Hey, remember how last week we had a shocking amount of Marge episodes? Well apparently that wasn’t a fluke, because we have another one, and while it’s not exactly good it’s certainly different. Plus it’s a Moe episode! Neat!

The episode starts off with the Simpsons going to some fancy brunch restaurant to celebrate some good news. Apparently Homer has officially paid off their mortgage, and they’re celebrating by spending a lot of money on fancy food. You know, like responsible people. Anyway, we see Homer gorge himself on food, Bart harass the meat-carvers, and Lisa starts a food fight. Unfortunately the food fight causes Marge to start yelling at the kids, which for some reason embarrasses Homer to no end, causing him to storm out of the restaurant.

So Home leaves his family and heads to Moe to sulk about them not being presentable. Which is kind of ridiculous, but whatever. He gets to Moe’s and begins hanging out with his buddies, whining, when a health inspector comes in. This should be cause for alarm, but it turns out that this particular health inspector grew up with Moe and always ignores all of Moe’s horrendous health code violations. Unfortunately when he eats one of Moe’s pickled eggs to prove that it’s stored in a sanity manner, he drops dead.

And a week later a real health inspector shows up, and he’s not happy. He doesn’t look past all of Moe’s innumerable health code violations, especially the fact that his predecessor’s body is still on the ground, so he does what any legitimate civil servant would do, and closes Moe’s. Moe has nowhere near the amount of money required to bring the bar up to code, so he has no choice but to close the bar down, causing the regulars to get together and hold a funeral for their favorite bar.

After the funeral the rest of the regulars head across the street to a gay-bar to start drinking, but Homer decides that he’s too fat to frequent a gay-bar, and asks Moe what he can do to help reopen the bar. Unfortunately the only thing that he can do is give Moe a shitload of money to fix things. So Homer does just that, and heads to the bank to get a massive loan for Moe, also acquiring another mortgage. But surely Marge is going to understand that Homer needed to do this to save a bar, right?

Ha ha ha. No. When Marge gets the first new mortgage payment she freaks the hell out, since apparently Homer didn’t think to tell her about the loan until that point. Marge is furious that Homer did such a stupid thing without even consulting her, so she decides to punish him in a unique way. Now that she knows they’ve given Moe such a huge loan she decides that that means they’re part-owners of the bar, and that she’s going to start going to Moe’s to ensure that they get a return on their investment, while Homer stays home with the kids for once.

So Marge starts going to Moe’s every night, trying to find ways to better the place. She begins bossing Moe around, and pushing for a big renovation to get a better class of clientele for the bar. Moe is against this at first, not wanting to change a thing, until Marge tells him her idea to turn the bar into a British pub, and he instantly changes his mind and begins renovating the place. We then cut straight to them having completed the renovation as Moe’s reopens as the Nag and the Weasel, Springfield’s hottest new pub.

And people love it. They’re rolling in new customers, and their bar has become one of the most popular places in town, all thanks to Marge’s intervention. Which is starting to irritate Homer, who has had to stay home with the kids while all of this is going on. And it just gets worse when Homer start to get jealous of Moe, since he’s spending all of his time with Homer’s wife. He even starts to worry that Marge and Moe are having an affair, even though she ensures him that that’s ridiculous.

However one day at the Plant Lenny and Carl notice how depressed Homer is, and take him to Itchy and Scratchy Land to have an unhappy talk in a happy place. They tell Homer that Marge is having an emotional affair with Moe, which could destroy their marriage. They recommend that Homer actually do something romantic for once, and fix his marriage. So Homer heads home, ready to be a better husband and a better listener. Right on time to learn that Marge and Moe are about to leave to a restaurant convention in Aruba.

Homer’s incredibly depressed about Marge going to Aruba with Moe, and decides to talk to Lisa about his marriage woes, like a good parent would. Lisa doesn’t really have any marriage advice, but does suggest that Homer race to the airport and declare his love, which usually tends to work in the movies. So Homer races off to the airport while we see that on the plane Moe actually is plotting to steal Marge away from Homer. So Homer’s paranoia isn’t completely baseless.

Homer ends up getting pulled over by Chief Wiggum while racing to the airport, and wins Wiggum over to his side. Homer then arrives at the airport and has Wiggum race alongside the place in a cherry-picker, while Homer crawls up the toilet hole to get into the airplane. And while all of this is going on Moe begins to panic and tries to move along his plan to steal Marge. It’s wrecked when Homer shows up though, who begins explaining all of his crazy theories to Marge.

But while they’re standing there, making a ridiculous scene, things look bad for Homer. Because Moe starts to demonstrate that he actually knows things about Marge, and appreciates her, which makes Homer decides that he’s lost. Unfortunately for Moe Marge is a human being with agency, and she announces that she doesn’t want Moe, and that he didn’t win her. She then reconnects with Homer and the three head to Aruba for an awkward little vacation while Bart, Lisa, and Maggie participate in a European hot-air balloon race.

I think I’ve talked about this before, but I’m really getting sick of episodes that revolve around Homer and Marge’s marriage being in trouble, only for things to get swept under the rug. And this is a really big case of that problem. Yeah, Homer does really shitty things in this episode, but it then somehow managed to make him the victim. He took out a mortgage without consulting his wife, and then we’re supposed to be on his side as he worries that his wife is having an emotional affair. It’s just really strange. And then at the end everything is magically fixed after Homer storms an airplane. I’m just getting a little tired of plots like this.

Take Away: Don’t take out loans without consulting your spouse, especially if you’re just going to waste it on something stupid.

“Mommie Beerest” was written by Michael Price and directed by Mark Kirkland, 2005.