Simpsons Did It!: “Marge And Homer Turn A Couple Play”

And here we are, at the end of the season seventeen.

Now there’s a sentence I never thought I’d have to type again.

Hey, the Springfield Isotopes are actually doing well with the acquisition of Buck Mitchell, a regular monarch of the long ball.  Yes, he is a home run king.

You can’t expect all the jokes I make to be good.

But, you know what that means…the Simpsons are in the ballpark to see a baseball game because Homer just can’t resist a good bandwagon.  It looks like everyone in town is there, too.  And why not?  Not only is Buck there to draw the crowd, but his international recording star wife Tabitha Vixx (guest star Mandy Moore) is there to sing the national anthem.

Well, sort of.  She sings the first line and the last line, then inserts some song off her new album in the middle, one that involves a lot of suggestive dancing and increasingly skimpy attire that pleases a lot of men in the crowd.  About the only person who isn’t pleased is Buck.  That, in turn, affects his play and soon Bart and Lisa find something else to agree on, namely how much he sucks.

Also noting is Howard K Duff (reoccurring guest star Stacy Keach, who had like, one, maybe two lines.  I was surprised they brought him back for that.  Did we need an appearance by Howard K Duff?  I mean, honestly.  Heck, the producers could have just gotten one of the regular cast to do whatever conversation he has with Duffman and I doubt anyone would mind.  But there ya go again.  Say, this is a really long bit of commentary to put inside a parenthetical like this.  That could cause problems when I close it off with a second parenthesis and I have to finish the original sentence.  Well, just keep that in mind as I do just that, Jimmy) watching the game from the owners box with Duffman.

That means we need a distraction.  Time to turn on the Jumbo-Tron for the kiss camera and make couples kiss each other.  Obviously it goes to Homer and Marge, revealing first that Homer has no idea how old he looks, but then he and Marge get to kissin’ each other somthin’ fierce, ya know what I mean?

That (incredibly) public display of affection tells Buck that Homer and Marge might be the very people he needs to fix his own marriage.

Now, Marge is somewhat against this because she has a brain that works a lot more often than her husband’s, but as the two tease each other, they opt to go for it because otherwise the episode sputters out before the first commercial break.  And oddly enough, once that commercial break is over, Homer and Marge actually seem to know what they’re doing with the advice.  That’s odd since Homer’s technique is to act like a TV therapist while Marge reads out of a used relationship self-help guide.  Buck and Tabitha start to get along again, and Buck’s game improves as a result.

That gets the Simpsons tickets to Tabitha’s next concert, and her act is still a little risqué.  She really likes to dance with and around various types of poles.  Bart gets the sudden urge to slip her five dollars which tells Marge to leave with the kids.  Homer afterwards goes back to congratulate Tabitha and she’s eating fried chicken.  You know he’s not going anywhere.  And then he offers her a shoulder rub that goes no further than that because Homer’s too busy eating chicken to get really turned on by all this.  Buck walks in, tosses Homer out, and then his game starts to suffer again.

Can the Simpsons fix this?  Well, we’ll find out after the final commercial break.

Duh.  Yes.

Marge is initially mad at Homer for the chicken grease massage she’d never want for herself because it’s obviously gross, but with both Homer and Bart getting beaten up for Buck’s returned poor play, and because Homer actually believes in this crazy thing he’s doing, he goes down to the stadium to fix it himself.  Marge follows when Tabitha shows up and says the two of them were really helpful, and after a blimp scam led by Homer, a blimp getting more or less shot down by a home run from Buck, and Marge making an impassioned plea on the Jumbo-Tron, well, all the married couples forgive each other and the season ends with a mystery we didn’t know existed solved.

Turns out there are three Duffmans.  Duffmen?