In this week’s edition of the Simpsons, Marge and Lisa get manicures and upset women’s history scholars everywhere in “Four Great Women and a Manicure.”

Kredit Kookies: Short open; Couch Gag: An artist chisels a block of marble into the shape of OFF sitting on their couch.  Dissatisfied, he turns the statue into a portrait of a soldier on horseback.

Dumbing It Down: As Lisa gets her first manicure, she and Marge debate as to whether a woman can simultaneously be smart, beautiful and successful.Lisa brings up the example of Queen Elizabeth the first, who didn’t need a man at all.Marge raptures that Elizabeth had everything…except for a husband.

As Lisa sighs her disgust, Marge retells Elizabeth’s story, casting her sister Selma as Elizabeth, Marge as her lady in waiting Bess Throckmorton, and Homer as Sir Walter Raleigh.  After rejecting numerous suitors, Elizabeth earns the ire of King Julio of Spain, who decides to attack the English naval fleet with his Spanish Armada.  Raleigh, Elizabeth’s favorite and secret crush, plans to lead the charge.  Just before the battle, however, his flirtation with Miss Throckmorton comes to light, devastating Elizabeth.

Raleigh accidentally saves the day, setting the British warship alight with cigar ash and crashing it into the advancing Armada.  Elizabeth knights him, gives Raleigh permission to marry Throckmorton, and declares that she needs no man: she has England.(“You keep telling yourself that,” replies a snide Moe).

Lisa then spins a version of the Snow White fable, casting herself as the titular heroine.  Groundskeeper Willie, portraying the kind woodsman, proves to be too kindhearted to kill the girl (or a pig...or cut a piece of construction paper) and sends Snow to hide in the forrest.  There,  she stumbles on a cottage belonging to seven jewel-mining dwarves: Crabby (Moe), Drunky (Barney), Hungry (Homer), Greedy (Mr Burns), Lenny, Kearney and Doc (tor Hibbert).The dwarves allow Snow to tend house for them while they work in the mines, but the wicked queen finds her and shoves a poisoned apple down her throat.  Lisa ends the story by telling us that Snow White wasn’t rescued by a magical kiss, but by a female doctor.  Snow White goes on to live a very happy life, though she can’t play such strenuous sports as handball.

Marge counters with the story of Lady Macbeth – this particular tale takes place within the show’s regular continuity, with Marge and Homer taking part in Springfield’s community theatre scene.Stuck washing costumes and irritated by her husband's role as a non-speaking tree, an ambitious Marge pushes Homer to kill off all competition for the lead role in their production of Macbeth.  First to die is the Shakespearian thespian Sideshow Mel, whom Homer beats to death with his own bone.When further reviews cast even more scorn on Homer’s portrayal of Macbeth, Marge tells him to kill the rest of the competition – Dr. Hibbert (who asphyxiates on laughing gas), Duffman, Lou the cop and Lenny all meet their makers.Marge eventually dies of a heart attack after being haunted by the ghosts of all of the people Homer has murdered.In the end, Homer ends up playing a beautiful soliloquy to a completely empty theatre.The ghost of Marge listens in delight, gives him a rave review, and tells him that he should perform in the rest of Shakespeare’s great male leads.

Maggie requests another story, and Marge tells the story of “Maggie Roark” after catching sight of Ayn Rand’s “The Fountainhead” in Agnes Skinner’s hands (Agnes is just reading it ‘cause she thinks “Mr.” Rand is attractive.).

In the story, daycare attendee Maggie is an incredibly creative budding architect who meets with the scorn of her caretaker, who destroys all of her structures and chastises her for not being mediocre as her fellow students.Maggie is ultimately put on trial after creating a towering block sculpture during the school’s parent’s day. She grows up to become a famous architect….and the tale abruptly concludes when Marge realizes that Maggie has painted a version of The Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh on the wall in nail polish.

Red Dress Press: Most anthology episodes tend toward the uneven, and this is no exception.I like the set-up of the piece; Lisa’s overt feminism bumping up against Marge’s sense of traditional propriety.  The actual execution of each segment played in a rushed way, with the Fountainhead and Elizabeth segments particularly playing out with speed.

Of the four segments, The Elizabeth segment contained fewer laughs, the loudest ones supplied by Julio and some of the wordplay (Sir Sir Walter Raleigh).Selma was a perfect choice for a stand-in for Elizabeth, but the execution could have been far stronger.

The Snow White segment had the largest number of Adult Swim level-gags (Snow White’s so sweet that the turtle voluntarily boiled itself to death in her soup).The parody of “Hi-Ho” felt uninspired and obvious, though the short’s Disney-inspired line work was glorious.I laughed the loudest at the wolf’s disappointed whimper when Snow passed up heading into his house to enter the Dwarves’ dwelling.

The Macbeth portion would have made a better Treehouse of Horror segment (and was actually better than half of what’s been put forth as TOH segments over the past couple of seasons).Marge felt OOC as an ambitious figure, though Homer’s laziness was on-target.Mel was a perfect choice to play the object of Marge’s envy.Some beautiful VA work from Dan C. during Homer’s soliloquy, too.

Most touching of the four segments, the Fountainhead minisode had Maggie at her feisty best and a fun moral.I would, however, rather have seen Ms. Foster voice Maggie as an adult.Her voice coming from a toddler’s mouth felt jarring, but her voice was reminiscent enough of Marge’s to make sense as belonging to an adult Maggie.

Did It Fail At Masonry?: As always, anthology episodes are a mixed bag.The Macbeth and Fountainhead segments were the most watchable of the four, with the Snow White segment being visually enjoyable, and the Elizabeth segment an afterthought.Pick and choose your clips, if you can.

What the Screwballs Think: “Four Great Women” pulled in No Great Ratings; the show pulled in a 5.16, the lowest rating ever for a Simpsons episode but making it the second most-watched program on Fox that night, and making it second in its timeslot. Waverly Hills 9021-D’Oh drew in a 6.6 last week.

Springfield Shopper: “Coming to Homerica”, airing May seventeenth, is scheduled to be the show’s season finale.Check back here on the eighteenth for a full recap!