S2E4: Two Cars in Every Garage and Three Eyes on Every Fish
Ironic, isn't it Smithers? This anonymous clan of slack-jawed troglodytes cost me the election, but if I had them killed, I'd be the one to go to jail. That's democracy.
Work is continuing to be difficult. I go in early, I work at night until I sleep. I skip lunch most days and I feel like crying, but I never can. I can’t stop thinking about work as I fall asleep. I can’t help thinking about it when I wake up.
Bart and Lisa find themselves by the old fishing hole, when Dave Shutton, investigative reporter pulls up his car.
He walks directly up to the kids and starts asking them how the fishing is going. There’s nothing and no-one around except Bart and Lisa. Why did Dave stop the car? Why does he think it’s appropriate to talk to unattended minors? Where is this story going?
Not time to answer that question, because Bart captures Blinky, everyone’s favourite three-eyed fish.
The fish prompts the headline ‘Fishing or Fission’, media attention turning to the effects of nuclear waste run-off on the Springfield environment. The Governor steps in to conduct an investigation!
If the title and the headline weren’t clue enough, this is another John episode.
Stories about the environment pop up frequently in The Simpsons. Pretty unsurprising: it was a counter-cultural force developed in ‘greed is good’ era. It’s also a satire. From Whacking Day to the entire Simpsons movie, the Simpsons writers seem to care about stuff.
When the nuclear power plant is assessed by external inspectors, and when said inspectors refuse to take a bribe, Burns decides it cheaper to run for Governor than fix the plant. And he runs in a very Citizen Kane kinda way.
Burns gubernatorial campaign is dirty (a new word I learned from this episode, meaning ‘covered or marked with dirt’!). Thanks to his team of spin doctors, character assassinators, muckrakers, mudslingers, garbologists, and an actor who looks like Charles Darwin, Burns’ crusade gains momentum. While his opponent Mary Bailey relies on the ‘intelligence and good judgement’ of the voting masses, Burns runs a populist agenda, lamenting the high rate of taxes whilst sat astride an army tank.
ADVISOR: The voters see you as godlike.
BURNS: Hot dog!
ADVISOR: But the downside is you're losing touch with the common man.
BURNS: Oh, dear! Heaven forefend!
ADVISOR: So the night before the election... we want you to eat at the home of one of your workers.
BURNS: I see. Every Joe Meatball and Sally Housecoat in this godforsaken state... will see me chow down with Eddie Punchclock. The media will have a field day.
ADVISOR: The only question is, can we find someone common enough?
The upcoming election (and the upcoming dinner with Burns) drives a wedge between Marge (‘I believe in Bailey’) and Homer (who is dumb).
After a night enforced sycophancy and Dorothy Dixers, which Lisa especially finds corrosive to the soul, Marge has her moment. Serving Burns Blinky, which he simply can’t stomach.
Burns popularity plummets to Earth like so much half chewed fish.
Review: 3.5/5
Chalkboard Gag: I will not Xerox my butt.
Couch Gag: The couch rolls out into a futon.