Review: The Simpsons “Night of the Living Wage”

Overview

Marge gets a job in a high-pressure ghost kitchen, but when she tries to start a union, she gets more than she collectively bargained for.

Our Take

As I’m writing this, the unions of Twitter are going bananas rooting for this week’s episode of The Simpsons, a satirical take on “Big Tech’s” unions or lack thereof. In a year where Hollywood was on strike, the fast food minimum wage increased, and impending threats of job cuts due to automation, this episode is definitely branded from Los Angeles, California. “Night of the Living Wage”, written by Cesar Mazariegos, was initially pitched as a straight up homage to The Bear of which there is a bit, but really the episode was the return volley to billionaires who would rather union bust than increase wages.

Regardless of one’s take on the debate of unions vs non-unions, this week’s episode of The Simpsons gives us a whole lot to laugh over. The always reliable Jason Mantzoukas checks in as cloud kitchen CEO Finn Bon Idee and does so excellently, further establishing Jay as one of the best voice actors in the business today. We also get a whole slew of Apu references this week which was nice to see because this show could surely use him back.

Overall, this week’s episode of The Simpsons checks all of the boxes of what you’re looking for in an episode during the show’s 35th season. “Last Exit to Springfield” was a union-focused episode produced over thirty years ago but “Night of the Living Wage” updates the message to a more contemporary setting. In either case, episodes like this let the writers and producers blow off some steam as it pertains to their own working conditions, a bit of irony when you consider that The Simpsons for decades have utilized non-unionized Korean animation studios for tweening, coloring, and filming which helps make the episodes cheaper, and Tweet-along using devices largely made in non-unionized factories in China.