The 21st century saw its share of dull and uncreative Simpsons episodes. However, a couple times a season, we get one of those train-wrecks that show how far the series has gone from its original premise, despite a complete aversion to change anything from the series' universe, which spawned more than 30 years ago. Some of those truly provide good insight into the fall of one of TV's most influential shows. Married to the Blob is one of them. A very unfitting title I should say, given that the episode could very well act as a Comic Book Guy self-aggrandizing fantasy. This is not Everyman - at least the Everyman episode had some genuinely good moments, and had CBG acting in a believable manner.
The plot is as following : CBG feels sad about himself because he's lonely(well, duh). A random Japanese mangaka, Kumiko, enters into his shop and immediately falls for him for no apparent reason. They marry(yes, this is an actual, canon marriage, not one of those Viva Las Vegas deals). Then Kumiko's dad goes to America and basically tries to kidnap his daughter. Then dad meets Homer, they get super drunk together, then they have a bad trip where dad realizes he's being a huge jerk. Dad apologizes then goes home. The end. I really wish I could say there were more but... that's it.
The whole episode's point was to have a manic pixie dream girl moment for CBG. Yet amazingly, despite the show's willingness to stick to its guns(the marriage still stands several years later, somehow), there is nothing behind it. No character development, no plot, nothing. Kumiko's whole personality is basically girl, Japanese, mangaka. That's it. Little more is known about her. At some point mid-episode it is revealed that she is attracted to CBG because he is rude and sarcastic(yes, really!), but at the same time it is rather far-fetched for a person who acts more like a stereotypically Japanese person than an expat. Kumiko is mild-mannered and writes slice-of-life manga... seems like the kind of person who stay clear of CBG at all costs. But anyway. Mismatched couple routines can be interesting for the everyday struggles and comic situations, but there are none, we only get two short scenes of the couple's everyday life over some generic J-Pop track. Okay. For those unaware, having a Japanese girlfriend is the ultimate fantasy for so many white nerdy guys it has become a tired cliche. Having CBG marrying a Japanese girl with no punchline is just... so unlike the Simpsons I've loved in the past. Like if Hans Moleman won the lottery and had a whole 20 minutes episode where he gets tanned in the Bahamas.
This episode reeks of the "have your cake and eat it too" mentality of the Big Bang Theory, where characters ridiculed for years get a big emotional pay off out of nowhere for no apparent reason. But at least Big Bang, despite its misogyny, had somewhat developed female characters. Kumiko does not get that chance. She remains an empty shell. Possibly forever. Which is very depressing considering how rarely we get new returning characters these days. Look how far the writers will go to avoid the process, with Krabappel likely being canonically dead, yet still unreplaced 7 years later. It's as if someone in a committee decided to come up with a potentially viral, yet uncontroversial development, without allowing the writers to develop it any further. The episode feels tailored for 10-seconds clip consumption on social media, without any sort of coherent plot whatsoever.
Shootout to the unusually long(and uninteresting) couch gag, and the few minutes long Radioactive man animation(really...?). They add nothing to the episode, and only serve to eat away what could've been saved from this very mediocre main plot. A couple more minutes are spent with Kumiko's dad's hallucination, which basically acts as a challenge to cram as many Ghibli references as possible(we get it, everyone likes Ghibli). Tacky, but a few animations were kind of cool I guess.
At this point I cannot tell whether 3/10 is too harsh or generous. It feels generous given how far it fell from its potential, how an interesting premise could have achieved an interesting result, a small step away from Springfield's decades of status quo and decadence. But at the same time, if the premise was big enough to keep you watching for 20 minutes... does it really matter ?
The plot is as following : CBG feels sad about himself because he's lonely(well, duh). A random Japanese mangaka, Kumiko, enters into his shop and immediately falls for him for no apparent reason. They marry(yes, this is an actual, canon marriage, not one of those Viva Las Vegas deals). Then Kumiko's dad goes to America and basically tries to kidnap his daughter. Then dad meets Homer, they get super drunk together, then they have a bad trip where dad realizes he's being a huge jerk. Dad apologizes then goes home. The end. I really wish I could say there were more but... that's it.
The whole episode's point was to have a manic pixie dream girl moment for CBG. Yet amazingly, despite the show's willingness to stick to its guns(the marriage still stands several years later, somehow), there is nothing behind it. No character development, no plot, nothing. Kumiko's whole personality is basically girl, Japanese, mangaka. That's it. Little more is known about her. At some point mid-episode it is revealed that she is attracted to CBG because he is rude and sarcastic(yes, really!), but at the same time it is rather far-fetched for a person who acts more like a stereotypically Japanese person than an expat. Kumiko is mild-mannered and writes slice-of-life manga... seems like the kind of person who stay clear of CBG at all costs. But anyway. Mismatched couple routines can be interesting for the everyday struggles and comic situations, but there are none, we only get two short scenes of the couple's everyday life over some generic J-Pop track. Okay. For those unaware, having a Japanese girlfriend is the ultimate fantasy for so many white nerdy guys it has become a tired cliche. Having CBG marrying a Japanese girl with no punchline is just... so unlike the Simpsons I've loved in the past. Like if Hans Moleman won the lottery and had a whole 20 minutes episode where he gets tanned in the Bahamas.
This episode reeks of the "have your cake and eat it too" mentality of the Big Bang Theory, where characters ridiculed for years get a big emotional pay off out of nowhere for no apparent reason. But at least Big Bang, despite its misogyny, had somewhat developed female characters. Kumiko does not get that chance. She remains an empty shell. Possibly forever. Which is very depressing considering how rarely we get new returning characters these days. Look how far the writers will go to avoid the process, with Krabappel likely being canonically dead, yet still unreplaced 7 years later. It's as if someone in a committee decided to come up with a potentially viral, yet uncontroversial development, without allowing the writers to develop it any further. The episode feels tailored for 10-seconds clip consumption on social media, without any sort of coherent plot whatsoever.
Shootout to the unusually long(and uninteresting) couch gag, and the few minutes long Radioactive man animation(really...?). They add nothing to the episode, and only serve to eat away what could've been saved from this very mediocre main plot. A couple more minutes are spent with Kumiko's dad's hallucination, which basically acts as a challenge to cram as many Ghibli references as possible(we get it, everyone likes Ghibli). Tacky, but a few animations were kind of cool I guess.
At this point I cannot tell whether 3/10 is too harsh or generous. It feels generous given how far it fell from its potential, how an interesting premise could have achieved an interesting result, a small step away from Springfield's decades of status quo and decadence. But at the same time, if the premise was big enough to keep you watching for 20 minutes... does it really matter ?