The Simpsons: The Girl Code Review

This The Simpsons review contains spoilers.

The Simpsons: Season 27 Episode 10.

A family is destroyed by a fingerclick on the one thing the world doesn’t need, a laugh. The Simpsons cram us with so full of asynchronous java script and malware throttling that we’re crapping cyber text. It’s always a good sign when The Simpsons skip the couch gag and the opening credits. That means that they are cramming something special into the episode and tonight’s offering “The Girl Code,” was so loaded with jokey goodness they had to continue all the way through to the closing credits.

Most people think when The Simpsons have a long opening and an extended couch gag that it foretells great things, it actually only means that they are covering up something, the couch gags are just reupholstering.

A wife’s worries never end, especially with the husband is a Homer. The whole setup comes as Marge rushes out to save her starving husband, who left his lunch box filled with football-shaped sandwiches and peta chips at home. The Simpsons are consistent genius subversives. Homer, the husband faced with his wife seeing how he actually works, hides the sexy poster of true savior of the liberal branch of government, Elizabeth Warren and the morning and afternoon anchovy pizzas. A story about women’s empowerment starts out by showing the superpowers of the domestic worker. Marge saves Homer from a lifetime of punitive hours by asking advice from Waylon Smithers, as if she’d ever be guilty of glue soak-through.

But with great power comes great consequences. Marge also gets Homer fired on that same fateful day, the day the wife visited the nuclear plant. Marge has a great time, even tweedles a picture of Homer’s melting ice cream cone on Facelook with the caption “meltdown at the nuclear plant.” Can you imagine the fallout? Why, a baker’s half-hundred people have seen it since it’s been posted and several are pointing their hitchhiker’s thumb at it.

Imagining fallout is what Lisa Simpson does best. You would think her brother, best friend of the ultimate Fallout Boy would be, but he has no idea what the future could bring. Lisa has always envisioned the horrors that might befall the little people. Lisa is in with Springfield Elementary’s biggest nerds taking coding, not web design, which is apparently the Home Ecch of technology, but a manly pursuit best left to men who prefer to work in their underwear and get out of mandatory cross-fit. The teacher, pierced with spiked hair that is different from Lisa’s spiky star, is mindful of her one female student’s tribulations and bumps her to the top of the class.

Lisa finds out what happened with her mother’s nowhere-near-viral joke and finds a way she can finally use her cautionary wisdom for good instead of beleaguering. The Simpsons family knows the damage a joke can do. That’s why they go weeks without being funny. Lisa, the Silicon Sally of Springfield Elementary, knows that every larf has its comeuppance and no retribution is faster than the trolling world of internet comments and the consequences of one’s online life on one’s real life.

But Lisa crosses over into the maddening world where science fact and science fiction meet. She is meddling with the primal forces of nature, predicting the future, possibly even inserting critical thought into the vast emptiness of the mind of the internet. There is no Klang or Kodos to save Springfield from the onslaught that might be wrought by the idea of restraint in the viral world of vines and memes. There is only the disembodied head of some guy, and not even a real guy, like a guy kind of guy guy, but  British guy, named Conrad, which is short for Consequence Eradicator, as if that didn’t get him wedgies at school. Conrad is just as self-conscious and insecure as Lisa.

“The Girl Code” also takes on the potential for fetid wealth that flows from apps, if you know how to pick them. Just because coders used to be human, doesn’t mean they care about people. They care about their apps and what money can be made from their apps. And what horrible music they can program behind the commercials that sell these apps. The episode may lightly be touching on the Zoe Quinn Gamergate Quinnspiracy. The coding teacher is named Quinn for a kickoff.

Homer finally surrenders to his destiny. He is and always has been a once and future dishwasher in a Greek diner, where the ouzo flows like ice water and the coleslaw lasts forever in a dance that goes back to the ancient days of Zorba. Or at least to John Belushi. Opa.

“The Girl  Code” was brilliantly funny. The pacing was terrific, there was no lag time at all. For the first half of the episode every other line was funny and there were great visual gags going on behind the scenes. I try to capture that with the “oh but it went by so fast” bits at the end – but on episodes like this they defy capture. When Homer proves that he never does anything for laughs, it’s a scream. When Millhouse is being tossed out of class and screams all the way down the hall, it’s a throwaway that is a keeper. Just try deciphering what Professor Frink is honoring and you see the magnificence of inspired silliness.

“The Girl Code” was written by Rob LaZebnik and directed by Chris Clements. 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 Chief Wiggum and Professor Frink. Harry Shearer is Mr. Burns. Pamela Hayden plays Millhouse and Jimbo Jones. Guest stars: Stephen Merchant as Conrad. Kaitlin Olson as Quinn

But It All Went By So Fast: Morning Margarita. Predawn Pepperoni. Midnight Meat Lovers. The hounds are having a birthday. Friday at 2. Bring wrapped meat. Someone send me their notes. Cream of Calories. Man licking taco shells – Consequence – fired from job. Ladies in Hitler uniforms – Consequence Fired from Museum of Tolerance. Bob’s Burger serving Today’s Burger of the day – Short people got no braisin’ to rib burger – $5.95 – Consequence: Restaurant boycotted by short people. Krusty’s Landig – Consequence: Career ruined. Lobster dinner for college athlete – consequence: Drafted in later round than otherwise would have been. Angry Richie threatens Lenny and Carl – consequence: Lost internship. (No course credit.) You can’t screw up breakfast. Socrates revenge ouzo.

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