Rate & Review: Every Man's Dream

Was it dreamy?

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OldSchoolerSimpsons

OldSchoolerSimpsons

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Homer and Marge get divorced (for real this time), but Homer quicker than a Road Runner starts dating someone else. And this "someone" is a girl played by Lena Dunham. But is it really such a good idea?

Find out if Homer really does have his dream!
 
Here we go!
Usin' stars, my plus button is bloke.
*** Good couch gag.
* Homer getting squeezed.
** Needle gag.
*** Bart with blood tester.
** Maggie sleeping.
** Homer sleeping.
--- Oh great. A dumb marriage crisis episode. This will go downhill fast.
** Tear dickey.
End of act 1. Shaping up great, despite marriage crisis plot. 8.5/10.
** Mr Burns falling.
* Smithers grabbing him.
* Narcolepsy joke.
*** A new Itchy and Scratchy! And a good one!
** Lonely guy with bag of drugs.
* Dancing tattoo.
** Nice drug trip sequence.
End of act 2. This is shaping up to be excellent, despite the bad plot. 9/10.
* Moe driving away,
* Homer spitting champagne.
Man, that was a weak third act. 4/10.
--- IT. WAS. ALL. JUST. A. DREAM??? NO! NO! NO! NO! SO BAD! SO BAD! SUCH A LAZY RESOLUTION! DEAR GOD THIS EPISODE SUCKS!
--- AND. THAT. WAS. ALL. A DREAM? NO! NO! NOOOOOO! THIS IS TERRIBLE! WHAT AN AWFUL EPISODE!
--------------------------------------------------------------------- AND THAT WAS ALL A DREAM TOO? HOLY CRAP! NOOOOO! THIS IS THE WORST!
WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT? IT WAS ALL THE DREAM OF A RANDOM BACKGROUND CHARACTER? WHAT THE HELL?
Overall, I guess it gets a 5.5/10 because of the solid start, but the ending might be the WORST ever!
I'll repost this on the review thread once it opens.
 
The ending was a real mindscrew! I honestly thought at the end, Homer and Marge were just going to make up and get together again, like they have a few times before...

The Itchy and Scratchy cartoon was fun, as was that whole dream-within-a-dream bit. And I liked how the opening act wasn't filled with "halfway plot switches" either; it began right with Homer's narcolepsy.
 
Now open for business.

For future R/R threads, please avoid posting in them prior to the episode airing. That's what preview/speculation is for.
 
the stuff with homer dating the lena dunham character wasn't bad, and the double date was interesting, but it was all ruined by the lame ending.
 
Things I liked this week...
- Nastuk's direction
- Dunham's voicework
- An actual HD era Barney gag that made me laugh
- That there was a new episode tonight
- That really cool looking blood moon eclipse dealie
- The montage of marriage crisis episodes that aired on FXX beforehand
- The Springfield’s Best and Seattle’s Worst Coffee Shop (oh wait... this was already featured in Waiting for Duffman)

Things I disliked this week...
- Everything else.

RATING = 2.5/5 ... which actually isn't terrible for premieres in the HD era... it was better than Clown in the Dumps (S26), Moonshine River (S24) and Elementary School Musical (S22) ... and it's not like the episodes I didn't mention were winners, either (unless you count The Simpsons Guy)
 
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Man what a great episode! I really enjoyed all the guest stars and the story was really enjoyable and I loved the drama from homer and Marge's marriage crisis...

ZZZzzz...wait, that episode wasn't real, it was only a dream, as for the actual episode...

Too bad the season didn't continue with this episode as one long, interconnected series. Homer and Marge could have been in competition for the entire season and that would have been much more entertaining. The" pregnancy" could have been something made up at the dinner table. But alas, here's to another season of the same old same old
 
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3/5 but it warrants a re-watch. I wish they focused a little more on the scene where Homer was sitting on top of the cooling tower. Could have been one of those classic emotional Simpsons moments, but it was dumbed down by the ensuing gags.
 
Patches O'houlihan said:
Too bad the season didn't continue with this episode as one long, interconnected series. Homer and Marge could have been in competition for the entire season and that would have been much more entertaining. The" pregnancy" could have been something made up at the dinner table. But alas, here's to another season of the same old same old
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Now now... these writers are far too comfortable to dare tackling a multi-episode story arc. They're not Matt Stone and Trey Parker. That would be far too radical for them. They live and die by their glorious reset button. Because, after all, then the episodes would confuse people in syndication and in marathons if they aired out of sequence. Let them reference Elon Musk for 4 episodes after his guest stint and tackle two episodes where Smithers comes out to Burns. That's about as daunting as we can expect. Perhaps next season Ned will marry again. I hear Miss Hoover is still up for grabs.
 
Homer has narcolepsy, so he has cream come out of his face and Bart willingly wants a part in his death... what? A couple of uninteresting moments later, Marge separates from Homer for drinking, and she should have done this how long ago? Homer meets with a pharmacist and begins dating her immediately. Homer gets in bed with her, more cream comes out of his face, and something else happens after that... oh yeah, he and Marge meet at dinner. Marge is dating some old guy for some reason, something involving pregnancy happens, and the guy offers to marry her. She accepts, Homer wakes up in marriage counselling, only to wake up again with that lady again. He runs to 742 Evergreen Terrace, looks through the window, has a sweet moment with Lisa, and... wakes up again in a world where Maggie speaks and Lisa eats meat, then wakes up in marriage counselling, then Marge wakes up to realise it was all a dream. After all of these continuous fuck you's to the audience, Jean and co. deliver the quintessential middle finger when it's revealed that Marge waking up was actually a tattoo. Ugh. What in the actual fuck is this bullshit? Long story short, this was terrible. The two things that get this the minimum 1/10 is the Patty/Selma smoke choking Homer thing and the brief little scene between Homer and Lisa. Everything else was terrible, as I expected it to be. 1/5, 1/10 (F).
 
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Possibly the worst Season premiere by far, and I've seen many, many bad ones. Might even fall under the category of my bottom 5.
 
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Good news everyone (Futurama reference and that a former writer from that show wrote this episode): this episode didn't sucked I hoped, but it's still not good. The execution was freaking confusing. Why where there's so many dreams? You see, this is why the writers should stop doing this crap. Status quo and marriage crisis. It getting old at this point. Al Jean needs to stop overhyping this episode. Good thing this episode didn't had any bad jokes and there were some chuckles here and there. it's too bad there's some problems I listed. One, Homer was kinda annoying with the whole situation and I don't like how he has an excuse to say narcolepsy. Second, we all know this but the plot is stupid and lame. Third, well, I told you already, but then there are meh jokes that fell flat like Homer marrying himself (ugh), Bart wanting to cry on Ned's lawn (lousy way to end act 1, writers), and a couple others. I was bothered that it was all a dream. I need really, this episode was pointless. Like Clown in the Dumps, this is just eh, forgettable at best. Lastly, I didn't cared about the guest stars here especially Lena whathername. Sorry Girls fans and Lena, but your co-stars didn't really need to be in this episode. 5/10 Another bland season premiere.
 
everything about this episode was so mind-numbingly flat, from the fart of a plot that doesn't end so much as it just dissipates and jokes that weren't any good either. and man those brief seizure-inducing color flashes during the drug trip sequence really did this episode no favors.
 
First I shall start off on the positive aspects of this episode, of which there are very few. The following things were funny to me.

Homer pulling the Narcolepsy card on Burns when asked where his shoes were and Burns awkwardly going "Sorry, sorry".
The saddest man in the bar contest.
The name of a craft beer in the background was called "Humble Bastard"
Selma on the phone telling Homer she'll help provided he can guess who she is and Homer incorrectly guessing Patty.

The rest of this episode was an abhorrent pile of shit from start to finish. Every single bit of it just got more and more unpleasant as it went along. Lena's character drugging Homer by mixing his meds which she herself said shouldn't be mixed with booze was probably where the shit hit the fan hardest (Yes, Homer's irresponsible enough to mix them on his own but considering that she's a fucking pharmacist who knows better, it just didn't sit well in the slightest). The fact that they actually show them in bed together the following morning with no indications to show that they didn't actually fuck and Homer freaking out over it while she's all calm made it even worse. In addition to that we have the reveal of Marge dating the older guy who was Lena's character's father, a reveal which was telegraphed from a mile away. Then they do the whole "Marry me"/"I'm pregnant" bit which admittedly was a shocker but of course, this being The Simpsons, rather than do something interesting with that they immediately pull the "It was all a dream" bullshit that then descends into further mindfuckery by having things still not be right what with Lisa eating meat and Maggie singing "What a wonderful world", then revealing that was a dream and that Homer and Marge are still with other people, and then having THAT be a dream that Marge was having, followed by the entire thing being given zero closure or point but instead capping the episode with a stupid nod to "Girls".

I wouldn't even have minded the added weird shit with the dreams upon dreams upon dreams had it actually went somewhere half decent or even interesting, but instead they got lazy and just played up the guest star aspect by doing all the "Girls" shit and then writing the majority of the episode off with one of the oldest sitcom cop-outs in the book.

1/5, and the only reason that 1 is even earned is for the few small laughs the episode had, were it not for those this thing would be a 0. Fuck this episode.
 
The ending was terrible, although the pregnancy gag was nice. The worst premiere by far.

Rating: 3.0

"WORST EPISODE EVER"
 
After a long drought of no new episodes, ..A hot summer'y desert trek leaving me thirsty for new Simpsons,.. I was glad to drink my fill from this oasis of an episode! My first big laugh came from Dr Hilbert's medical waist, and the amusement continued from there. 5/5 stars
 
Pax said:
wakes up again in a world where Maggie speaks and Lisa eats meat
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Shaunbadia said:
they immediately pull the "It was all a dream" bullshit that then descends into further mindfuckery by having things still not be right what with Lisa eating meat and Maggie singing "What a wonderful world".
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Can I rant about something? Because I'm tired as hell of all of the vegetarian jokes they constantly regurgitate for Lisa. Especially when they do these "ha she's eating meat" fakeouts. It's never funny. It's never going to be funny. In fact, I'm not sure there's been a funny vegetarian joke for Lisa since Lisa The Vegetarian.

Remember back when Bart Gets Famous first aired during Season 5 (admittedly this was over 21 years ago) and they panned over to Lisa at the end expecting her to spout off some ridiculous catchphrase and she gave them this insulting reaction at the mere thought of being reduced to a simplistic one-liner? Well, that's largely what they've reduced Lisa to over the past two decades.

"Hey, look it's Lisa and this episode isn't about her. Let's have a vegetarian joke. Or a buddhist joke. Or a bit where she plays her saxophone. Or some gag involving ponies." It's always one of these four things and, if it's not one of these four things, she's used as some liberal mouthpiece for the writers. Frankly, I'm not enamored by any of it. Do you see characters on Bob's Burgers being reduced to this reductive nonsense? No, you don't. They make observational commentary instead.

When you've reduced arguably your most complex character into something trite and recycled... well, that's not something to be congratulated.
 
Regarding that last bit, they've done that with nearly every character nowadays. Everyone is a one-off joke or gag or some shit.
 
Pax said:
Regarding that last bit, they've done that with nearly every character nowadays.
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Of course they have. I'm just more insulted by the fact that it's happened to Lisa. She's not Barney or Dr. Nick or Disco Stu.
Or, at least, she wasn't at one time. I suppose she pretty much IS them now. It's just sad.
 
This was a 4...until the whole "who's dreaming what now?" bit at the end. Still rates a 3.

Written by J. Stewart Burns
Directed by Matthew Nastuk
No billboard or blackboard
Couch: Everybody appears in Beatles album covers, ending up getting run over on "Flabby Road"
Couch Gag Music "Through it All There Is Love" Music & Lyrics by Dan Castellaneta
Special Guest Voice: Adam Driver, Lena Dunham, Laura Ingraham, Jemima Kirke, Zosia Mamet, Allison Williams
Also Starring: Pamela Hayden, Tress MacNeille, Chris Edgerley
Overseas Animation: Akom
TV Rating: TV-PG-DLSV

It still doesn't say "Fox Presents" at the beginning, like it does on all Fox produced and aired live-action shows. Yes, they still do it; Minority Report has it.

Oneof the albums in the couch opening was The Yellow Album, which was actually released. (It was the second album of music not from the show, after The Simpsons Sing the Blues.)

"Springfield General Hospital - Home of the $29,999.99 Appendectomy"

Homer's EKG monitor stayed on even after Bart pulled out all of the plugs.

Why is Lisa afraid of spiders - especially as Homer would probably kill it?

Dr. Zilowitz went to both Springfield College and Springfield University.

Marge let Homer drive off by himself, even though she knew he had narcolepsy.

One of the "Owner of the Month" plaques has two of the Germans from "Burns Verfauken der Kraftwerk".

"Pharmacy Closed - for drugs, see weird guy in alley"

Lena Dunham voiced the pharmacist; her friends were voiced by Dunham's co-stars on Girls.
 
Act 1: Already starting off with the classic "look at 3-7 still photos while the VA's say random grunts and lines over it'. And to top that off, a Bart trying to kill Homer joke, fantastic. Narcolepsy leads to some trite gags, not really anything else. Marge sees this as a wake up call I guess, then finally divorces Homers ass cause Counselor lady said so, despite Homer not really doing anything really awful yet. Uh...I liked Flanders tear dickey line? And Marge sounds slightly more sincere here in Kavner's acting, though it still comes out really bad here and there.

Act 2: Liked Burns Verkaufen der Kraftwerk reference on the owner wall. Montage was okay, episode in general seemed directed well. I&S was alright, and liked the saddest man in the bar joke. Drug montage could've dialed down on the references, but was fine. And then cut to Homer sleeping with the Girls Pharmacist...uh.... I mean I know she drugged him, but still...that's a bit uncomfortable for Homer to finally do.

Act 3: More Girls references, I think, I dunno, the guest stars have to be there for something. And Marge is dating the Girls Pharmacist father, what a twist. Nice to see how much Homer and Marge seem to really miss and care for each other after all these years *divorces and dates other people in the same week*.

Act 4: Marge accepts a sudden marriage proposal cause she's a bitch...except it was all a dream, so then Homer acts annoying while Marge apparently knows about the dream, and isn't angry so changes him...but that was also a dream, so Homer actually is screwed and sad, but Lisa randomely goes outside and comforts him...but that was ALSO a dream, so they conclude-ALSO a dream because Girls reference, so episode doesn't even exist, pointless waste of time, fuck it, goddamnshit hycukasodf.

If they made it so Homer didn't clearly sleep with the Pharmacist and didn't end with that horrible dream thing (or at the very least made the jokes during it FUNNY, or even better, just wrote a conclusion that made some sense to this entire ep) it probably would've been okay, but as is, it was just another thin plot, forgettable episode, with Girls references scattered in.

Overall: 4.8/10, or 2/5 for the poll.
 
A marriage crisis episode is still a marriage crisis episode. However, if they had to do a marriage crisis episode, then a trial separation was a nice twist on this standard overused plot frame. Family Guy did the trial separation plot before, but The Simpsons hadn't. Once that plot gets going (I really didn't get the link between narcolepsy and needing marriage counseling, but whatever), we only get to see Homer's side of the separation, and while the stuff with him and the pharmacist was the most interesting part of the episode (Dunham was a good guest voice), it wasn't enough to make the whole episode interesting. And then add on the silly "dreaming" crap at the end and it sort of makes everything we just saw pointless.

Also hated the seizure-inducing flashing colors (it's such a stupid effect that I hoped they wouldn't ever use), in what was the second montage of the episode (though some of the imagery was kinda cool, I will give it that).

I didn't think it was as abysmal as a lot of people are saying, and there wasn't anything that stood out as being really cringeworthy, but the episode was dull and then they threw away anything the episode might've had (which wasn't much) with the ending. Maybe I'm easily amused by stupid things, but I actually thought the scene with Maggie singing and Lisa eating meat was kind of funny in how unsettling it was (that at least worked as a surreal dream sequence--the rest of the episode didn't need to be a dream).

I guess the episode was also supposed to be a plug for HBO's Girls, but considering I've never seen the show or even heard of it until today, that was completely lost on me. Like Homerland, that kind of dependency on another show is never a good undercurrent for an episode.

5/10
 
What the hell? Wow, this was terrible. I guess I can give it some credit at the beginning in that the separation wasn't a spur-of-the-moment type thing and was instead just a buildup of all the problems Marge has had to endure with him, and I'm glad they decided to take the traditional "marriage crisis" and take it one step further. But the positives end there. When he meets Candice...she just throws herself at him for no reason at all. It's the most forced "date" hookup I've ever seen.

So later we see Marge at the restaurant dating Candice's dad, and at this point I assumed I knew how it would end: Homer and Candice would get in a fight, and Marge and Candice's father would get in a fight, they would leave, and Marge and Homer would be together again. So maybe you could call it a good thing that the ending wasn't what I expected, but since it led to something even worse, maybe not so much.

It goes to the horrifically cliché "it was all a dream" scene, which was bad enough, but then the episode starts going bonkers and making these dreams within dreams and a bunch of shit like that. I thought Lisa coming to Homer would've made a nice, touching ending that would at least salvage something, but nooooope. She hears her...boyfriend...call her, and then we get more dreaming shit. And they got back together....how? I barely remember. An awful episode that missed all the chances it had to get back on track. 1/5
 
For me this episode tries two things and bombs on both fronts. On one hand, Stewart Burns tries and fails to make a legitimate emotional story, complete with sad montage-turned-joke and a sitcom-ish climax where Homer and Marge are dating a father and daughter?! While the rest of the episode just straight-up abandons plot and goes on a drug-induced trip, except instead of jokes we have callbacks on tattoos and instead of solid animation work we have flashing colors (although to be fair some of the character expressions in the other parts are pretty solid).

Regardless of the rest of the episode, at least Stewart Burns is consistent with his "all a dream" third acts though.
 
Financial Panther said:
Lisa coming to Homer would've made a nice, touching ending that would at least salvage something, but nooooope. She hears her...boyfriend...call her,
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I thought that was the new guy Marge was with calling her. Sorta showing that he was able to win Lisa's favor over Homer in spite of her reassurance that he wouldn't ever lose her.
 
I actually kinda liked Candace and her character is the only great thing about this mostly dreadful marriage crisis fest! Writers get a clue: these kind of episodes have been done to death and it’s not working! and there’s nothing new about it at all! When Marge kicked Homer out for the millionth time I just thought to myself ok just get divorced already! Yes it says a lot about the current show and its characters that I didn’t even care one bit if the affair really happened or if this was all a dream or not.. I actually would have probably preferred if this was not a dream and this could have developed into a potentially interesting storyline. The way I think of it is this: if this whole thing just turns out to be a dream anyway why not go crazy and do a real daring Homer has an affair episode without all the ultra whiny marriage drama in there. As it is there were a couple ok scenes here with Homer and Candace and I thought this episode could still go somewhere yet but no we quickly switched back to marriage crisis mood so this whole idea was basically completely wasted and was just a set up for the usual nonsense we’ve seen a 100 times already! Also can the writers kindly stop using Lisa as a one trick punch line please, the whole meat thing was ridiculous as was yet another Maggie can sing/talk gag. In fact the whole “multiple dream” ending was idiotic to the extreme. What a cop out. This was like the writers were trying to come up with a clever “twist” ending but failing miserably! 3/10 at most and I’m being generous, it had some potential but it did not deliver for me at all.
 
Somehow I had a feeling that I would like this episode more than pretty much the majority of this site. Now I want to start this off by saying that I was expecting this episode to be terrible. The plot sounded stupid and the fact that there was no comic-con footage for this episode like there was last year with that awful Homer can't breath bit, I was still expecting this episode to suck for the same reason, but also by default because it's a marriage crisis episode and because J Stewart Burns' previous marriage crisis episode, What Animated Want is one of my most hated episodes of the show. However when the promos for this episode were revealed on friday, I was thinking to myself "This doesn't look too bad. Hell, it actually looks kind of decent.", so I went into this episode with good expectations. I was surprised to find out that this episode was better than I was expecting it to be. Now before I get into the already infamous ending, I'm going to talk about the first two acts which I think is the episode's strongest points. I thought they handled Homer's narcolepsy very well and the emotion in this episode doesn't really feel forced. It really isn't that effective, but I think those scenes at the beginning worked. Also there's some really funny jokes in this episode like Bart messing with the blood pressure gauge, Homer using his narcolepsy as an excuse for everything, Barney's cameo and the saddest man in the bar gag. Really the only cringe-worthy joke in this episode is the part where Maggie was sleeping which was pretty disgusting. I also thought Lena Dunham did a decent enough job voicing the Candace and her character delivered a few funny lines. I'm also probably in the minority here, but I liked the drug trip scene even if it is a bit too flashy with it's bright lights. I really thought they handled the marriage separation plot very well, until somewhere around the third act. Now when Homer and Candace goes to the restaurant so Homer can meet her father... you're never going to guess this. CANDACE'S FATHER IS DATING MARGE! I groaned when that twist was revealed, but I hoped it would be the last twist this episode pulled. When this episode pulled the it was all a dream twist, I couldn't believe they went for the easiest twist ending ever. Then the episode revealed that the dream he had was a dream he had when he was passed out at a bar which I thought was a little clever, but then it turns out that all of that was a dream Marge has, but then it is all revealed that this whole fucking episode was just a tattoo. While I wouldn't call it the worst ending the show has ever done, it's incredibly stupid and you cannot trick your audience like that this many times. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, OK that was a little clever. Fool me three times, GOD DAMN IT J. STEWART BURNS, STOP FUCKING WITH ME! Fool me four times and I'm not even surprised. You know what? The more that I think about this ending, it reminds me of a less funny version of the ending to the SpongeBob episode Doing Time. I was tempted to lower my rating for this episode a little bit due to this ridiculous ending, but I just can't. I really enjoyed the majority of this episode and the first act alone was really funny. So while I think the ending is pretty stupid, I don't hate it enough for it to affect the episode for me and overall I thought it was a solid season premiere. 8/10
 
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Well this episode blew away my expectations. That's not saying much. It did what I thought it couldn't, which was be better than 'Clown in the Dumps', 'Lisa Goes Gaga'.
I'll give it credit where credit is due. Several jokes actually worked. The references to Classic episodes like the - the episode with the german title, and the episode with the spanish title. Stupid titles.
And the first 30 year meta reference. If the show had of finished at the 15 minute mark, and had Marge and Homer getting back together, I probably would've given it a 4/10. Maybe even a 5. But when an episode ends with a 5 minute sequence that is so confusing I don't know what's going on, how the story actually finished, and what reality is their reality, you make a bad bad impression. While I enjoyed the final scenes, not knowing how the episode actually ended is the problem here.
Too often in the post classic era episodes are ruined by one scene, and this problem is amplified when its at the end of an episode. For a modern episode where so much seemed to work, this episode completely blew its potential. However it gave me two new avatars, so that's somthing.

The Simpsons Season 26, Episode 1:
Every Man's Dream
Overall: 2/10
For the era: 4/10
Rating: 3/10, 1.5/5, rounded down to 1/5, D-/E+
"Better than 'Clown in the Dumps'"
 
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