I guess my honky tonking days are over

Gone Abie Gone

I will not concede the election until Karl Rove gives me permission

Couch gag: The Simpsons and other Springfieldians are in a parody of Wacky Races. They all crash near the finish line and Grampa wins.

Director: Matthew Nastuk

Guest Voices:
Anika Noni Rose as Rita LaFleur
Marvin Hamlisch as himself
Jennifer Tilly as herself

Synopsis: Marge and Homer explore Grampa’s secret past while Lisa becomes addicted to online poker in order to increase her college fund.

Discussion: To be honest, the only reason I posted this picture and the quote for the title was to prove that I watched until the end. I was so very tempted to stop the agony about nine minutes in. But no, dear reader, I continued just for you.

Marge and Homer discover Abe is missing from the retirement castle and they go in search of him, uncovering a secret marriage along the way. This could be interesting, but no. Abe’s secret wife is an African American cabaret singer name Rita, who parted ways with Abe in order to tour Europe while Abe stayed at home with Homer. Why isn’t this more interesting? I can’t pinpoint exactly where it fails, it just does. Homer is not shocked at all to discover this secret of Abe’s, nor is there any mystery in where Abe actually is (if anyone cared where he went… But it’s better than finding him asleep in the park where he’d been feeding the birds).

Meanwhile, Homer’s settlement from being burned by onion rings sees him storing the money on an online poker site. Since when does Homer take financial advice from Moe? And, more importantly, why?? Anyhoo, Lisa wins enough to set her up for life but loses it all to Sideshow Bob, who is actually Bart, but then the site finds out they’re minors and they lose everything except the initial $5000 investment. Well, it’s better than Lisa learning to write cursive.

There is absolutely nothing of interest in this episode, but I can’t say it’s bad episode, just boring. For a great recap on the 5 worst episodes, I recommend Neon Whiskey’s post. This ep is light on jokes and story, but at least it’s not complete nonsense like some other eps.