Episode 8: The Fight Before Christmas

With this month being December and only a few weeks away from Christmas, it seems that we're getting an early Christmas present with a Christmas-themed episode. However, the return counter will not allow you to return this and exchange it with a better present. I'll admit, I do like most of the Christmas themed episodes, but usually they've been hit and miss. So get your milk and cookies and let's find out how bad this lump of coal really is.

So the episode begins with oddly enough without a couch gag but instead jumps right to Marge decorating the house for Christmas (I like it when Homer decorates for Christmas, his failures at decorating usually get a chuckle out of me). So we go inside where we see Homer watching a rerun and Lisa wrapping police tape up around the Christmas Tree because the tree was cut down and dressed up to celebrate an ancient Pagan holiday... Dear Lord, how far are we in this already? *45 seconds* ...I'm just going to head off for some booze and put a candy cane in it for some holiday cheer. I need to talk about this, otherwise it'll eat at me for the rest of the review, LISA'S AN 8 YEAR OLD GIRL!! She loves Christmas, she's never had a problem with Christmas or Christmas Trees for that matter, heck even when she converted to Buddhism, she never tried to damage the family's Christmas experience. This is just stupid and just poorly though out. Anyways, Bart puts out some milk and cookies for Santa and it makes Marge happy until she finds out his ulterior motive is to get revenge for not getting a dirt bike.

What? You didn't know? Lisa Hates X-mas, I mean it's not like we've seen her enjoy it one bit before

Bart's Segment:
So after Marge storms back to her room in frustration of her family, Bart is awoken by the Polar Express conducted by Otto (I couldn't make this up if I tried). Bart find out that the express can fly as we get a montage of the express high on weed (Hey maybe while they're at it, they can explain what's in the pixie dust from Peter Pan). Afterwards, Bart ends up at the North Pole where an elf Moe sends Bart to become a work elf. After Bart goes down, we find out that there aren't many worker elves because they were laid off because of NAFTA (You know, I'm all for some topical humor, but it's jokes like these that just date the episodes terribly. The older episodes were great because they weren't held down to a specific date most of the times, it could happen in a time period, not a specific year). So Moe decides to promote Bart in a series of scenes that honestly make me question if I'm watching a comedy or a horrible drama. Anyways, Bart is promoted to VP as we get random Christmas references in the background and an elf version of Lisa who fails to prevent Bart from getting to Santa (Yay for pointlessness!) Bart then breaks down Santa's door (Krusty) as he finds out that Santa's pretty poor because the Santa business isn't a profitable one *Bangs head on desk* Bart then tells Santa he doesn't need a dirt bike and he goes back home. After Bart leaves, it's revealed that it was all a hoax and Santa's a pimp-daddy (whu...? It seems like a good concept, fool the kid into being selfless, but why make Santa a pimp-daddy?). Bart's segment ends with a police car flying after them and Otto jumping for safety leaving Bart alone in the train.

Say hello to my little friend!

Lisa's Segment:
We begin with Lisa looking out her window and judging everyone who has trees attached to their cars (Oh booze, I've missed you so much). After being a judgmental prick (You know, the character she's NOT) she goes to sleep and has a dream from the WWII era. It turns out that Lisa's upset because Marge is on the front line against the Nazis (I'm going to forgive the fact that women weren't allowed on the front lines in WWII just so we can move along quicker). We then find out that Homer's in the role Marge should be in because he was too fat for the army. Homer then brings a Christmas Tree home and Lisa tells him not to bring it inside. So after a scene where Lisa eats meat (F*ck you writers) we find out (Through flashback) that Lisa doesn't like trees because Marge was shipped out as she was searching for a tree with Lisa. Okay timeout, why would Marge be taken away for service IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT? Don't they usually phone/inform you ahead of time so you can oh I don't know PREPARE!? This just really seems contrived and stupid for why Lisa wouldn't like X-mas trees, just saying.

No! A Christmas Tree is going to crush my mom!

After Homer tries to comfort Lisa, they get a telegram saying Marge is MIA, this leads to a scene where we get overacting whining, this then causes Lisa to run down the street and stop to cry at everyone's X-mas tree. Lisa then runs into the tree lot where "Wise-guy" tells Lisa he's been holding the tree for a year and it's perfectly alright (Do I even need to say anything about this?!) He then trims up the miracle tree to make it look like Marge and this makes Lisa happy about trees again. After Lisa drags the tree all the way home, we get a pointless scene of Homer and Bart overacting (I would say crying, but that would be insulting to actors everywhere). After Lisa explains why she got the tree (Along with Homer being contrived comic relief again. Where can I request his character be replaced with a cardboard cutout of Adam Sandler with a laugh track?) the family goes into Christmas carol mode and decorate the tree. We then cut to Nazi France as Marge sneaks into a Nazi showing of a HORRIBLE propaganda cartoon of the Nazis bombing England (And I don't mean oh my God that's a horrible idea, I mean oh my God this cartoon makes me want to cut myself). Marge then locks the doors, sets some films on fire and then proceeds to shoot up the audience (Off screen) and walks off to an exploding theater in the background (I want to make an Inglorious Bastards joke here but, I've never seen it and it seems like this scene is a shitty parody of it). The segment ends with Lisa waking up revealing that... nothing's changed (I really dislike this segment)

I love the smell of cliches in the evening

Marge's Segment:
The segment begins with Marge writing a letter that gets blown away by the wind (Dammit, where have I seen this before? It's on the tip of my tongue). After a pointless bit where the letter causes a mailtruck to explode (I remember when exploding cars/objects used to be funny, long time ago though) where it turns out that the letter was for Martha Stewart (Yay! Cameos just for viewership! I'm so excited). After Martha introduces herself to Marge, we get a pointless scene of Martha making Marge a new bed (Can I just count this whole segment as pointless?) After Martha turns Bart and Milhouse into Nutcrackers (Again, what's the purpose of ANY of these actions?!) Lisa comes with a tree star made out of old water bottles. Martha finds a way to deject her and tells her to go outside to make snowangels (Still looking for plot here. Nope nothing, maybe it's over there). After Martha turns Homer into a Christmas decoration (Can someone remind me why Martha NEEDED to be in this segment?) Marge tells her that she misses her family being themselves. After Martha turns everything back the way it was, Marge wakes up to a loving family bringing her a make-it-yourself breakfast in bed. They then break out into ANOTHER public domain Christmas melody but with breakfast lyrics (Someone please give me a shotgun for Christmas).

Thank you Martha Stewart for boosting our rating, er I mean fixing my home

Maggie's Segment:
We begin with the image of the book Maggie has as we cut to a live-action 742 Evergreen Terrace (No! Abort! You're not talented enough to do something this creative! Get out while you still can!) It turns out the family's going to Hawaii and Moe's the house-sitter (I always felt like this could never go live-action and I don't think this segment will prove me wrong). Before I get any further I want to say one thing that will bug me and why this segment fails, it's like a bad sitcom complete with canned laughter and corny jokes. You know, everything that the older seasons didn't do. After Moe calls his girlfriend over, Mr Burns drops by to check up on Homer. Homer's scared because he told Burns that he broke his neck to get the vacation time. After Burns tells Homer he was visited by 3 spirits last night we cut to Abe and Jasper as they imitate Statler and Waldorf (Okay, in fairness I do actually enjoy their bits if only because they're expressing my feeling towards this show for me).

Abe: This isn't half bad
Jasper: Nope, it's all bad!
*Laughter*

After Burns questions the bags Moe comes in and Homer knocks him out. Burns then asks about his Christmas Tree and Homer steals Ned's while ripping his puppet arms off in the process. Right as Burns is about to leave, Katy Perry shows up and we find out she's Moe's girlfriend (Wow, that was such an important cameo, I'm waiting for the episode where their guest stars just start shouting "Cameo!") Homer then tells Burns the truth and we get an unfunny "Release the hounds" bit (Seriously how do you make that unfunny?) After Katy Perry kisses Burns (For a bad pop song plug-in) Burns then forgives them and lets them go. The segment ends with them all singing "The 39 days of Christmas" along with a Sesame Street ending (And another bit with Abe and Jasper. Seriously their 2 parts were better than the whole segment was).

Final Verdict: This episode sucks, it's not terrible but it does suck. The segments were all stupid and very forgettable, there is the occasional joke, but it's lost in the crap-pile called the "plot". The first segment wasn't bad but it was just odd in the end, it feels like not that much was actually accomplished. The second segment is weird, the whole "Losing mom and attaching the feeling of loss with an object" is acceptable in my book, but the ending is a complete waste and feels like it was added just to fill out the episode. The third segment was just stupid and pointless as all it was was just Martha Stewart showing up to fix Marge's house for Christmas. The less I say about the fourth segment, the better.

Final Grade: 3.5/10 Another reason why 2 great concepts don't always mix into something good