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| Lenny is kind of missing the point. |
On a cold night, the Simpsons are trying to warm up a fireplace because Homer refuses to pay for heat. In a desperate attempt to keep the fire going, Bart almost tosses in Marge's memory box. It opens up to reveals a degree Marge got from Springfield University, something that had not been known until now. Lisa thinks about it, and realizes, hey, if Homer and Marge are almost 40, and Bart is 10, then there's no way Homer and Marge could've had Bart right out of high school. Homer and Marge are reluctant to get into that period of time, but decide anyway to tell their kids of their young adult lives, all the way back in the 90s.
Homer and Marge have moved into an apartment, where Marge surprises Homer by having been accepted into Springfield University. Homer is upset at first, but relents and agrees to help pay for college by getting work from his dad. Homer is also part of an R&B group featuring himself, Lenny, Carl and Lou for some reason. In college, Marge becomes a bit infatuated by a typical 90s radical-thinking professor, Stefane August, whose 'wild' theories over how all of the Presidents at that point were straight, white men completely blows Marge's mind. August begins to return some of that love, and attempts to get Marge into a relationship with him by making her question her current relationship with Homer. It eventually reaches a head when Homer tries to find Marge in the college, which to his horror is nothing like Animal House, only to find Marge having a pleasant conversation with August. Homer can't deal with this, and decides to take his R&B and change it into a grunge band called "Sadgasm", grunge supposedly being a thing back in the 90s. Marge tries to talk to Homer over his new attitude, but the conversation doesn't go well, and the two break up, with Marge immediately being swooped away by August.
Homer's grunge band becomes a huge success, but Homer just can't find any happiness without Marge. Meanwhile, Marge is finding August's demeanor less and less appealing. When Marge finds out about August's "radical" opinions against marriage, she breaks up with him. A saddened Marge sees Homer on TV, and learns that Homer has broken up Sadgasm amidst rumors of his narcotics abuse. Marge rushes over to Homer's side where she sees a needle in his arm, takes it out and nurses him back to health, though that needle was actually full of insulin because Homer's addiction to frappuccinos made him diabetic. The two get together again, leading to their fateful 'snuggle' at the mini-golf's castle. In the present, suspiciously familiar-looking repairman fixes the heat, and Homer and Marge share another kiss.
Quick Review
Going in, I had mixed feelings about this episode. Its true that, given the ages of Homer, Marge, and Bart, there is a lengthy period of time that's left unaccounted for. By all accounts, if the two did have Bart right after high school, the two should be near or at 30 for their age, though past episodes have implied they didn't have Bart until a few years after high school. This episode, though, implies the two didn't have Bart until a full decade afterwards, and then flat out states that decade was the 90s.
Its hard to really fault the writers for using the 90s for this instance on its own. Again, nobody in the show ages, but the show had been running at this point for 19 years. In I Married Marge, Bart was born in 1981. If that fact remained fully canon, Bart would be 32 by the end of Season 24. At the same time, though, if the show wants the family to remain part of the modern age and, therefore, be aware of things like the internet, mobile phones, and the current political scene, it can't just freeze itself in the early 90s all of the time, continuing to pretend the current President is the first George Bush and such. The Simpsons run on the most slippy of sliding timelines, so there's bound to be continuity contradictions the longer the series runs. Based on that alone, I have no problem with the show flashing back to an era where the show itself had its best run of episodes.
What I did have a big problem with, though, was how the episode went about its business. It spent a lot of time just simply going "Hey, this is the 90s, remember the 90s? These crazy things were popular in the 90s, can you believe it? Look at all of these 90s references, we know about these because we lived in the 90s, are we cool yet?" The professor was also very unlikeable, which I guess was the point, but it also led to very limited opportunities for his character to be funny. Everything about Sadgasm was painfully unfunny as well, and is the main reason the episode scored as poorly as it did, though the hidden marriage-themed episode wasn't a plus, either.
So, in summary, I don't have a problem with the show 'retconning' itself because of its inconsistent timelines. However, the episode is ruined by its awful execution of the above idea. This episode, back-to-back with the nearly as bad E Pluribus Wiggum, creates a massive hole of terrible quality that ruins what had been a decent season thus far.
Final Score: 4.0
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