Hey everyone. It’s been a pretty fun week, right? A bundle of episodes that were pretty enjoyable? Well, what better way to end that week then by having an absolutely insane episode where Homer and Marge become award winning Olympic athletes? Yeah, sure, let’s go with that.

The episode begins with Homer and Marge getting ready for a fancy night on the town together. Bart and Lisa are helping get Marge ready and Lenny and Carl are getting Marge ready. However, while Homer’s getting ready to leave the Plant, Mr. Burns show up with some bad news. There’s a leak somewhere inside the Plant, and Homer and the guys are going to have to spend the entire night there finding its source.

They apparently find the leak somewhat quickly though, but Homer still misses the date. He gets home, very depressed that he ruined date night, but still game to go out and catch a movie. So Homer and Marge head out to watch a movie, but it’s just full of people talking on their phones, loudly eating, and texting, so they freak out and storm out of the movie. They then drive around, complaining about how they’re missing some romance in their marriage. And then the answer to their prayers arrives in the form of an ice rink.

Homer and Marge decide to head into the rink and ice skate together. However, when they get inside they find that they won’t be allowed to skate, because that night the rink is reserved for some curling practice. You know curling, that boring sport that you struggle to understand when it’s time for the Winter Olympics? Well apparently people in Springfield are interested in it, so, similarly to the formation of the Pin Pals, Homer and Marge decide to join a curling team so that they can skate.

They give the sport a shot, and end up actually really enjoying it. And Marge is really good at it, her years of sweeping coming in handy. They even get asked to join a team comprised of Principal Skinner and Agnes, deciding to give it a shot. We then cut to six weeks later and find that Homer and Marge have become utter curling fanatics. And Bart and Lisa couldn’t care less. But Homer and Marge have found a mutual passion, so that’s awesome.

And things really start to escalate when Skinner pops over to the Simpson’s house to tell them some good news. Apparently the Olympics are considering having curling, and there’s going to be an exposition game where people can go demonstrate the sport at the Olympics. So their little team is going to participate in some try-outs, hoping to be sent to the Olympics in Vancouver. And, not surprisingly, their team aces the try-outs. That’s right, the Simpsons are headed to Canada to be Olympic athletes!

Which is when the real training begins! But when they get to Canada Marge is approached by Agnes with some bad news. Homer is kind of terrible. They don’t want to kick him off the team, since they need a fourth player, but she tells Marge that Homer needs to get his shit together. Turns out Agnes was an Olympic pole-vaulter in her youth, and her dreams of Olympic gold were dashed when she became pregnant with Seymour. Or Armand. Whatever. And she doesn’t want Homer to screw this chance up too.

Oh hey, it’s time for a B-Plot. But it’s not a particularly beefy B-Plot, so I think I’m just going to run through it all right here. It starts when Lisa is wandering around the Olympic Village, and becomes aware of the hobby of collecting Olympic pins. And she quickly becomes addicted, spending all of her time and money buying more and more pins. And it all comes to a culmination when she finds an incredibly rare one, and doesn’t have enough money for it. But the vendor does say that he’ll trade Lisa the pin for her pearl necklace.

She agrees, and then becomes a strung-out pin addict, playing her saxophone on the streets, trying to get money. Bart ends up finding her, and gets her sober, taking away all of her pins. But when he finds out that the scummy vendor took her necklace he comes up with a scheme. He creates a fake pin, claiming to be the mascot for the upcoming Summer games in Russia, and trades it for Lisa’s necklace, ending the plot.

So that’s done. Back in the curling plot, things aren’t going well. Marge never got the guts to tell Homer to get better, so she’s been carrying him all during the try-outs, pulling off amazing plays all on her own, but becoming wary of Homer ruining everything. Agnes tries to convince Marge to talk to Homer again, and he ends up overhearing them. Homer becomes worried that he’s going to be kicked off the team, but doesn’t then decide to train more.

Instead Homer just becomes sullen, and during one of their big games, which would get them sent onto the Gold Medal game, he throws a terrible stone. Marge then has to work overtime, doing everything she can, and seemingly breaking all sorts of curling rules, before succeeding in clinching their position in the final match. However, in doing so she really hurts her arm. Dr. Hibbert is there as the team physician, and he examines Marge, finding that she can probably never play curling again.

Whoops! Guess it’s time for the Simpsons to go back to Springfield, dreams dashed. That is until they start packing and Homer notices that Marge is really good with her left hand. Turns out she’s been left-handed her whole life, but has been hiding it. Which means that she can still play, just with her left hand. So they come back to the final match against Sweden, and Marge manages to pull off another amazing play, winning the American team the Gold Medal. Agnes is proud of Seymour, Marge forgives Homer for being untalented, Lisa’s addiction is cured, and Homer and Marge are now gold medal-winning athletes.

This episode is completely insane. Remember when the Simpsons used to be about an average family, just trying to get by? Well now they’ve won gold medals at the Olympics! They’re curling celebrities! And this will never get mentioned again! That’s all completely insane, but it’s also a lot of fun. Yeah, the episode kind of starts off as a weird remake of “Team Homer,” but it becomes something very different. I have no idea why curling was picked, but it’s kind of the perfect sport for Homer and Marge to randomly be amazing at. We also dodged a bullet and weren’t bombarded with a litany of Olympic cameos of anything. This wasn’t an episode about Olympics, it was about Homer and Marge finding a common interest, and then becoming the best people in the world at it. Which is absurd, but a lot of fun.
Take Away: It’s important to find a common interest with your spouse, but you shouldn’t let the competitive nature of it get in between you.

“Boy Meets Curl” was written by Rob LaZebnik and directed by Chuck Sheetz, 2010.