Marge and Homer have marital problems round two. It's a shame that this episode comes right on the heels of Life on the Fast Lane because while I think that it is good, there is no way it can compete with the previous episode. Continuity on The Simpsons is a funny thing. Because I'm writing these reviews, I have been paying attention to continuity more than I ever have before. And honestly, I'm looking at the show with more detail than was intended. In an ideal world, you should be able to look at these episode in a vacuum; it is necessary to understand the characters and their relationships with each other, but their previous actions shouldn't matter. However, it is hard for me to sympathize with either Homer of Marge in this episode because of how they treated each other in the previous one. Marge's fury at Homer seems like a complete overreaction given that she was interested in a suave bowling instructor whose "hips screamed yes yes yes". Similarly, you would think that Homer would be slightly more thoughtful after almost losing his wife. I acknowledge that these criticisms are somewhat unfair, but they are still slight character inconsistencies. (As a side note about continuity, the writers actually call your attention a previous episode with Bart's smashed up piggy bank. They don't often do this, but I thought it was a nice reference)
Another problem with this episode is how dated it is. For the most part, I consider The Simpsons to be fairly timeless. There is the occasional reference that completely flops, but on a large scale, most of the stories could still happen today. This is especially impressive given other shows that were made during the same era. Seinfeld is a particularly brutal example. I would estimate that about 60% of the problems encountered in Seinfeld could be avoided with a cell phone. Up to this point, every episode of The Simpsons could plausibly happen in 2013 (you could make an argument against The Call of the Simpsons, but getting lost in the woods is common enough). This episode is laughably dated; there is no way an entire town would get so obsessed with a random scandalous picture. It broke my immersion, and hurt my enjoyment of the episode more than I expected it would.
This episode does do a good job of giving Marge an interesting reason for her anger. It would have been even more hypocritical if Marge were upset out of pure jealousy (although that's almost certainly part of it). Marge's defense of women further establishes her as a character with a conscious. I was really hoping that this episode would pass the Bechdel Test, but unfortunately I don't think it does. Even so, it's nice to see that The Simpsons is already pushing a little feminism into their stories.
Springfield characters:
Lenny and Carl: Lenny has been in a couple of scenes so far, but never enough to actually get to know him. In this episode, these two could have easily been replaced by some of the bar flies from Moe's, but the catch was that they needed power plant workers. As a result, Lenny and Carl are way hornier than they usually are. Lenny is another one of my favorite secondary characters (I feel like I say this about almost every character I list here). At a certain point in the show, the writers decided it would be hilarious if everyone in Springfield absolutely loved Lenny for no reason. His sudden celebrity is absolutely genius.
Other interesting stuff:
More about continuity: This episode skips ahead 6 months. The show occasionally does this and can get some pretty good jokes out of it. I think it's probably good that they do it so early in the show. It teaches the audience that Bart will always be in 4th grade, Lisa will always be in 2nd, and even though the show will be on the air for 25 years, the characters will never age.
It was nice to start the episode showing more of Marge's love and devotion to Homer regardless of his physical appearance. Again, I'm a complete sucker for this couple, but I think it is especially important to reiterate this again and again in the early years. This way nobody roots for Marge to leave Homer
The speed at which the picture travels around the town shows how big the town is getting already. They're once again able to cut to several characters we know already. The show is ever so slowly becoming about the town
Burns shows a soft side! It's great to see. He's been a complete monster so far, so it is nice to see that even he can get lonely.
Bart's "female man" is a great play on words.
Moe's Tavern's ladies night was hilarious. "The hottest ladies night in months" is one depressed woman drinking at the end of the bar. Fantastic.
I want to like this episode, but there's too much for me to nitpick about. Almost done with season 1!
5/10
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