624. The Old Blue Mayor She Ain’t What She Used to Be

Original airdate: November 12, 2017

The premise: Marge becomes mayor of Springfield, but is disheartened to find her approval ratings are directly linked to how much she publicly mocks her oafish husband.

The reaction: Character motivation is important, as it helps us understand why people are doing things. These days, this usually boils down to one fleeting mention, or some minimal conversation that turns into the crutch for an entire episode. Here, Marge runs for public office after being subject to sexist comments from Mayor Quimby at a Town Hall meeting. It felt a lot like the open-faced, on-the-nose sexism Lisa has been subject to in a couple recent episodes, but I can stomach it more here coming from a known womanizer, rather than Lisa’s classmates inexplicably becoming misogynists. But the episode itself isn’t about women’s rights, or Marge wanting to prove herself and win on her own merit. I’m honestly not sure what is driving her or what she wants to do. During a debate, she catches a glimpse of the tire fire glowing in the distance, and talks about how for her whole life, she’s wanted to get rid of that toxic eyesore, which the crowd enthusiastically agrees with (why, I’m not sure). Then, after she’s sworn in, she makes two attempts to close it and fails, with Kent Brockman reporting on her failings each time. It’s like she ran on a platform of one issue. Marge is the mayor of Springfield, what does she want to do with that power? Crack down on teen hooliganism? Pour money into public schools? Clean up the streets, literally? Surely there’s plenty of things you can do that are in line with her character. But instead, we have this bizarre occurrence where a focus group laughs uproariously at Homer’s dumb antics in the Simpson kitchen as Marge tries to give her address. So now, Marge’s entire political platform is based upon giving cutting jabs about her husband’s weight and stupidity, to the crowd’s unwavering applause. So what’s the commentary here? Crowd-pleasing theatrics overshadowing actual politics? I honestly haven’t a clue. In the end, Marge paying Homer a compliment results in the entire crowd leaving and grumbling, and I guess that’s the end of her run, where the status quo is covered in the tag. This episode feels like it’s a result of the writers pulling nouns out of a hat. “Marge” becomes “the mayor”! We haven’t done that yet, have we? Perfect! I want a script in twenty minutes! Actually, make that fifteen.

Three items of note:
– The episode opens with the latest town-wide snafu caused by Mayor Quimby. A new skyline park is opened on the same infrastructure of the long defunct monorail track, but upon turning on the power, one of the old monorails returns to life and started careening down the restored track. Don’t quite see how this makes sense, but whatever. We get a brief reappearance of Sebastian Cobb, who is promptly run over by the monorail, which ends up careening off the tracks and landing on and demolishing a statue of Leonard Nimoy. I’m honestly surprised that they did that to a dearly deceased guest star. It might have been the best thing in the whole episode, a rare showing of the show actually having balls.
– Marge goes on the campaign trail (no mention of this actually being election season, but whatever. I guess anyone can run for mayor at any time in this town) and over a montage of her talking to voters, we get a song to the tune of “Oh Susanna,” which for some reason sounds like it’s being performed in an echo chamber. Not sure what that’s about. We also have a few lyrics sung by Marge herself, and boy oh boy, is her voice strained. Julie Kavner is pushing 70, and I just feel bad for these moments where you can really hear her voice giving out. Our favorite family is getting older and older…
– Disheartened in having to mercilessly mock Homer for poll points, Marge visits Quimby at his estate to ask him if it’s possible to balance a personal and political life. In retirement, Quimby admits he’s now faithful to his wife for the first time in decades, which doesn’t exactly help Marge’s worries. So what is the point here? Power absolutely corrupts? Once removed from office, creeps and predators will just turn back to normal? As usual, there is no point to something like this, it’s just a plot necessity to get Quimby back in and push Marge to her inevitable, obvious decision.

One good line/moment: I’m sure there was something, but nothing I can immediately recall. This was definitely the most boring episode so far. I can at least say this season isn’t as aggressively terrible as last season, but honestly, it’s all splitting hairs at this point. It doesn’t help that last season started with two of the worst episodes I’ve ever seen.