A Deeper Look At: The Real Housewives of Fat Tony

Just two more installments left, let's try to end this as quickly as possible.

Issue #1: The Jersey Shore ‘Satire’

I’m reluctant to even call this a satire because satires would actually make fun of the source material. I think the closest thing to a joke here is the repeated tanning light joke, and even that was pretty bad. I honestly have to ask a question; what was the point? They just portrayed the Jersey Shore douches as douchebags, however, that was undermined by the fact that one of their main characters (Homer) was just as (if not more) annoying than the Jersey Shore guys. It wasn’t funny; it was just annoying and painful. 

Now only one of these guys is NOT supposed to be a Jersey Shore clone. Which one is it?

I don’t really like to make out-of-show comparisons, but if you look at South Park’s version, they actually made fun of Jersey Shore. Between their portrayal of New Jerseyians and Snooki in specific, it’s very obvious that The Simpsons lost their spines and the very idea of making fun of anyone scares them. I personally blame this on the Brazil episode, but I severely digress, back to the issue at hand. When the best jokes against Jersey Shore involve names like “Tushi” and “The Occurrence” it’s very easy to understand why this episode is so bad and disliked even among the modern fans (2^nd worst rating of season 22 on TV.com as of 8/19/11)

You don't find this funny? Don't worry, they only do the same joke about a dozen more times

Issue #2: Marge and Selma

Now this issue in particular is more about their relationship on this episode. Marge just acts so childish in this episode, and how it all began? It all began because Selma put Marge and Homer away from the main tables at the reception. *Gasp* That’s truly something to fight over in such a petty manner. I mean, yeah Selma’s being petty herself, but for Marge to go as far as she did over something like that? It’s just so wrong for Marge’s character to get that worked up over something so small. Even worse is how she holds the grudge against Selma days later (For fucks sakes, it was a table placement that was brought on because Homer’s a jerkass, GET OVER IT!) 

Hey if I was reduced to sitting next to Modern Comic Book Guy, I'd throw a fit too

But then it spontaneously turns into ‘Marge doesn’t support the marriage’ I don’t know when it changed to that and how the hell Selma knew considering at the reception, Marge makes it clear that she’s pissed over the seating and not the marriage itself. You have to love it when the writers just have no clue how to move a story along, so they just throw in random conflicts that apparently everyone knows about. Oh and the way they makeup? They just talk, no buildup, Selma just comes outside, talks to Marge and everything’s now A-okay. It’s hard to describe a makeup scene when it doesn’t exist. Oh and a minor nitpick if I may, Lisa and Bart also appear at the table later, rather odd considering we only saw Marge and Homer at the wedding and the kids weren’t around when Marge and Homer were looking for their table, continuity? Who needs that?!

No kids in sight at all

Makes perfect sense to me to have Bart and Lisa there NOW

Issue #3: The ending

Now, don’t get me wrong, the end credits was by far the best part of this episode, my issue is just how lazy the resolution of Fit Tony and Selma was. First off, Selma believes Homer and Marge instantly from some out-of-context dialogue from Fit Tony, I just find that hard to believe. Then when Selma confronts Fit Tony about it, the writers decide to retcon the episode entirely by saying the wedding wasn’t a real wedding, but a mistress wedding. I mean, there’s not giving a rat’s ass about a previous episode when writing something new, and then there’s not giving a rat’s ass about the present day episode. It’s really sad to see the point when the staff doesn’t even try to achieve status quo and allow themselves to use it later in continuity. It’s almost as bad as those “It was all just a dream” episodes, where nothing within the episode had any real point and the audience is basically told that they just wasted 30 minutes on nothing happening.

Now you've done it, you've upset the plot police

And that was satire failure #143, join me next week as we end this analysis portion of the blog.