(originally aired February 9, 2003)
This isn’t exactly a startling conclusion, but it seems over the last five seasons or so, characters have become lesser versions of themselves, more caricatured and toothless. I refer to them as “neutered,” because it feels like a core element of some of these beloved regulars has been taken out, leaving them with a large emptiness. Homer’s slight sense of decency and humility has been lost, and replaced with a rampant sense of entitlement and assholery, but even more devastating is what’s happened to Marge. Once the voice of reason, and Homer’s guiding light through the world, it seems that Marge is content with standing on the sidelines while her husband either does something incredibly reckless and life-endangering, or something deplorable and selfish. Marge is a nagger, remember? One of her core character traits? Though it’s hardly nagging for her to speak up about some of the crazy shit Homer’s done, this episode being one of the most awful of his exploits.

This episode as a whole is kind of strange. I felt like I got what it was going for, but the way it was handled was so unfocused and sloppy, it just didn’t read correctly. But anyway, it starts almost as a reverse of “Viva Ned Flanders” (what good news!) where Homer inquires as to why Flanders lives such a good and lucky life. He eventually concludes that prayer is the answer, and proceeds to pray for incredibly minor items that coincidentally come true, like finding the TV remote or coming up with a new delicious snack treat. There’s no real plot to speak of yet, and already Homer is kind of being a selfish jerk, but don’t worry, he gets better. Homer somehow ends up falling in a small hole on church property, and with the help of a lawyer appearing out of thin air, he decides he’s going to sue the church. This is apparently to pay for repairs to his own house, which was presented in the last scene as a gag, not an actual concern for Homer. For reasons that escape me, Marge is mostly silent through the rest of the episode, popping in every now and again to meekly ask Homer reconsider his horrible actions, which of course he doesn’t. Get the fuck out of here, Marge, you’re ruining my good time being an inconsiderate dick! Aren’t I a likeable main character?

So Homer wins, somehow, to the tune of one million dollars, for some reason, and Reverend Lovejoy, not having that kind of money, must give up the deed to the church. And apparently the Lovejoys live in there, so they’re forced to move out. Homer shows absolutely no remorse or any kind of feeling toward anything he’s done, and proceeds to live in the church rather than make repairs for the house. He heartlessly kicks out an AA meeting from the building, and in its place starts up a multi-day hedonistic bash, with food, drink and debauchery. It’s obvious what the intent is here: with Lovejoy gone, Springfield becomes God-less, making the former church almost like a modern-day Sodom, with drinking, gambling and worshiping false idols. I know many of the citizens of Springfield are disgusting, shameless slobs, but this is stooping to such a sorry low. And Homer’s the ringleader here, making it even more uncomfortable. So eventually there’s a flood that drives everyone to the church roof, Lovejoy shows up on a helicopter for no fucking reason to pray for God’s forgiveness, causing the rain to stop. Then rather than have an actual ending, we have Lisa give a bullshit explanation for how the impossible stuff we just witnessed could happen. Except it makes no sense. I feel I’d be more pissed at this episode if it actually felt competently made, but it wasn’t clicking for me it all. The whole twenty minutes just kind of washed over me, and when it was over, it was over. What a glowing review, huh?

Tidbits and Quotes
– Tell me if this sounds like natural Bart dialogue to you (“Check out Janeane Giraffe-alo!” “That’s Fung Pang Li, the seven-foot sensation from Sichaun.” “Sichaun, eh? No wonder she’s so spicy!”) What the fuck? Then Homer wonders what it would be like to be with a woman that large. But you were, don’t you remember last week when your wife got super muscular? What happened is that you were raped.
– The WNBA is a very boring setpiece, with the only gags coming from “they’re women, and they’re playing basketball!” Their mascot is a sexy basketball with legs (who is revealed to be Gil, which Moe keeps trying to court, a gag that goes on and on and onnnn…), then we get a look at the WNFL, whose logo is a football sitting at a hairdresser’s. Because that’s what ladies do, amiright?!
– Guest star Lisa Leslie (another worthless celebrity appearance) is incredulous about Flanders actually watching sports, so he responds with a funny list (“Speed-walking, ballroom dancing, rhythmic gymnastics, extreme choir…”) Here we have neutered Flanders. Remember in the past when Ned was actually a guy who enjoyed football, could lose his temper from time to time, and enjoy some of the artificial splendors in life? Now he’s just a lame, Bible-thumping wuss pushed to an unbelievable degree, making him less of a character and more of a caricature, like much of the cast nowadays.
– Ned’s good luck cuts Homer too deep when he’s allowed to drive home in the Wienermobile (“It’s not fair! I’ve always wanted to drive a food-shaped car!” “The steering wheel is a giant onion ring!” “They thought of everything!”)
– I feel like this story of Homer abusing the power of prayer could have worked, like in the third act something actually horrible happens and Homer has to work his way out of it himself, with the message being God can’t solve all your problems, and sometimes you have to be willing to put up or shut up yourself. But no, let’s have a flood instead.
– Homer announces he’s going to sue the church, one of the most horrible ideas he’s ever had. What is Marge’s reaction? “You can’t sue the church! They’ll poke fun at us in the church bulletin!” That’s her immediate thinking process? Every line doesn’t have to be a joke, especially when it’s a lousy one.
– The trial zips by like a bullet train. The Blue-Haired Lawyer shows a video displaying how Homer is naturally accident prone, which cracks up the jury, who then immediately finds the church guilty. What? Also Homer is in a leg cast in the courtroom, but then in the next scene at the church, his leg is fine. So was it all phony? Like “Bart Gets Hit By a Car” phony bandages? I guess so. Man, what a flaming asshole. The third act may be the worst he’s ever been, but he drifts through the episode in such a fog that it’s hard to be mad at him for some reason.
– “Got two of every animal. But only males, I don’t want any hanky-panky.” I hate this line. Why would Ned do this? I feel like a fucking moron having to explain this, but God wanted two of every creature on the ark so they could procreate, so Ned vetoing this for his bizarro anti-sexual self is him defying God’s law. Does that sound like Ned to you?
– The ending is so horrible. Lovejoy literally appears with no explanation or reason and causes the rain to stop. Then Lisa feebly explains what happened, even though it makes even less sense than the flood in “Mom and Pop Art,” which was a big enough stretch as it was.

(originally aired February 2, 2003)
I started out dreading this one immediately, because all I could remember is it involved a roided-up muscular Marge pumping with insane rage. But shockingly, contained within the first two acts of this episode is an actually serviceable and satisfying story about Marge overcoming her anxieties. Then they had nowhere to go and slapped on one of the most ridiculous and uncomfortable plot turns ever. We start at a yard sale prompted by Rainier Wolfcastle filing for bankruptcy, where Homer picks up his original weight set, thinking it may go up in value. On her way home alone, Marge stops at the Kwik-E-Mart to change Maggie, but is accosted by a mugger in the alleyway, who grabs the pearls off her neck and flees. Marge is understandably shocked by this, and soon after develops a severe case of agoraphobia. There’s a nicely animated sequence of Marge unable to leave the front stoop into the whirling, dangerous vortex that is the outside world.

What works here is that for the large part, Marge’s condition is treated seriously, with Homer and the kids acting genuinely worried about her and trying to help her get back into the world. Eventually Marge becomes so far gone she takes up living in the basement. The scene of Homer finding his wife nervously hunched in a corner down the stairs is pretty disconcerting. I was surprised how on-the-level they kept this story, but then I guess it’s hard to crack as many jokes when it’s at Marge’s expense. With nothing else to do, Marge takes up weightlifting, and by a few weeks, she starts to get pretty bulked up and a renewed sense of energy, so much so that she runs outside to get a lemon without a second thought. I really like the shot where she’s standing outside frozen, finally processing what she just did, overcoming her fears without even realizing it. Her triumphant run through Springfield is cut short when she encounters the mugger, who she proceeds to beat the shit out of, Godfather style. So there you go, the main catalyst of the episode has been dealt with, Marge is cured and the story is basically over, let’s go home, everybody. …wait, we have seven minutes left?

All the good will earned by the first two acts is dragged down an awful lot by the third. Marge encounters her old neighbor Ruth Powers on the beach, who encourages her to enter a bodybuilding competition, with some performance enhancing “assistance.” Now, it doesn’t make sense for her to want to compete in anything, and as a PTA mother, she would never, ever take drugs, ever. Her walk on the wild side with Ruth in “Marge on the Lam” actually made sense given the backstory, and that she was mostly dragged along for it, but this is like apples and oranges. Plus, Ruth is barely in this episode, and she basically doesn’t matter here. So Marge roids it up and becomes a hulking, scary mountain of a woman, who ends up destroying everything and everyone in Moe’s after winning second place in the competition. A genuinely fear-struck Homer tells her how much she wants her sweet, caring Marge back, which permeates her drug-addled brain, leading her to dispose of her barbells. Except they were never the problem, it was the steroids. There’s actually a really solid story here in the first two acts, but then everything goes to shit in the end when they have nowhere to go. A promising, but ultimately sloppy episode.

Tidbits and Quotes
– The Eye on Springfield opening is kind of depressing. It’s recycled from an older episode (season 3, I think?), and it’s been used a few times, but here it starkly contrasts with the newer animation, and the new bits they added aren’t even jokes. Kent washes his car. Kent bites into a sandwich and the contents fall out. Okay?
– I kind of like Homer filling up his car Tetris-style, but that’s basically it for the whole beginning. Besides that we have him eating a sword and Rainier’s past in gay porn. I’m guessing that’s a Schwarzenegger reference, did he act in gay porn? I dunno.
– The little Kwik-E-Mart play the family sets up is pretty cute. And I liked how Milhouse acted as the robber, but seemingly of his own volition. Bart probably told him about it and decided it would be a funny prank, not realizing how devastating the situation actually is.
– The episode plays Marge’s condition fairly straight, save Hibbert’s slightly antagonistic speech to her, and this rough line she gives (“What to do now… too crazy to go outside, not crazy enough to have imaginary friends.”)
– I really don’t have anything to say about Ruth’s reappearance. She just kind of shows up with barely a mention of where she’s been or where her daughter is. She’s basically the episode’s excuse to get a friendly face to convince Marge to do the steroids. And since Marge really has no friends, they had to drag Ruth back out again.
– “Man, what am I smoking? …oh right, pot.” And with that, any semblance of subtlety in Otto’s character is lost forever. From this point on, he’s just a guy who takes drugs. Lots of drugs. Let’s do a bunch of drug jokes, we can get away with them now! Yeah!
– By the time we get to the bodybuilding competition, I have no idea what I’m watching. It all feels so completely alien to me. I get that Marge has completely whacked out on ‘roids, but I still don’t buy she would do this at all in the first place. Then she brutally beats up everyone in the bar, in a manner that many of them must be seriously injured, or possibly even killed. She smashes the record player over Disco Stu’s head, he must have some sort of brain damage now (“Disco Stu should have Disco Ducked!”) Then the ending is so fucking serious, with Marge still in a rage and Homer nervously trying to calm his wife down with maudlin music in the background… Jesus Christ, a few scenes earlier we were making jokes about buffed up women, now it’s a drama all of a sudden. I really hate this third act, it’s awful all around.
– I think I’ve covered just about everything. …oh wait, one more thing, in this episode, Marge rapes Homer. Yep. She rapes him. And it’s played off as comedy, because as we all know, rape isn’t a thing if it’s female-on-male. A muscular Marge accosts Homer in bed (“Let’s do it!” “Listen, my bulky flower, I have an early day tomorrow…” “I wasn’t asking.”) Next scene we see Homer at the kitchen table, clearly sore and out of sorts with a glazed look in his eyes. Just terrible. I can’t believe they did this. Now I’m a big fan of dark comedy, and I’ve laughed at some pretty horrid shit, but when it comes to joking about really severe topics, context and delivery are absolutely key, and can make or break your gag. So what’s happening in the scene? Homer is nervous and whimpering, being pinned down by his buff wife, then we cut to the next day of him barely being able to walk. So yeah, the joke is that Marge had rough, raw sex with him against his will, so much so that he’s having trouble moving. That’s fucking terrible. Hands down the most terrible, tasteless joke the show has ever, ever done. If anyone has the DVD and could tell me what the crew says about this part on the commentary, if anything, I’d be interested how they could possibly defend this deplorable “joke.” I’m sure it’ll go something like this: someone will off-hand say that possibly it was in poor taste, then they’ll all laugh about it.

(originally aired January 12, 2003)
Most Homer/Lisa episodes are set into motion when Homer realizes that he’s done wrong by his daughter, then goes into overdrive to try to make it up to her. A recent episode like “Make Room For Lisa” doesn’t work because Homer ruins Lisa’s life, then continues to be a dick to her. But in this show, he goes to the most extreme, borderline ridiculous measures to win his daughter back, and that’s what makes this episode work. It’s a pretty solid show, with laughs interspersed and an unusual amount of heart, a true surprise given the seemingly never-ending stream of clunkers this season. Lisa asks for a new TurboDiary for her birthday, which Homer attempts to get, but the toy store is sold out. As a replacement gift, he gets her a personalized video, a real shoddy production where a kid’s photo and voice-over are thrown over crappy animation, except Homer completely fumbles the “personalized” part, claiming Lisa’s best friend is Maggie and her favorite book is “magazine.” Lisa is crestfallen that her father barely knows her at all, and Homer is depressed that he’s let his daughter down. Wow, actual believable emotions? It’s almost like I’m watching The Simpsons or something.

Homer is a man always after the quick fix, so rather than let this incident blow over and slowly build back his relationship with Lisa, he goes to a private detective to get as much information about his daughter he can find (on Moe’s recommendation, “He can learn more about a chick by digging through one garbage can than you could through years of intimacy.”) Dexter Colt is your traditional film noir detective type (“It’s always a dame, usually with gams that don’t quit. Until they get to the shoes, and then they’re only napping.”) There’s no denying this plot is incredibly silly, with Colt breaking into school lockers and trying to shake down the likes of Skinner and Ralph, but it’s a silliness I can accept and appreciate. Homer receives a full report on Lisa, which he uses to win her over, listening to classic jazz and attending an animal right’s protest. You can see how much Homer wants his daughter back, he’s willing to do these things that he’d normally moan loudly about in a “comical” fashion. Unfortunately, it turns out Colt is a big mooch, charging a myriad of personal expenses to Homer’s tab. The episode wonderfully lampshades this (“I can’t believe a man who agreed to follow my daughter around, for money, would turn out to be a dirtbag!”)

As retaliation for Homer not paying him, Colt trashes the animal testing facility, leaving clues there to incriminate Lisa. When the police close in on her, Homer and Lisa make a break for it. In a sweet, brief plot turn, Homer attempts to make going on the lam be a fun father/daughter activity, putting on disguises and being covert. But he soon realizes he can’t lie to Lisa forever, and tells her to the truth about Colt, which Lisa is understandably upset about. The police track them down again, and Homer and Lisa end up at a circus, where they find all the freed tested animals. Another thing I commend this episode for is how tight it is; the first act with the tape sets the story in motion, then everything that happens afterward is all critical. Colt gave the cops probable cause that Lisa is the culprit not only because of her stuff there, but also because she was interviewed on TV at the protest, and now we see Colt is a sneaky opportunist who’s made some extra money selling the animals to the circus. After a quick showdown, Colt is incapacitated and Homer and Lisa reconcile, a rather quick and rusty one, but it works well enough. With a few rough edges, this episode is actually pretty good, and shockingly heartwarming given the phony emotion we’ve had over the last few seasons.

Tidbits and Quotes
– An incredibly deshelved (and possibly hung over) Krusty appears on the MTV Cribz knock-off “Padz” to show off his spacious estate (“Here’s the recliner where Don Adams and Shelley Winters made beautiful music together. It should be in a museum, but the museums don’t want it.”)
– I like how the TurboDiary is a product of GirlTech, a subsidiary of the much more in-your-face BoyTech.
– Homer arrives at the toy store to find their last TurboDiary has been sold… to Mr. Burns. What?
– The personalized movies are really pathetic, but in an intentional way. The stock music that starts and cuts out, the poorly cropped photo of the kid, how the parent’s voice is just slapped over the narration… it’s perfect.
– I like how annoyed Marge is at Homer for getting the video instead of the diary. She builds it up as this big present to her daughter from her parents, then is rightfully pissed that her husband fucked it up.
– Homer gives Colt his email: chunkylover53@aol.com. Writer Matt Selman opened this account and for a while responded to emails as Homer, but soon quit when he became flooded with messages. I can’t remember if I emailed him or not… I think I may have.
– Homer receives his report and is surprised by its contents (“Lisa’s pet peeve is… phonies? I thought she loved them!”) Who does she think she is, Holden Caulfield?
– The animal rights protest chant is pretty great (“What do we want?” “The gradual phase-out of animal testing over the next three years!” “When do we want it?” “Over the next three years!”)
– I like how they actually did make Colt kind of an asshole, rather than have Homer refuse to pay for something stupid and having Colt go after him. Homer’s complaints are completely valid (“A forty dollar steak?” “Yeah, but if I’d eaten the whole thing, it would’ve been free.”)
– The police chase Homer and Lisa to a bridge, where a sign reads “BRIDGE OUT.” But Lou removes the rest of the shrubbery to reveal the whole thing: “Bridge Outstanding!” – Overpass Monthly.
– Homer and Lisa check into the Three Seasons Motel with fake names: Lady Penelope Ariel Ponyweather, and Rock Strongo. The clerk sees through Homer’s fake name, until he provides Lance Uppercut. These two fake names I’ve been using as Internet handles on various websites for years.
– I love Homer and Marge’s disguised phone call, as well as Homer’s phony voice (“Hello, this is a phone survey. If the election were held today, would you vote for A) the cops are there, or B) you’re free to talk?” “Uh, A, and I’d like to add proposition Hug Lisa for Me has my full support.”)
– The only thing I really hate about this episode is some of the dialogue in the third act, just really terrible lines seemingly to inform viewers who just tuned in (“Dexter Colt! The man who framed my daughter!” “Perhaps you also remember this laser pointer Bart gave me earlier!”)
– I even like the tag at the end with Bart getting Homer shocked by the TurboDiary, just because it’s a great Bart prank and Homer is completely unsuspecting about it, despite having been shocked by the same book earlier. Wow, this episode even made a gratuitous bit of Homer getting hurt funny.