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Review -- The Simpsons: "Postcards from the Wedge"
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Ariel Ponywether
Ariel Ponywether has been a fan of The Simpsons since the first time Bart was ten. 
By Ariel Ponywether
Published on 03/16/2010
 
Bart's been neglecting his homework, and Marge and Homer can't agree on a solution to the problem. He takes advantage of their confusion and plays one against the other to get what he wants.
"You'll need to know fractions to make that explosion!"

Kredit Kookies: Flyby: Crow, complete with call/Short open.  Couch Gag: The couch is a piñata broken open by Ralph Wiggum, and OFF spill out when he whacks it.

Bart Simpson may be the cartoon world’s elder statesman of authority figure manipulation, but there was something rote and familiar about his decision to pit Homer against Marge in “Postcards from the Wedge”.

The first quarter of the episode is solidly funny – the outdated film strip parodying ‘50’s era industrial shorts that dream of a possible world provides some mild laughter.The children of Mrs. Krabappel’s class are then asked to hand in their homework assignments, and Bart’s neglecting his assignments once again.Unable to beat Mrs. K’s letter home to the mail slot, he’s eventually loaded down with the month’s worth of assignments he’s neglected.

In a nice callback to her established characterization from Season 1, Marge tries to soften the weight of Bart’s assignments by letting him shirk them.Homer’s characterization is where the episode falters: he’s in clear jerkass mode as he glories in the notion of not having to help Bart with his homework, and therefore supporting Bart being bogged down with them (several times in this episode his dialogue resembles something that Phillip J Fry would say).Bart, meanwhile, manages to squirm out of doing most of his assignments by playing one against the other.The crisis ultimately drives Marge and Homer closer together.

“PFTW” takes a mid-episode quality dive in quality when Bart – now free to do as he wishes with his time – discovers an abandoned subway system while running away from the fallout of a prank he pulled on Skinner and causes structural damage to various buildings in Springfield.Will Marge and Homer surface from their haze in time to save the entire town (specifically, the elementary school) from destruction?The real question is – will you care?Though the episode does a great job of setting us up for the subway’s existence, and provides some fun short joke segments (The resolution also comes about in a solid way.There’s even a very solid Itchy and Scratchy short.Yet the episode falls just short of perfect due to some plotting and characterization flaws.

There were some very solid moments in this episode, with some surprisingly subversive humor throughout, and the final scene was a real winner.The middle stretch slows down the episode’s pacing a bit.

Final Letter Grade: B-

Ratings: “PFTW” drew a 5.233, third for Fox’s line up that night.Interestingly, a repeat of The Great Wife Hope, which aired after the episode, actually beat it in the ratings.

Next Episode: The next fresh episode of the Simpsons, “Stealing First Base”, will air Sunday, March twenty-first.