Pin Gal Happened...Shall We Talk About It? (aka I Think I Know Why The Dog Howls At The Moon)

Earlier this year, midway through March, a friend of mine sent me a text message. It simply read "Jacques is back". No further context was needed; it was now official. Oh my god, this was not a drill! The Simpsons was about to do the most earth-shattering thing they possibly could do, the one thing guaranteed to set my giddy heart awhirl and put it flat on the line in one fell swoop. It's not often that I talk about new Simpsons episodes just weeks after they air (or new Simpsons episodes, period), but episode OABF10 of Season 34 met certain requisites that made it impossible for me to ignore.

Jacques' triumphant return to the Home-Wrecking arena wasn't formally announced until about a week or so before the episode aired, but there were already distant rumblings on the horizon to indicate that the Brunch-meister was on his way. It had been brought to my attention that someone who'd attended the D23 Expo Simpsons panel in September had tweeted information that Albert Brooks (or A. Brooks, as he is traditionally credited on The Simpsons) would be reprising one of his Season 1 roles - words that immediately had something jumping in my shirt, since I figured that Jacques was a far more likely candidate than that RV-peddling cowboy from "Call of The Simpsons". Initially, I was inclined to take it all with a pinch of salt, but when I looked at the upcoming list of titles for Season 34, there was indeed an episode called "Pin Gal", making it a no-brainer which one it would be. What really clinched it for me, though, was noting that "Pin Gal" was set to air on March 19th, one day after the 33rd anniversary of "Life on The Fast Lane", and I couldn't fathom that being a total coincidence. So I'd had ample time to get myself psyched for the big day; by the point news outlets started reporting it, and I had people approaching me to specifically ask if I was aware that this was happening, it had become downright surreal. We were about to get properly intimate with Jacques again, a good 33 years after he first swept Marge off her feet and turned a disappointing birthday present into a prospective new awakening. He took his sweet time, but he was finally going to have a second shot at winning Marge over to his indelible charms. Attaboy, I knew you still had it in you.

Allow me to put that into perspective for you. In "Life on The Fast Lane", Marge was seen celebrating her 34th birthday. In the real world, just one year short of Marge's entire lifetime has elapsed between the respective air dates of "Life on The Fast Lane" and "Pin Gal". Now that is a scary and uncomfortable thought. Marge, Homer and Jacques, sprightly thirtysomethings in 1990, would all be pushing 70 if they'd aged in real time. And if you've been following this blog for more than a few years, then you should already know that I have a horse in this particular race, "Life on The Fast Lane" being my favourite Simpsons episode that doesn't involve Sideshow Bob, and Marge and Jacques being a pairing I ship with wild abandon. We take Brunch VERY seriously around these parts, and the arrival of a brand new episode where Marge and Jacques cross paths had the potential to shake things up quite explosively. Hells yes, my eyes were on it.

My relationship with modern day Simpsons can be described as, in general, fairly indifferent. I ceased to be a regular viewer some years ago, although I might catch the odd new episode here and there. I've long stopped advocating for the show's cancellation, because at this stage it seems downright futile to complain about such things. I'm aware that since Matt Selman has taken on showrunner duties (alongside veteran Al Jean, who's had the gig since Season 13), some viewers have reported a slight uptick in quality, and if people are enjoying those episodes with Selman's stamp on, then I'm honestly happy for them. It has, however, gotten to the point where I don't think I could catch up with the series even if I wanted to. There just aren't enough hours in the day. But I do still pay close attention to what's coming up for the series, chiefly because I'm always waiting for the next Sideshow Bob episode. Bring Bob back into the spotlight and it's guarantee I'll at least watch that. I need to keep an eye on my man Bob and how he's getting by in this cruel, crazy, beautiful world. My man Jacques, though? Did I entertain there being much of a prospect that he would ever come back? If you'd asked me that question 15 years ago, my answer would have been "Probably not". More recently, I'd found myself increasingly in two minds on the matter. On the one hand, if the show went on for long enough, then I figured there was a chance that they might want to revisit the character and his connection with Marge eventually. I'm not sure that any viable stone will be left unturned in the series' need to perpetuate itself, and besides, there was always something of a loose end in the way "Life on The Fast Lane" concluded - so much so that it seems odd that the series apparently never thought to capitalise upon it until now. But I suppose that takes me into the case against, which is that there was no precedent for Brooks reprising one of his prior roles in any substantial capacity (technically, he did return to voice Jacques in a previous episode, "The Heartbroke Kid" of Season 16, but there Jacques only said two words, to Bart - "Be careful!" - and wasn't involved in the plot, so I don't think it counts). I couldn't tell you if there was ever a reason for that, be it Brooks' personal preference to only voice original characters or if it had just been that way for so long that it came (whether rightly or wrongly) to be regarded as tradition (you've probably heard that Hank Scorpio was at one point in the running to be the antagonist of The Simpsons Movie, but I forget what the source was on that). And I gotta tell you, there is a part of me that's seriously chuffed that Jacques got to be the first of Brooks' characters to have that honor - particularly as I've always seen him (and "Life on The Fast Lane") as being kind of undervalued next to the extreme popularity of Scorpio. I'd often wondered how the series would handle a return from Jacques, and now I was about to find out. This is what I'd always wanted, right? Right?!

It admittedly didn't take long for my excitement to start giving way to trepidation. After all, I had been down this road before. Bringing back a beloved character isn't going to fix my issues with the show if it's just not vibing with me any more - I learned that the hard way in Season 12 when Bob returned from his four year hiatus with the godawful "Day of The Jackanapes", and left me a sadder, bitterer person as a result. Similarly, I got all excited when "Funeral For a Fiend" was announced, with the revelation that they would be bringing back Cecil Terwilliger from "Brother From Another Series", and then "Funeral For a Fiend" aired and was also pretty hopeless (although Cecil's contribution was by and far the best thing about it). And, in this case, the territory at risk of being trampled was so much more precious and delicate. I hold "Life on The Fast Lane" in such high, loving regard, and it has stood on its own for so many years, that revisiting it was frankly always going to be a dicey proposition. More to the point, "Life on The Fast Lane" is representative of The Simpsons at a very different juncture in its lifetime - it's a more down-to-earth, melancholic and understated version of The Simpsons that simply isn't there any more. It hasn't been there since "A Streetcar Named Marge" of Season 4, which was absolutely the last of its kind. The show has changed numerous times over in the interim, so it was a given that this episode would be very different in tone to "Life on The Fast Lane". I mean, Jacques had been divorced from that trajectory for so long, how would they even characterise him in a modern day episode? 

The more I thought about that specific question, the less I liked where my mind was leading me. The other Home-Wreckers' track records weren't exactly encouraging; when we caught up with Lurleen in "Papa Don't Leech", her fixation with Homer had only been taken to more outlandish heights. Moreover, there was already a worrying precedent involving another old admirer of Marge, who was similarly introduced in the show's early years before returning later on down the line, and whose ceaseless distress at missing his chance with Marge became pretty much his sole defining character trait. I refer, of course, to her high school sweetheart Artie Ziff. In Artie's case, there was a sliver of poeticism to it all - he'd gone on to become a highly successful businessman (for a time anyway), but felt unfulfilled because he didn't get the one thing he really wanted out of life - but it was handled in a crudely reductive way, with Artie being presented as ridiculously hung up on Marge to the point that it essentially broke his brain. That is how the show tends to characterise these old flames; whereas Homer and Marge get to move past whatever marital problems have been dogging them and be refreshed by the next episode, they just end up stuck on the same page, hoping to pick things up right where they left them when they next show up out of the blue, however much time might have elapsed within the real world and within the show's internal reality. Homer and Marge's union is so front and centre to the Simpsons universe that those characters who'd aspire to come between them seem to suffer what can only be described as cosmic retribution for their sins, damned to wallow in their reject status for all eternity. They're damaged goods, and by Jove do they wear it on their sleeves. There is a degree of poignancy to be had from that - Homer and Marge's marriage might endure, but not without leaving a few casualties along the way - but poignancy rarely seems to factor into it. By the time Artie came back into the fray with his half-decent proposal, it was more that nuance was no longer a currency The Simpsons dealt in - it sure as heck wasn't during the Mike Scully years, and when Al Jean replaced him as showrunner, he didn't do a lot to reverse that. Fact is, nuance had never really been one of his strong points, either. Fundamentally, he's always been more of a gag man, with rapid-fire references and exaggerated character flaws taking priority over subtlety and meaningful storytelling; in other words, the very antithesis of what made "Life on The Fast Lane" so great (I identified "A Streetcar Named Marge" was the last episode of its kind; it got in there right at the start of Season 4, just before Jean and Mike Reiss honed the signature style they would carry over into The Critic). If Jean was calling the shots on this episode, then I figured that, yeah, there was every chance that Jacques was going to come back with his mind pathologically warped as a result of his striking out with Marge; it's the kind of typically on-the-nose way of conveying that he still has unfinished business that would appeal to Jean's sensibilities. A good starting point, I supposed, might be to look up who was listed as the showrunner for this episode, Selman or Jean. Shit, it was Jean. Sorry Jacques, but I think you might be headed straight for the rocks with this one.

Let me be clear about this one thing - while I'm pretty upfront and unapologetic about my Marge/Jacques partialities, I harbor zero delusions of it ever happening. No matter how "Pin Gal" played out, Marge was obviously going to stick with her oaf husband, because the status quo and all. By re-involving himself in their lives, Jacques was blatantly setting himself up for another emotional bruising, and by standing in his corner, so was I. And that's okay - the thrill of shipping is, at the end of the day, in allowing your imagination to provide alternatives. The best I could reasonably do was to hope that the episode wouldn't be too hard on him. Did I think there was anything to be gained by bringing him back at all? While it does seem jarring for the characters to suddenly be picking at these particular scabs now, 33 years after the fact (seriously, why now? Why not 30 years ago, when it might have made sense?), there was always one aspect of "Life on The Fast Lane" that left me feeling a little dissatisfied, and which I have considered ripe for further exploration - namely, the total lack of closure given to Jacques at the end. I say that as someone who, on the whole, cannot say enough good things about "Life on The Fast Lane". It takes a difficult, adult-orientated subject and handles it in a sensitive and thoughtful manner. It passes no overt moral judgement on Marge for her attachment to Jacques (the one character who does lean toward doing that, Helen Lovejoy, is depicted as an insufferable busybody who likes to dig up dirt on her neighbours). Rather, its interests lie in planting the family in this potentially traumatic situation and observing how it affects them. It has a trust in understatement, and in subtle character interactions that goes beyond what you'd expect from most live action sitcoms of the time, let alone a silly cartoon about weird neon demons. The most explicit it ever gets on what's at stake is in Lisa's observation that, "Mom is racked with guilt because her marriage is failing." And yet there is a certain disingenuousness in how the episode concludes. The Officer and A Gentleman homage is a memorable, stirring and effective way of rounding off the episode, but it's also glib as hell, and it ignores the fact that poor Jacques is just left hanging at the end. It seems odd that he and Marge never have a formal goodbye. This was a matter of such concern to me that when, in 2020, veteran writer Jay Kogen did a Twitter Q&A session where he invited us to ask any questions we wanted about the first two seasons, I bit the bullet and asked if there was ever a version of "Life on The Fast Lane" in which Marge's relationship with Jacques had received closure. Evidently I didn't phrase my question very well, because Kogen initially thought I was asking if Marge and Jacques actually did the deed in earlier drafts, and I already knew what the answer to that would be ("I don't think we ever wrote a version where Marge slept with Jacques. She loves Homer. God knows why, but she does."). When it was clarified, his response was, "Oh. We might have written a goodbye scene at one point, but I honestly don't remember." Thanks anyway. The lack of closure made it a total mystery how Jacques would have taken being jilted by Marge, and this is something that "Pin Gal" had potential to pick up and finally bring clarity to. It was a prospect that, frankly, had my stomach in knots. Because an alternate perspective is that "Life on The Fast Lane" is actually extraordinarily kind to Jacques, in not showing anything of his hurt or humiliation (although obviously it's implied). "Pin Gal" probably wasn't going to let him off the hook that easily. All I could do was wring my fingers and wait for March 19th to roll around.

The plot of "Pin Gal" has it that the Bowlarama has fallen on hard times, and Terrence the hipster, a semi-recurring character voiced by Fred Armisen, wants to buy it and renovate it to get rid of the bowling (it's a funny coincidence that I happened to precede this write-up with a review of Robot & Frank, because this guy is basically Jake from that movie - it's Susan Sarandon's library all over again). Homer is devastated to be losing one of his favourite hang-outs, but a thread of hope emerges when Marge is revealed to be mysteriously proficient at bowling (hmm, I wonder why?), becoming something of a local sensation. Terrence is wowed enough by Marge's skill to agree to keep the bowling lanes intact if she can beat an opponent of his choosing (hmm, I wonder who?). Homer notices that Marge's mind seems to be on...other things, and decides to help her out by pairing her up with the most renowned bowling instructor in Springfield (hmm, I wonder who?). Things just escalate from there. Hearts are hurt. Jacques' heart is VERY hurt.

The GOOD news is that I didn't have anything approaching the same kind of visceral reaction to "Pin Gal" as I did either of those aforementioned Bob episodes. "Pin Gal" didn't completely and utterly piss me off, as "Day of The Jackanapes" did, nor did it strike me as as eye-rollingly witless as "Funeral For a Fiend". Al Jean did piss me off a little with some stuff he tweeted soon after the episode aired (we'll get to that), but he couldn't be expected to break the habit of a lifetime. "Pin Gal" was, for better or for worse, pretty much in line with how I expected Jacques' return to play out. The thing I had most anticipated might happen, and put right at the top of my bingo card - Jacques becoming Artie 2.0 - turned out to be 100% on the mark. More than anything, I was really just annoyed at how easily I was able to call that one. But there was nothing that happened in "Pin Gal" that I couldn't basically live with, nor were those events consequential enough to feel like they were actively defiling my memories of "Life on The Fast Lane". Is it a worthy follow-up to "Life on The Fast Lane"? Fuck no, but it never stood a chance.

First, let's acknowledge the way in which "Pin Gal" is highly favourable to me, and to my pro-Jacques sympathies - there isn't a lot in there that could be construed as such, but the episode did throw me one rather juicy bone, and I am going to latch onto that for all it's worth. As you know, in "Life on The Fast Lane" I had always wanted to give Jacques the benefit of the doubt, and to believe that he genuinely liked Marge; that her naivety, when it came to bowling, brunch and life in general, was greatly endearing to him, and he was enjoying the process of bringing this unhappy and repressed woman out of her shell ("Let it out Marge, laugh loud. Laugh out loud, you'll lose weight."). And wouldn't you know it, "Pin Gal" does uphold that perspective. Heck, if anything, it implies that Jacques had more emotional investment in their fling than did Marge, if not getting her really effed him up this badly. In the future, if anyone tries to convince me that Jacques was going to love Marge and leave her...nah, I can point to his sad, obsessive stalker shrine in this episode as confirmation that he did indeed form an attachment to her. He recognised Marge for the rare and special creature she truly is. It would, admittedly, be something of a self-own, in that it's still a sad, obsessive stalker shrine, and that Jacques coped with rejection in as flagrantly unhealthy a manner as he could have done. Look, it's backhanded, but it's validation all the same, and I'm grateful to "Pin Gal" for giving me this much, really I am. I just wish they'd done it in a way that had Jacques come off as a little less...mentally ill. Because that's basically how they opted to characterise him in the present day - as a man of dubious mental stability. Being stood up by Marge all those years ago clearly tore a screw from him, and you can practically hear that loose screw rattling around inside his brain in everything he says and does in "Pin Gal". He isn't the Jacques we knew back then. Remember how fierce he was in "Life on The Fast Lane"? All that swagger he positively oozed? All gone. He still has a lot to say for himself, but you can tell it's mostly bluster and that there's no actual confidence there. It's really very sad. At least he still has his job as a bowling instructor - but goddamnit, Marge, did you otherwise completely destroy this guy.

Don't get me wrong, though. Having Jacques back - even this damaged, more desperate version of Jacques - was, in itself, an absolute delight. As a presence, he's still so unique and charismatic, and it makes you contemplate what a massive oversight it was that they didn't try to bring him back years ago. A. Brooks has still got it. A master of ad lib, he never disappoints when he's on The Simpsons, and while he doesn't get anything quite as immediately immortal as his definition of brunch in "Life on The Fast Lane" (this time, Homer offers his own definition, and it's considerably less elegant), it's evident that he's still having a lot of fun with the character. There are some lovely moments in here involving Jacques. I hate to say it, though, but I don't think the episode is using Brooks' improvisations quite so proficiently as before - rather, it has a tendency to go overboard with it much of the time. Thinking back to some of those out-takes that were included as a bonus feature on the Season 1 DVD, I realised that Jacques did always have this potential, based on the nature of Brooks' improv, to come across as slightly unhinged, although "Life on The Fast Lane" wisely chose not to lean into it. They made Jacques as eccentric as he needed to be to convey his lively personality, but no more than that. A few years ago, when I transcribed the full out-take for Jacques' bathroom mirror pep talk, I actually titled it "Jacques' Demented Mirror Monologue", words that now feel like they've come back to haunt me. What's going on with Jacques' characterisation in this episode is, I think, actually two-fold, although it boils down to much the same thing, which is to say, the overall lack of nuance. Going overboard with Jacques' ramblings is a surefire way of making him seem creepier and crazier than he did in "Life on The Fast Lane". But it also points to the episode not getting a handle on the fact that less is more and milking a scene to the extent that it overstays its welcome. For example, there is a good line in "Pin Gal" where Jacques says: "If there's anything a Frenchman wants, more than a beautiful woman, it's to beat Americans at the game they love." This feels like it should be the joke in itself, except he goes off on some tangent about wine and snails (Jacques' Frenchness, which passed without explicit comment in "Life on The Fast Lane" - possibly because he was originally written as Scandinavian - is here the subject of quite a number of gags) and it just gets dragged out.

Anything else I really dug about "Pin Gal"? I'll give a tip of the hat to Kearney, who is apparently a man (boy?) after my own heart. Suddenly I have a fresh new respect for you, Kearney.

Now, there are a couple of elephants in the room with regard to this episode, and I'm going to address the first of those quickly and then move immediately on - yes, "Pin Gal" follows 33 years after "Life on The Fast Lane" and yes, the cast do all sound noticeably older. Jacques and Marge might not have aged, but Brooks and Kavner are both now in their 70s, and it's inevitable that their characters don't exude quite the same youthful energy as they did in 1990. They're still great, though! It seems that, in recent years, Kavner in particular has taken a lot of stick on social media for her vocals, and it's a discussion that frankly makes me uncomfortable. Voices change as you get older, there's not a lot that can be done about it, and I for one am prepared to make allowances. As Abe said, it'll happen to you. NEXT!

The second elephant is where it gets a whole lot more sticky and personal for me, and has to do with a continuity issue that, right after the episode aired, led to its own controversy on social media, one that I am far more sympathetic toward. Part of the conflict in "Pin Gal" hinges on the idea that Homer doesn't know about Marge's near-affair with Jacques, and assumes that she's just a bowling whizz by nature. Early on, Marge flat-out admits that "there's something I never told you about my past", words that sound oddly familiar, because it's awfully similar to what she'd previously said to Homer and the kids in "Another Simpsons Clip Show", right before telling them all about Jacques and the fact that she was only one ironic street away from fucking this guy. Yes, it was a little strange that she would talk so brazenly about this in front of them, and explicitly describe her fling with Jacques as her go-to example of ideal romance, but I certainly wasn't complaining (besides, that episode opened with Marge reading The Bridges of Madison County and commenting that she could really identify with its corn-fed heroine; if you know that story, then it makes perfect sense that she would be thinking of Jacques at the time). For the plot of "Pin Gal" to work, you have to disregard that Marge has already aired her full basket of dirty laundry with Jacques before the family. Personally, I wouldn't have gotten terribly worked up about this, because The Simpsons has never been that fastidious when it comes to following its own internal continuity, nor would it necessarily be the most gaping example of the show eviscerating said continuity (the problems caused by the series' floating timeline are, frankly, far more of a headache). But there was a faction of the fanbase that insisted on making a stink about it on Twitter, in response to which Al Jean tweeted something along the lines of "Yeah, it goes without saying that clip shows aren't canon."

Sir! I say, Sir!

I'll admit that Jean's words stung me a little, more so than anything in "Pin Gal" itself, because I'm a sick weirdo and I'm actually rather attached to "Another Simpsons Clip Show". In the past, I have put a lot of effort into examining the series' clip shows, and into defending that one in particular. I'm not sure I've convinced a single soul that the clip shows were a worthwhile endeavor, and I perfectly understand why so many fans have a knee-jerk aversion to their existence. Nevertheless, my reviews of "So It's Come To This: A Simpsons Clip Show" and "Another Simpsons Clip Show" are probably the two that I've felt the most satisfaction for having written, because I'd tried to come at them from a different angle to the usual and to consider the possibility that maybe, just maybe, there was a little more going on than other Simpsons blogs and fansites were giving them credit for. I might not have succeeded, but I felt that I was at least bringing something original to the table, and I had fun with that. I was well-prepared for "Pin Gal" to skin my heart and skin my knees as a Jacques devotee. As a clip show apologist? Hmm, I didn't see that one coming and it caught me off-guard. Fortunately, I'm not inclined to take Jean's word on the matter as definitive. It is, after all, an entirely self-serving assertion on his part, and I see no reason why "Another Simpsons Clip Show" shouldn't be regarded as canon. There is little that happens in the first two clip shows that couldn't conceivably happen within the series' regular reality (they handle the recollections in a deliberately contrived way, but they're not happening in an altogether different plane of existence, as the Halloween shows are). Honestly, I think Jean's assessment is rooted more in the fact that the clip shows have such a low reputation among fans and production staff that he doesn't see an issue with bulldozing over them for the sake of plot convenience elsewhere. Let me put it this way - as showrunner, does Jean have the right to make that call in terms of how he dictates the rules the series can follow going forward? Yes, absolutely he does. As a viewer, do I have the right to make my own judgements, and to interpret the show's internal continuity as it most makes sense to me? I would say so. Besides, it wouldn't be the first time I've disregarded a statement made by Jean specifically - he was the one who banged on that borderline offensive "No, Smithers is just BURNSsexual!" gong for years. There are a few areas in which Jean and I haven't seen eye-to-eye, so this is really just business as usual in the woods for me.

It's a moot point anyway, and I'll tell you why. Homer knew that Marge was on the brink of having an affair in "Life on The Fast Lane" itself. There, he never met the other man or learned anything specific about him, but it was a significant plot point that Homer was aware that there was another man, and that he was in serious danger of losing Marge. And he wasn't the only one. Lisa also knew, hence the anguish in her voice when she asks her mother, "Are you going bowling again tonight?" Bart possibly hadn't thought about the circumstances so deeply, but he recognised that something was badly off within the household dynamics. John Swartzwelder's script was built around what the characters wanted to say, but were never quite able to bring to the surface - in the end, it might even have been a whisker too smart and subtle for its own good, if it was really that easy to overlook that particular dimension. In that regard, Jeff Westbrook's script comes off as a little weaselly, since Homer's exact words are "I can't believe you've never taken a single lesson". Homer might not have known that Marge was specifically receiving lessons from a professional instructor, but he knew that she'd developed an interest in bowling, and that she was going to the Bowlarama night after night while he was stuck at home with the kids grew to be a matter of increasing concern to him. He later had tangible proof that it wasn't all in his imagination, when he found the bowling glove that Jacques had given Marge - the inscription "For Marge" made it painfully obvious that it was a gift from somebody else. A good chunk of the dramatic tension in "Life on The Fast Lane" comes from Homer knowing, but struggling to vocalise his knowing to Marge - after Jacques has driven her home and she's just agreed to go to brunch with him, Marge goes upstairs to find Homer already in bed, and there's a moment where Homer wants to say something, but immediately loses his nerve. Later, after he's found the glove and Marge has accepted Jacques' invitation to go have sex with him at his apartment, we have the moment where Homer tries, again, to speak to her, but can only express his feelings by complimenting her on her sandwich-making technique. Marge's startled pause and total silence during this sequence would indicate that she's picked up that Homer knows, and then to top it off we have the pointed way in which Homer says, "I don't believe in keeping feelings bottled up...goodbye, my wife", as he sets out the door. He then goes to the plant, sad because he thinks he's lost Marge, and laments to Lenny and Charlie that "She made [the sandwich]. It's all I have left." Noteworthy is that Homer doesn't get angry with Marge for her potential infidelity, because he realises that he's the one who's been pushing her away; when she later shows up at the plant, there's a sense of forgiveness on both sides. In my coverage of "Another Simpsons Clip Show", I actually called that episode out for its own continuity snag, in making it sound as if this was all news to Homer, when his eyes were clearly open to what was happening at the time. And the exact same applies here. Homer shouldn't be wallowing in such blissful ignorance as to Marge's shady history with the Bowlarama. Because he knew. In order for "Pin Gal" to work you have to disregard not only the events of "Another Simpsons Clip Show", but also a huge chunk of the original Jacques episode. Ain't gonna happen. Checkmate, Jean!

That aside, there is something distinctly undercooked about the conflict in "Pin Gal". Westbrook's script isn't as well-developed or cleverly structured as Swartzwelder's before it. Marge's internal conflict seems to be based on something of a Catch-22, in that she's bowling to help out Homer, but since it's Jacques who taught her how to bowl, embracing her prowess on the lane feels tantamount to embracing him, and by extension betraying Homer. I can see why that might make her uncomfortable, but the idea that this in itself represents a danger to their marriage (as Marge herself phrases it) is something of a stretch. Here, I didn't get the sense that Homer and Marge's marriage was ever in that much trouble. We are definitely not in DEFCON 1 in this episode. We're not in DEFCON 2 either. I doubt this would even qualify as DEFCON 3. When Jacques finally shows up, it's clear that Marge is entirely capable of resisting him (she can probably tell there's something wrong with him). Marge's concerns about having to train with Jacques certainly don't appear to be rooted in the fear that there's any prospect of her being swayed back to him (to my deepest chagrin) - more than anything, she just seems to be struggling with the squeamishness of it all, in being confronted by this guy who both actively reminds her of her near-infidelity and is disturbingly hung up on her, despite his insistences to the contrary. One of the richest things about "Life on The Fast Lane", the chemistry between Marge and Jacques, isn't quite so delectable here, chiefly because the two of them are coming at it from very different angles. Before, he was a suave allurer with a lot to teach, she was a shy homebody with a wad of untapped mettle. It was beautiful. Now, he's a mentally ill stalker, and she's a real cold fish. The circumstances aren't so hot, you know? The best thing to come out of their tête-à-tête is when Jacques gets to shed light on what happened that fateful day when she failed to show up for their scheduled liaison. Le moment de vérité, as he would say:

 

"Do you ever think of the night you almost came to me? I had showered four times! I shaved my face twice! I shaved my back once! I was ready for you, Marge. Later on in the evening, when doorbell rang, I closed my eyes, I opened the door and I kissed...unfortunately, I forgot I had ordered take-out. It was some 20-year-old kid holding a roast beef sandwich. Apparently he came out the next day."

 

Since Marge isn't so captivated by Jacques as he is in the present, the perceived crisis for her marriage seems to stem more from her guilt and her fear of how Homer might react if he finds out that she was once sorely tempted by this other man (despite him already knowing in "Life on The Fast Lane" itself, and Marge knowing that he knew). But for her to just now be pawing at that old cicatrix, 33 years after the damage was dealt, definitely plays out as more than a tad contrived. True, within the characters' internal universe, the timeline is a lot more nebulous than that (as signified by their general immunity to ageing), and in my coverage of "Another Simpsons Clip Show", I even noted that the events of "Life on The Fast Lane" (and all of the other Home-Wrecker episodes) wouldn't be something you'd expect to just walk away from scot-free with no lingering emotional fall-out. Nevertheless, the series has sat on this matter for 33 years and not once indicated that it's an issue that's been eating a terrible hole in Marge, so "Pin Gal" doesn't exactly sell me on this being the be-all end-all of her crisis. There are times when the script feels like it's deliberately playing on the viewer's perception of this all being ancient history, such as when Jacques asks Marge if Homer is still buying her bowling balls as presents. Marge seems irked that Jacques would even bring that up, responding "He apologised for that!" and I think the viewer is intended to share her stance that it is kind of petty and futile for Jacques to be taking potshots at Homer for something that happened decades ago. Jacques may be stuck on the same page, but everyone else has moved on, and Homer has done way, way worse things in the interim (wait till Jacques hears about the events of "Secrets of A Successful Marriage", which itself is only the tip of the iceberg). But I frankly feel the same way about Marge's internal conflict here. She's gotten on with her life and her marriage to Homer has endured a mind-boggling succession of additional challenges, so what is the point of her getting all upset out of the blue about this now? Other than to set the stage for Jacques' return?

The more interesting development has less to do with anything between Jacques and Marge than the fact that Homer and Jacques get to meet this time and to square off against each other (previously, Lurleen was the only Home-Wrecker who'd had the honor of getting to trade blows with her rival). In "Life on The Fast Lane", Jacques and Homer were each aware of the other's existence, but they practised their rivalry from a well-maintained distance. Seeing how they regarded one another in the flesh was something that intrigued me, particularly since it's the one area in "Pin Gal" in which Jacques does come across as a little sinister - he might have been doing a feeble job of disguising his feelings for Marge, but what he was able to keep in check, when he first showed up at the Simpsons' door*, was his disdain for Homer. He was very polite and friendly toward him to begin with, but it didn't take long for the veneer to start to peel. In "Life on The Fast Lane", Jacques only commented on Homer indirectly, by way of the bowling ball that had his name inscribed on it - he didn't say anything openly disparaging about Homer per se, since he'd never even met the man. Here, he's a lot more hectoring of him ("Clearly he must have changed his ways, huh? Improved? Lost a pound? Or twenty?"), which lacks the sly subtlety of Swartzwelder's approach, but I can buy the disparity since Jacques is presumably rattled by the fact that he lost Marge to Homer, who on the surface should have been an easy opponent. Adding an extra layer of peril to Jacques' twisted obsession with Marge is that it's visibly intertwined with this seething resentment toward Homer, exercised in those images he's obtained showing Marge and Homer together, where Homer has been aggressively crossed out with red ink. The way he's played on Homer's obliviousness carries a smidge more tension than his dealings with Marge - so much so that I wonder if this episode might have worked better if Jacques had tried a very different tactic and his interplay with Homer had been the main focus. When you think about it, there was really no need for "Pin Gal" to disregard the established continuity of "Life on The Fast Lane" or "Another Simpsons Clip Show" - what's important with those episodes is that, as far as Homer is concerned, Marge didn't actually sleep with this man, so there was no irrecoverable harm done to their union. But what if Jacques was able to plant the seed of doubt into Homer's mind that Marge wasn't being entirely honest with him? Darn it, Jacques, you were working this thing from the wrong end - you should have made Homer your target from the beginning, instead of trying to impress Marge with your filthy pronunciation of the term "garbage disposal". The most Jacques does on this front is to tell Homer he's as good as lost Marge - which is blatantly Jacques' delusions talking (we saw how his latest bowling lesson with Marge went down) and not something Homer should seriously feel threatened by.

The way the thread between Homer and Jacques builds is itself quite flimsy. Abe, of all characters, detects that there's something suspicious about Jacques' behaviour toward Marge (actually, he doesn't trust Jacques on principle because he wears a turtle-neck), and convinces Homer that the situation is none too kosher. They scour Jacques' social media profile and find evidence of his flirtatious nature. All that proves, however, is that there's a risk of Jacques flirting with Marge in the present - it isn't until Homer goes to Jacques' apartment (he still lives at the Fiesta Terrace) and uncovers the extent of Jacques' fixation on Marge specifically that he gets any inkling of the history between the two. It's a development that might have progressed a whole lot more convincingly if Homer had recalled the events of "Life on The Fast Lane" and connected the mental dots himself, instead of stumbling into it by basically happenstance. Homer opts to settle the matter as civilised men do, by challenging Jacques to a duel (no, he doesn't slap him with a bowling glove and demand satisfaction, but if you ask me they missed a trick in not doing so). Jacques accepts his challenge, and they fight using bowling balls instead of swords. Their altercation is daft, and about as far removed from the spirit of "Life on The Fast Lane" as you can get, but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't the highlight of the episode for me - the image of Jacques attempting to trepan Homer with a bowling ball drill is one that I'm happy to have. Eventually, Homer overpowers Jacques and demands to know how far he got with Marge (Jacques: "We had brunch...no hot food"). Marge then shows up and prevents Homer from bludgeoning Jacques with a bowling ball, assuring him that nothing happened between them. She asks if Homer remembers a time when he had disappointed her, and a joke is made of the fact that she could be referring to any one of a whole multitude of occasions (cue flashbacks to his saucy dance with Kashmir in "Homer's Night Out" and his ogling of Maude in "The War of The Simpsons", among others). Homer decides that if Marge is still with him after all of the emotional horror he's put her through over the years, then she must really love him, and he has nothing to fear from Jacques. But it's a crisis that was never really there; Homer's epiphany arrived too late for the episode to do much with it. "Pin Gal" also isn't interested in exploring why Marge would choose to be with Homer after all of this, and maybe that much is to its merit - "Secrets of A Successful Marriage", which attempted to supply a specific answer, was full of fail, after all. It's as Kogen told me: God knows why, but she does.

It's this "why" that's proved so distressing to Jacques, and the key factor in instigating his breakdown. Unlike Artie, who knows exactly what he did and had 20 years to think about it, Jacques presumably wouldn't understand where he went wrong with Marge. The fact is, he didn't do anything specific to alienate her - it was Homer's sandwich talk that first threw Marge off, before that ironic street caused her to lose her nerve. Jacques can't make sense of why Marge would reject him for Homer, and it's eaten more holes in him than the Swiss cheese he so disparages. There is one particular line in here that I think underlines the plight facing all of the Home-Wreckers (sans Kashmir) and Artie - when Jacques grudgingly tells Homer and Marge to, "Go ahead. Enjoy your endless bourgeois celebrations, and your birthdays, and your anniversaries, until you crumble into enviable bliss." He doesn't understand what they have, or how it holds them together, but he does envy it. As is intrinsic to the Home-Wreckers' mutual damnation - no matter how much they each have going for them, or what they could offer Homer or Marge that would logically make them the more ideal partner, Homer and Marge's union has a remarkable ability to rise above all logic, and it's a euphoria they know they'll never attain. Honestly, it's a pathetic existence that Jacques leads now, and I feel bad for him. His Facebook activity (ie: the image he chooses to publicly present of himself) would imply that he still likes to flirt with women, and maybe he even takes those lucky ladies out to brunch, hot food or no. But I'm going to hazard a guess that he doesn't actually invite them over to his apartment at the Fiesta Terrace. If he does, then he's sure as heck not going to score with them - any sensible woman would run a mile at the first sight of his scary-ass shrine to Marge.

Jacques isn't bowing out of this conflict that easily, though. We've still got the matter of that all-decisive bowling match to come, and does it really surprise you that Terrence's opponent of choice should end up being Jacques? All the same, I can't help but feel that this represents something of a conflict of interest for Jacques. Not because of his feelings for Marge - I can understand how beating her would bring him catharsis and some sense of retained mastery over her - but because if he wins, the Bowlarama gets rid of its lanes, and Jacques, what is it that you do for a living again? That's a point the episode never even raises - if the Bowlarama is struggling with its footfall then wouldn't Jacques' business also be suffering? Maybe there are other bowling alleys in Springfield where he's able to teach (like the two Frank Grimes supposedly lived between). In which case, why is saving the Bowlarama such a big deal? Couldn't Homer and friends just migrate there? Whatever. Marge and Jacques bowl a very close game, but Marge manages to beat Jacques narrowly, leaving Homer reassured that she is over him (again, it seems a spurious final wager, but maybe it's just my chagrin talking). Jacques laments that he wound up losing everything in this episode, right before he is arrested by Wiggum and threatened with deportation back to Paris - it transpires that Jacques was living in the US on an expired visa. Oh whoops. Ordinarily I would consider this to be a typically abrupt and mean-spirited Al Jean ending (and it is both of those things), but under the circumstances, I actually think this is the best possible outcome for Jacques. Being exiled to Paris isn't such a bad consolation prize, for all the reasons Jacques himself lists off, though understandably I'm sure he'd rather remain in Springfield where he can be close to Marge and continue to watch her through a camera. But given the state he's in, he would do well to put some distance between the two of them. Jacques, dude, you blatantly need therapy, and I'd wager that the mental health services in France are a lot better than anything you're going to find in Springfield. Besides, he'll be back (probably). I await the inevitable episode where Jacques and Artie team up to get rid of Homer, and then turn on each other, unless they're cool with a polyamorous relationship.

No, the really cruel part of the resolution comes in the epilogue, played over the credits, when Terrence agrees to preserve one of the bowling lanes and implement a three-week waiting list. In other words, he's barely keeping the bowling at all, making this trauma all for naught. You know, I don't think I like Terrence that much (it's hipsters like him who give the rest of us a bad name), and I sincerely hope that Molloy the cat burglar shows up at his abode one day with a robot sidekick and robs him of several priceless pieces of jewellery. As for "Pin Gal" itself, I don't begrudge that it exists; it answered one or two long-standing curiosities I had left over from its predecessor, and just to have that little extra time with Brooks reprising the role of Jacques made it all worthwhile. But it is an inferior sequel and I think I'll stick with "Life on The Fast Lane" (and "Another Simpsons Clip Show") for most of my Brunch feels. I can't see anybody writing to some high profile agony aunt about the events of this episode, or it winning any Emmys for that matter, although in both cases that remains to be seen.

But I still love Jacques with all of my heart and I like to believe that there is a parallel universe in which he and Marge did indeed end up happily together. I had already made peace with the fact that I'll Do Anything is the closest I'll get to seeing it.

*My most petty and thoroughly unreasonable nitpick of "Pin Gal" - I noticed that Jacques had on regular shoes when he called at the Simpsons' house. Isn't it a thing of his that he always wears bowling shoes, no matter what the terrain? Also, Sideshow Bob's picture was in the Bowlarama's gallery, which was cool and all...but why on earth was he holding Gerald and not Gino?