Review: The Simpsons “From Russia Without Love”

It’s about time Moe got himself a mail-order bride.

 

Overview:

 

With Thanksgiving coming up Homer and Marge have decided not to invite Moe this year.  At the same time Bart, Milhouse, and Nelson decide to step up their prank game by ordering the bartender a mail-order bride.  At first, Moe is afraid of letting the woman stay believing that she is just going to hurt him.  When Moe finally realizes how much he cares for her he wins her back.  A shotgun wedding is ended when Moe realizes that she is just trying to marry him for a green card and his money.

 

Our Take:

There is something about Moe that makes him completely lovable.  I know he is designed to be the most disgusting, miserable, and depressing character – besides Milhouse’s dad.  But, who doesn’t love the underdog?  And, despite all of the bartender’s flaws, we have seen time and time again that he has a good heart.  There is no one in Springfield as lonely as Moe, and his heartbreak has been the center of years of jokes.  So, honestly, there is no prank that Bart could pull that would hurt as much as ordering him a bride.  It’s ruthless.

Much to all of our surprise, Moe handles the whole episode with a lot of maturities.  From the moment she arrives at his bar, he knows that the mail-order bride idea is wrong.  Moe also knows that jumping into something like this is going to lead to him being hurt.  And, when he tries to win her back, he does it with tact.  This maturity may seem uncharacteristic but it all works well with what we know of the bartender.  Even when he has to call off his own wedding, Moe always does the right thing in the end – even if he sleeps with rats.

One of the best moments of the episode was Marge and Homer getting the truth out of Bart that he ordered the bride as a prank.  The couple worked together to drill the kid as we have never seen out of them before.  And, Marge really kicked up the game when she threatened to drop Bart’s phone in a sink full of water.  As a parent I know there is no punishment more powerful in this day and age than to threaten the technology.  When Marge is left to punish Bart you would think he would get off light, but that couldn’t be farther than what happens.

The most heartbreaking part of the episode has nothing to do with Moe.  It’s Nelson who brings out the depression.  The bully finally finds his father and makes it all the way to Mars to find him.  Unfortunately, the deadbeat runs away again after excusing himself to pick up some “space cigarettes”.  Poor Nelson, is this kid destined to grow up to be the new Moe of Springfield?  I could see it.

Season thirty just keeps on rolling.  I honestly think this is shaping up to be one of the best seasons in the past decade.  This episode was great for taking characters we know and love like Marge and Moe and pushing their boundaries of who they are.  Moe, with his maturity, almost makes his bad luck even more heart-wrenching.  And Marge, as the disciplinarian in the Simpsons household was surprisingly terrifying.  After thirty years it is nice to see that there can still be this kind of character growth.  Besides all of that, the show was funny, relevant, and had a well thought out storyline.  All the making of a solid episode.

 

Score
8/10