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| This scene implies their emotions while they were having sex. Thanks, I guess. |
Marge's sisters come to stay at the house as they returned from vacation early and their apartment is still being cleaned of black moss. Homer is not ready to deal with this, but quickly realizes an out: he sees his kids coughing as his sisters-in-law smoke near them and makes the valid assertion that the two must either stop smoking in the house or be kicked out for the sake of the children. The two agree, and Homer - knowing the two will break at some point - installs smoke alarms everywhere to stop the two from smoking in secret. What's worse, its raining outside and electronic cigarettes just don't cut it for them. The two find apparent salvation, however, when they see the bathroom has no smoke alarms. The two rush in and lock the door and make every effort to avoid being caught, including turning on the faucet to muffle noise. However, when they ignite their lighter, the bathroom explodes, and the two are caught. As Homer sends the two to where smokers like them belong - the dog racing track - Marge and Lisa notice that the water is literally on fire.
Lisa quickly investigates that this is likely the result of "fracking", a controversial method of mining for natural gas that has the adverse side effect of polluting water supplies with the gas. Bart and Lisa locate a suspicious building nearby that's masquerading as a women's basketball hall of fame that's actually a fracking operation run by Mr. Burns. As he quickly shoos the two away, Lisa decides to call upon one of her liberal heroes in congress that she hopes will put the fracking operation to an end: Maxine Lombard, a democratic assemblywoman (voiced by Jane Fonda). Quickly, Maxine stages a hearing against Burns for the fracking operation and orders it shut down. Angered, Burns confronts Maxine in her office, when suddenly their passions overlap and the two just have sex right there in the office.
The two realize they enjoy each other's, hm, "company", but business is business and Burns needs to get the fracking operation back up. He learns that he can do so if he can have the mineral rights of the land signed over to him by every resident in the area, and calls upon the likable Homer to convince everyone to do so. Burns also asks Homer for relationship advice, and Homer notes that if she's getting in the way of his business priorities then perhaps he should harden his heart and move on. Meanwhile, nobody is particularly willing to sign it over, until Homer points out that Mr. Burns will give each person $5000 to do it, at which point everyone signs over their rights... except for Marge who remains against the operation because she literally saw her water on fire. With her support unobtainable, the measure is lost and Burns' operation can not continue. Maxine comes to gloat while presenting him another opportunity to "fool around", but an angry, hardened Burns casts her aside and declares their "relationship" over.
Homer is similarly upset with Marge over ruining his newfound career as a propagandist (even though the water was actually on fire), and goes to hang out with Burns to talk about their relatively similar romantic situations. Just then, Burns' mansions starts to get torn down as part of a revenge-related redevelopment project that plans to turn the mansion into several pro-liberal projects at once. Further angered, Burns takes Homer back to the fracking base and immediately resumes the operation, much more severely than before. Marge convinces Homer to stop following Burns by once again reminding him their water was literally on fire, and Homer uses this to his advantage by igniting hose water to melt and destroy the fracking apparatus. His operation ruined, Burns is aghast that Homer has made up with Marge despite there being nothing in common between them. Maxine - who is probably a bit forgiving considering she won - convinces Burns that love continues on their sheer passion, which the two of them still have. Some time later, the two are in bed talking about mundane things, their passion gone but they remain a couple.
Quick Review
This episode fared a lot better than what I was expecting. Let's review: the writer had written three previous episodes, all of which I found to be awful episodes. Season 26 has gotten off to a poor start as well, and worse yet this episode was rife with political commentary and jokes. That all could've easily combined to make yet another disastrous episode.
Thankfully, that wasn't the case. The opening act with Patty and Selma was excellent and put the episode on the right foot, and the political jokes weren't too bad, and Lisa was less annoying than she usually is in these kinds of episodes. Overall, I can say this episode wasn't bad, somehow.
Final Score: 7.3
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