Simpsons Did It!: “Boy Meets Curl”

Wait, the Simpsons are going back to Canada?  This is what?  The third time?

And they still haven’t visited Jimmy Impossible.

It’s Homer and Marge’s date night.  But then Mr. Burns makes everyone at the plant stay late to find a heavy water leak, so dinner’s out.  They try a romantic movie, but people are obnoxious and the thing starred Ben Affleck, so that’s out.  The two are headed home when they pass the ice skating rinks.  Ice skating is romantic, right?  Wait, no skates for rent?  Well that sucks.  Why?  It’s curling night?

Hey, that combines Homer’s love of bowling with Marge’s love of sweeping.  And it turns out, they’re good at it.  Good enough for Principal Skinner to invite the two Simpsons to join a team with him and Agnes.

Say, why does Agnes give Seymour so much trouble?  Well, when she was pregnant with Seymour, the product of a one-night stand, she was an Olympic pole vaulter, and Seymour gave a kick at the worst possible time.  But why would Agnes blame that on Armin Tanzarian?

Why bring that up?  Well, the Winter Olympics is adding mixed gender curling as a new exposition sport, and Homer and Marge are asked to try out with the Skinners.  Agnes really wants to win something, and curling has become Homer and Marge’s newest thing.  Heck, it’s so much a thing that Bart and Lisa suspect “curling” is something their parents made up to hide some sort of adult thing that was really going on.

But the Simpson/Skinner team prevails and soon, everyone is off for Vancouver, the warmest city in Canada, for the Winter Olympics, where guest star Bob Costas is giving commentary.  This is neat for a lot of reasons, not the least of which was Homer discovering there was a Winter Olympics that may or may not involve Santa diving into a frozen pool.

But then it comes out Homer isn’t very good at curling.  It’s only Marge’s skill with a broom that allows them to win.  Agnes wants Homer off the team, but Marge refuses.

Meanwhile, Lisa is addicting to Olympic pins in a silly subplot I will speak no more of.

Tragedy strikes when Marge severely injures her right shoulder while sweeping.  Though Team Springfield manages to prevail, they still have the finals against Sweden to deal with.  All hope is lost until Homer realizes Marge is left-handed.  It seems she’d been hiding that so she wouldn’t stick out as a weirdo.  That is so Marge.

So, yeah, the Simpsons and the Skinners win gold in a meaningless sport that the broadcast actually goes to watch, skipping an overtime match in hockey between the United States and Russia.

That was some date night.

That was their lame joke, not mine.  Mine would have been much lamer.