Last night saw the debut of the ninth episode in season 36 of The Simpsons, entitled “Homer and Her Sisters” (a riff on the title of the 1986 Woody Allen dramedy Hannah and Her Sisters), and below are my brief recap and thoughts on this installment of the long-running animated sitcom.
“Homer and Her Sisters” begins with a pretty hilarious parody of escape rooms, as Marge Simpson (voiced, as always, by Julie Kavner), her husband Homer (Dan Castellaneta), and daughter Lisa (Yeardley Smith) join Marge’s twin sisters Patty and Selma (both also Kavner) for their birthday party– Bart (Nancy Cartwright) manages to “escape” at the last second before the door closes. It seems Patty and Selma have completed dozens of escape rooms without needing a single hint, and of course Homer immediately ruins that streak, to the point where he finds the final key and uses it to scratch his own butt instead of revealing it to his sisters-in-law, with whom he has never gotten along. There’s a funny gag here where their fighting causes them to break through a wall into the neighboring escape room, where Ned Flanders (Harry Shearer) and his two children have successfully prayed for a way out.
Meanwhile at Krustylu Studios in downtown Springfield, Krusty the Clown (also Castellaneta) receives a surprise visit from his aunt Sadie Krustofsky (guest star Susie Essman of Curb Your Enthusiasm fame), and she’s shocked to discover that Krusty doesn’t know the names of any of his coworkers or employees. He even calls Sideshow Mel (Castellaneta, naturally) “green shirt” when he reluctantly appears on the “Talking Krusty” podcast. Sadie calls Krusty out publicly on his inability to socialize with his peers in the entertainment industry, and when Lindsey Neagle (Tress MacNeille) hears the resulting podcast episode, she immediately comes up with a reality series for Sadie to anchor, entitled The Problem is You.
The premise of the show is that Sadie– accompanied by her already-famous nephew Krusty– goes around Springfield fixing broken relationships, which leads her to Homer’s mutual animosity towards Patty and Selma. Shockingly, when it comes time to point a finger at the end of that episode, she decides that Marge is the problem, and that the three might actually be friends if it weren’t for her meddling. So Homer meets covertly with Patty and Selma to test this theory out, wearing raincoats to Moe’s Tavern– this was my absolute favorite part of the episode, with Homer revealing that a scientist went mad trying to explain why sunbeams stop at the door to the bar, and then Moe falling instantly in love with Marge’s “hotter” twin sisters. At the same time Krusty makes efforts to get to know his underlings, such as Wayne the grip (another guest star Ike Barinholtz from Suicide Squad), going so far as to attend a backyard barbecue that ends in disaster for our favorite sad-sack local-TV clown.
Soon Marge discovers that Homer is hanging out with her sisters without her and comes to the conclusion that Sadie must have been right about her being the problem, but in the climactic “reunion special” of The Problem Is You, Marge gets to turn the finger-pointing back around in the other direction on this overly simplistic method of dealing with relationship squabbles. Also Krusty decides that it was a mistake to try and fraternize with his coworkers, though Marge insists that’s not the lesson he should have learned from his experience. Regardless, I thought this was a really funny installment of The Simpsons overall, with a very dark ending that brings to mind the fate of poor Frank Grimes from the now-classic “Homer’s Enemy” in season 8. I’m not sure if I can put my finger on exactly why, but the animation in particular looked really nice this week, although it was kind of gross and off-putting to see Homer’s fingernails growing out. Of course the acrimonious status quo between Homer and Marge’s sisters gets restored by the end of the episode, and I think I speak for most Simpsons fans when I say we wouldn’t want it any other way.
New episodes of The Simpsons air Sunday evenings on FOX.