Review: The Simpsons “The Longest Marge”

 

 

Overview (Spoilers Below)

The employees of the Springfield Power Plant are inspired by a football prodigy on the town’s team and have a victory riot in his honor. Smithers brings in a branding expert to re-imagine Mr. Burns’ failing wine brand. Later, Mr. Burns and Marge fight over the football player, each one trying to shape him in the way they want.

Our Take

This episode featured the typical annoyed corporate overlord (Mr. Burns) trying to appeal for Grayson Mathers, a football prodigy recruited to the Springfield Atoms. It was very different than the Simpsons I am used to watching, as it seemed to have a lot of modern lingo, with even Smithers having all the traps in the plant able to access on his phone. It was interesting to see Mr. Burns try and appeal to Maters and try to make him a corporate schlock. The show pokes at our current sport-addicted culture.

It is a bit funny for Mathers to be held up as a god of sorts by Homer, but he quickly turns against him when he doesn’t perform well during the football game. Clearly this is poking at the idea that the opinion of sports fans can be fickle, which Marge points out. Homer and his fellow workers from the Springfield Power Plant clearly feel the same way, as they declare he “sucks” now.

Not surprisingly, Mr. Burns takes advantage of Mathers feeling down, and tries to tell him that he isn’t a loser. He attempts to “prove” this by putting him in front of what he thinks will be an adoring crowd: schoolchildren. While this goes well at first, he gets booed by Nelson and his friends, leading him to call them “stupid” and begin drinking again, even throwing books at the kids. Yikes.

It was no shock that Marge steps in and tries to help Mathers after he gets drunk. He seems to be spiraling out of control but Marge brings him back to reality and calms him down. She can be such a helping person, even bringing Mathers into her home!

Mathers seems to be a stand-in for just about every sports star out there, as he is portrayed as poorly educated and tied in with the sports culture from an early age. He doesn’t realize that this life is not a healthy one and begins to learn lessons from being with the Simpsons.

There’s even a training montage with Mathers learning home skills, even testing negative on drug tests, and going to church with the Simpsons family. Even Duffman makes a reappearance! Mr. Burns turns out to be wrong and Marge’s mothering skills allows Mathers to win.

I liked the rivalry between Marge and Mr. Burns throughout the episode, with Marge seeming to influence Mathers for the better. Of course, Burns dislikes this because he isn’t brash and annoying like he used to be. I also liked how Marge called out Burns for being selfish. Mathers rightly runs away from everything and even tries to bring Marge and Burns together. They can’t, predictably, forget their animosity toward one another and end up drinking some of the terrible brandy Mr. Burns has.

Mathers turns out to be playing Mr. Burns and Marge the whole time! He cares more about his recent fiance than either of them. It is a depressing, yet not typical, way to end the episode. Maybe it is indicating that sports personalities are callous? Its hard to know.

It was a bit weird to have an episode where Bart nor Lisa has that many lines, with more lines by Homer and Marge than either of the kids. The guest stars, Beck Bennett (voicing Grayson Mathers), John Mulaney (voicing Warburton Parker), and Adam Schefter were a nice touch.

I suppose I liked this episode, but I didn’t really laugh during it. The drama and story was good, but the comedy was dull. I hope that will improve in the future, although I’m not entirely sure it will.