2F10 "And Maggie Makes Three" [Review]

It�s time for another review by me (though nobody wants to read them ;-))

It�s again a little bit negative as it is one about "And Maggie Makes Three" from season 6 which I consider as worst of the flashback episodes. That doesn�t mean that it is a bad episode (far from it) but just that I consider it as written in a wrong way. Don�t take too serious what I say, it�s as usual just my own humble opinion.

First of all, I�d say 2F10 falls victim to the season 6 mainstream. What do I mean?

So we have a season 6 episode with a strangely familiar story about bowling and about Homer�s relationship to Maggie. Can it work? Yes, it can - but not completely. A flashback episode is an episode in a tradition of excellent classics - like "The Way We Was" or "I Married Marge" - and these shoes are maybe a little too big for 2F10. We have noticable weaknesses in balance and a growing tendency to strong discontinuity.

It�s always a challenge to connect a classic emotional plotline with a modern fun story and if it isn�t done correctly the episode will have a tendency to fail. In all the classic seasons (by that I mean as usual 1 - 3) the writers didn�t hesitate to tone down the comedy content if it didn�t fit into the darker storyline but that would have been unsuitable for season 6 which had a very light-hearted style so the writers had to find another way - a way which unfortunately comes close to superficiality.

The emotional content shouldn�t be so serious and negative that it spoils all the fun und all the fun shouldn�t be so loud and obvious that it drags the emotional plot into nonsense. That balance is possible (take "Lisa�s Wedding") but in 2F10 it�s not as good as it should be. There�s real conflict potential in the episode but it almost desperately avoids to go deeper but remains in a very light style with strong fun orientation - thus the emotional (aka "sappy") ending seems rather tagged on. That style of emotional but rather unconnected endings is today known as HOMR syndrome ;-).

Homer�s charakterization is very season 6 typical with all of the first problems. He has scenes of true characterization (especially the ending) but also scenes which use him as mere tool of nonsense and stupidity and as a simple connection between fast jokes. Especially the "superfunny" drum sequence in Burns� office seems to be extremely out-of-character as well as Homer�s overdone egoism. He was always a little egoistic but 2F10 connects his overdone egoism with a too strong stupidity and makes it almost annoying. First traces of modern Homer from the last seasons.

In addition, it�s also interesting whether material like the crazy terrorist fantasy with its "Die Hard" parody, the cartoonish sequence about "Where the pins come from" or the bursting head are really necessary for a flashback episode. IMO not really but such material was "added" to have a much stronger fun content in relation to the emotional content. The writers were afraid of the too serious content and so they added a big load of rather loud and silly jokes to compensate it. Examples like 7F12 or 8F10 didn�t need stuff like that but in season 6 it was necessary to keep up the light funny style and the neglect of darker sides. I�d say the balance in 2F10 isn�t as good as it should have been.

Another noticeable problem of 2F10 is discontinuity. I�m no nitpicker and I always try to believe in the wizard who did things ;-) but if you were used to the almost stable continuity of classic seasons 2F10 offered many examples of (partly avoidable) problems. Maggie wasn�t born but Homer was already safety technician in the plant? Ruth Powers is among Marge�s guests but she moved into the street when Maggie was already born (the Winfields lived there before.) The upper floor moved for no apparent reason to the bathroom door of the parents bedroom? Well, it�s a nitpickers world ;-) but 2F10 has IMO a little bit too many of such flaws.

The most positive thing of the episode is certainly the nice ending. Homer shows his true character when he forgets all the humiliations of the episode and understands that Maggie and the family are more important to him than all the nonsense he did. The final "Do it for her" scene gives the episode something that was missing for almost 19 minutes: true depth. Alas, it comes too late. A brilliant grade A ending for an IMO not so brilliant episode.

I think many people who prefer emotional episodes consider 2F10 as too superficial and overdone while many people who prefer light and funny episodes consider the ending as too sappy. A clear sign that the balance isn�t quite right and that the episode isn�t really able to please as many people as "Mother Simpson" or other episodes. The capsule reviews give a good impression as some people praised the episode as brilliant while others called it rather weak or even the worst flashback ever and a radical break with the classic style and even a single F is among the grades. The break with the style of the early years is obvious and thus the episode failed to appeal to fans with a 7F12 taste.

Some 35 seconds were cut in syndication, including a scene of Homer trying to figure out how old Bart and Lisa were back then and a scene of Mayor Quimby and Captain McAllister together with their new babies in the hospital. Nothing really important but cuts are always bad.

To come to an end: it�s an amusing and partly funny episode with many working jokes but different to other flashback episodes with a certain emptyness and with a lack of depth. Sometimes to straight and too obvious fun oriented but with a great ending. The balance between simple fun and classic seriousness is rather unstable and some scenes seem too crazy and misplaced in an episode like that. The story about Homer, Maggie and bowling could have been worse (and it was way worse in awful season 11) but I see lots of unused potential in 2F10.

Before it sounds too negative: I like 2F10 as fun episode with amusing content but I also consider it as very weak flashback episode and as an episode in a too light-hearted season 6 mainstream. I�d give it a grade B with a tendency to grade B- and that�s weak for flashback relations.

Chris

Chris Pfeiler skrev i meldingsnyheter:[email]...

Oh Chris, that's just silly! You know I like to read them!!

"Per Esben Svelstad" wrote in message news:hyhE7.7657$[email]...

;-))

And _I'm_ not even _registered_. (By that I mean... I always save them for later)

"Chris Pfeiler" wrote in message news:[email]...

I didn't really understand what you meant by "mainstream", and how Season 6 is specific to that.

I see.

^^^ Alt habits die hard, nein? :)

When you winked, a mole appeared on your chin :)

In Amerika, "charakterization" is spelled "characterization" <s>

I don't know. Homer was quitting his job, and literally burning down his bridges. Playing the boss' head like a bongo is a well-exaggerated, if absurd, way to make it even more difficult for him to eventually get his job back. I thought it was funny, because somewhere in Homer's imagination, this was his way of getting revenge on Burns for being his iron-fisted boss for so many years. No violent ideas occured to Homer, at all.

They weren't necessary, but they certainly were fun. The Die Hard-ish parody was Homer's idea of how tough and responsible he is. Of course, we know that's wrong. If this is what you mean by Homer's egotism, it was harmless... his bubble was burst when Carl & Lenny gag at the smell of his armpits.

The bursting head was clever, in that it led us away like 9F17 did when Homer resumes telling Lisa's story of the first April Fools Day.

They weren't cornerstone story elements, for sure.

I don't see much of the other content as that serious. The Knightboat (Knight Rider) parody wasn't connected to the plot. Homer got a job as a pin-monkey. He threw urinal cakes. He shines his head in the shine-o ball-o. There's really not that much ground to cover with serious elements, since he's just explaining why they have no baby pictures of Maggie in the photo albums.

Hee hee.

I'm going to hop off the bandwagon there and say that I don't really agree. Yeah, we notice things like that. But IMO these things aren't what make a good episode. If we look at episodes strictly as slices-of-life, the Winfields never lived in the house by The Simpsons. If the time period is always the present, then the past is just today's past. It changes. In episode 9F06, the Winfields were the former neighbors of The Simpsons. In 2F10, Ruth Powers is Marge's friend. There's no contradiction, because the past changes from episode to episode (not in major ways, anyway). The characters still have the same names, and major details remain intact.

I agree.

I'd say it was an element of seriousness, but by itself it wouldn't have constituted "depth". It was a great ending, anyway. If we had 19 minutes of pure depth, it would be ironically shallow--IMO.

Well, that's where I'm at... straddling the two. I like all the jokes; it was one of the funnier ones in Season 6. The ending was brilliant and touching. It may have been too disjointed for some, but the lack of an overall direction toward the serious or toward the zany doesn't spoil 2F10 for me.

I'm not sure a "standard" for flashback episodes should be set. I don't like the idea of complaining about an episode because it differs from a standard. IOW, complaining that a cat is not a dog doesn't make sense to me.

I liked "Hello Gutter, Hello Fadder", but it wasn't a classic. In fact, I'd call it one of the best from Season 11.