Review: The Simpsons “A Springfield Summer Christmas for Christmas”

 

 

Overview:

Greeting card company, Heartmark, is shooting their latest Christmas film in small-town Springfield. And city girl, Mary, has been sent to oversee the movie’s production, she just has to survive the locals.

The Simpsons make a profit by temporarily transforming their home into an Airbnb while the movie is being shot. Marge enjoys the hosting duties, while Homer comes up with more schemes. And Bart wants revenge for losing his bed.

Mary’s adventures in Springfield are not quite what she expected. When she meets a charming Principal Skinner and learns to love the town, her feelings about Christmas may change for the better.

 

Our Take:

The Simpsons just intentionally released their most predictable and contrived episode ever. The show manages to hit all the cliches of cheesy Christmas movies in one swoop of meta storytelling. It makes for something unexpected from TV’s longest-running scripted series while making fun of everything that Hallmark holiday movies are about.

The star of this festive parody is Mary, played by Ellie Kemper of The Office fame. She plays the bigwig city girl who hates Christmas sent to the small town on the cusp of her big promotion. Perfectly encapsulating every starring female of these films, Mary goes from unaccepting of the local life to falling in love with the local charming hunk. In this case, bumbling Principal Skinner. And by the end of the story, she has found the meaning of Christmas.

Even though this episode is a cliché from top to bottom, the story adds some of that Springfield flare. 

The plot is meta on top of meta, as Mary’s own adventure is mirrored in the movie that is being filmed, which itself is a satire. Each layer being more delicious than the next.

The Simpson family enter the picture as hosts and guides to Mary’s journey into local-ville. Marge plays this best by not only being the epitome of local mother figure but gliding her way into “quirky best friend territory”. But all the family members fit into their contrived roles, including Bart causing all the mishaps to make Christmas seem impossible.

The best part had to be the public-domain music that accompanies all of the scenes. The corny music that helps guide viewers on how they should feel through a particular scene is defining for the Christmas movies and is ridiculously humorous in the Springfield setting.

Out of all the local bachelors that Mary could have fallen for, Principal Skinner is a great choice. While his characteristics work for the city girl on the surface, as the viewers we know just how sad and miserable of a person he is. This pays off by the conclusion when Skinner rejects her for her terrible decision making.

This episode introduces yet another new writer to the ever-growing list of talent. Jessica Conrad is the fifth first-time Simpsons scriptwriter this season already. Thankfully, she delivered an episode all about cliches that does not fit into any of the standard Simpson episode boxes.

This was an unexpected and out-of-the-ordinary episode for The Simpsons. Not that the show wouldn’t make a parody of Hallmark Christmas classics, but that it would never do it from a perspective such as this one. Traditionally, the events of this plot would have happened as a background to a larger family-focused story.

This is the season that The Simpsons has stopped resting on its laurels and challenged itself to take unique and ambitious approaches. This was very much a Christmas special, but not in the way that you would ever expect. It said, “here is the story,” but gave us new eyes to watch it through.

It paid off in big ways. It hits all the notes of a Christmas story but does it in a backwards way that sets itself apart. The episode let us feel like we were in on the joke the whole time whether that be mocking greeting card movies or Principal Skinner’s temporary charm. Most importantly, the story was clever and enjoyable the entire way through delivering humour at every turn.