This The Simpsons review contains spoilers.
The Simpsons: Season 30 Episode 2
Further reading: The Simpsons Season 30 Premiere Review: Bart’s Not Dead
Further reading: The Simpsons: How “Bart the Genius” Changed the TV Landscape
Further reading: Marge Simpson’s Julie Kavner Is a National Treasure
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The episode is a tour de farce for Marge, who reveals her innermost fears while failing at the very things she prides herself on. She is even barred from vacuuming at the hotel she is banished to by maids who get paid for that kind of work. Julie Kavner’s Marge Simpson provides the best and worst America has to offer when it comes to mothering. She can glaze a ham until it glows in the dark. But in the episode, her final defeat is she screws up a recipe, which so unlike her. Marge is also the biggest enabler on television. It is gratifying to see her waddling in her own banality, throwing up her hands at the indifferent gods of reality programming.
Further reading: Are The Simpsons Conservative, Liberal or an Equal Opportunity Offender?
Public humiliation is the best humiliation. The Simpson family may have bad memories when it comes to their own public appearances, but they thrive on the repressed anguish that comes from being under the microscope. The premise was fresh in showing us how hotel living could be the answer to all life’s problems. “Heartbreak Hotel” offers a diverse entry into the season, which is still underwhelming.
“Heartbreak Hotel” was written by Renee Ridgeley and Matt Selman, and directed by Steven Dean Moore.
Culture Editor Tony Sokol cut his teeth on the wire services and also wrote and produced New York City’s Vampyr Theatre and the rock opera AssassiNation: We Killed JFK. Read more of his work here or find him on Twitter @tsokol.
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