Episode 18 - Chief of Hearts
22 April 2010
Review
Synopsis: Homer and Chief Wiggum strike up a strong friendship. Clancy even gets shot protecting Homer. But once he recovers his neediness drives Homer away. Eventually they make up after a run in with the local mafia. Bart starts playing a new Japanese card game.
The Good: The pairing of Homer and Clancy is a plausible and relatively unexplored idea. One or two lines in the episode worked out well such as Wiggum threatening to charge Snake with "armed robbery and killing a moment." Or the simple slapstick of Homer being accused of holding up a bank after hiding a candy apple in his pocket.
The Bad: But otherwise this was dull stuff. The basic structure of these one-off friendship episodes is to show two characters bonding and then have a confrontation which demonstrates why the new bond will never last. But the writers have given up on their commitment to returning the Simpsons universe to the status quo each episode. So there will be no explanation in the future as to why Wiggum and Homer are no longer best buddies. Like Krusty's successful romance (2110) it feels like a pointless ending because it will have no consequence. The show's success was built on the dignity which it managed to infuse its never-changing universe. Everyone was in their place because of who they are and the choices they made. But now that's all out of the window along with good comedy.
Their friendship didn't really develop in any kind of fun organic way and the jokes were absent throughout. The one tone they kept trying to play was that Wiggum was like a girl falling for Homer and that gets tired quickly.
Bart's plot was about as superfluous and unnecessary as you can imagine. I'm also getting really tired of the exaggerated mocking of TV staples. Marge overhears Bart out of context talking about his new card game and painstakingly points out to the audience the ironic mocking of the mistaken overhearing dramatic device. The show used to excel at this kind of irony but now they are really heavy handed with it. To cap it off Marge's inhalation of shock actually sucks up one of Maggie's toy cubes. Brilliant.
Best Joke: For his unfortunate incident at the bank Homer is sentenced to 100 hours of community service. The ever lazy and unconventional Homer shrieks "But that's work?" He goes on "I wanna go to jail. Free food. Teardrop tattoos. Library books that come to you. I'll serve anything but the community!"
The Bottom Line: A nice idea woefully carried out.
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