17x22 Marge and Homer Turn a Couple Play

[3.0/10 on a post-classic Simpsons scale] What the hell was this crap? This has all the trademarks of the worst of The Simpsons declines. Homer is a complete and total jerk and even dumber than usual. There’s a Marge and Homer relationship plot that goes nowhere and gets resolved for no good reason. There’s a pointless guest star who adds nothing to the proceedings. There are jokes so bad, and so dumb, that they wrap back around to being funny out of sheer awfulness.

I don’t know if this is the worst episode of The Simpsons there’s ever been. There’s nothing terribly offensive in the main plot. It’s just that the jokes are so hacky or downright idiotic. Young female pop musicians do racy performances! The height of observational comedy! Lenny and Carl used to date women who died and/or turned to prostitution! Hi-larious! Moe is a creep! Never heard that one before! A Latino baseball player’s family was kidnapped by bandits! Not offensive at all!

Don’t get me started on the plot. Homer and Marge having to offer marriage counseling to a baseball player and his popstar wife is an absurd enough setup as is. But this episode never begins to take it seriously, instead falling back on clichés and absurd bits of escalation. Buck and Marge mistaking Homer’s bizarre chicken grease neck rub for Tabitha for infidelity is utterly absurd hackwork. And the way it gets resolved, with a big dumb setpiece and a couple of speeches that do nothing to obviate either couple’s real problems, may be the worst part of it.

It’s hard to think of any bright spots here. There’s a couple of decent baseball gags, but The Simpsons has pretty much sucked that well dry after seventeen years. Duffman’s antics were still amusing. But that’s pretty much it. Otherwise, “Marge and Homer Turn a Couple Play” is emblematic of the worst the show had to offer in this era -- a humorless, lackadaisical effort that shouldn't sully the greatest show of all time with its presence.