Review: The Simpsons “Werking Mom”

Marge sashays into her new job along with special guest star, RuPaul.

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Marge is ready to look for a new job.  She comes into selling plastic food storage.  However, her mentor ends up dressing her up as a drag queen, which works surprisingly well at selling Tupperware.  Although she is disappointed in not being herself, she does enjoy the cash.  So, she embraces the life of a drag queen to the fullest.  When Homer finds out the truth about her job, he ends up ruining everything by overreacting.  So, he decides to fix things the only way he knows how, by dressing up in drag himself.

Meanwhile, Lisa wants to bring magic into the lives of others.  She helps out some of Springfield’s more depressed citizens.  Her biggest quest is remedying the relationship between Principal Skinner and his mother.  Unfortunately, her plan backfires.  But, when the people that she helped found out she was hurting, they decide to bring some magic into her life.

Our Take:

The Simpsons are truly not afraid to take on any topic anymore.  Despite the trouble they saw last year over the highly sensitive Apu topic, it hasn’t shaken the showrunners from hitting big topics this season.  Not that there is anything super controversial within the episode, just a lot of jokes about drag queens.  You would think that this topic would open the floodgates for some deep commentary on homosexuality.  In actuality, this episode was much more about women empowerment.

With Marge returning to the workforce, it is up to her to take her power – even if that means dressing up like a man dressed as a woman.  When Homer ruins that for her, intentionally or not, he easily recognizes what he did wrong.  This is the world of masculinity and femininity today.  The lines are blurred and sometimes the woman can pay for things, and sometimes the man can play the traditional female role.  For a show that we thought would be about gay men, the writers took it to another level and made commentary on all men in the feminist movement.

That’s not to say we didn’t have some drag queen fun.  For one, the other drag queens in Springfield included the likes of Waylon Smithers and Sideshow Mel.  But, their queen of queens was none other than the world’s most famous drag queen, special guest star, RuPaul.  And, I’m gonna be honest, for a thirty-something straight white guy, I think RuPaul is the bomb.  I have even been suckered into a couple of seasons of RuPaul’s Drag Race.  Anyways, there were some great jokes involved with the theme of the episode.  I was specifically a fan of the drag queen bars name, Draggle Rock.

All in all, this was a fun little episode.  Maybe it wasn’t the best, or the funniest, that we have seen out of season 30 yet, but, it is on par with the brilliance we’ve been receiving thus far this year.  The underline commentary was truly on point with the world today.  The guest star earns some bonus points and the fact that the show isn’t shying away from any theme this year.  So, I have to give “Werking Mom” a solid score for being a well-rounded episode.

Score
7.5/10