(originally aired November 13, 2005)
It’s been a while since we had a Marge/Bart episode. The first since “Bart the Mother”? I think that’s right, but if not, who cares. At this point, the writers have forgotten how to write both characters, so the result is very awkward and strange. Marge buys a tandem bicycle hoping to ride with Homer, but he turns her down in favor of television. We’ve come a long way since “Duffless,” haven’t we? Seeing his lonely mother biking by herself, Bart agrees to go with her, and it becomes their regular bonding activity, riding to a dainty tea shop for tea and cakes (for Bart, mainly cakes). It’s a thin, boring premise with not much added to it, but at least I’m fine with the characterization so far. It isn’t long before the bullies poke at Bart for being a “momma’s boy,” leading him to explode at his mother and humiliate her (“Mom, I only hung out with you because I felt sorry for you!”) I get that he needs to shun Marge here, but he does it with such a level of scorn. It’s not “stop mothering me so much,” it’s “I put up with you because you’re pathetic.” Why would he word it that way? How mean is that?

In the final act, the rift created between Marge and Bart starts getting mended. There’s a karaoke contest at the school, for some reason, and Bart suggests he and his mother do a duet. Something that would humiliate him further, but he’s only doing it because that’s what he thinks Marge wants. Then we see how their relationship has the risk of paralleling Skinner and his mother, as they are also performing, which makes absolutely no sense. Agnes doing karaoke? Forget it. Also, Skinner has become completely neutered at this point. He used to have some modicum of respect as Bart’s unofficial arch nemesis, now he’s just this sad, pathetic man who’s chained to his mother in every respect. Marge fears Bart will turn out like him, so he cuts their performance short (“Your job isn’t to worry about me, it’s to give me things to worry about.”) So the ending isn’t Bart apologizing for saying such hateful things to Marge, but Marge apologizing for Bart having to cheer her up. Huh? I get the idea of a mother not wanting to burden her children with her own problems, but it’s not like she unloaded on Bart. She was just having a bad day and Bart responded to it. So I don’t get it. But perhaps I should give up trying to understand some of these episodes.

Tidbits and Quotes
– An intolerable sequence where Homer gleefully hijacks a bumper car as the track is being dismantled and drives it onto the street. Homer being that giddy immediately sets up warning flags for me. He’s a hell of a lot funnier when he’s a dogged everyman, not a giggling maniac.
– There’s sort of a B-story involving Homer taking up arm wrestling. I like the idea of him just bulking up one arm with his dumbbell, then moving on to the other one before Moe stops him, but beyond that, it’s just killing time, and has no bearing on anything. The scene of them attempting to bilk the Rich Texan is the only amusing scene of the episode (“A hundred bucks says he can whoop you in arm wrestling!” “A Texas penny it is!”)
– “Sweet Home Alabama” is played twice on this show’s soundtrack, with characters singing it, for reasons that escape me.
– The China Syndrome is a pretty good store name, as is the talking Krusty tea kettle (“Earl Gray? I’d rather have Lynda Gray! …is she still alive?”)
– We get a Midnight Cowboy reference, but it feels very random. Marge takes a bus to Miami with the tandem bike, I guess representing her dead relationship with her son? Or something?
– The new type of “joke” with the bullies is to have them be knowledgeable or mindful of cultural topics, like Jimbo knowing about Frank Gehry, or here when they discuss the limitations of store credit. Then we end the episode with the three of them singing “My Sharona” outside the Simpson house for some reason, because that’s funny, I guess?

(originally aired November 6, 2005)
FOX running the Halloween special in November had become almost an aggravating tradition now, enough for the series itself to acknowledge it. The opening sequence was so, so cathartic when I first saw it, with Kang and Kodos desperately trying to speed up time during baseball season so they can air the Treehouse of Horror, but they end up going too far and accidentally obliterate all of existence. If that’s our beginning, then the rest of the show must be pure gold! Well, not exactly. While there are some entertaining moments throughout, this is just another mildly disappointing Halloween show. First up, “Bartificial Intelligence,” where the Simpsons adopt a robot boy to replace Bart when he falls into a deep coma. I like the vague not-so-distant future setting, and there’s some great direction by David Silverman to give a bit of a creepy atmosphere, but ultimately it’s not all that interesting. I kind of like the ending where Bart ransacks the discarded robots who took him for his revenge, but everything else feels kind of blah.

“Survival of the Fattest” is definitely the worst, where Burns invites a group of people to his lavish estate in order to hunt them for sport. This is a conceit that feels like a one-off gag from the show proper rather than an entire Halloween segment. There’s nothing really spooky about it, it’s just an exercise to see how many beloved secondary characters we can kill off in six minutes, which I guess is good enough for the writers at this point. And when I think Halloween, I think Terry Bradshaw, who guest stars in this one. In the last segment “I’ve Grown a Costume to Your Face,” a scornful witch curses the citizens of Springfield to become whoever, or whatever, their costume is. This is the most Halloween-y of them all, but it still doesn’t feel right. Some people are happy with their new personas, some aren’t, and it all comes to a spectacular non-conclusion, which is admittedly kind of amusing. The biggest problem I’m seeing with these recent Treehouse of Horrors is tone. The non-spooky content in some segments also shares some blame, but even when it was being comical, Halloween specials in the past always had this really unique quality to them. Whether they be playing up the tension or mimicing suspenseful music cues or camera moves from the movies they were parodying, they didn’t feel like the regular episodes. Conversely, despite their impossible content, each of these three segments would work fine if put in regular rotation.

Tidbits and Quotes
– The Kang and Kodos opening is definitely the best part of the show. The animation of the entire universe (including God Himself) being sucked up in a vortex is pretty awesome.
– The pacing in the first segment is kind of odd. Bart has just gone into the coma when Hibbert suggests the family get a robot boy to replace him. He then jokes about being glad that Bart isn’t dead so now he can keep billing them, twice, and gets mad at Homer and Marge for not laughing. Their kid’s in a permanent coma, what’s his problem?
– Now we have music montages in Halloween shows too, with Bart and David the robot boy fighting for their family and friend’s affections to the tune of The Eagles. Again, this does not feel Halloween-y to me.
– Really well timed bit where David uses Homer as a buffer for robo-Bart’s buzzsaw, but then has absolutely no problem ripping through them both (“Ohhh, those were my good pants!”) I don’t know why they tagged on the weird exorcist ending, you could have just ended it on Homer and his new small robo-legs giving out.
– The second segment is really a big dead zone. The only thing I smirked at was the Blue-Haired Lawyer finishing up a legal document to defend Burns’s human poaching, and then Burns shoots him. Terry Bradshaw doesn’t do a bad job, it’s just a role that doesn’t fit in a Halloween show.
– I don’t know if this is the first time it’s mentioned, but the Crazy Old Man’s new moniker is Old Jewish Man, which feels way too on-the-nose. And that’s not another Jew joke, I swear.
– I laughed hard at Sideshow Mel’s “Burn her… gift certificate!” It’s just like “Surely he cannot speak!” in “Night of the Dolphin,” I just love whenever Mel makes a grand announcement in the middle of a crowd scene.
– Chief Wiggum is now Jared from the Subway ads (“I’m only a little overweight and sexually ambiguous!”) I don’t entirely get this gag. Did it seem like Jared was gay in those commercials? I believe he’s married. It just feels like a weird shot.
– Maggie turning everyone into pacifiers and flying off to the Bewitched theme is a pretty good outro. Moe’s PSA for adult illiteracy, with guest star Dennis Rodman… not so much. I like the idea of characters breaking the fourth wall for the Halloween show, but it just felt kind of random how they did it here.

(originally aired September 25, 2005)
Modern Simpsons has never been shy about lifting characters and elements from its illustrious past, and here’s a perfect example. It’s “A Milhouse Divided” in reverse, where the Van Houtens get back together, which leads to a martial squabble between Homer and Marge, because we haven’t seen that in almost two episodes. Was this story necessary? Nope. But I was surprised that most of everything before the clunky finale worked for me. Some parts felt rushed, but the main story beats felt logical and the characterization was steady too. Kirk and Luann cross paths at a party at the Simpsons, and ultimately end up back in the sack again. I can see this happening: Luann enjoyed her freedom as a bachelorette, but now things have dried up for her, and Kirk is just a sad sack who’s been hoping and praying for this day to come. So has Milhouse, who’s ecstatic about this new revelation that his family is back together. And so have I, if only this means we can finally retire the suicidal single man jokes with Kirk, with this show sneaking one last one under the wire with him being cut down from a noose in Milhouse’s dream.

The new union isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. At first Milhouse seems to be disappointed that his parents would rather get “reacquainted” then spend time with him, then later he complains about how he raked in the gifts and the love from the two when they were divorced, both trying their hardest to be the “better” parent. Bart is just as disappointed, having also reaped these benefits (“Drive-in movies, two Christmases, soda for dinner… we lived like kings!” “Remember when you told my Dad to go to bed, and then he did?” “That was some New Year’s.”) This conceit is very selfish, but also very believably childlike, as the two set to break the Van Houtens up again. One of their plans is to leave one of Marge’s bras on Kirk’s bed, but Bart is unaware it has a label, leading Luann to confront Homer. This imaginary infidelity is ultimately what ends up splitting he and Marge up, but even this doesn’t bother me. I like how Bart’s plan ends up biting him in the ass, but more importantly, for once, Homer actually has a valid reason to be upset with Marge given the damning evidence. So many Homer-Marge episodes of late have been so offensive given that Homer overreacts and should have no reason to be angry at his saintly wife, so here, it’s actually a breath of fresh air that he has evidence to be upset about. Also, any reasoning looks better compared to the abomination that was “Bonfire of the Manatees.” Anything. The ending where Bart concocts another plan to reconcile his parents is the only dumb thing here, but even that’s peppered with a few choice jokes (“Dad, I’d give a kajillion dollars for you to get back together!” “Make it two kajillion!”) All in all, a surprisingly entertaining episode. Who wrote this one? Patric Verrone, who scripted a lot of great Futurama episodes like “A Fishful of Dollars” and “The Problem with Popplers.” This show should poach Futurama writers more often.

Tidbits and Quotes
– I can’t decide whether the black church is offensive or not, but I did enjoy picking out every black character in the crowd shot, of which there are not many. Even Sideshow Raheem is there. And you know what, ultimately I laughed during the scene (“Coat Maggie with the Calamine lotion and the scabbing will heal. The scabbing will heal!“) I remember this scene being used as the basis for the promos for this episode, since if the episode isn’t about Homer and Bart, apparently it’s impossible to promote.
– Right from the start, I was stunned at how many good lines there were in this. Usually I’m lucky if I laugh once in the whole show, here I’m laughing a bunch in the first act alone (“Bart’s in there right now, licking frosting off my egg beaters!” “Don’t worry, Dad, I’m saving one for you. I’ll just leave it here in the dog’s mouth.” “Noooo, Bart! That’s a really bad storage area!”)
– I like that Homer has taken a radiation suit from work to wear during the pox party.
– Homer scratching his chicken pox with Bart and Lisa’s spiky heads is a great visual gag.
– “Son, I wanna make one thing clear. Unlike the break-up, this is not your fault.” What a horrible thing to say, first off. Second, did the writers even watch “A Milhouse Divided”?
– I like Milhouse’s dream ends with him marrying Lisa and playing in a honeymoon bounce house. I realize now how much I love Pamela Hayden’s dorky Milhouse laugh when it’s used in an actually funny scene (“I haven’t daydreamed in color in so long!”)
– I’m not fond of Homer getting fired over the phone and cooing over a new potential job: truck driver in Iraq. But for some reason, I love his mindless, deadpan line as he circles the ad, “Trucks are like big cars.”
– Not sure why Lisa is watching The O.C. She introduces the show as “that cool FOX show about teenagers living in Orange County.” Then we see the show, and we see on the screen, “You are watching The O.C.!” In case we didn’t get what the parody was. But even that I laughed at, since Lisa so laboriously set it up, then they tell us what it is anyway. After that, it wasn’t so funny, at least until the bizarre bit at the end where Snoopy robs the teens at the ATM at gunpoint and flees in slow motion. Also, I like how the show has women playing 18-year-old teenagers, who all still sound like kids.
– There’s a lot of neat small stuff in this episode. Lisa is suspect that Bart had something to do with the break-up (“Dad, where are you staying? You know the Four Seasons? Well I’m experiencing them first-hand since I’m living in the park.”) Lisa confronts Bart about it, who tries to get out of answering by chucking a rock at her, but Lisa instinctively blocks it with a trash can lid she inexplicably had with her. I love how non-chalantly she handles it, like this is something that happens regularly.
– Even the big dumb ending has some nice stuff in it, like Bart using Homer’s big dumb body like a log to try and maneuver themselves down stream.

(originally aired September 18, 2005)
Another curious episode that doesn’t seem clear on what it’s supposed to be about, so in place of a concrete story, we have a lot of isolated segments and time filler, none of which are actually funny or entertaining. Construction of a stamp museum starts up behind the Simpson house, leaving them understandably upset and they start a protest. In the end, the museum is moved to the site of Springfield Cemetery, which is relocated directly behind the Simpsons. Beyond the odd fact that all of this is being built in a residential area, how the fuck did they move the whole goddamn graveyard? They couldn’t have dug up all the bodies, but if they did, it could have made for an interesting show. I guess there’s a bunch of rotting corpses lurking under the stamp museum now, which would make for another interesting show. But here, it’s that Lisa is frightened to sleep in her room, which apparently is the only room that faces the graveyard, which is absolutely not the case, since we’ve seen Bart’s room face out that way a hundred times. We go through the whole freaking episode before the very end when someone gives a very simple solution to the problem: have Lisa close the goddamn curtains. Simple as that.

A frightened Lisa sleeps in Homer and Marge’s bed the first night, which elicits a very cold response from Marge. Rather be understanding of her daughter’s fears, she lectures her in that she’s going to have to sleep in her own room. Even after she and Homer spend the night in Lisa’s room to see it’s not so bad, and they see how insanely spooky it is in there, she still has this unusually condescending attitude toward her, very unlike the nurturing overbearing mother she normally is. Then for some reason this leads to the two of them going to see a psychiatrist, who diagnoses, with little information and without Lisa actually there, that an inattentive upbringing led Lisa to suppress her childhood fears, and she has to learn to properly deal with them. What’s all this about? For some reason, no one seems to understand how an eight-year-old girl would be frightened by a creepy as hell graveyard sitting outside her window. Lisa vows to conquer her fears by staying a night in the cemetery, and ultimately she does. And that’s the end. The story is so aimless and empty, and we get stuff like them visiting the stamp museum and extended TV parodies to fill in the gaps. A very perplexing, confused episode.

Tidbits and Quotes
– Another thing modern Simpsons uses and abuses: the music montage. In place of writing a normal sequence of events, we’ll just move right past it with a gag-filled montage. Here, it involves Marge sabotaging a construction vehicle causing it to burst into flames with the driver in it, and Homer practically nude jiggling and riding a mower. Entertainment at its finest! Also, one of Homer’s new catchphrases seems to be a long, extended moan, that is also annoying as shit.
– I did smirk at Marge’s unusual hostility toward Sesame Street‘s Count Von Count (“Go back to your own country!”) But it’s odd that I think about it now, as she’s the first person to express worriment about the graveyard, and yet she still exhibits no sympathy toward Lisa?
– The visit to the stamp museum is completely unnecessary to the story. The only thing it does is introduce the Wild Things… sorry, I mean Wild Beasts. Does it count as a parody of you’re just stealing the actual thing and changing the name?
– Homer and Marge return home from a party and openly badmouth the other guests. Lisa overhears this and inquires why they’re badmouthing people she thought were their friends. This sequence lasts long enough that I thought it was going to have some bearing to the plot, but nope, just more killing time.
– I guarantee they had this Itchy & Scratchy cartoon lying around and just shoved it in this episode. But why place it right at the climax? It’s so shitty too. Cats is so boring that Scratchy kills himself! Again, pot to kettle, guys. Pot to fucking kettle.
– We haven’t seen Dr. Nick in a long while. I thought was delightfully morbid of him to impersonate Dr. Octopus with severed arms (“Bye Lisa! And remember, you have a check up next Thursday!” “We don’t go to you anymore! We have a better doctor!” “Oh, congratulations!”) Then Wiggum is doing a manhunt for him in the cemetery… man, this episode is basically eighty percent filler.
– The only good thing in this episode is the direction. There are a lot of great shots of the spooky cemetery, and some cool camera moves and shots in Lisa’s dream.

(originally aired September 11, 2005)
What is the worst episode ever? It’s a question as subjective as choosing one’s favorite episode, and not one I want to waste much time delving into. But to give my thoughts quickly, I think the most egregious modern episodes are the marriage crisis shows. Homer and Marge’s relationship used to be so endearing, as Homer acknowledges how lucky a fat, dumb schmo like him is to have landed a prize like Marge, and he would always try his dardnest to prove his worth as a provider for her and the family, only to be sabotaged by fate, or his own gross incompetence. Now, these episodes normally involve Homer being a flaming asshole and driving Marge away, and the two inexplicably getting back together in the end for no reason other than twenty minutes are up. I’d always considered this to be the worst of that type of show, so could this be my worst episode ever? I dunno, but it sure feels like a contender. Homer is incorrigible from beginning to end: exaggeratedly moronic, selfish, arrogant, and unbelievably stupid. Every single scene he’s in, he irritates the shit out of me. We start with him falling for a football betting scam, even though Lisa flat-out tells him it’s a scam, blindly borrowing money from Fat Tony to cover his bets. Since he can’t pay up, Homer agrees to let them film an X-rated movie in his house. Marge finds out, is mortified, and immediately leaves, without the kids, strangely enough. I guess she’ll let Homer explain what was happening in there.

Marge ends up south of Springfield and calls Homer on a pay phone. At this point, both characters have commented on how this happens all the time. Marge seems depressed and resigned to the fact that she’ll come back home and this cycle of Homer’s jerkass behavior will continue over and over again. Which we know it will. Whatever happens at the end of this episode, this will happen again and again and again, so from this point, things feel completely sour. Marge joins forces with Caleb, a rugged activist devoted to protecting the manatees. Meanwhile, Homer is searching for Marge, and ends up at his country cousin’s house, characters we’re just now meeting in the third act. They don’t even have names, and the joke is that they’re bright, affluent people, but Homer belittles them by calling them stupid rubes, and is condescending to them the whole time, despite their hospitality, and them saving his ass in the end. Homer stops some jet skiers from tormenting some manatees, which they’re doing for some reason, then invokes their wrath when he insults them. Seeing Homer get pummeled is the best part of the whole episode. After putting up with his douchebag behavior for so long, it was quite satisfying to see. Eventually he’s saved, he’s battered, brain-damaged and vomiting profusely, and Marge couldn’t be happier, somehow. The gag is that Homer mirrors the manatees, this big, dumb stupid animal that Marge needs to take care of, but the sadness surrounding the joke is overwhelming. Homer’s like this destructive tumor Marge is saddled with, endlessly getting into shenanigans that place his life and the family’s well being in jeopardy, and Marge goes back to him every time. Their marriage has de-evolved into a form of an abusive relationship, and it’s perhaps the worst thing modern Simpsons has done. If not the worst episode ever, then this is definitely in the top three. I can’t be bothered to rank that shit.

Tidbits and Quotes
– Homer is irritating from the start. Hearing Lisa explain the football predictions form to him kind of reminds me of her rock analogy in “Much Apu About Nothing,” but there, Homer just couldn’t understand it, and here he’s just flat out ignoring his daughter’s warnings. He then later lies to his wife’s face, and manages to absolve all her niggling doubts with some empty sweet talk. What a wonderful guy.
– Santa’s Village is a dead set piece. Storytown Village was a believable and wonderfully shitty amusement park. Here, everything is way too dilapidated and run-down that it’s just more dour than funny, and in case it wasn’t sad enough, it ends with Bart mentioning “Santa” being taken away in a body bag.
– I can’t get over how awful the scene of Marge on the pay phone is. It’s her stating why these types of episodes are awful, but in a completely straight, un-ironic fashion. That and they just pile on more of Homer being a dick, showing him eating the apology chocolates and whining to her about how to write a check.
– Caleb introduces himself to Marge, revealing his passion for protecting manatees. What’s the first thing out of her mouth in response? “What if by harming a manatee, you could save two manatees? But before you answer, consider this: the manatee you have to harm is pregnant.” I can’t think of a more unnatural line than this. Someone tossed this shit to Julie Kavner like a grenade and she has to figure out how the fuck to say this kind of line and make it sound right. No one fucking talks like this.
– It’s amazing how Homer just gets worse and worse as the show goes on. His treatment of his country cousins is the most deplorable though (“Do you folks want to see a quilt that’s been in our family for five generations?” “I warned you he was an idiot!”) He openly insults them at every turn, and for some reason tells them that Marge is dead, at the dinner table with the kids sitting there. If all of this wasn’t random enough, then we find out the family connection: their dogs are related, as we see Santa’s Little Helper and his country brother with a straw hat and a fucking hayseed in his mouth. And on top of that, we have a stolen joke from “Who Shot Mr. Burns” (“We don’t have an outhouse.” “My recording studio!”)
– I honestly could pick this episode apart scene by scene, there’s that much wrong with it. The weird rhythm between Homer and Caleb’s confrontation, Bart randomly pointing out the manatees, the bizarre reactions from the jetskiers, the fucking awful ending with Burns and Smithers… This episode is absolutely dreadful from the first frame to the last. Maybe it is the worst episode ever. But even if it’s not, it’s still total fucking garbage.