Simpsons Did It!: “Mona Leaves-a”

Glenn Close’s portrayal of Mona Simpson made her a somewhat frequent guest star on The Simpsons, and the character’s appearances were always poignant ones.

This time around is no exception.

After a family outing to the mall and something that looked an awful lot like the Build-a-Bear Workshop, the Simpsons return home to find the door ajar.  Homer gets “the Defender” out–that’s a cinderblock tied to a chain for easy swinging–and goes to take out whoever is baking a pie.

Yes, a pie.  Thieves tend not to do that.  Mona Simpson, Homer’s mom, is back, and she says she’s here to stay since the feds think she’s dead.

However, Homer no longer wishes to keep his mother around because of all the times in the past when she left him to go protesting or do some sort of hippie things that left him to be raised, not by the TV, but by the refrigerator.  Angry, Homer refuses every motherly offer Mona makes.  He’s so mad, he can’t even enjoy guest star Lance Armstrong telling off Fozzie Bear at the Espy Awards.  But then he can’t sleep and goes down to apologize and finds Mona has died peacefully of natural causes.

That funeral was a sad one.  Grampa no longer has a desire to dance on her grave, and the fact Homer still has his dad makes things worse.  And who else is there?  Seth, Munchie, and Mason Fairbanks, Mona’s various ex-lovers.  All voiced by guest stars in the past, so they say nothing here.  Homer goes home sad with an urn full of his mother’s ashes.

Once home, Marge finds a video will.  Mona left Bart her swiss army knife.  Lisa got her spirit of protest (she swipes some earrings later).  Marge got a hand-made hemp handbag.  And Homer got some instructions to toss Mona’s ashes to the wind from the top Springfield Monument Park’s highest peak.  Well, it’s not the Murderhorn…

Maggie gets NOTHING.

At the park, Homer starts the climb and soon finds other Simpsons dropping off.  Bart never even started.  Lisa got tired and quit partway up.  Marge was doing fine until Homer had her carry him and she dropped him and left.  As it is, Homer gets to the top and at the appointed time of 3 o’clock, he lets loose the ash.

And it goes down into a nearby missile silo to clog a computer to prevent a rocket from blasting off.  Yes, Mona’s last request to Homer was to do some other hippie protest thing.  He’s not happy.  He’s less happy when he’s caught by the guards.

Who’s launching the rocket?  Mr. Burns.  He’s blasting the nuclear waste from the Power Plant to the Amazon rainforest.  Since that’s something Lisa cares about, Homer does too (though not enough to stop himself from asking Burns for Thursday afternoon off).  With Homer tied up and the countdown restarted, what can he do?

Well, first Bart tosses the knife so Homer can cut his way out.  Then he finds a cinderblock and a length of chain lying around.  As Marge burns her hemp purse to make the guards high with a fire started with Lisa’s errant earrings (I don’t think hemp cloth works that way), Homer easily overpowers the guards and accidentally drops his Defender onto the computer console, causing the rocket to explode in the silo.  Homer manages to parachute to safety with a parachute with a Union Jack on it for some reason, and then releases Mona’s ashes again to the wind.  Cue a sweet montage of Mona clips, and…

Wait, that nuclear waste blew up near Springfield!  That’s not helping anybody!