Episode Recap: Orange is the New Yellow

Hey hey friends! Wookiee here and up to my usual antics with another episode recap for my favorite Addicts. This episode recap will cover Season 27, Episode 22: “Orange is the New Yellow”. One of the features we like to have on this site is recaps of new Simpsons episodes for all our friends who can’t watch them immediately or like our silly reviews of them. I love when there are new episodes of the Best. Show. Ever. on TV. It’s my privilege to not only watch new episodes, which I would do with or without this awesome site, but then break them down for all of you. I apologize for the delay with this last one but things got a little hectic with the last event and life. Since this is the last episode of the latest new ones, I figured it would be okay to delay it a little. In my defense, it sat in drafts for a while too while we posted about more current stuff. Good news though… Season 28 starts in less than two months and I plan on doing a complete recap for the whole season. Without further ado… here’s my thoughts. If you’re not used to my style, it’s basically stream of consciousness style while I watch the episode live. Paragraph breaks usually indicate new scenes. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did writing about it.

To start this off for accidental clickers who just prefer the synopsis, here’s what my DVR describes this one as: “Marge gets arrested for letting Bart go to the park unsupervised; while Marge enjoys the welcome break from being mom and wife, Homer struggles to manage all of the household responsibilities.” Now on with the recap.

A cupid flies out for the season finale only to be torched by a dragon. GoT influence anyone? Apu is advertising wilted Mother’s Day roses for 1% off and Bart’s classic school punishment is to remember that ‘Milhouse does not live below the puberty line.’ Lisa is playing a Theremin in band practice and the couch gag is a weird Ikea parody. I think it summed up the confusion of building a (insert strange Swedish name here) quite nicely. Dang it, now I want to wander around the store and eat meatballs.

Anyhoo… it’s quitting time at the Nuclear Plant (aka Thursday which is the start of Homer’s weekend) and even Burns’ stuffed bear is off for the night. No, not Bobo, the bear that’s in his office. Homer is calling Marge to say he’s headed home but she’s concerned he hasn’t actually left yet. No surprise she’s right. Burns sidelines Homer to help hold up a poster to conceal a hole in the wall showing nuclear gas which is leaking out of the pipes. Funny that the sign is “Montgomery Bird says safety first, last and always.” No Oxford comma for Burns’ signs. The problem is that Burns wants to level the sign with a plumb bob. Homer is gonna be occupied for three hours later and a plumb bob song.

Meanwhile, Marge is waiting at home, considering giving a wine cork a spin and Lisa is upset that her homemade sea horse costume is not male because it doesn’t have a pouch. Marge didn’t read the script, just Bart’s synopsis (“Starts stupid, ends stupid”). The garage door opener is on the fritz, well, Maggie is chewing on it, and apparently Maggie is no fan of eating carrot and pea medley. Bart offers to clean up the mess from Maggie showering her mom with the medley but his help just causes a combo of ammonia and Spic ‘N’ Spruce which burns through the kitchen linoleum and reveals wood underneath it. Marge send Bart outside to play. Poor lady is overwhelmed as usual but Maggie sitting in the pouch that Marge is adding to Lisa’s costume may be one of my new favorite things.

Bart goes off to play st Springfield Park (Single Dutch Only!) and doesn’t see what kids see in the playground. When he taps on a metal sub with a stick, Gil pops up. No, not a genie of the sub, just poor old Gil living the homeless life in a playground submersible. He wishes he could get a lamp and carpet. The park is filled with losers like Martin. “This playground has safely stimulated my imagination.” Martin’s mom shows up but is aghast when she discovers Bart is playing unsupervised. She calls the police on Sylvester Alone and Wiggum goes to 742 Evergreen Terrace to arrest Marge who is still sewing the sea horse pouch. The cops draw their guns on Marge and she wonders what her son did now. Strangely, the answer is nothing. The police take Marge away for breaking some obscure Springfield law (they have quite a few if you’ve watched as many episodes as me, got a favorite? My vote includes a catapult) and Homer arrives while she’s led away. “A mother at the park saw something she disapproved of and, luckily for your son, she overreacted.” Marge is off in a cop car and cuffs… funny that Wiggum rides in the back with her because he gets car sick. Wowza… what are Homer and the kids going to do without their bedrock?

Brockman reports on Marge’s outrageous negligée, oh, it’s negligence… quite boring. Marge pleads her case to Judge Snyder but she gets incarcerated and so does her mom for letting Marge play alone until it got dark when she was young. What a snitch lol. Marge tries to point out how “whack-a-doodle” this whole thing is, Homer admits to being a bad dad with an email password to prove it, and Bart points out the only bad parent in the situation “weighs 240 and smells like onions” but it’s “not within the purview of this court to determine how fat and smelly your father may be.” Marge gets ninety days in jail. Lisa exclaims about the kafka-seque, Orwellian nature of Springfield law.

Marge heads to the Springfield Women’s Prison (Our life sentences are four years longer!) and meets her new cell mates who could star in the show this episode’s title parodies. They want to know if Marge has been claimed yet… by one of the book clubs. They “read a little, dig a little, read a little, dig a little, kiss a little. dig a little.” Poor Marge.

Homer is feeding the kids uncooked sausage when Ned shows up to demonstrate neighborly love. It’s a chance for “the boys in the hood to show some good.” The NWA (Neighbors With Appetizers) show up with food for the family. Homer is the richest man in town. Not rich with money but what really matters, pity. Also, Milhouse’s parents use a leash to parent him and know how crazy it sounds to have not have married someone who looks exactly like them.

Marge is reading the new James Patterson and being picked on by the inmates. Solar, the giant prison bully, reads all of them first. Surprisingly, Marge stands up for herself and kicks some butt with her hair. “Anyone else want a taste of blue thunder?” Wow… Marge is a BA.

Homer, Marge, and Bart enjoy the pity food (Homer even eats a teddy bear, “that’s my stomach’s problem.”) and Ned is one helpful guy changing all the linens, diapering the dog for modesty, and replacing batteries in the smoke alarms. One was just a candy dish with a red light painted on it. Now it’s a candy dish full of candy… woo hoo! Homer now sees the greatness that is Flanders. I actually got a little sad for Ned as he pointed out he knows a thing or two about losing the lady of the house (RIP Maude and Edna) but then I saw Homer’s thought bubble of Ned with Marge’s hair and pearls and got right back to laughing.

Marge is gardening at the prison and cultivating roses. She’s excited for exercise time. “Is this a prison or a spa?” Definitely a prison for everyone but Marge. Back at the homefront, the family has run out of pity food and really miss Marge. Lisa calls Marge. She needs a field trip form signed, Bart wants a shiv for show and tell (preferably with blood), and Homer wonders if the prison laundry is done laundering his blue pants. Marge hangs up and Homer confuses a dial tone with the sound of an electric chair. Marge enjoys telling her cellmates about this. It’s lights out at 8 o’clock and Marge is thrilled to go to bed without having to do stuff for her family like cleaning a sink full of dishes or writing a paragraph with topic sentence for Homer. Marge’s positivity is contagious.

I love how Marge enjoys prison while the realities of what it really is occurs all around her. Homer comes to visit his wife with good news that they hired the only good lawyer in town (hint, he has blue hair) and got her off on a technicality. Homer never filed Bart’s birth certificate so legally he’s not her son. Marge is stonefaced and silent at the good news. She was promised ninety days and discharges a guard’s firearm to get two more months. I just want to know if Bart actually was in another dimension or just the closet. Also, does Homer ever figure out where the dishwasher liquid goes?

Homer laments Marge rather staying in prison than going home with him to Lenny and Carl at the bar. The irony of Homer getting away with taking the kids to the bar and Marge being a bad parent in jail is not lost on Lenny or me. Homer supposes somebody up in the sky likes him but neither God or Jesus seem to agree. Homer plans to change and prove he can be a perfect homemaker so she’ll want to come home. Cue the 1950s-esque sequence of Homer in a dress seeing his family off to school and work and then giggling as he drinks gin on the couch.

“I was doing so great but it turned out I was a secret alcoholic.” Moe says it’s a good thing it was just Homer’s imagination as he passes him a beer. Not imaginary folks, Homer’s alcoholism is far from secret. Next up, Homer taking his turn watching all the kids. He’s walking them on leashes and Milhouse got the choke chain. While Homer goes to save Ralphie from a bobcat that isn’t imaginary, Bart and the kids discuss how sick they are of grownups being everywhere they go. They all sneak off to the park to have fun by themselves.

Marge is in the prison laundry. She really starts to miss her family after the iron’s burns marks on a towel make her think of Lisa, an inmate chugging hooch of Maggie, and a bottle of Mr. Sparkle resembles a certain kwyjibo she’s in love with. She really needed a break but maybe not a prison break. Uh oh… those words prompt an actual breakout.

The kids all arrive at the park with the excuse they were playing after-school rugby with Willie. Poor Scotsman all alone without a scrum. Unsupervised play includes going down a hot slide in shorts, freckling, and riding the hobby horse English style. While Bart and Lisa admire kids playing the way they should “proving danger is not the rule but the exception” a tornado funnel cloud appears. The kids flee.

Brockman (aka a “pompus snow monkey”) reports on the simultaneous news of a prison break and a tornado. Arnie Pye is in bad shape in his helicopter (take that for being annoying in TSTO!) and I love Ralph and the bobcat appearing outside his copter’s window. Marge is in the midst of the prison break and Homer shows up dressed as a prison guard. His goal was to do whatever it took to get her to leave. “I know things won’t always be perfect but it’ll be better than fighting off prison inmates in a tornado.” Awww. How sweet is that? Like usual, Marge falls for it, the riot stops and the weather clears with a rainbow in the sky. Homer and Marge walk off together and thankfully for Marge, the prison guard with a sniper rifle aimed at her head only fires a warning shot at her hair. Marge uses a lot of product because the shot ricochets and hits the guard. Bring on a glorious shot of the kids all stuck in a tree at the playground. The only kiddo not accounted for is Ralph. It’s a good thing Chief Wiggum can’t read and doesn’t know his own cell phone number.

Marge is cooking bacon for Bart and Lisa and they’re super happy to have her back. They’re actually quite clingy and can’t even stand to have the view of her blocked by the fridge door. They follow her into the pantry and Homer tells them to give her space but finds them hugging in there. Sweet music while Homer and Maggie join the lovefest and so does Grandpa and the Santa’s Little Helper. “I wanna say two things. I love you guys and we’re out of peanut butter.” Awwwww… so cute. Moments like this remind me why I love the show so much.

One last little scene revisiting Homer in the 1950s sitcom as a drunk homemaker. The kids have grown up and Marge is having an affair with Flanders… ugh. I really wish they hadn’t ended the episode with this little segment. I wish they’d just closed with the ending in the pantry. Marge would never cheat on Homer.

All in all, I really enjoyed this episode and liked the Marge-centric story line. I’m glad she got at least a little bit of a break even if it took her going to prison to make it happen. The sappy ending was just what I needed to close out the season and there was the right mixture of laughter, zaniness, and heart for this fuzzball. Obviously a re-tread of Season 4’s “Marge in Chains” but I liked the new take on the idea and was happy they didn’t pay too much of an homage to the Netflix show. My favorite thing was just seeing the Simpsons make fun of overprotective parenting. What did you think of the episode? Thoughts on Season 27 as a whole? Sound off in the comments and happy tapping.

TTFN… Wookiee out!