My Fare Lady

"My Fare Lady" is the fourteenth episode of the twenty-sixth season of the American animated sitcom The Simpsons, and the 566th overall episode of the series. It aired on Fox on February 15, 2015.^[1]

Plot

After a parody of The Jetsons as a dream, Homer is awakened by Marge to drive the children to all their activities. In order to avoid to the task, Homer escapes to Moe's tavern to pretend he is too drunk to drive. Because of this, Marge is forced to drive the kids to their activities herself.

In the bar, Moe tells Homer, Lenny, and Carl that he received tickets from Sideshow Mel to a Laney Fontaine theater show. The guys encourage Moe to go, though he is worried about the safety of the bar while he is gone. To this, Homer agrees to act as bartender in Moe's place for the night. Homer, Lenny and Carl devise a plan to get money for the bar by having a ladies' night there, as it will attract men to buy beer. However, the scheme backfires as no man enters the bar, and to make matters worse, the women turn the bar upside down. After the show, Moe returns with Laney Fontaine to the bar where it is already destroyed. Laney leaves Moe and the guys apologize to Moe by offering him a job at the Nuclear Power Plant. Mr. Burns offers Moe a job as the janitor, though soon promotes him to supervisor of Sector 7G after he prevents the NRC from trying to shut down the Power Plant. Moe soon angers Homer and the guys when he acts like a "jerk" to them (doing his job), leading the three to disown him as their friend.

Meanwhile, after completing the task of driving the children to their activities, Marge comes across an employee, working for a social media transportation app (like Uber), who encourages her to join. Marge quickly agrees (hoping to use the earnings to buy an ice maker for the kitchen fridge), though also quickly acquires boredom from driving Springfield residents (such as Nelson, Groundskeeper Willie, Lenny, Dr. Nick, Gil, etc.). She also manages to attract hatred from taxi drivers. Whilst driving Moe to his tavern, Marge tells him to quit his job and she will quit hers. Once they arrive at the bar, the taxi drivers attempt to kill Marge only to be stopped by Moe who threatens to kill them all with the shotgun he keeps behind the bar.

Reception

The episode received an audience of 2.67 million, making it the most watched show on Fox that night.^[2] Dennis Perkins of The A.V. Club gave the episode a B, saying "Performance goes a long way on The Simpsons, the cast’s quarter-century relationship with their characters helping them flesh out a performance with shades no other show can call upon. “My Fare Lady,” while as unfocused as many later episodes and based partly around a forgettable pop fad, is nonetheless entertaining thanks largely to Hank Azaria’s performance as everyone’s favorite least-favorite barkeep, Moe."^[3]

Tress MacNeille's role in the episode was nominated for the Award for Outstanding Character Voice-Over Performance at the 67th Primetime Emmy Awards, one of three Simpsons actors to be nominated. It was her first nomination in the category.^[4]

References