Midnight Towboy (S19, E03-403)

Tow trucking seemed like a thing Homer could've stuck with, shame it didn't stay.

Plot Summary
Maggie is being particularly clingy and fussy one night, and an accident leaves Marge with no milk.  As Homer goes out to find some, Marge is convinced by Bart and Lisa to try out a service intended to help babies become more independent of their mothers.  Meanwhile, on what seems to be during an unfortunate milk shortage, Homer eventually goes all the way to "Guidopolis" which is as stereotypical as the name implies.  Homer finally gets some milk, but his car is about to be towed away after parking it improperly.  Homer is able to convince the tow truck driver, Louie, to come along at least to recover his car, when Homer discovers the easy, wonderful life of the tow truck driver.  Louie offers Homer to take over the Springfield duties, including a tow truck of his own, but has one simple declaration: don't even think about doing work in Guidopolis.

Marge does get help from the baby service, C.R.I.E., which immediately helps Maggie become independent, which Marge has some difficulty adjusting to, using a sack of potatoes to hold instead of her newly independent baby.  Meanwhile, Homer quickly makes a killing in the towing business, making life miserable for everyone in town.  Eventually, the townspeople have enough of Homer's civic duty and hatch a plan to rid themselves of him.  Agnes Skinner is aware of how territorial tow truckers are, and leads a plan where an illegally parked car is left just within Guidopolis, but with the town's sign covered up to imply its still part of Springfield.  Homer falls for the ruse, and as he goes to tow the car, Louie appears and, angered Homer has invaded his turf, knocks him out.

Louie locks Homer away in his basement, where several other tow truckers are imprisoned for daring to tow in Guidopolis.  With Homer gone, chaos returns to Springfield parking lots and streets, just the way they like it.  Louie forces Homer to call home to inform, well, Lisa, he's supposedly alright, but four days have passed now, and Marge can't help but worried.  Maggie sees the fearful Marge, and decides to put her new independence to full use, escaping the house and riding on Santa's Little Helper in a full-blown rescue operation.  Following leads and the dog's nose, she's able to locate Homer in Guidopolis, and frees him from his prison.  Homer, Maggie and the dog all return home to a relieved Marge, where Maggie agrees to return to her old clingy self to allow Marge to be comfortable again.

Quick Review
This episode was really going strong for most of it.  Homer's towing storyline was really going well up through the second act, and his interactions with the other imprisoned truckers were good for a few laughs anyway.

Unfortunately, the side plot regarding Maggie, which wasn't providing much humor to begin with, takes full focus in the episode's final minutes where Maggie alone stages her rescue operation.  People including myself have been critical of using Maggie in this fashion, particularly in the Season 13 finale where she gained the mocking moniker "sniper baby".  I understand that, in this context, Maggie's newfound abilities are a direct result of Marge allowing the baby to be more independent, but come on.  Like with the Season 13 finale, this seems like a cop out way to conclude an otherwise desperate situation and it really hampered what was going to be a shining moment of these later seasons.  Its a shame, really.

Final Score: 7.6