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| I feel like I've reached my end. But I haven't - Season 25 is about to start! |
The episode starts nine years ago, on Homer and Marge's 1st anniversary. The two spend it at an outdoor mall where, after ditching Bart responsibly, the two have a great time, the highlight of which occurs on a kiddie train called the "Li'l Lisa", and Homer promises each subsequent anniversary will be better than that one. Back to the present, Homer reveals to his kids that, no, subsequent anniversaries were not that good, while Lisa is somewhat miffed she got named after a toy train. The three of them are at the outdoor mall again, though business is pretty bad. Homer plans on spending his 10th anniversary here again, complete with the train ride, but learns that the train is being disassembled as nobody rides it anymore. Homer quickly comes up with a new plan as he's given the train's remains by the staff there, he plans on refurbishing the train and presenting it to Marge as a surprise anniversary gift.
Meanwhile, Marge is ordering Homer some cakes online, but makes a rather odd, 'how do you even make that' mistake - instead of creating an online account on "Dolly Madison", which makes cakes, she makes an account on "Sassy Madison", a dating site for married people. Sure enough, hundreds of forlorn men quickly message Marge. Upon learning of her error, Marge goes through the effort of turning each man down. Homer comes back from his trip, but because he needs to keep the train a secret, he'll feign ignorance about the anniversary. Marge takes this the wrong way, believing that Homer has yet again forgotten about it. Just then, one of the men she tried to shoo off on the site replied: a guy named Ben. Upset over Homer's supposed ignorance, Marge has a mini-conversation with Ben, but quickly cuts out when Ben tries to speed things up.
Enlisting the aid of Moe's bar, his barmates, and local train expert Reverend Lovejoy, Homer begins remodeling the train. Meanwhile, Marge comes across Ben, in person, at the store. Trying to say out of the sight of the ever-gossipy Helen Lovejoy, the two talk privately where its revealed they both love a Downtown Abbey knock off show whose season finale is coming up. With Homer leaving to fix a crisis involving the train, Marge goes to watch the show alone, but gets a call from Ben who is unable to watch himself because his wife is watching something else. Marge sets up a video camera to let him watch the show with her, but afterwards Ben makes the suggestion the two should watch the show together - in person, which Marge quickly cuts off, again.
The day of the anniversary arrives, but Homer has Marge pick up a prescription of his way out of town, an act which will take all day. He does this so that he and his pals can construct the train set around his yard, but Marge takes it as yet another sign her marriage is in the dumps. Along the way, she keeps thinking about Ben, but tries to shrug those thoughts off despite thought-Ben's attempts to woo her. On the way back, Marge decides to simply suck it up, but upon coming home she finally gets to see Homer's surprise for her, the kiddie train fully refurbished and set up around the Simpson home. Marge realizes Homer does care and the two ride the train around the yard for a lap, with a congregation of people waiting to celebrate the occasion.
Just then, Ben's wife Ramona shows up to confront Marge, Ben having told Ramona about Marge and where she lived somehow. Marge tries to clear up the misunderstanding and tells them that the secret to a good marriage is to have no secrets - though good secrets like Homer's train plan is okay. Ben and Ramona decide to give their marriage another shot, and Homer is fine learning the misunderstanding began when Marge tried to buy him snack cakes.
Quick Review
The season ends on a marriage-themed episode, though its somewhat unique in that this time Homer is hardly to blame besides poorly handling the train secret with Marge, and that the conflict is resolved with a kind gesture from Homer that he didn't come up with in the last second, but with a plan he had started up before the conflict even began. Its a neat twist to yet another episode like this.
The parts featuring Homer and his train reconstruction were pretty good, and I wish the episode focused more on it. While Seth MacFarlane provided a good guest voice as Ben, the main plot involving him, Marge, and the Downtown Abbey knock off was mostly boring though Ben did provide some decent comedy at times. The Simpson-infused reference to the show at the end was pointless as well. Still, its not a bad episode and it did end on a rather sweet note.
Final Score: 7.0
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