Life on the Fast Lane
Homer, unaware that it is Marge's birthday, rushes out to buy her a present at the Springfield Mall. He finds a bowling ball and decides to buy it for her. During the night of her birthday dinner at Singing Sirloin, Marge is happy with the kids' presents of French perfume from Bart and a macaroni and glue card of her as the Mona Lisa from Lisa. However, she is deeply offended by Homer's gift as it is another demonstration of his thoughtless gift giving history, and her sisters, Patty and Selma sit by smugly. To make matters worse, as he presents his 'gift', it falls out of his hands and squashes Marge's birthday cake. Deeply resentful with Homer for ruining her birthday again, Marge reminds him that not only has she never gone bowling in her life, but the ball is also inscribed with his name on it.

Realizing that Homer only bought the ball so that he could use it himself, she is determined to learn how to bowl to spite him and heads to Barney's Bowl-a-Rama. But Marge has trouble how to until she meets a French bowling instructor named Jacques, who offers to give her lessons. Jacques proves to be a patient and charming instructor - the opposite of Homer in every way. When he asks about the name inscribed on her ball, she tells him that Homer is actually the ball's name, neglecting to mention that she is married. Homer is faintly aware that something is wrong, but is unsure what is happening. After having passed several bowling lessons, Jacques and Marge agree to meet each other for brunch.

Their brunch goes well until they run into Helen Lovejoy, who seems delighted to not find Marge with Homer. After deflecting Helen's interest by pretending to discuss bowling theory, Jacques asks Marge to meet him the next day away from the gossips of the world at his apartment, causing Marge to faint. In her dream, she imagines a romantic fantasy where she dances with Jacques in his luxurious, bowling-themed apartment. When she comes to, she accepts the invitation.

At home, Homer finds the personalized bowling glove given to Marge by Jacques and realizes he may be losing her. It is not long until Bart realizes that Lisa's suspicions are proving to be true about their parents drifting apart and offers Homer some advice in keeping his mouth shut so it does not get worse. At work the next day, he cannot bring himself to eat the sandwich she made for him, saying that it is all he has left of her. Marge leaves for her meeting with Jacques, but finds herself reminded of lifetime commitment throughout the drive. She comes to a fork in the road, one way leading to the nuclear plant, the other to Jacques' apartment. After an agonized hesitation at the crux of the decision, she surprises Homer at the plant and kisses him warmly. An ecstatic Homer abandons his work post to carry Marge away in his arms. His co-workers want to know what to tell the boss. To the sound of their cheers, he says to say that they are going to the backseat of his car and will not be back for ten minutes.

Homer Badman
Homer and Marge attend a candy convention and hire Ashley Grant, a feminist graduate student, to babysit Bart, Maggie and Lisa. At the convention, Homer outfits Marge with an oversized trenchcoat and is vigilant in smuggling out as much candy as possible in her pockets, including a rare gummy Venus de Milo.

That night, Homer searches for the gummy Venus amongst his smuggled goods, but is unable to find it. Marge reminds him to take Ashley home and Homer grudgingly obliges. As Ashley is exiting Homer's car, he sees the gummy Venus stuck to the backside of her jeans. Homer innocently grabs the candy, and Ashley turns around to see Homer drooling lustfully at the piece of candy. Misinterpreting his poor tact and drooling as a deliberate sexual advance, Ashley runs off screaming in terror while Homer gleefully eats the candy.

The next morning, an angry mob marches onto the Simpsons' lawn and claims that Homer sexually harassed Ashley. The crowd refuses to listen to Homer, who was trying to tell his side of the story. When Rock Bottom, a tabloid news show, asks to interview him about his predicament, he agrees in the hope that it will clear his name. However, the interview is heavily (and poorly) edited into a totally inaccurate segment where Homer is portrayed as a pervert. Things go from bad to worse as a media circus arrives at the Simpson home to provide 24-hour coverage of things such as Marge letting the cat out and the family watching TV; Fox even produces a TV movie, Homer S.: Portrait of an Ass-Grabber, starring Dennis Franz as a lascivious Homer. Lisa and Marge suggest Homer videotape himself telling his side of the story to air on a Public-access television cable TV, but all he succeeds at accomplishing is angering an old-time bicyclist. It was to appear Homer will most likely be guilty.

However, Groundskeeper Willie also saw Homer's speech, and arrives at the Simpson home with a video tape of what happened the night Homer took Ashley home. The tape clearly shows that Homer was grabbing the Gummy Venus, and upon seeing it, Ashley and the media apologize for labeling Homer a monster. Later on, the Simpson family is watching a "Rock Bottom" episode that labels Willie as a disgusting voyeur and Homer immediately declares that he is evil. Marge asks Homer if he learned anything from his experiences, to which Homer replies that he has not learned a thing. After the rest of the family leaves the room, Homer embraces the television and quietly says to it, "Let's never fight again.

I hope Homer Badman takes this whole tourney.

These are two amazing episodes. Life in the Fast Lane comes early enough in the series that you weren't tired out of "Marge and Homer's marriage is in trouble" storylines. Jacques is a transcendent character. And the final line of the episode is: "Tell him I'm going to the backseat of my car with the woman I love, and I won't be back for ten minutes!"

But I'm voting for Homer Badman. The two clips trag posted are phenomenal, and Homer is the right mix of doofus and oblivious here without being a jerk, ever. There's sort of sour taste in my mouth with the way MRAs have hijacked this episode, but it's still great.

MRAs?

Men's Rights Activists

I can barely even type it out without laughing and rolling my eyes.

Jesus.

Their point is usually that most accusations of rape/sexual harassment are misunderstanings and/or fabricated, as if Homer didn't do anything stupid or inappropriate in this episode.

The "under the sea" sequence is probably my favorite part of Homer Badman