Reviews: The Simpsons ‘The Wreck of the Relationship’

Spoilers Below:

Last week’s season premiere of The Simpsons started off with a bang, pairing a very solid (albeit death-related) storyline with a good amount of jokes. Episode 2 didn’t have nearly as complete of a plot, but it might have been just as great.

After Bart was caught watching a red-band movie trailer, Homer & Marge decided to crack down on his behavior. Father and son eventually became engaged in a broccoli stand-off, with Homer missing his fantasy football draft and having Marge pick in his stead (“I got you five kickers. It’s called FOOT-ball, right?”) and Bart failing to witness Martin beating up Nelson. The two were then kidnapped and brought onto an old-timey boat where Captain Boditch (Nick Offerman) revealed himself to be the leader of “The Relation-ship,” a father-son relationship-building program. However, the ship hit some bad weather, the captain got drunk (thanks to Homer), and Bart and his father managed to save the day together after they made up (and Bart finally ate his broccoli.)

Meanwhile, Marge became distraught over the amount of trash talk in Homer’s fantasy league (which Lisa described as “How guys say mean things to their friends the way women say nice things to their enemies.”) She realized the only way to silence them was to beat them, and proceeded to do so.

In Case You Missed It:

1) No chalkboard tonight.

2) Couch gag: Itchy & Scratchy were found on the Simpsons’ couch, and Homer kicked out the mouse to save the cat. After Scratchy ended up being a poor house guest (including getting drunk and puking in a plant), Homer brought Itchy back to take care of the problem.

3) The last testicle injury video Bart & Milhouse watched was called: “Fatal Nard Crush.”

4) Milk: For babies and old guys who can’t sleep at night because of what they did in the war.

5) The embarrassing thing Homer had to do after losing fantasy football last year: standing in his underwear on a street corner holding a sign that read: “I suck at fantasy football” and the words “I drafted Tebow” painted on his body. (“Jeebus loved Tebow!”)

6) Homer’s password is “annoyed grunt.” D’oh!

7) “The only lame-ass is you and all the other lame-asses.”

8) Apu was only on the Relation-ship with one of his kids? Seven out of eight ain’t bad, man.

9) Cletus’ son’s name is Gitmo.

10) During the sea montage, the background music was from the HMS Pinafore, and I only know that because of The Simpsons’ “Cape Feare” episode.

11) Men live in a sad world of profanity, boob jokes, and tired comedy references (“Mas cowbell!”)

12) Parrots = green chickens

13) The two newspaper headlines that Captain Boditch imagined were: “Hero Captain Saves Therapy Bears” and “Disgraced Captain Forced to Sell Accordion.”

Yes, as I previously stated, this storyline wasn’t nearly as complete as last week. It didn’t have a deep or heartfelt meaning; I mean, Homer and Bart improved their relationship, but we know it will still be a roller coaster ride in the long term. In fact, the whole idea seemed a bit overused – but that doesn’t matter if the laughs are there.

And dammit was this one ever funny. As you can see from the long list of points above, the laughs came rapid-fire, and I couldn’t possibly list them all. I was genuinely surprised at how humorous this episode turned out to be.

Nick Offerman was great in a decent-sized guest role, and recurring characters like Milhouse (one of my personal favorites) and the old Sea Captain each had brief appearances as well. On top of all that, Lisa and Marge did well in the episode’s minor storyline too.

In the end, the laughs really made the episode successful, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Some of the jokes were so funny, I honestly can’t remember laughing that hard at a Simpsons episode in a while. As my lady pointed out, the “more cowbell” comment alone was worth half a point.