Review: The Simpsons ‘Every Man’s Dream’

Spoilers Below:

The Simpsons are back for season 27, BUT ARE HOMER AND MARGE GOING TO BE OKAY???!!! OMGGGGGGGGGGG THEY ARE GETTING A DIVORCEEEEEEEEE.

Hopefully we all know by now that our favorite cartoon couple will be fine, so moving past that apparently unintentional marketing gimmick, let’s get on with the episode.

It began with Homer falling asleep at work, and later getting diagnosed with narcolepsy. He used the disease as an excuse to be even lazier than usual, and the couple visited a therapist, who suggested they spend some time apart.

Homer met a young pharmacist, Candace (Lena Dunham), and went out on a date and later slept with her. Feeling guilty, Homer called home, but was told Marge was getting ready for a date herself. Homer then went out with Candace and met her father, who was coincidentally on a date with Marge. Marge’s man then proposed to her, and Candace told Homer she was pregnant.

It was then that Homer woke up and realized that the experience wa a dream that took place during his therapy session. However it was revealed to be a double dream, and in fact Homer was sleeping during a date with Candace, which he bolted away from, only to realize that Marge and the family were happy with Candace’s father as Homer’s replacement. It then turned into a triple dream, with Marge waking up next to Homer.

In the end, the whole thing was just a tattoo on the back of Lena Dunham’s character in Girls, whose name I don’t know, and don’t care to look up. Sorry, Judd Apatow.

In Case You Missed It:

1) No chalkboard gag. They totally could’ve used that trippy intro.

2) Couch gag: The Simpsons appear as a number of Beatles’ album spoofs, including A Hard D’ohs Night, Rubber Pants, and Flabby Road.

3) Springfield General Hospital’s sign advertised them as the “Home of the $29,999.99 appendectomy.”

4) Dr. Hibbert specified that “yet again Homer will be fine.”

5) Dr. Zilowitz’s slogan was, “Keeping couples happy till they get to the parking lot.”

6) Carl’s coffee mug said, “I hate Mondays,” with a picture of a mushroom cloud.

7) When Candace closed up shop, the sign read, “Pharmacy closed. For drugs see weird guy in alley.”

8) The bar’s complete craft beer list: Garbage Pale Ale, Thrilla in Vanilla, Skinny Tire, Humble Bastard, Rachel McAdams, Novembertoberfest, Harry Potter Porter, Snail Ale, and Chip Off the Old Bock.

9) Candace’s tattoo characters included Smilin’ Joe Fission, Spider-Pig, the Lard Lad Donuts Boy, Mr. Sparkle, and Homer’s space coyote.

One of the biggest gripes when it comes to contemporary Simpsons episodes is the lack of original ideas. “Every Man’s Dream” (creative title, by the way) tried to take a new concept for the series, and combine it with an overused one, and hoped for a positive outcome.

Did it work? Sort of.

The “everything was a dream” scenario has been played out in tons of shows and movies, but The Simpsons haven’t used it too much, so they can still get away with it. And just to be sure, they added numerous dream layers (but not really in an Inception way) to confused the viewer and add a bit more creativity. I didn’t love the concept, since it’s a bit gimmicky, but it was well executed.

However, making the plot generally be about another Homer and Marge fight – and a new flame for the former – has been done so many times before. If you look at my previously compiled list, you’ll know what I mean.

Of course this was all to be expected after initially hearing of the episode’s concept a while back, so the only thing that should have been surprising was the end.

My question: if it was all going to be a dream anyway, why not push it a little further? If the writer’s went to the effort of creating all these different layers, why use it to float a storyline that had been done so many times before?

Still, the episode had a decent amount of humorous lines, and a whole lot of quick sight gags, so it wasn’t a failure by any stretch of the imagination. But an average showing for The Simpsons is always a bit of a bummer, so please excuse viewers like me that might experience a bit of narcolepsy when “Every Man’s Dream” airs in syndication.