Ned 'n Edna's Blend (S23, E21-507)

More like "Ned 'n Edna's Bland" am I right?

Plot Summary
Auditions for a passion play are happening, but the director makes a stunning move by giving the boisterous Homer the lead role of Jesus Christ instead of Ned Flanders, whose held the role in previous plays.  Homer realizes the importance of his role, though, and actually gives a wonderful performance in the play.  Ned, who was relegated to a bit part, realizes his error, but at the end of the play Homer's weight is too much for the cross he was 'crucified' on to bear, and he falls over ontop of Ned.  An ambulance comes to take Ned to the hospital, and the responders won't let Mrs. Krabappel on - until Ned reveals she's his wife, stunning everyone there.

Homer and Marge visit Ned and Edna at the hospital, where Ned reveals that he kept the marriage a secret because of Springfield's reputation of making every tiny thing big news, which is just what is trying to happen now.  Still, Marge decides to host a reception party for the two, and they accept the offer.  Meanwhile, Edna finds raising Rod and Todd Flanders to be difficult as the two boys have very narrow-minded views on things.  Bart, taking pity on, uh, somehow, advises Edna to expose the boys to the real world, or they'll never survive it.  Later, Edna goes in Ned's place to the boys' parent-teacher conferences at their private Christian school.  Edna is stunned over how badly science is shunned over religious teachings and makes the decision to pull the boys out and take them to Springfield Elementary instead.  Its a move Ned doesn't like, but he relents and lets Edna go ahead with the move.  Then Ned has a nightmare where one of the boys graduate college - an East Coast college - and has been corrupted by left-ish philosophies, which horrify Ned.

At the reception, Ned's fears begin to realize when the boys have temporary tattoos, talk back to him and use odd language like "chillax".  Frustrated, Ned tells Edna he doesn't like what she's doing to his kids and therefore the marriage is no longer perfect, but Edna retorts that the boys trust her to raise them right, so he should as well.  Defeated, Ned sleeps over at the Simpsons place overnight and the next morning he sees Homer and Marge get into a little spat over some new problem of Bart's.  He realizes that even if they don't agree on such issues, that doesn't mean the marriage is on the rocks.  Quickly, Ned goes to the school to apologize to Edna, and they reconcile rather publicly.

Quick Review
This is the first episode focused on the relationship on Ned and Edna after the vote to keep the two together proved successful.  It was a pretty boring episode, actually, with nothing really clicking in terms of comedy.  I don't want to say it was a "throw-in-the-towel" effort, an episode written just so fans can see the, hm, results of their summer vote take flight, but the quality of the writing in this episode suggests as much.

Final Score: 5.3

The Falcon and the D'ohman (S23, E01-487)

Couldn't of said it better, myself.

Plot Summary
The episode begins with the comic book guy stating the the results of the "Nedna" campaign over the summer will be revealed at episode's end, but there'll be hints in the episode as to whether they stay together or not (though its basically given away in a scene where Ned and Edna are in bed together and Edna just winks at the viewers).

Homer comes in late to work, but successfully evades trouble to punch in "on time".  Afterward, he goes to greet his security guard friend, when he sees that ol' Larry has been replaced by the less friendly Wayne.  Homer tries to make friends with Wayne, but Wayne refuses to even let Homer fistbump him.  Homer is eventually able to get Wayne to ride with him to the tavern, where Wayne still isn't very friendly.  Just as he goes to the bathroom, Snake runs in to rob everyone.  Wayne is able to bust the scene and stop Wayne rather definitively.  As thanks, Homer invites Wayne over for dinner, where Wayne starts having flashbacks of 'special training' he's had in the past, and leaves early.  The next day at work, the media has learned of Wayne's heroics, and Mr. Burns plans on putting a commemorative helmet on Wayne.  It triggers another flashback of Wayne almost being forced to lose his memories via a helmet, and after choking Mr. Burns during the trigger, Homer intervenes to save Burns.  Burns fires Wayne for his act, but Homer decides to let Wayne stay over at his house.

Wayne teaches the family various techniques which they probably shouldn't be learning, but oh well.  He hears Lisa play a particular tune on her saxophone, which causes him to remember a dinner party where a gun fight broke out, and freaks out again.  At the same time, in Kiev, a gangster or something finds video of Wayne choking Burns online, and realizes who it is, recalling the same dinner party where Wayne's actions caused the gangster's wife to be killed.  With vengeance in sight, the gangster flies to Springfield to trap Wayne.

Homer unwittingly reveals to the gangsters that he's Wayne's friend, and they kidnap him and send out a video for Wayne to see.  He's thankful Homer had previous eaten a large quantity of tracking chips, and is able to locate Homer in an ice skating rink.  Wayne is able to sneak into an equipment closet, where he prepare a t-shirt gun full of t-shirts and gasoline to create a makeshift missile launcher.  He's able to defeat the gangsters and save Homer.  Later, Wayne is forced to leave town again, but before he leaves, he lets Homer fistbump him to indicate their friendship.  Marge intervenes, and tells Wayne there's a perfect place for Wayne to hide: the DMV, where Wayne now has rather lengthy flashbacks of him writing plays for Kim Jong Il.

During the credits, Ned and Edna reveal that, yes, they've been voted to stay together.  Principal Skinner comes in wondering why he wasn't an option, and his mother chides him for being late to the party as always.  A message then pops up that this arrangement is basically canon forever.

Quick Review
The episode itself is not that good.  Keifer Sutherland - again - appears as a pretty decent guest voice, but the plot was pretty unfunny as a whole, especially the ending with the Kim Jong Il play.  The big 'reveal' of the Nedna vote wasn't done very well either.  There was hardly any suspense for the reveal, and the episode practically gives it away midway through anyway.  I suppose things could've been worse, but this is a pretty disastrous start to the season.

Final Score: 5.7

The Ned-Liest Catch (S22, E22-486)

It wasn't revealed how many people actually voted.  Was it millions?  Did it reach one million?

Plot Summary
A pep rally for the school's girl's basketball team goes awry when the girls on the team get food poisoning.  Skinner promises the hour to be free time, which quickly descends to chaos, but when Lisa tries to fill up that time with something boring, Skinner tries to cancel free time.  Bart then causes trouble by forcing the bleachers back into the wall, with the kids still sitting on them.  Mrs. Krabappel catches up to Bart an, in an emotional act, slaps Bart in the back of the head, twice, stunning everyone.  Superintendent Chalmers suspends Edna with pay, forcing her to attend a holding facility during her work hours until the board reviews her case.  Bart visits Edna on her first day there, somewhat apologetic about what's happened, and shows Edna a way to escape for awhile: though the window even though the room is on the third floor.  Edna tries to go down a nearby ladder, but its unable to handle her weight.  Bart flees the scene, but as Edna falls she's caught by a nearby Ned Flanders.

The two quickly get along, with the topic of the Simpsons being a decent conversation starter between them.  Edna learns Ned's wife has passed on, and Ned learns Edna's husband is a deadbeat, so they have a little in common in that respect.  The two have lunch, then Edna heads back to the holding facility, though the two hope they'll meet again.  A short time later, Edna is allowed to teach again (and forced to take up work as a weekend prison guard as well), giving her a bit more time to spend with Ned, and the two really hit it off.

Edna starts visiting Ned at his house, which poses a problem for Bart.  Well, not just Bart but also Homer, whose antics Edna isn't willing to deal with.  She forces Homer to be nicer to Ned, and to also give back all of Ned's stuff, basically emptying his garage.  Bart tells Homer about Edna being bad news for the two of them, so Homer concocts a plan to make the Flanders' see Edna in a worse light.  Homer has Bart make Rod and Todd think Edna is a fairy tale monster (which he fails to do), while Homer convinces Ned to break up with Edna.  Homer meets Ned at Moe's tavern to talk about Edna, but Ned convinces Homer that Edna is the woman for him.  However, the other patrons at the bar start revealing that they have also spent some "time" with Edna, including drummer Joey Kramer.  Ned realizes he's been played, and "thanks" Homer for revealing this.  He acts hostile towards Edna the next time they meet, seeing all the other men on her face, but Ned doesn't reveal anything.

Feeling sorry for what's happened, Homer tries to talk to Ned again, able to convince Ned to forgive Edna for her past.  So, later that day, Ned talks to Edna about her past, forgiving her for her transgressions.  Edna takes offense to that, defending her life to this point, and tells Ned that he has to promise that her past will never, ever, get in their way.  Ned isn't willing to relent just yet, commenting that perhaps their relationship will have to be left to a "higher power" to decide.  At this point, the scene shifts to Homer and Marge in a awards show-like setting, advising viewers to visit thesimpsons.com to vote on whether "Nedna" should remain a thing or not, the results of which will be provided in the Season 23 premiere.  Unless you're watching a re-run or a DVD of the episode, in which case Marge is well aware its too late to vote and she recognizes the folly of having people she's never met vote on whether her son's teacher and her neighbor should be a couple.

Quick Review
Comedy wise, its the weakest of the episodes during the season.  Again, humor is pushed aside not just for storytelling, but also to push along the whole "Nedna" bit.  The opening scenes in the pep rally were just awful, and the episode struggles to recover from it, though the episode did hit a mark when Ned imagines all the other men on Edna's face.  Still, this along with 500 Keys brings the season to a dismal close.

This is also the first season finale since Who Shot Mr. Burns? Part 1 to feature a cliffhanger ending with the intention of properly resolving it in the following season's premiere.  Well, I hesitate to use the word "properly".  Who Shot Mr. Burns actually held a contest, with prizes, for whoever could determine the shooter over that summer.  Granted, nobody could because it was the baby that shot him, but that was an actual contest, and it received a full episode that conclude that storyline.  However, with "Nedna", that name sounding so manufactured mind you, there is no contest, just an online vote for one of two options, and the results do not get its own episode: its tacked on to the end of The Falcon and the D'ohman, an otherwise unrelated episode.  I hesitate to apply a bad label to this whole "Nedna" effort because I don't think it's as lazy as it seems, but then again...

Final Score: 6.1