Review: The Simpsons “Clan of the Cave Mom”

Overview

A parenting disagreement between Marge and Luann Van Houten escalates into a life-or-death struggle for survival.

Our Take

Outside food

It has been a month since we’ve seen a new episode of The Simpsons and it’ll be another two weeks before the show returns, but if waiting means that we get phenomenal episodes like this then I’m all for it. I’ll take quality over quantity any day of the week and “Clan of the Cave Mom” has all of the qualities you want in an episode of The Simpsons.

After 35 seasons you may think you’ve seen everything this series has to offer, that is until you notice the constant cutaways to a Primal-esque companion episode to overall plot featuring Marge and Luann fighting over who has the better kid. In what is by far the show’s most endearing homage to an era when the series didn’t give a shit and featuring breath-taking sequences, light gore, and comedic scenes that remind me why this show is still here in the first place.

Episodes where Marge goes nuts are some of my favorites, but this week is another level of insanity that really haven’t seen before. There’s not a lot of Homer this week, by design, and when he does contribute it’s strong. Kerry Washington is featured in a ‘blink and you’ll miss it scene’ and there are TONS of jokes about concerts (btw, the paper ticket thing is BS), parenting, and more. Lisa is here this week in name only, only contributing to a small part of the show as more of a brat than anything else, but I like that I’m getting an emotion from the character rather than not. This is by far one of the best episodes of The Simpsons that I’ve seen in several years. The show is still firing on all cylinders after 35 seasons and this is proof. It’s been a while since I’ve given out one of these, and if this isn’t the Emmy-winning episode later this year then someone should flip off all 20,000 of the voters one-by-one.