The Simpsons: Love Is in the N2-O2-Ar-CO2-Ne-He-CH4 Review

The Simpsons: Season 27 Episode 13.

This The Simpsons review contains spoilers, like Nucky dies at the end of Boardwalk Empire.

The Simpsons delivers a Valentine’s Day episode about love and all the quantum theory behind it. They don’t spoil love by examining it under the harsh and cold microscope of science. In “Love Is in the N2-O2-Ar-CO2-Ne-He-CH4,” The Simpsons dissect the heart shaped box of chocolates and discover that it’s not at all compatible with any host body. But love isn’t scientific, it’s chemistry, which is science, and therefore can be served on the periodic table of elements.

Chemistry also comes into play in the subplot, which stars the Simpsons family. Abe’s friends at the Springfield Retirement Castle are discovering better living through chemistry. We can see where Homer gets his penchant for addictive behavior as his old man turns out to have a big appetite for prescription hallucinogens. The nursing staff is doling out love drugs and they’re safer and more fun than a four-hour erection from Cialis. The retirement home is passing out dope that turns all the anger into honey through a chemical reaction with nostalgia.

“Of all the cousins in the world I coulda married, you was my sister,” Cletus tells Blondine, the love of his life and fryer upper of anything the slack jawed yokel can shoot down. That’s really as much science as love deserves. But at least Cletus found his Blondine and they’re as happy as Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Hawking, which is much happier than the perennially petulant Professor Frink. Frink doesn’t ask for much, an android, perhaps, who can be programmed to never say no, but who always does. What the good professor with the vegloiben voice needs is a second date. A first date would be a good start, but the intrepid discoverer needs the follow up to reach any conclusion.

The episode begins on Valentine’s Day eve, where lonely heart Waylon Smithers suggests that Mr. Burns assuage the revolutionary spirit of his workers by throwing a sweet heart party. Burns fantasizes a ban on all chocolate hearts in favor of the living hearts, divided into packages for snacks or transplant, and the oh so yummy baby hearts that old wealthy firebrands like Montgomery Burns can truly appreciate. Once again, Burns turns a blind eye to Smithers’ innuendoes and appeals, but approves a resistance-curbing party for all the employees at the nuclear plant.

Professor Frink doesn’t work at the nuclear plant. He consults. Sometimes they listen, sometimes not. There have been deaths. But you didn’t hear that from me. One thing Frink can’t get people to listen to at the plant are his romantic overtures. Yes, the women at the plant hear what he’s saying. It’s not only loud and clear, but also quite verbose and detailed, sometimes with power points. They just don’t want him dunking his beaker into their supernatant fluids and they don’t care if he’s sporting a graduated cylinder or a volumetric flask.

Frink is a scientist. He’s virtually a genius, though not a virtual genius despite inventing both a Visible Computer and the Frinkiac-7 Computer. He also invented Mood Pants, the Sarcasm Detector, the Flipper-Finder, the Frinkahedron, the Frog Exaggerator and Hamburger Earmuffs, but he is lost when it comes to love. He has the data, and cerulean blue contact lenses but it takes Homer to break it down from reality. It’s that voice, that Jerry Lewis homage with the buck teeth and the big glasses and the pen in the pocket and the vegloibens and grammatical disarray.

Of course, in the end, Professor Frink reverts to the selfless miracle man he was born to be. Instead of using his newfound aural stimulation powers for evil, he sacrifices his self-interest for the good of his fellow losers. There are lost and lonely people of all sexes and persuasions, regardless of what persuaded them, and the best use of science is for the betterment of the human condition and what’s better for the human condition than a better position? Frink not only solves the problem of the waste of surplus interruptus, he has the theoretic nerve to ask how many times can Batman begin?

This was a well-paced and fun episode, not overloaded with side-splitters but funny enough to make it to syndication without being too badly mocked. Bart gets to make a few bucks gambling with the drugged out old folks. But it’s really just another remake of some Jerry Lewis schtick. Goodbye pack of cigarettes for a quarter. I think I’ll miss you the most.

That poster that Homer is ogling is of the movie The Outlaw, a classic western film about Sheriff Pat Garrett (Thomas Mitchell), Doc Holliday (Walter Huston) and Billy the Kid (Jack Buetel). It was made in 1943 by Howard Hughes and starred Jane Russell’s ample bosom and the harnass Hughes designed to contain it.

“Love Is in the N2-O2-Ar-CO2-Ne-He-CH4” was written by John Frink and directed by Mark Kirkland. The Simpsons stars Dan Castellaneta as Homer Simpson, Julie Kavner as Marge Simpson, Nancy Cartwright as Bart Simpson and Nelson, Yeardley Smith as Lisa Simpson. Hank Azaria plays Professor Frink and Moe. Harry Shearer is Mr. Burns and Waylon Smithers. Pamela Hayden plays Millhouse and Jimbo Jones. Guest voice: Glenn Close as Mona Simpson.

But It All Went By So Fast: Tired of flowers? This year send her fish! Stocking Stuffer. For Dinner. For Transplant. Smithers gives Burns an amorous look on the nuclear tower paintings. Valentine’s Day: We Love Our Coots. The Graveyards of Normandy. Love = never having to say you’re sorry. Springfield Heights Institute of Technology or S.H.I.T. Attempts to play god. Genetic oopsies. Geezer rings. Time Dissolve Magazine. Love yoooooou Boobarella. Wamughya roaaaghha graoaugmh. Apron-Only Tuesday All Drinks Normal Price.

Springfield Times. Springfield Herald. Dollar Store – Five and Dime – Penny Store. Springfield Tribune. Springfield Times. Springfield Picayune. Big bands. Hats for men. Blacklisted writers. Antenna TV. The Coconut Babaloo – Not smoking not allowed,