(originally aired April 3, 2005)
This is another one of those episodes with so many aggravating elements, but ultimately I really feel nothing for it as a whole. Just another disposable show to fill up a season. We open with the Simpsons visiting Shelbyville, which I guess is now some kind of affluent, cultural capital with high end shopping centers and musical theater. So chalk this up for yet another thing modern Simpsons has tainted: instead of Springfield and Shelbyville being two towns filled with morons trying to one-up each, now it’s snobs from Shelbyville looking down at their poorer, dumber neighboring city. Hearing their “hate hoots,” whatever the fuck those are, is a lot more interesting and entertaining than “Lemon of Troy,” surely. Marge gets famed architect Frank Gehry to build a music hall in Springfield, but it goes belly-up instantly when the townspeople, despite voting for the $30 million building in the first place, realize that they don’t like culture. I feel like another “character” dampened over the years has been the town itself: mob mentality made a lot more sense in the older episodes, as it was more about the crowd being easily manipulated and blind-sighted, not being complete idiots. Maybe new Shelbyville has it right.

Mr. Burns steps in, volunteering to take on the town’s debt to convert the music hall into a prison. Why is this? No reason. Then Homer applies to be a prison guard? Why is this? Because he can, I guess. Wasn’t he already a prison guard for two minutes last season? Then Burns meets with Quimby, informing him he needs help as his profits from the prison are down. You assumed the town’s debt, and now you need help with your random business venture? Whatever. Next, Homer is arrested when Wiggum starts enforcing ridiculous, unchecked on-the-book laws, and then he unwittingly becomes a prison snitch. There’s no reaction by Marge or the kids that Homer’s in jail, which you think there would especially be given the ridiculous circumstances that got him in there. But why spend time on that when we can milk the snitch angle and make Homer even more unlikable, having Drederick Tatum go into solitary for his youth group “gang” tattoo while Homer gets a plasma screen TV in his cell. Marge randomly appears to get Homer during a prison riot out to kill him, then they’re saved, the prison is shut down and things go back to normal. Or whatever. I was more confused than anything through most of this, so many parts of it made no sense to me whatsoever. A complete mess of an episode.

Tidbits and Quotes
– Another unnecessary guest star, but Frank Gehry got maybe the only laughs of the episode, with his shocked inquiry that Marge wrote that he was the “bestest” architect, and seeing how his buildings are constructed, by building a normal structure, than smashing the steel beams with wrecking balls into their warped shapes.
– I was mistaken before, this is Charles Napier’s final appearance as the head prison guard. He had better lines in the same role in “The Wandering Juvie,” but it’s great to hear him again anyway.
– This episode has a subplot, but there’s no point to it and it literally doesn’t have an ending. The kids notice Snowball II is getting fatter, then discover she’s wandering off during the day to be primped and spoiled by another family. Lisa confronts them, but finds that the cat likes being with the other family better. Bart goes in to get more answers, but becomes just as won over with their endless supply of treats as the cat. And that’s it. I thought about this further for some reason… perhaps this is actually Snowball II’s real family. Remember that this actually isn’t Snowball II, this is the cat that wandered by the house in “I, D’oh-bot” that Lisa adopted and named after her poor dead cat for convenience’s sake. Who’s to say she hasn’t been doing this all along, that Lisa is keeping this cat as her own when she really belongs to this other family? It’s all bullshit anyway, since we don’t really need the cat in the show. They tried killing her off, now we see her happier with another family, just get rid of her, what does it matter?
– “This is worse than when we thought Mom was having an affair! Turned out she was just going to the library to cry.” I fucking hate one-off lines like this that callously throw out just devastatingly sour information about the family. Just think about it, Marge huddled between the aisles of the library weeping about her moronic asshole husband and her awful station in life. Hilarious, right? Above it all, the Simpsons have always been a loving family, but now it’s considered joke-worthy to mention that they’re completely miserable.
– Wiggum takes a shot at CSI (“That’s it! Lots of flash and no meaning!”) Once again, this show has absolutely no ground to stand on when it comes to mocking the quality of other series.
– The ending is just one puzzling thing after another. The prisoners get all the guards out by feeding Homer fake information about a prison break, which I guess made it possible for one of them to reach the prison door opener lever that’s conveniently placed on the wall next to his cell. Homer hides out in the basement when Marge arrives to find him. The convicts show up, and rather than run out the exit door, they instead lock themselves in the gas chamber. Rather than just turn on the gas, the prisoners try desperately to get the door open. Then the guards return, knock all the convicts out with tear gas, and in comes Mr. Burns and Governor Bailey for some reason. Homer proceeds to blow the lid off of the horrible conditions in the prison… except we didn’t really see anything all that bad. The guards were malicious and sadistic? You mean Lenny, Carl and Otto? And feeding them horse meat? No worse than the gym mats being served at the school. So the prison gets shut down and Bailey announces the convicts will be sent to a garbage island. You know where she should really put them? Into Springfield fucking Penitentiary. They never mention the actual working prison a single time time in this whole episode. Did they just move all the inmates? Is the old prison condemned? It could have been excused in one scene where we show that the prison is falling apart, so Mr. Burns’s plan to convert the music hall into a new prison would be favorable. That’s all you need. But instead, out of sight, out of mind, I guess.

(originally aired March 20, 2005)
These Homer-Marge marriage episodes are bad enough without making Homer into a petulant child, having him use, abuse and insult Marge for no good reason, and still end up on top again. It’s mind boggling to me that the staff watches some of these episodes without realizing how completely unlikable Homer comes off. Are they so enamored by him that they don’t notice? Following a terrible accident at home, Marge pleads with Homer to get life insurance so she and the kids will be supported in case he gets killed on one of his bonehead adventures. Ultimately unable to get coverage, Marge grows paranoid and resorts to penny pinching in order to create a nest egg, to be used on “a very rainy day.” Now Marge may be pushing things a bit too far, but her motivation is completely rational and sound considering the heightened probability of Homer’s demise. When he’s not allowed to pay to drink at Moe’s anymore, Homer’s had enough (“You can’t enjoy money when you’re dead, so why not have fun now?”) How big a moron is he? It’s not if they all die, it’s about if he, the sole provider for the family, dies, and his family is left for themselves. Doesn’t he care at all about what will happen to them? He then proceeds to argue that he works hard at work for that money while Marge sits around the house. It’s like I’m listening to the diametric opposite of Homer: he knows full well how much he jerks around at work, and that Marge is the glue that keeps the family together. Why is he acting like such a dickhead? It makes you completely against him to pick an ammo-less fight with his wife like this.

To assert his dominance, or something, Homer blows the entire nest egg savings on a mobile home. He invites an entire convoy of trailers to his backyard primarily to piss Marge off, ignorant to the fact that she easily sends them away when she cuts their power from the main home. Then, like in “Three Gays of the Condo,” Marge is the one who tries to mend the relationship, but it’s even worse here. She’s pleading Homer to just come back and stop all this stupidness, but Homer isn’t having any of that. Bart and Lisa, as sick of their parents fighting as I am with this episode, reason that if they just take the RV back to the dealer, the conflict will be resolved. They end up out of control on the freeway, somehow, leading Homer and Marge to have to save them. Then the episode ends with them all on a Turkish freighter for some reason, with virtually no resolution to the Homer-Marge story at all. This episode is basically as big a train wreck as “Three Gays of the Condo,” with Homer acting like a humungous juvenile asshole to his wife for no reason, and the show wrapping up in a nice bow just because twenty minutes is up, and in place of the offensive gay content is a whole bunch of shit that makes no sense, like how the kids are even able to drive the RV, or why the Simpson backyard is humungous enough to park ten RVs in. Fuck this show.

Tidbits and Quotes
– Marge fantasizes about a macho Homer completely cleaning the garage and losing weight while she’s out of the house, which of course is the exact opposite of what happens. The dream sequence isn’t framed like it’s Marge’s vision of a perfect husband, but what she honestly thinks is going to happen. Either way, it makes her seem like she’s delusional. Why would she think that?
– Homer lands on his back dead center of the front of the garage. He sees a spider coming down from above and throws a TV Guide at it. It flies up above him, outside the garage presumably, but then somehow ends up hitting the garage door button which is on the inside of the garage to his right. Am I to believe this is some kind of magic TV Guide? I hope someone got fired for that blunder.
– I’m sure the bit with Bart predicting Homer’s horrible accident with his drawing is a reference to something, does anyone know? Regardless, it’s just weird, creepy and out-of-place as a one-off joke like that.
– At least this episode had a few laughs, which at this point in the series is a highlight: the Merry Widow Insurance sign (“Denial, Anger, Acceptance, Cash!”) and the Budget-O’s cereal, with a bum dressed like a clown on the box, that you have to assemble like it’s a model airplane.
– Bart and Lisa have to wear Goodwill clothes, but of course only for the shot where they make the joke. Also, Lisa has her regular dress on under her shirt, so what’s the point?
– Another Katherine Hepburn character. The writers must love when Tress does that voice, I guess.
– A very grisly gag involving Flanders hallucinating seeing Jesus from the RV fumes, and him turning a wicked smile once he and his sons pass out.
– I hate absolutely everything around it, but I love this line from the one RV driver when Marge cuts the power (“I was making a Monte Cristo sandwich when my crisper cut out! It’s not golden brown, it’s not brown, it’s not nothin’!”) Just how angry he is about it is very funny to me.
– This episode features the “return” of Bob from Big Bob’s RV Round-Up, with a slightly modified model (his gigantic ears are no more). I think he’s voiced by Dan Castellaneta, who does a fair enough mimic, but there’s just no material here for him.
– I’m not sure how Bart and Lisa can drive the RV with both of them at the steering wheel. Why doesn’t one of them work the gas and the brake and the other steer? They’re driving in Springfield, then spend a long time staring at a map, then somehow end up on the freeway. Homer and Marge drive up beside them, and Bart yells at them to kiss and make-up. Marge insists they haven’t gotten to that point yet, but Bart tells them to do it anyway. It’s like he’s the status quo forcing these two to get back together when they couldn’t be further apart. Then they’re really in trouble (“We’re going downhill, and I can’t reach the brakes!”) Then go down and push down on the brakes then!
– The episode ends with the Simpsons partying with the Turks, for reasons I really can’t explain. Also the Homer-Marge conflict is solved by Marge being drugged into complicity, so I guess everybody wins.

(originally aired March 13, 2005)
What is it about “Bart vs. Australia” that makes it so perfect? It exhibits the same ridiculous stereotyping that other travel episodes have, but it feels so much less offensive than a show like this. I guess it’s all in the manner that it’s presented; “Australia” holds America and Australia in equal amounts of contempt, where in this episode, a lot of stuff just feels like, “Those Chinese sure are funny!” But before that, our set-up. Selma goes through menopause, leaving her despondent that now she can never have children. She decides she wants to adopt, so it’s off to the orphanage, but the baby she wants ends up being taken back by his father, Cletus. I guess they only had one infant so that option is no longer available, nor are any other orphanages in any other area. Patches and Poor Violet, anyone? Shock of shocks, Lisa suggests adopting from China, but as they will only allow children into the homes of couples, Selma claims Homer as her husband. Soon, she and the Simpsons are off to China to get her child, as well as keep up their charade.

Bureaucrat Madam Wu, played by Lucy Liu, oversees the Americans to make sure Selma and Homer are actually a loving couple. Act two is basically just scene after scene of exploring China, most of which involve Homer being a moron or getting hurt. Homer feels the need to lie that his profession is “Chinese acrobat,” and of course then we get a scene where he fumbles his way through a routine, which is just a bunch of time killing. Wu discovers that Homer and Selma are not actually married and takes away Selma’s new baby. The Simpsons devise a plan to get her back, which of course hinges on Homer, which of course results in him getting hurt. They almost escape, but are stopped by Wu, which of course leads to Homer making a heartfelt speech which of course sways Wu into giving the baby back. Isn’t it so hackneyed now that one thinly written touching speech can completely change the mind of the antagonist? I don’t remember that so much in the classic years, but it’s so overdone now. If Wu was raised by a single parent, why didn’t she have a little bit of sympathy about the situation? It took Homer to talk about what a great parent Selma would be, which he can’t believe to be true, and insult China by calling it another planet, for her to let them go? I dunno. Another forgettable episode, and for an episode that features the family going across the world, that’s saying something. Travel episodes used to be exciting, now they’re just another stupid thing that happens.

Tidbits and Quotes
– The opening is just awful. Selma is giving Burns his driver’s test, where he’s a neutered old man again. She goes through hot flashes and opens up the roof of the old automobile they’re driving. When the roof is upturned vertically, a gust of wind turns it into some kind of sail which causes the car to careen out of control. Totally makes sense. The scene then ends with Burns’s lungs shooting out his throat to act like air bags. Goddammit.
– Skimming through the episode for these quotes, I just noticed the credited writer: Lawrence Talbot. The Wolf Man wrote this? Actually, it’s just a pseudonym for Dana Gould. So, what, he was disappointed enough by this one to not use his name, but catastrophes like “Homer the Moe” and “The President Wore Pearls,” he’s more than happy to credit himself?
– This is the second episode in a row where we watch a tape hosted by a celebrity, this time with Robert Wagner talking about menopause. And both times they’re not funny.
– “Selma, I never realized you wanted a child so badly.” Remember “Selma’s Choice,” Marge? I guess not. One of Selma’s main motivations is that she wants to be loved, be it by a husband or a child.
– We saw it in “There’s Something About Marrying,” and now here, Homer openly making shots and cracking jokes at Patty and Selma. In the classic years, he’d only respond in kind if the sisters said something disparaging to him. Normally, he keeps his resentment to himself, usually for Marge’s sake. I’m sure someone will come up with a counter example, but his past behavior is definitely in stark contrast to now, where he just openly insults them at any given opportunity.
– How does Selma have $10,000 to shell out to get a child, and then enough money to send everyone to China for multiple days?
– Homer is intolerable in the second act: getting beaten up temple monks, including getting his heart ripped out, talking baby talk to Chairman Mao, then the whole acrobatic scene. He’s thrown on stage, and the performers make a giant tower of chairs. Watching this and standing on a plank, Homer comments, “Boy, this is easy! Maybe I am the world’s greatest acrobat!” Because he thinks that acrobatics is standing still? Is that the joke? He’s launched in the air and manages to magically land on top of the chairs. He then chants “USA!” until the tower collapses. Our lovable protagonist.
– Madam Wu is like a crazy person, spying on the Simpsons and tracking them down in a tank to get the baby back, all so we can get a stupid Tiananmen Square reference.
– Homer gets dressed up like a Buddha statue so the orphanage will bring him inside, which they do utilizing a giant hook in his nose. Aside from Homer’s muffled screams, wouldn’t they notice how fleshy and soft the statue is? These two guards have to be fucking morons to not notice this is a human being.
– Like all “big” changes in the show, Selma being a mother is never explored or developed at all. It’s barely even acknowledged. I think Ling has appeared in the show maybe three times after this, with either Selma holding her or showing her in their apartment. She’s basically a prop that the show is stuck with now.

(originally aired March 6, 2005)
Seems like we’ve had a Bart/Lisa episode for every season, and the writers just aren’t up to the task in writing a believable conflict and resolution for them, with this episode being the rustiest example of all. After being humiliated by her brother’s pranks on a field trip, Lisa decides she has little recourse than to issue a restraining order on him. In place of the rest of the family reacting to this, we have a videotape explaining restraining orders, hosted by Gary Busey, which is kinda disturbing. Homer wrangles together a twenty-foot stick to keep his kids apart, which Lisa uses, and quickly abuses, to poke and bother Bart relentlessly. I thought this would be kind of interesting, that now Lisa would become as big of an irritant as Bart was to her without realizing it. But the episode never really acknowledges it. We get a montage of Lisa abusing Bart and him feeling crestfallen, then we’re in court where Judge Harm increases the distance in the restraining order after Bart pokes fun at her. They just drop that angle completely, as Bart whiplashes from sullen to busting the judges ball’s for some reason.

The new distance is so great that Bart now must live in the backyard, which I guess Lisa and her parents are perfectly fine with. This eventually renders Bart into a wild animal, seeing as how he basically lives outdoors now. Finally acknowledging that this has all gone too far, Marge urges her daughter to lift the restraining order, but Lisa still feels slighted by Bart. Marge tells her to remember all the good things her brother has done for her, and Lisa cops that if she can think of three things, she’ll free him. Marge lists two, one which actually counts, then Lisa sees Bart building a giant Lisa statue out of straw in the backyard, which I guess he can do, much to her delight (“It shows he misses me! And this is the third thing!”) What a fucking arbitrary resolution. It’s like a video game, collect these three items and you win the stage. And plus, Lisa seriously can’t remember any of the nice things Bart has done for her? What about taking the fall for her in “Separate Vocations”? The flashbacks in “Lisa on Ice”? Writing her a birthday song with Michael Jackson? I could go on and on. Ultimately it turns out Bart was actually going to burn her sister’s visage in effigy, but Lisa forgives him anyway (“And I was kind of a pill. I guess.”) Aside from blatant cop-out endings like “The Great Money Caper,” this might be the laziest ending I’ve seen yet. A boring, ridiculous episode.

Tidbits and Quotes
– The Skinner/Krabappel drama goes on; it’s given an unusual amount of screen time here, like it’s actually going to develop into a story, except the writers don’t know where to go with it, so it ends with Skinner making out with a mummified corpse. Why have they turned him into such a pathetic sad sack?
– Liberal mouthpiece Lisa is in full swing here, as the class arrives at Springfield Glacier only to find it’s a pile of slush in the middle of a lake. Lisa immediately leaps that the culprit is global warming, and sermonizes her schoolmates (“How can you stand there eating snacks and being children when the world’s glaciers are vanishing?”) It casts her in such an annoying light, which is definitely something you don’t want for a positive character like Lisa.
– I don’t even want to bother with the Homer subplot. We’re back to Sprawl-Mart again, the first time we see it, there’s a banner reading “Not a Parody of Wal-Mart.” No shit? Dead Homers Society did a great write-up about how corporation and brand parodies in the past were so strong because they weren’t about one specific company, that they could be applied to a wider spectrum. Krusty Burger can represent all fast food or low-end restaurants, Duff can be all beers, Laramie can be all tobacco companies, etc. Sprawl-Mart can only be Wal-Mart, and the entire plot here of Homer becoming a greeter for some reason, the company abusing its illegal immigrant workers by locking them in the store overnight, all of it is specific to one thing. It’s lazy, uninspired, and ultimately just a piss poor piece of satire. Wal-Mart managers are dickholes and abuse their workers! Why? Because they’re eeeevil! Or something!
– Lisa pokes Bart so much to the extent that he has nerve damage in his arm, and she’s never reprimanded for it. That’s why it felt like the episode was turning into Lisa being as much of a terror to Bart as it was vice versa. It looks like it’s getting there, then it takes a wild turn into craziness at the end of the second act.
– I hate the second act break. I hated it when I first watched it, and I still hate it now. It might be one of the worst “jokes” in the show’s history. Bart is now forced to live out in the backyard, which is now a big woodland area for the sake of the episode, leaving him cold, alone and scared. This is after we see how much his life sucks due to the restraining order, so we really feel bad for him. He considers that at least his family must miss him. Cut to inside, the other Simpsons are joyously playing instruments, which I guess they can all play now. Two big reasons why this is fucking awful. First, it tears down the characters. Wouldn’t Marge be livid about this situation, considering how she fought to have the restraining order lifted? Even fucking Homer must be able to see how fucked up this all is. They all care about Bart, but for this one quick joke, let’s show that they don’t. Which brings me to my other point, it makes the family spiteful. One thing that sets this show apart is that the Simpsons are really a loving family, even in times when they squabble, they’re behind each other one hundred percent. It’s different than like, say, Family Guy, amongst its many, many problems, where it feels like the Griffins just don’t like each other, and that’s not very fun to watch. For this one joke, they make it like the family could get a rat’s ass that Bart is alone and terrified, and that defies a big theme of the entire series. And then just to specifically piss me off, they end the episode by bringing in the goddamn instruments again! I hate this episode. So much stuff in it perfectly exemplifies how much of this series is fundamentally broken at this point.

(originally aired February 20, 2005)
Following in the footsteps of “Three Gays of the Condo,” this is another episode that the writers hope will make the series look tolerant and progressive, but ultimately just feels hacky and gimmicky. To bring in more tourists, Springfield legalizes gay marriage, and when Reverend Lovejoy forbids to perform any non-hetero services, Homer steps in, having become an ordained minister over the Internet in less than a minute. Then it stumbles into this weird thing where Homer vows he’ll marry anything to anything else, and he goes on Smartline to defend his actions. He’s acting purely out of greed, but the deeper connotations are slightly disconcerting. Kent Brockman cites the recent surge in rash marriages, and Homer is defending the rights of callously handled unions, but because this is the gay marriage episode, it makes it seem like they’re directly connected. Homer even talks about marrying inanimate objects, even things that don’t exist, which is like those stupid arguments that opponents to gay marriage use. It’s all very confusing, it’s feels like the show is in the argument for, but in the most backhanded, negative way possible.

Alright, time for the big reveal: which of our characters is coming out of the closet? Turns out it’s Patty, although this is nothing we already didn’t know (“There goes the last lingering thread of my heterosexuality.”) Patty comes out to her sister, and reveals that she’s marrying a pro golfer named Veronica. So, alright, she was hesitant to come clean to Marge, and for some reason decided to drop that bomb and announce her marriage at the same time, but I’ll be generous and go with that. Clearly she and Veronica must have been together for a long time to want to tie the knot, but here’s the kicker: Marge discovers Veronica is actually a man, exposing her protruding Adam’s apple as proof. I don’t even know what to say. You’re telling me that Patty noticed this? This person that she’s about to marry, in all the time they’d have spent together, even if they never had sex, which they imply they haven’t, that she never ever questioned his gender? It’s just such a bizarre, unnecessary twist, I don’t understand why they would do this. They make like they want to normalize gay marriage, but ultimately just turn it into a gigantic farce. This show isn’t as aggressively offensive as “Three Gays,” but it’s just as awful.

Tidbits and Quotes
– The opening bit with Bart and Milhouse pranking that travel channel guy is so boring. Also Blinky is now a giant Creature from the Black Lagoon type monster now. Or at least a fish just like it.
– The map to star’s homes bit annoys me. The joke markers aren’t funny, then it holds on screen for a while until Homer asks the audience if they’ve read them all, which just annoys me further considering that the jokes weren’t funny enough to warrant holding the frame so we could read them all. It’s like a feedback loop of aggravation.
– It really bothers me that Lisa suggests the town accept gay marriage, and is armed with two supporting reasons (“We can attract a growing segment of the marriage market, and strike a blow for civil rights!”) Lisa is eight. Of course this isn’t a new complaint, but it’s especially bothersome here. At times like this, I think back to “Selma’s Choice” when Lisa was equally as eloquent, suggesting that Selma try artificial insemination, but there it was a joke that such a young girl would know about such a thing (immediately followed by Homer thinking that means having sex with a robot). But nowadays, Lisa has the mentality of a liberal college-bound feminist, so it’s no longer precocious, it’s just annoying.
– Like with “Three Gays,” the show hides behind its claims of acceptance so it can make a bunch of easy gay jokes. Right off the bat at the start of act two we have the Springfield pro-gay commercial, with men skipping toward the town underneath a rainbow, and then two men marrying wearing wedding gowns.
– Homer is completely fueled by cash this episode, but I really don’t understand a lot of the shit he does this show: forgetting what straight marriage is, telling Brockman to call him “Your Holiness,” childishly goading Lovejoy… Then at the end of Smartline, Marge tells her husband she’s proud of him. He flat out admitted he’s only doing this for the money, what exactly is she proud of?
– Was Patty hesitant to reveal that she was gay, and about Veronica, to Selma? To her mother? Did she do it all at once, or much earlier than when she told Marge? You’d think she would have wanted to have this conversation earlier. Why would she hide this long, up until she’s going to get married, to tell Marge she was gay? If my sister waited that long to tell me something like that, I’d be a little hurt by it. Is that why Marge is so upset? (“I just can’t believe my sister would keep me in the dark for all these years, then expect complete acceptance on the day she gets married!”) Perhaps, it’s not exactly explained well.
– Homer’s fantasy of him marrying himself, with two Homers making out with little Homer children running around… I don’t even know what to say, other than that it’s grossly out of character and incredibly disturbing.
– The Veronica reveal is so bonkers on so many levels. Like who are the people sitting on his side of the chapel? They must know that he’s a man, so are they all in on this ruse? Or maybe they’re not, maybe they’re other golfers that he knew from the women’s circuit. But what is this man’s life? Does he have any family or friends, does he lead a double life as a man and a woman? How did he think this marriage would work out, especially considering it wouldn’t take long after their wedding for Patty to discover he has a penis. Did he just think that she would accept it? A hundred questions are whizzing around my head that this show gives no answers to; it’s one of the most ridiculous and stupid things this show has ever done.