S30E02: "HEARTBREAK HOTEL"
Written by: Renee Ridgeley & Matt Selman
Directed by: Steven Dean Moore
Thoughts:
- woo not even two pages in this R&R. i knew i was needed.
- ok so first off i want 2 call out the title. HEARTBREAK HOTEL the fuck is this. no pun for me? heartbreak d'ohtel too forced? heartbreak in the N2-O2-Ar-CO2-Ne-He-CH4? altho i suppose my energy would be better saved for the episode literally just called krusty the clown thats coming up.
- so we immediately jump right into (it is a selman after all) the simps on the couch watchin THE AMAZING PLACE, a parody of reality competition shows. this parody is so timely that theres an epic recreation of that one viral clip from a decade ago where someone tried slingin a watermelon and it ended up smackin her in the face. marge is shown to be an expert on the show and is able to accurately guess whoever will win. lisa and bart urge marge to try out to be on the show but she sheepishly declines. as evidence of her fandom we see marge owns the "terrible home game", which is sittin on a Shelf next to epic parodies like BATTLEBOAT and MOUSE CATCH. also the shot of the game is overlayed with a marge mutter because this show is obsessed with sound.
- bart and lisa do the mt splashmore thing where they bug marge to go on the show, first at church (fair enough), and then at a... FASCAR race. ok first of all thats a bit of a random progression, and second of all the way they set this shot with the FASCAR logo bein very prominent at the bottom means they absolutely Needed u to know this was not just any Generic car race, but a FASCAR race! so gutbusting! also they've mentioned NASCAR on the show numerous times right? wiki simpsons seems to agree with their
absolutely hilarious FASCAR page. that means someone on the staff thought FASCAR was actually a funny parody. i'm thinkin way too much about this 2 second shot, but like, goddam folks, FASCAR!!!
- at the dinner table bart and lisa continue their pestering until marge tells them to stfu. homer says she needs to tell them the secret to which bart says they know all the family secrets, lisa adding that "dad lost our college funds investing in a chain of chewing tobacco cafes". homer rebuffs them by saying Dippin Dens was a great idea, and i guess he was just holding a Dippin Dens prospectus because he lifts it up to drive his point home. man this show sure plays Fast & Lose with the rules of reality now doesnt it, and for jokes that are not even good. guhhh
- marge takes bart and lisa to the attic where she shows them countless audition tapes she's made over the years. in one of them homer asks "why are you still doing this we were already on that show where we had to crawl into a drainage ditch" to which marge replies "that was just you and it wasn't a show it was a Police Bodycam". first of all what, second of all does no one tell you to trim your jokes. homers response that "that was a good show" also makes him a bit too stupid for my liking, plus thats 3 uses of the word "show" in the span of like 10 seconds, sounds awkward. feel like no one rewrites these episodes anymore.
- marge exits sadly saying she will never be on the show. lisa says "reality shows love a sob story and we've got a storage bin full of tears" and bart says "and i've got a sister who will edit them together while I feed the dog marshmallows and see what happens". the joke on its own is pretty shrug, but whats bizarre is that its followed by a 15 second montage set to elevator music where we alternate between jokeless shots of lisa editing the tapes and then shots of bart feeding SLH marshmallows. ok what? this wasnt necessary at all, like maybe if they did something humorous with SLH and the marshmallows but its literally just bart feeds SLH marshmallows, he gets fatter, and then he eventually bites bart to stop him from feeding them to him. yeah that definitely wasnt the bare minimum of what i pictured when bart made that above joke. couldve been a cute deleted scene maybe, but its just clock eating. (in an episode that isnt exactly full to the brim with content but we will get that later)
- cut to THE AMAZING PLACE tryouts in springfield, where the line is populated entirely with recurring characters because theyre the only ones that exist anymore. also whats weird is that this is presumably for couples but moe is just standin there by himself. what does he think is gonna happen.
- when its bart and lisas turn to audition a tress macneille producer stands up and goes "oh my god married kids! you're in the show!" err since there were more than a handful of Platonic duos in the line to audition i am skeptical as to why the producer assumed this!! fight back against hollywood pedophilia!
- lisa says they're here on behalf of their parents and bart takes a producer's laptop and plugs a usb stick into it and begins Playing video simply by pressing one button. not even taking into account the fact that i bet the dinosaurs on the staff have no idea have a usb works its weird they just Let him do this. but in any case bart and lisa's random audition works, so i guess you can put people on the show without their consent. thats a bit icky. also theres a joke where wiggum charges in wearing only a grass skirt which breaks and his junk is covered up by a Huge pixelated bar. guess he is packing heat in more ways than one.
- marge is opening the mail (theres another hysterical dippin dens joke here) and she reads the amazing place acceptance letter and suddenly the host of the show and a fullblown camera crew is surrounding her. bit hard for this to be a surprise in that case.
- so homer and marge are whisked away to the island where THE AMAZING PLACE takes place and the funny airplane parody name is AIR AIR. i can literally feel the writers not even trying as i read these jokes. you do not need to make such bad parodies its distracting. just leave the airplane fucking blank and i wouldve questioned it less than AIR AIR.
- so the first challenge is "we took one item from every person's bag and hid it in another contestant's luggage". homer finds the item in his but marge takes too long and they get Eliminated. marge begins crying and we have to hear kavner try and act hoarse. jesus eugh, i hate to bag on kavner's voice since she is a Staple of the show and i dont think she isnt trying, but this is just hard to hear, she sounds straightup 100 years old these days. its not your fault julie, the show has just lasted too freaking long.
- so alright act 2 begins and i admit its interesting the script doesnt have homer and marge stick around on the show for hijinks, maybe this could be refreshing keeping selman in mind. homer and marge are sent to a hotel because going home would reveal theyve been kicked off which the staff cant have, so they have to stick around for 6 weeks. homer and marge want to call the kids but fear getting in trouble so blue haired lawyer is in the room suddenly, and he says that if u live in georgia revealing uve been kicked off gets you the death penalty. hey the last episode had a georgia joke too, guess its on someones mind.
- homer puts on Glasses to read a script to the kids during his phone call, but then they vanish from his hands in the next shot. epic freaking fail & this show cannot get anything right.
- homer Consoles marge by rubbing her shoulders, as she lists off all the reasons the 6 weeks will be bad, but he finds them good! (no work, no kids, no grampa, etc.) its a bit of a hacky joke, but i like how they at least keep it subtle by having his face get increasingly happier with everything marge lists off, before he rapidly puts on a droppy sad face for marge when she looks at him. its hard to trust simpsons writers to have faith in their visuals without homer explicitly spouting THESE REASONS ARE GOOD AND PLEASE ME, so although this is the bare minimum i'll give them a point.
- homer fantasizes about his upcoming vacation to a montage set to vince staples' "big fish". hearing vince staples in the simpsons is welcome, but startling. really is a jarring in your face reminder that this show is ACTIVELY BEING MADE. also in one of the shots he appears to be on the toilet taking a shit but his pants are on. oops
- after the montage we see homer at a hotel bar talking to the Tender named curtis, who sounded unfamiliar so i headed to imdb who told me he is voiced by al jean's longtime personal assistant joe clabby! just a reminder he's the guy who tried twittering at sports illustrated swimsuit models to get them to come to zombie simpsons table reads. ah what a career he has had indeed.
- homer returns to the hotel room where marge is moping about being the reason they're stuck there. theres a Really odd bit where homer is sitting next to her on the bed and then theres a shot of marge where homer definitely wouldve been in the shot but instead hes invisible? then they cut again and hes back? like this isnt something i had to watch 100 times to notice it stuck out as jarring pretty immediately. the lack of things that get caught sometimes amuses me.
- ok to convince marge the hotel is great homer starts singing a mediocre parody of "heartbreak hotel", you know, the elvis song. dan isnt a bad singer but his homer-as-elvis impression kinda falls a little flat. plus it has typical modern simpsons jokes in it, like homer randomly declares he will "eat Toblerone-y" because they needed something to rhyme with "phone-y" and theres just a toblerone lying there that he holds up to the camera.
- the next day we see marge is convinced the hotel is not so bad and that she isn't even worried what the kids are up to. cut to bart making nelson/ralph/milhouse dig a hole in the simpson house backyard in order to have a pool. lisa cries foul before famed babysitters patty and selma appear and say they want a pool, with selma commenting she just got her first wax in years and that it hurt so bad she needed an epidural. then theres like a few weird seconds of silence before nelson throws out a confused "ha ha??". well that was pointless and gross. ahem moving on!
- homer and marge are walking down the hall where they come across a slightly ajar door that says THE AMAZING PLACE POST PRODUCTION. ok marge said this was a chain hotel earlier and yet apparently the editing room of a tv show is located in it? and just accessible to everyone? nonsensical. also the guy happens to be editing the Exact scene homer and marge were in when they walk in. fuck this god dam show.
- homer and marge watch the footage which somehow has audio even though the editor is wearing headphones. the footage reveals marge didnt screw up at all because her hidden item was a chocolate bar that homer ate!! even though he doesnt discard the wrapper and the time he takes to eat it is way longer than the time it took in the original scene... but ok cool. anything for your marriage crisis.
- ok the joke where homer says "i'll sleep on the couch" and we smash cut to him sitting on the hotel couch which is right next to marge in the bed is pretty good, even if it is punctuated unnecessarily by marge Grunting and homer Moaning.
- alright so after the ad break we get the Main Event of the episode which is an elongated black and white parody of virginia woolf. and yeah, not gonna mince words, it's freaking real dumb crap! not only does it last for a torturously indulgent 3 minutes, it's incredibly dry and not clever at all. so basically what happens is marge and homer meet a couple who were eliminated from the show and marge bonds with the Male of the relationship. btw the couple are characters are from virginia woolf, with george segal reprising his role as nick. i guess that's kind of neat trivia since the movie is pretty old at this point. but basically all that happens in this scene is homer and marge squabble in old-timey film fashion and marge gets horny for nick. i guess maybe if you're a huge fan of the movie you might find it funny, but this is truly pointless shit. selman cramming his nerd fantasies into episodes is occasionally cute but this comes out of left field and eats the clock to an absurd degree.
- so when that's over with we cut to homer and marge in the lobby still bickering. the host from amazing place enters and announces "deadweight drop", where you can get back on the show if you pick a new partner. marge says she will pick NICK which somehow elicits a gasp from everyone surrounding them, although i'm not quite sure how they're familiar with the marge/nick dynamic or why this is gaspworthy after the host literally explained the premise.
- homer says "at least my friends and family wont see me get humiliated" only for the camera to pull out to show a cameraman in his face!! stupid joke but whats weirder is that the cameraman tries to get a closeup of like, his eyeball. and then another cameraman appears to film his chin. we couldve got the joke without homer being inspected like an animal!
- so the final challenge is Mango Tango where you have to make 6 mangoritas then carry them across a log bridge where UNDER the bridge theres a pack of monkeys going crazy and you have to soothe them with music. well marge and nick complete the task, but end up failing because marge forgot to put salt around the rims of the drinks. marge watches the winners celebrate calls herself a NOOB and we pan out to reveal the simpson family watching the episode as its airing as homer gleefully rewinds the noob comment. homer makes fun of marge for failing and i guess now theyre on equal ground. the end!
- well nope because theres a brief scene during the credits where the simpsons watch ANGER VS ANGRY. its a pretty bad parody of skip bayless shows where they just yell about sports. yep that was very necessary. good thing its one of those weird bits that only runs over Some Of the credits.
The TL;DR
i never really held selman in high regard, but even then its hard not to see this as underwhelming. theres a bit of a unique aspect to the marriage crisis this time, and the plot isnt very stupid and moves along ok, but most of the Jokes are just totally dead on arrival and the setpiece isnt interesting enough to carry it since despite the reality show backdrop being relatively fresh it still isnt gonna spice up a conflict where the ending is this predetermined. and the virginia woolf garbage was a travesty. outside of that this is very standard Modern Simpsons which feels weird for selman, hes made his imperfect episodes but they usually have some special interest elements that at least makes discussing them easy. this tho i got nothing, and even if i did i know theres more marriage crises in this seasons future so i better save my words. this episode gets the coveted rate of
2/5. see u soon on the classic MY WAY OR THE HIGHWAY TO HEAVEN!