
– We have more strangely out-of-character Burns in this episode. He self-admittedly pissed away $60 million? On what? He’s a responsible business mogul, how does that happen? And he’s so concerned about his jokes going over big, where’s the heartless, humorless miser we know and love? Burns is almost adorable now, where he was once a compelling antagonist.
– The only Homer stoner line I laughed at was this bit (“I got news for you! I just got promoted and it’s all thanks to Yes-I-Cannabis! …we have a kitchen?!”)
– Phish is basically another in the long list of expendable guest stars, but I do enjoy their music, so I got no beef with them. And I like the guy initially misreading “pothead” in introducing Homer on stage.
– The police start a marijuana bonfire after the ban, but it inadvertently creates an alluring smoke, so they dump some barber hair on top to mask it. At home, Homer bemoans the situation (“I could have smoked that pot! And worn that hair!”)
– The scene at Moe’s, the bit at the dinner table, it’s obvious that the writers really had no material for Homer going cold turkey, so I guess that’s why they fell back on the Burns thing. I guess it’s like Homer having to brave through a situation without using drugs… except not, because Smithers came up with the Burns dummy idea. And do I even need to comment on how the Burns dummy rig makes no sense and how there’s no way in hell Smithers could pull that off? But as ridiculous as it was, I do like Homer very nonchalantly pushing Burns’s head behind the curtain and playing him off Elvis-style (“Mr. Burns has left the building!”)

(originally aired March 31, 2002)
Vacation episodes have pretty much gone to hell at this point. They’re more or less just an excuse to string together unrelated scenes of the Simpsons exploring a new location and how wacky things are overseas. Oh, and sometimes there’s a plot in there too. Well unlike “Simpson Safari” or “Kill the Alligator and Run,” this show actually does have a story, and despite there being a fair amount of crap here, I actually like how they resolve the main plot and how it’s set up through the episode. A $400 phone bill forces Lisa to fess up that she’s been sponsoring a poor little orphan boy named Ronaldo in Brazil. When she stopped receiving letters back from him, she tried calling the orphanage but they didn’t know where he ended up. Upon seeing video of the precious little scamp, the Simpson family agrees they have to go to Brazil and find him. This is more or less as flimsy as a catalyst as “The Bart Wants What It Wants,” and how the family is able to afford to travel is basically hand waved. But whatever, the Simpsons are going to Brazil!

Act two is basically just them searching the town for this kid, which gives us all of our Brazil jokes. A fair amount of them actually are funny, like the risque children’s show (“Bert and Ernie left it to your imagination,”) the Brazilian relative of the “Yeesss!” guy, Homer and Bart on the beach, and the samba school, where they’re hard at work on their new dance, the Penetrada (“It will make sex look like church!”) But these are just isolated bits, the through-line of finding Ronaldo really doesn’t matter. The plot could have been anything, it’s just an excuse to get them to a foreign country. Now this kind of thing worked in “Thirty Minutes Over Tokyo,” but the joke ratio was much higher there, so it got away with it. Here we also have some randomly jerky things by Homer like jumping on a nun’s back, commanding her to fly, and admitting to taking off his wedding ring whilst on vacation. We also have Bart inexplicably pointing out famous Brazilian landmarks (“It’s Copacabana Beach!” “It’s Carnivale!”) This happened in “Simpson Safari” too, it’s like they can’t figure out what to do with Bart in these vacation episodes, so they just throw him random lines.

Let’s get what I like about act three out of the way. It’s revealed that Ronaldo got a job puppeteering a giant flamingo in the kid’s show we saw earlier. It’s not exactly like you could figure out the “mystery,” but between that, and showing earlier the dancing shoes Ronaldo was able to buy with Lisa’s donations, it was subtly set up so the payoff is satisfying. It’s surprisingly competent in a season of such shit writing, that’s for sure. But most of the last act revolves around Homer getting kidnapped, which is just very dull and silly. What I find is that when characters don’t treat a situation seriously, then there’s no reason we should. Bart very casually mentions the situation to Marge, Homer seems nonplussed by everything, as do the kidnappers at a point. Why even have this story if you’re not going to treat it seriously in any way? Why should we care? Ronaldo gives the Simpsons the ransom money, they do the exchange high in the sky on cable cars, Homer leaps onto the family’s car, causing it to plummet down a mountain side in a horrible wreck, but they’re all totally fine and unbruised. And Bart gets eaten by a snake. And then that’s the end. I was surprised at how much I actually liked here, but the lack of an interesting story and ridiculous third act keep me from giving this one just an ‘eh’ on average. Eh.

Tidbits and Quotes
– Some quick bits at the phone company pad the episode. I guess sentient robot switchboard operators exist in this universe. And though it was an easy joke, I like the telemarketer taking it gravely personal when he gets hung up on.
– Man, the writers love Lindsay Naegle, and apparently now she’s both an alcoholic and a sexual predator.
– Homer getting shocked up the telephone pole is like the perfect scene showing the comedic leanings of later seasons: Homer gets hurt and is dumb and is funny. I remember way back when the show was up for Emmy consideration, this was the clip they used. Or maybe it was the Kids Choice Awards. One of the two, I always get them mixed up.
– Ronaldo kind of looks like a grown-up Pepi from “Brother From the Same Planet.”
– This episode is kind of notorious in that Brazil got really pissed at the representation of their country, mostly in relying on inaccurate stereotypes, like having characters speak in Spanish accents and mixing up their culture with other Latin American countries. I don’t blame them, really. If you’re going to parody something, at least do it right. But like most ignorant Americans, I don’t know jack spit about Brazil, so I didn’t notice.
– I like the two airline pilots (“The local temperature in Rio de Janeiro is hot, hot, hot, with a hundred percent chance of passion!” “Ronaldo, you make that joke every time!” “It was that joke that made you fall in love with me.”)
– Homer kicking his suitcase yelling, “Look at me, I’m Brazilian!” echoes “Look at me, I’m a scientist!” from “Simpson Safari.” Neither are funny.
– The only bit with the kidnappers I like is when Homer’s trying to get the money. With the $1200 the family can scrounge up, Homer runs off a chart of what they’ll get (“That’ll buy you one of my legs, or something they call a Mystery Bag!”) He calls up Burns, who, high on sheep embryos, is willing to pay him if he can work it off. Homer promptly hangs up. A call with Moe only gets Homer owing fifty more grand, and a call to Flanders asking for a hundred grand gets him nowhere (“Well I don’t really have that much, but if you need it that bad, you’ll be in my prayers.” “Go suck a Bible!”) The quick pacing of the calls makes it even funnier.
– I don’t quite understand why Marge and the kids are standing right in the middle of the Carnivale parade, or why the fuck they’re just standing there dancing while Homer could be dead at the bottom of the Amazon.
– Ironic that Marge comments how a music cue is making light of the tense situation, when meanwhile the episode has done nothing but make light of the kidnapping “subplot.”
– The ending is very bizarre. After the cable car crash lands and no one even has a scratch on them, Homer gives the moral lesson of the episode… I guess? (“I learned that no matter how bad I screw up, you’ll always bail me out.”) Where did this come from? And this is a good lesson? Homer can be as ignorant and careless as he wants because the family will clean up the mess for him. It’s so out of left field I can’t even be mad at it. And I don’t even have time to settle before we see Bart eaten by a snake. I then remembered we’d seen this gag before to comic effect in “‘Round Springfield,” but there it’s actually funny.