Marge Gamer (S18, E17-395)

We were all this bad once, though for some they were this bad when they were five.

Plot Summary
Marge gets tired of being left behind on things because she doesn't have an e-mail address.  So, not only does she get an e-mail address, but she becomes an internet addict, doing practically everything on it.  One night, while waiting feverishly for e-mail, Marge notices a banner ad for an MMORPG called Earthland Realms.  After creating a character that looks like her and some initial hiccups, Marge becomes adept at the game, though she loses a lot of sleep in the process.  She learns that many other Springfield residents play the game, but then learns that everyone is terrified by the Shadow Knight, a powerful player capable of killing everyone and anyone easily.  After witnessing the Shadow Knight's massive power, Marge goes to do laundry in real life, but then overhears Bart playing the same game... as the Shadow King.  Marge greets Bart ingame, much to Bart's embarrassment as he has online cred to maintain.  Bart saves Marge one day in the game, but returns to his castle in horror as he learns that Marge discarded his trophy room to turn it into a Hello Kitty expansion pack monstrosity.  Bart starts tearing apart the room in rage, but accidentally kills Marge's character in the process.

Meanwhile, Homer takes Lisa to her soccer game, but its about to be cancelled as the ref has quit.  Learning that referees share in snack time, Homer gladly takes over but as expected makes a total ass of himself during the game, earning Lisa's scorn.  Reeling from said scorn, Homer studies hours of soccer footage, and the next time he refs he becomes quite competent as the job.  Homer calls a foul on Jessica Lovejoy after she trips Lisa.  As the Lovejoys yell at Homer for his call, he insists the call is right, and play continues.  Lisa figures out that taking falls mean calls going your way, and with her father as the ref, takes full advantage and becomes a gigantic flopper.  After one such dive, which Homer falls for, he gets into an argument with Cletus (whose kids supposedly committed the foul).  Ronaldo, a soccer player famous everywhere except America and maybe Canada, arrives to confirm to Homer that Lisa flopped, and Homer has no choice but to penalize Lisa with a yellow card.  Lisa tears it up in rage, forcing Homer to give her a red card instead, kicking her out of the game.

Homer and Bart meet up later on as Lisa and Marge, respectively, are mad at them over their silly games.  They go to Moe's, where Moe (or a guy that kidnapped and replaced Moe) suggests Homer appeals to Lisa's reason, and Bart to Marge's feelings.  Homer gives Lisa a DVD documentary, which shows her just how bad soccer hooliganism can be.  Lisa realizes she was in the wrong, and that she won't get stupidly upset over soccer like the Europeans and South Americans do, and she'll only play for fun now.  Meanwhile, in Earthland Realms, Bart uses his abilities to revive Marge's character, but the process leaves Bart with only a third of his health.  The other players, thanks to an unwitting Marge, learn of this and quickly storm Bart's castle and overwhelm him, celebrating the fall of the Shadow King.  Bart mostly doesn't care and goes outside to join Lisa and Homer in soccer, but Marge promises to get vengeance for him, going on a killing spree on everyone in game and becoming a Shadow Queen herself.

Quick Review
Admittedly, I thought this episode was going to be terrible.  This episode aired back when World of Warcraft was still popular somehow, so the show, along with a few others, tried to capitalize on its popularity by making episodes themed around that game (the 'newbie parent embarrasses their pro gamer kid in game' trope is present in most of these).  This episode feels like it was written with no real knowledge of the game or genre, or that it was disposed in favor of quick not-that-funny gags like making Skinner a turkey in game and what not.

The soccer side story wasn't all that funny.  Ronaldo's appearance seems pretty throwaway and didn't really add anything to the episode.  The episode's score ends up being pretty low as a result, but its still much higher than what I thought it would be going in as episodes focused around video games can very easily become disasters.

Final Score: 6.7

Bart's Girlfriend (S06, E07-110)

"YA USED ME SKINNER, YA UUUUUUSED MEEEEE!!!"

Plot Summary
After being rounded up for church, Bart becomes greatly infatuated with Jessica Lovejoy, the young daughter of the Reverend just back from boarding school.  Bart tries to play the 'good boy' routine to try and appeal to her, but Jessica visually ignores him.  Bart eventually gives up and decides to air out his frustrations by pulling a prank.  Noticing Groundskeeper Willie celebrating "Scotchtoberfest" wearing tradition Scotsman wear including a kilt, Bart pulls up Willie's kilt, revealing his privates to the crowd.  Though Bart revels in a job well done, it turns out to be a setup by Skinner: there is no actual Scotchtoberfest (much to Willie's anger), and Bart gets three months of detention.  Jessica sees this happen and, perhaps out of pity, invites Bart over for dinner.

At that dinner, Bart's anecdotes about FOX programming do not sit well with the Lovejoy household, and he is thusly forbidden by the Reverend from seeing his daughter.  Waiting outside for him, though, is Jessica, who admits she likes bad boys, and the two hit it off, forcing the relationship to be secret given her parents' disapproval.  Soon, the relationship takes its toll on Bart, as Jessica proves to be an even bigger troublemaker than Bart ever was, which is too much for Bart to handle.  Bart decides to break off from Jessica at church, and though she admits she goes too far at times, she then steals the money from the church collection plate insisting she needs it for a new start.  Leaving Bart with the empty plate, Jessica leaves as Bart is the one blamed for the lost money.

Now hated across town for his supposed misdeed, Bart doesn't reveal who actually took the money.  Bart tries to confront Jessica over it, but Jessica would still rather have Bart take the fall, under the probably correct premise that nobody will take Bart's word over the Reverend's daughter.  At this point Lisa decides to step in and on the following Sunday is able to convince churchgoers that Jessica took the money, urging the mass to look in her room for the money.  Jessica's cry for attention goes ignored by the Reverend, and Bart is forgiven for the deed he never committed.  Bart visits Jessica again as she is cleaning the church steps as punishment, as showing that neither have learned their lesson, Jessica convinces Bart to finish her job as she runs off with another boy, though Bart gets a good laugh over the mess the boy is getting himself into, as well as the subpar job he'll be giving the steps he's cleaning.

Quick Review
Bart's Girlfriend was a solid episode, it had a nice premise but it didn't have the quantity of quality of jokes to make it one of the season's best.  In just two appearances, Willie sort of steals the show with his Scotchtoberfest act as well as his attempts to "save the wee turtles" after Jessica pulls the fire alarm, those were both great moments in the episode.  Jessica, voiced by Meryl Streep, was a wonderful one-time character as well.

Final Score: 8.6