D’oh! the Simpsons’ marriage hits rocks
Marge and Homer split up after he falls in love with his pharmacist
If love is a drug, then Homer Simpson is smitten with his new dealer.
After the nearly three decades, and three never-aging tykes they have had together, TV’s longest-running couple is calling it Splitsville. (“Mmmm . . . a tasty split.”)
Yes, Marge will be as blue as her towering hair because Homer seeks a cure for his narcolepsy and soon “falls in love” with the woman who can treat what ails him — a pharmacist voiced by Girls actress- writer Lena Dunham.
Al Jean, chief of The Simpsons, reiterated to Variety some details of what’s ahead for the 27th season.
“In the premiere, it’s discovered after all these years Homer has narcolepsy and it’s an incredible strain on the marriage,” Jean said. “Homer and Marge legally separate and Homer falls in love with his pharmacist.”
Jean has said this before, most recently in January when the news of Dunham’s guest role in the series first broke. The premiere episode, called “Every Man’s Dream,” is supposed to be different from all the other times the Simpsons’ marriage was on the rocks, Jean told Entertainment Weekly.
“We wanted to take a serious look at what it would really be like to be Mrs. Homer Simpson,” Jean said at the time. EW even included a picture of the character at the time. Now it’s all over Twitter.
Some people were freaked out at this non-news news, especially on The View, where co-host Whoopi Goldberg suggested Homer might want to step out with a black woman in a future story line.
“Homer, what about a sister?” Goldberg demanded. “In the time that I’ve seen you, I’ve never seen you with a black woman. Or maybe Marge is just a light-skinned sister and they haven’t said it.”
Homer and Marge have physically split before — such as when Alaska beckons in The Simpsons Movie — but have never legally separated. In keeping with the show’s conventions, it seems probable that the couple will be back together in episode two.
Jean’s spilled beans (“Mmm . . . beans”) come just days after the show revealed that Sideshow Bob kills Bart in a Halloween special.
Despite more than a quarter-century on TV, the show’s writers seem to have no trouble coming up with new wacky story lines, as Jean explained to Variety.
“We have an episode coming up where Lisa befriends a homeless woman who turns out to be an incredible singer. The woman’s voiced by Kate McKinnon, but the singing is done by Natalie Maines,” he said.
There’s even going to be an episode based on the Oscar-nominated film Boyhood.
“It’s a flashback/flash-forward about Bart,” Jean said. “We go to various points in his life and his life to come, which I think came out really well.” The new season — which presumably will be without departing “man of many voices” Harry Shearer — begins in September. With files from USA Today