The Wreck of the Relationship

"The Wreck of the Relationship" is the second episode of the 26th season of the animated series The Simpsons, and the 554th episode of the series overall. It first aired on the Fox network in the United States on October 5, 2014. The episode sees Marge send Homer and Bart onto a ship where their father-son conflict can be resolved, while she is left to manage her husband's fantasy football team.

Plot

When Bart disrespects his father Homer's authority, Homer tries to parent Bart. Bart later refuses to eat one piece of broccoli at dinner, so Homer decides to sit at the table until Bart eats his broccoli, which lasts two days with each of them getting a temptation from their friends. To solve problems, Lisa makes two identical smoothies with one with the broccoli blended in it, and Bart has to drink one of them. Bart deliberately spills the smoothies, and means he doesn't have to eat the broccoli. When Homer and Bart eventually start to fight, Marge sends the two to a "Relation Ship" with Captain Bowditch (Nick Offerman), where they can solve their relationship problems. Bart excels on the ship and is made midshipman, but Homer detests it. While everyone else on the ship does not seem to mind about Bart being midshipman, Homer refuse to participate in the ship's activities and instead, gets drunk of a flask of rum. When the captain snatches the rum of Homer, and reveals that he became a captain due to him being a recovering alcoholic, the captain gives into temptation and drinks the rum, becoming drunk with Homer. A huge storm begins, and Bart is left in charge of the ship due to the captain's intoxication. Homer refuses to accept Bart's authority until he pulls out a piece of broccoli, and finally eats it. The crew steer the boat to safety.

Meanwhile, Marge had to draft Homer's fantasy football team called "Somewhere Over the Dwayne Bowe" despite knowing nothing of the sport and horrifies him by choosing a roster made mostly of placekickers. Initially put off by the trash talking from Homer's friends, she and Lisa study football in detail and realize that a coming major storm event in the U.S. will lead to teams attempting and making record numbers of field goals, and thus her roster ends up piling up huge amount of point and defeating all challengers, proving as the narrator says that "fantasy football is mainly luck."

Production

Nick Offerman voiced the captain.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Parks and Recreation actor Nick Offerman revealed that he had been recommended for the voice of Captain Bowditch by Mike Scully, a writer on both The Simpsons and Parks and Recreation. Offerman never before thought that he would play a role on The Simpsons as "They’re writing parts for Paul McCartney", and was delighted to be cast as a sailor due to his interest in naval literature.^[1]

Reception

The episode received an audience of 4.27 million, the highest on Fox that night.^[2]

Dennis Perkins of The A.V. Club gave the episode a B-, calling the series' habit of relying on family-based plots "both an infinite resource and a curse". He wrote that "Bowditch doesn’t have much of a personality, and the antics on the ship are benignly ordinary...Apu, Ned, Cletus, and some assorted sons are along for the ride, but don’t contribute much, either." However, he praised the sub-plot due to Marge's reactions to a male-dominated game.^[3]

References