Episode 13 - The Blue and the Gray
28 July 2011
Synopsis: Realising that she has gone completely gray, Marge decides not to dye her hair anymore and go with her natural colour. The women of the town mock her, people think she is older than she is and Homer seems uncomfortable. Meanwhile Moe attends a seminar on how to meet women and enrols Homer as his wingman.
The Good: Somehow the Marge story ended up with the write ending to the story but I am not sure if the writers knew exactly what they were doing. Marge re-dyes her hair blue because Homer finds her more attractive that way. So she doesn't cave to peer pressure or out of irritation at being perceived to be old. She does it to strengthen her marriage and that was both a nice and the right end to the story.
There were some other nice moments along the way. The scene where Marge transformed into a witch (by accident) was ok. I also liked the beginning of the seminar where Dr Kissingher explained that we were once all single celled organisms who could replicate whenever we wanted. Jumping the gun a little on male empowerment Barney cries out "We were men back then!"
The Bad: The problem with this episode was that neither Homer nor Marge's feelings were explored. Marge gets mistaken for a much older woman and she is obviously annoyed. She also gets patronised and mocked by her friends, her sisters and her husband is uncomfortable around her. At no point are the real emotions drawn out which might lead to a meaningful reunion with Homer. Nor do we understand his feelings much as he spends all his time winging Moe.
I'm just not sure the writers understood their own story when they had Marge rush up to the club to reclaim Homer. The implication being that she had no idea he had been out winging Moe. How had he kept that from her? And why would he? He had no reason to which made the end of the episode feel like an accident. The Moe story was ignored completely and we got a useless detour into Bart's feelings and the weirdness of the school psychologist's office.
The plot also traded on things which just shouldn't have happened. We were suddenly being asked to believe that Homer, Moe and even Mr Burns would be attractive to single Springfield women. And these weren't unattractive women. That makes no sense, especially as Homer didn't attend the seminar where the advice he was meant to be using was meant to be handed out. Are we meant to believe Homer read that whole book? Are we meant to believe he went out night after night to help Moe out of the kindness of his heart? It's just such lazy writing.
The humour throughout the episode was poor too. We had the creepy image of Lenny and Carl dating each other's sister and the horrible idea that Moe's soul mate hung herself from loneliness. Then there was Lisa and Bart questioning where their heads end and their hair begins. It's a joke which Family Guy have played with before but shouldn't happen in The Simpsons. The animation in The Simpsons was always meant to be a way to distinguish the show from rivals, not a source of humour. I can let a throwaway joke go but to have two characters actually freaking out over their missing hairlines just shows the writers don't really understand the show they are working on.
Best Joke: There was a fun little exchange between two versions of the low brow, moustachioed man who plays cynical bureaucrats and shop keepers. One is the valet and the other is the bouncer.
V: "How ya doin?"
B: "Nice to see ya. Life is good?"
V: "Can't complain."
B: "Can't or won't?"
V: "You just crossed a line pally!"
The Bottom Line: This was a fairly fun episode if you look past the laziness and stupidity.
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