Homer Scissorhands

"Homer Scissorhands" is the twentieth episode of the 22nd season of The Simpsons. It first aired on the Fox network in the United States on May 8, 2011. Kristen Schaal guest stars in the episode as Taffy.^[1] This major episode sees Milhouse dating Taffy after Lisa rejected his romantic confession. Seeing the two together makes Lisa question her own feelings for him. Meanwhile, Homer becomes a hairdresser after cutting Patty's hair.

This episode was the last episode to be shown in the UK of season 22 during August, 2011. The season continued on October 30, when "500 Keys" first aired.

This episode was Steve Viksten's final television writing credit. He died over three years after it aired, on June 23, 2014.^[2]

Plot

After Bart and Lisa accidentally throw paint into Patty's hair, Homer uses garden shears to cut the remaining hair, miraculously styling it. Selma demands that Homer style her hair, and he becomes Springfield's most popular hairdresser. Soon, he is styling hair for Helen Lovejoy, Luann Van Houten, Manjula Nahasapeemapetilon and numerous other women in Springfield. However, he discovers that listening to the inane chatter upsets and angers him. He even attempts to commit suicide by drinking a jar of disinfectant. Complaining to Moe and the other barflies, Homer realises that he cannot even look at the men in the bar without seeing everything that the women dislike about them. Eventually, after declaring that he can hear the hair growing around town, Homer styles Marge's hair for a party, and they pretend that Julio created the hairstyle instead. Julio is immediately surrounded by women demanding that he style them, too.

Meanwhile, Milhouse has a life-changing experience after watching Finding Nemo from the beginning. Previously he and Bart only watched the film from "Chapter 2", which takes place after Nemo's mother has died. Deciding that, since death can happen to a fish, it can happen to anyone, he decides to live each day as if it were his last. He professes his love for Lisa, even "writing" her a love song (the tune for which is clearly plagiarised from the English folk song "Greensleeves"). Lisa rejects his love, but he manages to impress a fifth-grade girl named Taffy (Kristen Schaal). Taffy and Milhouse begin to date, but Lisa fears that Taffy is only using him, and begins to spy on them both. Her appearance annoys Taffy, who decides that Milhouse will never love her as he is too obsessed with Lisa, and she leaves. Distraught, Milhouse asks Lisa just how upset she wants him to be in life, Lisa has no answer at this time and she kisses him to make him feel better.

Production

The plot of Homer becoming a hairdresser was also an unused side story idea from the season 4 episode "New Kid on the Block" after the planned B-story of Homer fighting with Don Rickles after Rickles insults him during a stand-up show was rejected.^[3] Kristen Schaal guest stars as Taffy, although her surname is spelled incorrectly as "Schall" in the credits. The chalkboard gag from the following episode "500 Keys" was written to correct the error.^[4] The error was later corrected for syndication.

Cultural references

• The episode title is a reference to the 1990 film Edward Scissorhands directed by Tim Burton and starring Johnny Depp in the title role. During the episode Homer tells Marge to just call him "Homer Fingerhands". Many scenes are parallels to the movie; for example the first time Homer cuts hair for money is a reference to the scene where Edward carves the ice angel with Maggie dancing as Kim does in the film. The episode's soundtrack is also inspired by the soundtrack of Edward Scissorhands.
• Lady Gaga is mentioned in the episode.
• While cutting the hair of Helen Lovejoy, she mentions that her husband has been basing sermons on old episodes of Seinfeld. Upon failing to "suck" at cutting her hair at the suggestion of Lenny, Homer decides to attempt to commit barbicide. This is a reference to the reunion episode of Seinfeld from Curb Your Enthusiasm, which has a joke about barbers killing themselves by drinking comb disinfectant.
• Homer's hair cutlery he tried to open is a parody of Are We There Yet, which is called Are We Hair Yet

Reception

In its original American broadcast on May 8, 2011, "Homer Scissorhands" was viewed by an estimated 5.480 million households and received a 2.5 rating/8% share among adults between the ages of 18 and 49.^[5] This means that it was seen by 2.5% of all 18- to 49-year-olds, and 8% of all 18- to 49-year-olds watching television at the time of the broadcast. This marked a 7 percent drop in the ratings from the previous episode.^[5][6]

References