- Diatribe of a Mad Housewife
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"Diatribe of a Mad Housewife" is the tenth episode of The Simpsons' fifteenth season, which originally aired January 25, 2004. Marge is inspired to write a romance novel, though after Homer hears rumors that Marge is secretly in love with Ned Flanders due to the storyline of the novel, he grows jealous. Meanwhile, Homer buys an ambulance and becomes an ambulance driver.
Contents
Plot
After Homer buys nearly everything on the menu at Krusty Burger, burrito filling hits the windshield and, unable to see the road, he swerves towards the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, crashes into the main building and crushes a safety inspector. Mr. Burns fires Homer and throws him out of the SNPP before tossing his wrecked car out of the area as well.
Meanwhile, Marge, Bart and Lisa are at the bookstore, where Marge meets author Esmé Delacroix (likely a parody of the late British author E. M. Delafield, whose first name was Edmé). This meeting inspires Marge to write a novel. Homer tries his hand at auto sales but is remarkably bad at it (when he passes gas during a sales pitch, he turns on the car radio as a deflection), yet he is happy to buy a 1959 ambulance.
Marge begins to write a novel about whaling times (inspired by the boat painting in the living room, "Scene from Moby Dick"), and proceeds to write several sentences. That evening, Homer runs ambulance service. Unfortunately for his customers (patients), he loses his way and refuses to accept that he is lost, although driving in circles. Marge creates the characters for her novel: Temperance, the dutiful lady, inspired by herself; Temperance's loving whaler husband, Mordecai, inspired by Homer; and Cyrus Manly, inspired by Ned Flanders. At first, she has Homer as a successful whale hunter, but after he comes home and obnoxiously demands Marge cook him up a gourmet meal, Marge decides to remake him into a lazy, drunk fisherman who is a bad husband and father, who is always getting drunk at Moab's Tavern. She completes the book, titled The Harpooned Heart. She gets positive reviews and decides to get it published. At Lisa's advice (who has noticed the similarities between fiction and real life), Marge asks Homer to read her book, but he falls asleep before getting anything done, later deciding to lie to her that he read the whole book and loved it. Marge becomes an instant success, although Tom Clancy and Thomas Pynchon do not want to supply praise blurbs for the novel and Clancy is surprised when his hypothetic, rejected idea of praise is taken as a sincere endorsement of Marge's work. However, Helen Lovejoy begins to spread rumors that the novel is based on Marge's life.
After Homer is teased by several people who imply that Ned is Marge's secret love, Homer gets mad and decides to read the book. He buys an audiotape version read by the Olsen twins. After arguing with Marge, Homer decides to get revenge on Ned. He chases him in his ambulance after Ned flees. Lisa tells Bart that this situation is similar to the ending of the novel; Mordecai confronts Cyrus at the edge of a cliff and harpoons him after Cyrus accidentally reveals he conceived a child with Temperance. However, he is caught in his harpoon's rope, which has impaled Cyrus to the back of a sperm whale, and dies along with his adversary. Ned is sure Homer is going to kill him when they are on the cliff, and is stunned when Homer drops to his knees and begs Ned to show him how to be a good husband. Marge arrives in a panic and is relieved that Homer and Ned are OK and that Homer says this was a wake-up call for him. Homer and Marge then decide to make their own novel: "Who Really Killed JFK?", with Homer's unsuccessful theory being that Lee Harvey Oswald killed JFK as a distraction so he could steal the "Jack Ruby", but then refutes his own idea when Marge tells him that Jack Ruby was a man, not a jewel.
Cultural references
- The title word plays off of the book and film Diary of a Mad Housewife, as well as E. M. Delafield's novel Diary of a Provincial Lady.
- Homer sings a song to the tune of Cars by Gary Numan.
- Homer briefly works at the "Boris Car Loft", a reference to Boris Karloff.
- Marge denotes the similarity of the picture behind the couch to the classic novel, Moby-Dick (the picture is, in fact, called "Scene from Moby Dick"). It inspired her novel, when she thought "No one's done a book about whaling before!" Moreover, her book is about whaling and its ending has Temperance's husband dying in a similar manner to that of Ahab, from the same novel.
- Lisa tells Bart that Marge's novel will be parodied on the FOX sketch show MADtv.
- Homer tells Marge to "publish or perish", which refers to the constant pressure in academic environments to publish their work in order to successfully further their careers.
- The scene inside Lisa's head where her Jealousy, Conscience, Honesty and Libido are personified by other 'mini Lisa's' is a direct reference to the now defunct show Herman's Head (1991–1994). The protagonist, Herman, would have the same scenes play out in his head with characters playing his Anxiety, Sensitivity, Intellect, and Lust. In a double twist of irony, the actor who provides the voice of Lisa Simpson, Yeardley Smith was also an actor on Herman's Head, playing the character Louise Fitzer, and appearing in 32 of the shows' 71 episodes. It also may be of interest that Hank Azaria who voices many of the characters on The Simpsons appeared on 70 episodes of Herman's Head.
- The idea of Marge's novel is based on the classic fairytale Bluebeard's Egg by Margaret Atwood.
- Dr. Marvin Monroe makes a brief cameo appearance in the episode, where he buys a copy of Marge's book. He states to have been "very sick" lately, which indirectly contradicts events alluding to Monroe's death in the previous seasons. This is so far the last appearance of Dr. Monroe in the show.
Notes
External links
Categories:- The Simpsons (season 15) episodes
- 2004 television episodes
- Thomas Pynchon
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