The Food Wife (S23, E05-491)

"Hehehe... hipsters, too cool for school."

Plot Summary
As congratulations for filling up their reward jars, Bart and Lisa get to do a fun activity with Homer on "Saturday Surprise Dad Day".  Homer, who establishes himself in this episode as the "fun dad" has somehow acquired not just tickets but VIP passes to a video game convention and the three of them have fun recognizing pointless references there.  Upon returning, Marge becomes jealous over how much fun the three of them had.  Marge talks to Homer about it that night, and Homer agrees to let Marge do the next Saturday Surprise.  She surprises the kids alright... by taking them to some church function.  After that predictably doesn't fan out, Marge's car begins to break down on the drive home.  The car dies in a rather ethnic part of town, but the kids are too hungry to care about the car right now.  The three spy an Ethiopian restaurant where people are eating with pancakes.  Intrigued, the three go in, though Marge is very hesitant.  The kids convince her to try something new, because fun dad Homer would, and Marge decides to get the "most authentic" dish the restaurant has.  The three end up enjoying the meal, especially Marge.

Comic book guy and Sideshow Mel enter the restaurant to see Marge eating the meal, which they weren't aware was on the non-translated menu.  Mel calls over several "foodies", who all look like hipsters but also specialize in eating new things then blogging about them on the internet.  Later, the three take home some leftovers which Homer is absolutely unwilling to try, and the three agree to start up their own food blog: The Three Mouthketeers.  Marge is particularly thrilled not because of the food so much, but because she gets to spend time with the kids as they eat new thing after new thing.

Feeling a bit jealous, Homer tries to invite the kids to Krustyland on the next Saturday, but Marge reminds the kids that they've been invited to an exclusive chemistry-based restaurant that same day, and the kids agree to do the restaurant.  Homer has a mini breakdown over not being able to be the fun dad anymore and, feeling sorry, Marge decides to invite him to the dinner which Homer happily accepts even though he thought the whole thing was stupid in the first place.  Marge begins to regret that decision, as she has a nightmare that the "fun dad" will steal her thunder and he swoops away the kids and the foodies and everything else, leaving Marge with nothing again.  Worried, Marge tries to convince Homer to forget about it over the phone, but Homer insists on coming and making things fun.  In a panic, Marge decides to give Homer the wrong address, telling him its on East Oak street instead of West Oak.

In one end of town, Marge and the kids begin their sterile dinner while at the other end Homer goes to the place which is actually a meth lab.  Knowing that the restaurant is full of chemistry and hipsters, Homer mistakes the lab and the druggies as such, and unwittingly orders a crackpipe which he comes ever so close to smoking.  Just before that happens, though, the police bust in on a raid.  Homer finally realizes what the place is, and calls Marge, who has been worrying about what she did the entire time.  Learning Homer is in danger, Marge abandons the other foodies, who don't care about her predicament, and she and the kids rush over to the meth lab.  Homer is still inside being chased by one of the dealers when Marge tosses the take-home dessert from the restaurant into the dealer's mouth.  The wonderful taste distracts him enough for Chief Wiggum to knock him out, and Homer is saved.  As Marge apologizes for putting Homer in danger, the kids are thrilled that Marge took them to that restaurant and a meth lab bust, officially declaring her "fun mom".  As a result, both parents take the kids to Krustyland the following Saturday as "fun parents".

Quick Review
I'd like to digress for a bit before I begin my review for this.  Just about a year ago (a year from tomorrow, in fact), I started up this blog and my mission to watch, score and barely review each and every episode of The Simpsons.  I'll get more into that tomorrow, but the reason why I started it up in the first place was to see whether criticisms of the show's decline were valid and, if so, just how valid they were.  This decision of mine came about after I looked at a screencap of the Dead Homer Society's compare and contrast of this episode to Homer Badman.  Specifically the setup and use of each episode's convention scenes.  It really is telling just how different each of them were used for their respective main plots.

Looking through the article again to prepare for this review, its also helped me come to a sad realization about modern Simpsons that's been going on for several seasons now: the use of the reference.  In the past, if the show referenced something it was either too subtle to notice the first around, or it made sure it was accompanied by a joke or bit.  That's not the case nowadays.  Instead, a reference is made with nothing to accompany it and you the viewer are expected to believe that should be enough for you to laugh.  The video game convention scene in this episode was nothing more than a minute or so of video game references.  None of it was funny - it was just taking the names of video games and replacing key words to avoid copyrights.

Recent and, I'm certain, future episodes also reference modern movies and television shows but make no effort to do anything more to them than to simply 'redo' the reference but with Simpsons characters.  Its either "hey I get the reference... where's the joke" or "I don't get the reference... was that supposed to be funny?" and the answer to both is a resounding "no" regardless of context.

Yes, the scene in the video game convention as well as the foodie rap montage were both terrible and basically destroyed the episode.  It tries to make up for it when Homer wants in on the fun and the parts with the meth lab were pretty decent, but the episode wasn't salvagable at that point.

It kind of hurts.  One year later, the episode that made me look into whether the Simpsons has really fallen that badly has helped me confirm that, yes, it has, and I still have 39 episodes plus whatever Season 25 has to offer left.

Final Score: 5.2

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