Synergy Has a Glaring Omission

"I was just thinking about Homer Simpson." - Not Shelley Long

"That's okay, I was just thinking about Sybil Danning." - Moe

One has to admire IGN's synergistically hacktacular efforts to glowingly review Zombie Simpsons.  Faced with such a daunting task as trying to put a positive spin on Maggie's bizarre subplot, they elected to simply ignore it altogether.  The word "Maggie" doesn't appear once and there isn't a single reference to her big part in the episode.  Can't say something nice?  Don't say anything at all.  That is top notch synergy.  

Happily for us, they did delve, deeply, into the even more brain rotting main "plot".  Enjoy:

April 6, 2009 - In order to produce the contractually obligated number of episodes, Tthere are always a few episodes (or more) every season dedicated to one of the Simpsons Zombie Simpsons side characters. This week, it was the shattered remnants of Moe. And as is often the case when Moe is at the center of the episode, the focus was romance pointlessly saccharine failure. Moe has never been the classiest of people, and, on network television at least, that usually turns the women away. Or rather, he can usually pull it together act way out of character for a little while, but eventually blow it in the end because the writers will probably want to do this at least three more times. And that's exactly what happened in the bittersweet repetitive and funny boring "Eeny Teeny Maya Moe."

Early in the episode, Moe excitedly tidied up his bar while retelling the story of how he had come to know Maya, an unimaginative female plot device. Fittingly, Moe had been wooing her via the Internet connection at the Springfield Public Library. Loved seeing that Gil was also there. The Internet love connection had a few enjoyable bits tried to make fun of things that were cutting edge five years ago and failed at even that modest task, including Moe asking if Maya was just some creepy guy at a public library, and then Maya asking the same question back. Moe's tragically true response: "Actually, there is a much creepier guy right next to me." (The guy was Crazy Cat Lady, making an appearance to eat some clock and cause Moe a little pain.) There was also an entertaining tedious, exposition filled bit involving the risk of opening Maya's jpeg, and then Moe prepping his own.

When the two finally decided to meet, Moe was surprised to find Maya was a little person, which made no sense but was necessary to provide a pre-commercial cliffhanger.  ("Oh, you're a little person. I'm sorry. I didn't mean that. What's the correct term?" "Little person." "Whoa! Look at me being polite.") I really enjoyed despised these initial few moments because they setup a plodding, predictable and utterly unbelievable morality tale. When Moe remarked that the picture of her standing in front of a building made her look "more life-size," Maya revealed it was taken at LEGO Land. I also loved quickly tired of the few bits where Moe would say something that seemed wildly inappropriate, only to find out they were innocent true statements. The best One of these was when they were ready to go to their dinner date and Moe said he'd get the car seat. This was not a dig at Maya's size. Moe actually did need to get the passenger seat to his car, which he had removed for better mileage some reason.

The relationship was going well exactly to formula. As only Moe a comedy writer could put it, "It's like my heart wants to do her." The biggest contrived obstacle for Moe was going to be introducing Maya to his judgmental friends. Their mentality newfound cruelty was displayed when Lenny, Carl and Barney made fun of Homer for not remembering limericks. This gave us my favorite random the most egregious out of character line from the episode, when Lenny explained, "It's A, A, B, B, A, dumb ass!"

As the relationship progressed dragged on, Moe was making more and more slip-ups. One of the funniest dumbest was when Moe initially thought Maya lived in a tree. He then made up This allowed the script to include the excuse that lots of people live in trees: "Tarzan, the Berenstain Bears, flood victims." But things only got worse when Moe reached the point of completed his transparent character arc by proposing to Maya. Maya quipped, "Are you asking me to be your little woman?" and then Moe tore off with a long rant of series of gentle, safe for network TV little people jokes. It became not funny to Maya and the relationship was ended because her purpose in this episode had been served. This seemed understandable enough, but I wish Moe's jokes had been a bit more mean to truly make an effect funny in the least. After all, Maya was making the jokes first, so I felt Moe's jokes should have had a bit more bite this show used to be a comedy.

Still, after a failed time killing attempt to shorten himself through surgery with Dr. Nick, and one last encounter with a hurt Maya, Moe was able to find the positive in his situation through the knowing wisdom of Homer J. Simpson, the svengali of Zombie Simpsons. Trying to make his favorite bartender feel better, Zombie Homer said lectured, "Sometime when you least expect it, you'll realize that someone loved you, and that means someone can love you again. And that'll make you smile." A simple corny and un-Homer sentiment, but it lifted Moe's spirits, so this piece of shit could finally end. Moe added, "Who'da thought such a little woman could make me feel so big?" It was a sweet an appropriately dimwitted way to end this enjoyable episode embarrassingly clichéd tripe.