(originally aired November 18, 2007)
I know unrelated first acts are expected at this point, but goddamn this one is pretty egregious. We start with a brand new comic book store opening across from the Android’s Dungeon, one I guess Comic Book Guy never noticed being worked on until its grand opening. Its proprietor, voiced by Jack Black (another talent wasted), is actually jovial and open with his customers, leaving CBG shit out of luck. It isn’t long until business dries up and he closes his store for good. Think this is going to lead to something important? Not at all. Comparing her waistline to a Wonder Woman standee outside the other comic shop, Marge decides to join a gym to get into shape, but finds them to be too intense and showy. She vows to open a fitness center for “normal” women, and noticing the space for rent at CBG’s old shop, she opens “Shapes.” You know, like Curves! Usually, aborted first acts are just kind of rudimentary things happening, but here, it ends with Comic Book Guy’s store closing. Isn’t that kind of a big deal? I guess not, because after he locks his doors and sadly walks into the distance, we never see him again. Plus seeing the continuation and resolution to that story sounds way more interesting than what is to follow.

Act two starts with Marge’s chain (!) of stores being a monster hit, another example of characters becoming super talented and successful in a matter of seconds. Now she’s a highly regarded and respected business mogul, because I guess that can happen now in the course of an episode. Once we get to this point, the actual Shapes stores aren’t really regarded anymore, as the plot shifts to Homer’s unease being a layabout husband. Is it because he thinks he should be the breadwinner? Perhaps he misses seeing Marge at home since she’s working all the time. Maybe he could team up with Comic Book Guy to help take down his competitor and Shapes simultaneously. Or, it can be that Homer fears Marge will marry some new buff guy now that she’s successful, so he gets his stomach stapled to make himself more attractive. Then we have the ending where he becomes an abnormal monster after having an enormous amount of surgeries done, and he’s chased around town a la Frankenstein. Considering the extent of the damage, I figured this must have been a dream sequence, but honestly, at this point in the series, it wouldn’t have surprised me if it wasn’t. Then after all this bullshit nonsense, they have the gall to end the episode with Homer asking Marge why she stays with him. I’ve been pondering the same thing for eight seasons now. A complete broken down mess of an episode.

Tidbits and Quotes
– They wasted their time designing a new comic shop, and getting four guest stars, all for the first act which is completely unrelated to anything else in the episode. It’s pretty incredible; couldn’t they have come up with a Comic Book Guy-centered story instead of the shit that comes after this? I know all of the guest star artists, but this definitely feels like another instance of “who the fuck are these guys?” for 90% of the public. My favorite is the always upbeat Alan Moore (“You wrote my favorite issues of Radioactive Man!” “Oh really? So you like that I made your favorite superhero a heroin-addicted jazz critic who’s not radioactive?” “I don’t read the words, I just like when he punches people.”)
– At the Android’s Dungeon, CBG and Martin discuss Superman and Batman. Then at Coolsville, Milo talks about the Formidable Mulk and the Thung. It’s the whole Star Wars/Cosmic Wars thing again, except this time it’s within the same episode. Are you going to reference the original characters, or make up shoddily named knock-offs? You have to pick one or the other.
– The OK GO music video parody with the treadmills sure hasn’t dated itself. Nope. Not at all.
– We previously established the new comic book store is right across the street from the Android’s Dungeon. Marge walks out of L.A. Body Works and what is directly across the street? The Android’s Dungeon. It really is like they just crammed these two stories together with no regard at all.
– We never really see exactly what Marge’s gym is or why it’s such a success. It instantly becomes popular, and we get these glowing endorsements from Selma and Bernice Hibbert (“I love this gym!” “Me too!”) Then we see Lisa working the front desk, because I guess she doesn’t go to school, telling Marge she’s so busy she needs to open up a second location. Okay?
– The writing for the “conflict” is amazingly bad. A group of husbands give a list of telltale signs that Marge might want to get a new husband, then we see Homer consult said list that he’s written down. It’s like, one, two, three, that’s all of them! And he’s so worried, yet when he gets Marge to talk about her day, we see he’s preoccupied with the TV, then he remembers the list and finishes it off, then he breaks down in tears as he proceeds to steal amenities from the hotel room. It’s beyond short term memory into what I fear Homer might be bipolar.
– In one of the clunkiest, most hackneyed and cliche contrivances ever, Marge consults some other ladies about getting a new handbag, but Homer walks in after that part is said and he thinks they’re discussing her getting a new man. But just so the audience knows for sure, Homer spells it out even clearer (“They’re convincing Marge to dump me!”) No shit, we picked that up. What follows is just more out-of-place shock humor (“I get a new one every two years! From Italy!” “You would love a big black one!”) Ugh.
– The saggy excess flesh Homer has banded behind his back is so fucking disgusting. As is the remainder of the episode, really. Though the only laugh I got from the episode came from the plastic surgeon holding up a gigantic staple remover in fixing Homer’s stomach back up.

(originally aired November 11, 2007)
Hey look, another episode! Kirk and Luann are finally getting re-married, effectively undoing everything that “A Milhouse Divided” created. As I mentioned previously, I would mind this more if the writers actually did anything with the divorce other than make Kirk the saddest, most pathetic caricature of a single father ever. Milhouse stays with the Simpsons while his parents have a romantic honeymoon cruise, but are soon declared missing, presumably dead when they accidentally fall off the ship. This is kind of a big deal, and I feel that no one really acts appropriately about it. Plus, is Milhouse just going to stay with the Simpsons forever? I notice that we live in a bizarro universe where no one seems to have relatives and inevitably ends up on the Simpson couch. What about Nana Van Houten? (“You dial ‘9-1,’ and then when I say so, dial ‘1’ again!”) Anyway, Milhouse decides that as an orphan, he needs to man up, so he adopts a new sullen persona, making him a hit at the school, and alienating Bart.

The plot then becomes about Bart wanting to regain his popularity and cut Milhouse down a peg, which is bizarre considering you’d think there would be a bit more sympathy for a character whose parents are supposedly dead. Bart tracks down Milhouse’s rugged uncle from the west coast to reconcile with him, and eventually take him back home with him, something that was not in Bart’s plan. But wouldn’t this happen anyway? Again, where are Milhouse’s other relatives? Bart is pained at the thought of losing his best friend, a sentimental moment I would buy if the episode had shown him actually give a shit about Milhouse. I dunno, it all just feels sort of muddled. They set sail on a hot air balloon, and then of course end up sailing right over a tropical island where Kirk and Luann have been stranded, and everyone’s reunited and everything’s okay. I’m for any kind of change at this point in the series, because why wouldn’t the writers want to shake things up just a little bit? I remember when this first aired, I was thinking why they didn’t just let Milhouse leave. Does it really matter? But no, status quo dictates everything goes back to normal, every time. While in the past that was done tongue-in-cheek, now it’s just frustrating.

Tidbits and Quotes
– Kirk and Luann wearing the same outfit is disturbing, and Bart pointing out how much they look alike adds onto that. It’s one of those unspoken classic cartoon things where male protagonists have girlfriends that look exactly like them. I feel like Minnie Mouse was initially created as a goof, but now almost a hundred years later, she’s a prominent icon for the Disney company.
– This season has been crazy about rattling off joke names, it seems like every episode has them. I just imagine how long they must have pitched these scenes to come up with each name, and it’s all just unfunny time killing. Homer sounds off different types of ties, and then later the endless sequence of him pointing out water-related food products, all of which I assume the writers were hoping for complimentary samples from the company for mentioning them on the show.
– There’s a pointless story that I can’t even consider a B-plot of Homer desperately trying to remember the color of Marge’s eyes. To keep him from cheating, Marge dons dark glasses whenever Homer is around. Then later when it’s announced Milhouse’s parents are missing, we see her trying to console him still wearing the glasses. Why don’t you take those things off, there’s more pressing matters going on here. In the end, Homer sings some dumb song and finally remembers: her eyes are hazel. Then we zoom in on Marge’s face, and see that around her black pupil is a colored iris… and it looks very wrong. I think it would have been funnier if Homer was like, “Hazel! Of course!” as we zoom into a completely black pupil like we always see them. I think South Park did a joke like that where someone comments on someone’s beautiful green eyes, and it’s just a black dot.
– “Hey, loser, your mom called. She said, ‘Glub glub.'” That seems a bit harsh, even for Nelson. Also, Lisa is aghast at Milhouse’s new persona, even though they live in the same house and she must have seen him at some point. Also, this plot “point” goes nowhere.
– The “jokes” about Solvig, CA I’m sure played well at the show’s California offices, but I don’t get any of it. Apparently they’re like Denmark, so what’s some shit we can name? Butter cookies. Hans Christian Anderson. Aquavit. Done.
– The only laugh in the episode is from the much maligned rope climbing instructor (“In the real world, rope climbing skills are vital!”) When Bart latches onto the dangling rope from the ascending hot air balloon, he gets validated (“Well, whaddya think of Mr. Johnson’s rope climbing class now?” “Still sucks!”)

(originally aired November 4, 2007)
More Halloween disappointment, in what may be the worst Treehouse of Horror yet. I keep mentioning how the tone of these segments feels no different than normal episodes despite the fantastical happenings in them, and this year’s installment is no different. The first segment is evidence of that, a riff on E.T. where Bart takes in Kodos, thinking her to be a kindly alien, when actually she needs his help building a matter transporter to send her kind to Earth to wage war. In “Hungry are the Damned,” the Simpsons were terrified when Kang and Kodos abducted them, as anyone would be coming face to face with a giant disgusting alien creature. Here, none of the family seem the least bit perturbed that there’s an alien in their house. They give out their cutesy joke and move on. The second segment is a parody of Mr. and Mrs. Smith, which as we all know gets played in heavy rotation during the Halloween season. Let’s watch Homer and Marge have an all-out, exaggerated gun fight, just like in that movie! This is extremely thematically appropriate! Ugh. Last is “Heck House,” which is the worst one of all. The kids play pranks across town on Halloween night, most of which are very destructive and dangerous, until Flanders steps in to scare them with his hell house. From that point, it’s just more ultra-religious Flanders shit again (“Please, Lord, grant me the power to psychologically torture them into loving you!”) Thank God there’s only one Treehouse of Horror left I have to watch. Before long, I can flush these new ones from my memory and only remember the good times, when the show knew how to be spooky and hilarious at the same time.

Tidbits and Quotes
– Pretty humungous cheat with Kodos in the shower. It’s stupid enough that she can maneuver through the house considering how large she is, but when we see her in the shower, it looks to be as big as a pool.
– I like the image of Bart riding his bike with the gigantic Kodos in the basket up front. And Kang showing up briefly at the end before getting shot and killed (“What’d I miss?”)
– Did Homer and Marge kill Abe in their gunfight or did he just faint and/or have a heart attack? He has no bullet holes, and he just kind of falls over and I can’t tell. I also don’t care, so there’s also that.
– I think “Heck House” may be the worst individual Treehouse segment of all. It feels so empty and meaningless. The kids go from throwing balloons at people to really dangerous stuff like whacking poor Hans Moleman in the face with a bat, diverting gasoline trucks and smashing them into buildings, and just straight-up robbing Lenny’s house. And Lisa’s there too, but she spends the whole segment shaking her head and looking annoyed. Why wouldn’t she just go home? Or try to stop them? Angry citizens show up to Homer’s door for answers, but he ends up getting his head clogged by a pig rectum, so he’s out (in Plopper’s much-awaited appearance in the series!) Also, we see the kids have dropped the pig from the roof, and the townspeople just stand there. Why not go after them and apprehend them? Unless they leap off the roof, they’d have time to storm the backyard and grab them. Anyway, Flanders appears and diverts the kids to his “hell house,” which of course is lame, until he gets divine powers to send the kids to down to the real Hell and give them a lesson on the seven deadly sins, which is basically just a bunch of comedy sketches involving our characters. They sully the Devil Flanders image from one of the most classic Treehouse of Horrors, and reuse the Hieronymus Bosch-inspired Hellscape as seen in “Bart Gets Hit By a Car.” And then we end with another sorry shot at FOX, who had just recently acquired the Wall Street Journal. Not scary, not funny, made no sense… why do these Halloween shows anymore if you can’t do them properly?

(originally aired October 14, 2007)
This is another one of those episodes that felt like it had potential, but ultimately doesn’t feel right thanks to over-exaggeration. Marge gets caught up in a bank robbery, helmed by bug-eyed loser Dwight, voiced by Steve Buscemi. When his plans quickly go bust, he agrees to turn himself in only if Marge agrees to come visit him in prison. However, she is extremely skittish about the idea and keeps putting off her obligation she promised. The problem here is that a lot of time was invested in painting Dwight as this sad, needy person, so Marge’s dilemma doesn’t feel so conflicted. He gets comically sprayed with dye packs at the bank and ultimately breaks down, then in act two we see how he is desperately waiting for Marge to arrive. Meanwhile, Marge is doing everything and anything she can to avoid not going there. Perhaps if they made Dwight a bit more morally ambiguous. He could still have the sympathetic side we see in the end, but making the first act a bit more dramatic and jarring to Marge would have helped in the long run.

Dwight ends up escaping from prison: if Marge isn’t going to come to him, he’ll come for her. He stows away in her car and forces her to drive to the amusement park where his mother abandoned him as a kid. All he wants of Marge is to spend the day with him, to give him the day he wished he could have had all those years ago. I really do think this story could have worked, but there’s just not enough time spent on it around the pointless time filler. They could have built a connection between Dwight and Marge, where, as damaged as he is, he sees her as a mother figure, and Marge reverts to her default nurturing ways, defending him from the police at the very end. This happens often in these episodes, where they delay the main story so long in favor of horrible side bits and gags, that by the time they remember to wrap things up, there’s only like three minutes left. I feel like these plots are written as outlines, in that they write the most basic amount of scenes to get the story beats across, and then they focus on cramming in as many unnecessary gag scenes and jokes as possible. Then again, that would imply they spend most their time and energy writing jokes, which clearly isn’t the case. Another case of wasted potential.

Tidbits and Quotes
– I like the beginning with Homer being browbeaten into not missing Lisa’s award ceremony, so he overcompensates and gets there almost two hours early. Before that, in his sleepy state, he mistakes Maggie as his tie and a milk bottle as aftershave. Also, an adorable moment when Homer’s driving, you just see her asleep in the back in her car seat. Awwww.
– Fourteen seconds is killed by a close-up of two newspaper ads as we have voice-over of the bullies talking. Animation discount!
– At this point, nameless extras are apparently forbidden from scenes, so the bank is entirely filled with recognizable faces: Lindsay Naegle, Krusty, Bumblebee Man, Dr. Hibbert… and this one guy we don’t know. Could that be the guest star? Could be!
– There’s a weird tone shift in the first act. At first, everyone at the bank doesn’t take the robbers seriously and they keep cracking jokes, then later they act more scared and uneasy about the whole thing. Maybe it has something to do with Gil being shot and killed in front of them, except that never gets mentioned at all ever. Shouldn’t Dwight be put up on murder charges? Will we ever hear from ol’ Gil again? What about that other guy who ran away? All of these questions will not be answered, of course! What were you expecting?
– Wiggum reading off the scene selection names on the DVD is another one of those endless scenes that make me want to rip my face off. Did the writers really think this was so funny throughout the entire writing process to leave it in?
– Moe apparently has been hospitalized for three weeks, and of course Homer hasn’t visited him (“You said you visited him every night!” “Moe the tavern, not Moe the person.”) What a likable guy!
– There’s really so much filler here. There’s the prison movie Marge watches, which works into the story, but could really have been half the length. Act three starts with an Itchy & Scratchy cartoon that goes on way too long, and there’s a completely superfluous montage of Dwight stalking Marge. Why wouldn’t he just go up and get her? There’s the one shot where he’s glaring at her on the Jumbotron at the stadium, but when she looks at the screen, he acts nonchalant and looks away. Hey, you’re an escaped convict whom the police are presumably looking for, how about you don’t get your image on a gigantic screen where hundreds of people can see you. And why didn’t anyone recognize him and call the cops? Oh, who cares…

(originally aired October 7, 2007)
Jesus, three Homer shows in a row, and another new job! Have no fear, they’ve got stories for years! Desperately trying to find milk for Maggie, Homer ventures to Guidopolis (too subtle), where everyone is an Italian-American stereotype. I remember the press release or some advance information about this episode mentioning that Homer goes to New Jersey… either that’s wrong, or they decided to change it last minute. I’d believe either one, honestly. So Homer ends up being a tow truck driver in Springfield working for an amicable, but deeply psychopathic guy Louie. He starts out doing somewhat of a decent job, kind of, until he starts hooking Arnie Pye’s helicopter in the sky and towing the Sunday school bus with tkids still in it. The townspeople get pissed and devise a plan to get Homer in hot water with his territorial employer. But after that we see that without a tow (because I guess no tow drivers existed within Springfield before this), the streets turn to anarchy, as cars pile up on each other and all hell breaks loose. It’s like in “Marge in Chains” where one seemingly insignificant shift makes the whole town nuts, except there it was so wonderfully tongue-in-cheek and hilarious, and here, it’s just noisy, meaningless chaos.

Louie locks Homer in his basement for disobeying his rules, where there are other tow drivers who “got greedy.” This guy should hook up with Julia from the last episode, he’s completely insane. But at least Julia suffered for her crimes, while here, Louie gets no comeuppance. The only thing in the episode that works is the B-story: Marge gets some outside assistance with an unusually fussy Maggie, and is told she needs to leave her daughter be so she can be independent. Being an infant savant, Maggie takes to this just fine, but Marge is lost without someone to mother. Maggie ends up saving Homer in the end, and returns to Marge’s arms where she belongs. The first part of the story felt kind of cloying, especially when immediately contrasting with Homer’s bullshit plot, but in the end, I really liked how they tied together. Maggie roaming the streets on Santa’s Little Helper’s back was a cute sequence, and I’d have to have a cold, dark heart to not be touched by her reconciliation with Marge at the end. Maggie is so underutilized it’s nice to see her actually being acknowledged. Unfortunately it’s barely a fourth of the episode. The rest sucks as usual.

Tidbits and Quotes
– While Marge is trying to get Maggie to go to sleep, Homer, Bart, Lisa, Milhouse and Ralph are having a loud toga party. I guess that’s the night that they re-enact Animal House? That as young children they’ve probably never seen? And Homer rides a motorcycle on the stairs, just like in the movie! I just don’t understand…
– I chuckled at the milk bottle breaking and Homer being reduced to tears (“Spilled milk? All over the floor?”)
– The kids tutor Marge how to use a computer… despite the fact she was doing just fine using one last season.
– The bit where Louie alludes to being his own boss and Homer just not getting it is so lame. It’s like the joke in “Maximum Homerdrive,” where Homer looks back and forth between the pictures of Red and Tony Randall and can’t figure out who he’s looking at. In that instance, it’s pushed to such a ridiculous degree that I could laugh at it. Here, it just feels tired and bizarre. Louie mentions his boss is in the truck right now, so Homer concludes… he’s his boss.
– More gay bashing when Homer turns his tow hook the other way around, a car full of effeminate gay stereotypes start cat calling him instantly. Am I being too sensitive about this? It just feels so lazy and offensive to trot out this kind of shit in this day and age. It’s shocking how “Homer’s Phobia,” an episode that aired fifteen years ago, was more progressive about gay characters and issues than episodes that air today.
– “When you married a man who years later without warning become a tow truck driver, you knew what the deal would eventually be.” “If my life as a tow truck driver were a teleplay, this would be the end of act two!” The writers must think they’re being clever by being self-conscious, but it’s just annoying, and at worse, further pointing out how shitty their writing is. And then they ruin the latter joke even further by at the end of act two, they have text come up reading “End of Act Two.” The dummies watching might not get it unless we explicitly tell them!
– Louie having a Jon Bon Jovi bust is only further evidence this story originally took place in New Jersey.
– Homer’s been missing for four days and no one decides to do anything, because he told Marge not to worry. So, again, Marge being a completely inactive character when her husband could be lying in a ditch somewhere. And what exactly is Louie’s plan? He’s got these guys locked in his basement… I guess until they die? He forces Homer to call home at gun point to tell Lisa everything is fine and “goodbye forever.” No phony story, no fake explanation, why did he have him call in the first place? I’m so confused…