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| "Sorry honey, Mommy went crazy and went far, far away." |
Marge has a particularly trying day, being pestered by Homer and the kids for this and that, and the kids missed the bus so she has to drive them there and Homer wants Marge to go to "Nick's" to flush his bowling ball but neither location will do it, and the radio guys were being asses, and then Maggie spills her milk all over the place. Marge has enough, and stops the car right in the middle of a bridge, blocking all traffic. Quickly getting media attention, Homer is able to reason with the broken down Marge and convince her to at least leave the car. She's arrested for, I dunno, disturbing the peace or something, but Mayor Quimby lets her go to sustain the "chick vote".
Still not over what happened, Marge sees a commercial that night for a place called "Rancho Relaxo", which is pretty much what the name says without those extra Os. Marge decides to take a vacation there. Hauling the kids off to Patty and Selma (a move which terrifies poor Bart and Lisa), Maggie gets the wise idea to physically resist leaving the house. Marge relents and has Homer keep an eye on Maggie.
Bart and Lisa go through the horrors of their twin Aunts, like eating "tongue sandwiches", and sleeping in the same beds as them. Poor Lisa has even seen her aunts naked. Marge, meanwhile, has a much more pleasant time at the ranch, and though she's initially hesitant to take full advantage, she eventually indulges and finds the relaxation she's looking for.
The focus of the episode's latter half, though, is on Maggie, who won't deal with her mother not being around despite Homer's fun attempts at explaining the situation. That night, Maggie is able to escape the house and starts looking around town for Marge, presenting herself at anything that looks like Marge's hair. Eventually, she settles for an ice cream shop head that looks suspiciously like Marge.
Homer, desperate to find Maggie and finding little help from the omelet starved Barney, is stunned to learn that Marge is already set to come back, with only an hour before the train arrives. Out of options, Homer receives a miracle: Maggie was picked up by the police, and though Chief Wiggum was going to charge Homer with criminal neglect, Homer's showering of love of praise towards the Chief gets him off the hook.
Retrieving the now-clingy Bart and Lisa, and ensuring Maggie can't run off by taping her to the seat, Homer drives off just in time to pick up Marge. By the time Marge comes back, the family is a wreck, but they're all glad Marge is back to get things back to normal.
Quick Review
You know, Marge isn't really given enough credit. Sure, on a humor scale she's not all that funny, maybe a little funnier than Lisa usually is, but from a family perspective she's pretty much the keystone that keeps the Simpsons held together. I mean, really, Homer as a single father? How awful would that be? Well, something along those lines is tested in this episode.
That said, this episode starts off a little slow. There wasn't much potential for laughter in the early segment as Marge broke down (though Kent Brockman being sent down from a copter only to be sent down too far and bumping into the bridge was great), but it definitely picks up later on. The horrors that Bart and Lisa endured was the funniest portion of the episode, but Homer and Maggie made for a good time as well.
Final Score: 8.6
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