Friday, August 2, 2013

Million Dollar Maybe (S21, E11-452)

Lenny can be a real jerk when Homer imagines him being a jerk.
Plot Summary
Homer and Marge prepare a routine for a wedding the next night.  The day of, Homer opens up a fortune cookie at work which tells him that today is his lucky day.  This gets proven when Homer slips but into the candy machine where tons of candy falls onto him.  Driving from work, Homer sees that the Kwik-E-Mart is selling tickets for a million dollar lotto.  Feeling lucky, Homer goes in to buy a ticket, but the long is extremely long.  As Marge is forced to do the routine by her self, embarrassing herself in the process, Homer finally is able to buy the ticket and tries to speed his way to the wedding, but crashes his car in the process.  Homer wakes up the next day in the hospital, where Marge is happy Homer is okay.  On the news, its revealed that last night's lottery winner has not come forward and the numbers are revealed once more.  Homer finds out those are his numbers and that he's won a million dollars.  However, Marge notes the numbers were drawn at the precise moment she was angry at Homer for missing the routine.  Homer realizes that if he were to claim the million, Marge would know he was late to the wedding because of the ticket, and so decides to keep it a secret for now.

Meanwhile, Lisa visits the retirement home to find their TV no longer works thanks to the advent of Digital TV.  Lisa agrees to buy them a converter, but at the store she sees the brand new Nintendo Wii uh I mean Funtendo Zii, and decides to buy that instead, hoping the exercise the seniors get from the games will make up for the loss of TV.  Lisa's gambit eventually pays off, and the seniors are as active - and whiny - as ever before.  The next time Lisa visits, she finds out the Zii has broken as the home's caretakers would much rather have the seniors be zombies watching the white noise of the TV, to make their jobs bearable.  Lisa laments the situation and sadly walks away.

Homer enlists Barney to claim the prize for him, though taxes instantly take out a third of that million.  Still, good friend Barney gives Homer his money, but reminds Homer that he can't just spend it everywhere or Marge will figure out why he didn't show up to the wedding.  The two note that the washing machine is broken, but Marge knows the family can't pony up the $400 to pay for it.  Barney gives Homer the idea to buy things for the family, but present it to them as though they had simply found it themselves.  Homer gives it a try by placing a new washing machine within some bushes at the park, and it works.  Soon, Homer secretly gets his family all sorts of things.  However, his plans come to a halt when Bart catches him sneaking money from the tree he had hidden the money in.

Bart convinces Homer to spend the money more wastefully, and the two blow some cash in crazy ways.  Homer tries to get Bart to stop being spoiled, but Bart blackmails Homer by stating that if Homer doesn't do everything Bart tells him to, he'll tell Marge everything.  Homer is forced to obey Bart's whims, but that doesn't last very long either, and decides he'll just tell Marge himself.  He gets Marge in a hot air balloon and tells her the truth.  Marge is angry Homer skipped out but upon learning he won the money she couldn't care less about the wedding.  However, thanks to taxes, all the stuff he bought for the family, Bart, and being unaware one can simply rent a balloon, Homer has since spent all of the winnings, but shows Marge that with the last of the money he was able to set up a cherry blossom garden shaped like Marge.  Marge forgives Homer and the two practice their routine one more time as the balloon passes over another cherry blossom garden shaped like Homer's relief.

Quick Review
This was another decent episode.  Of note, this is the first of what will be several mentions of the "Funtendo Zii", a parody name that makes me cringe every time its mentioned.  Lisa's sidestory, as a whole, was pretty boring and not much humor was gained from it.  The main story with Homer has several good moments to save it from mediocrity, but just barely.

Final Score: 7.0

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