"Homer Loves Mindy": Desire At A Distance In "The Last Temptation of Homer"

Keeping in the spirit of working through heady, philosophical topics through episodes of The Simpsons, I want to analyse the fifth episode of season nine, "The Last Temptation of Homer" through Lacanian desire. The character of Mindy Simmons, a new employee at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant (voiced by Michelle Pfeiffer), performs as such desire for Homer; threatening to disrupt his model nuclear family and his marriage with Marge. Since Lacan's writings on desire is quite a hefty topic and I envision this post to be on the shorter side, I want to look particularly at how Mindy, as the object of Homer's desire, exhibits Lacan's objet petit a.

Whilst the episode's B-Plot sees Bart transition from cool kid to bullied nerd because of some over-zealous private practitioners, the A-Plot of "The Last Temptation of Homer" launches from a safety mishap in the Nuclear Plant. This inciting incident, caused by a masculine disregard for safety protocol, characterises working at the plant as a sort of 'Men's Club'; setting the stage for Mindy Simmon's hiring and her intrusion on the masculine space. Homer, Lenny and Carl gather to lament their incoming castration, fearing that the arrival of a singular female worker will so totally disrupt their workplace atmosphere that certain masculine freedoms will be removed from them (be it taking off their pants, spitting on the floor or peeing in the water fountain). That male anxiety is soon abetted by her seamless integration into the workplace, but whilst the rest of his co-workers move on quick from this new element, Homer is smitten. For him, his encounter with Mindy is a moment of pure desire upon first sight and it is accompanied by humorous hallucinations.

"Hey, Homer, you're hallucinating again!" "Not a good sign."

The hallucinations (and later in the episode, dreams) are important to how the episode communicates Homer's desire for Mindy. It is within them that we see what the objet petit a is: an intangible, extra-natural quality that is the actual point of what we desire. Caviar, for example, is not desirable to us because of its intrinsic qualities, how it looks, how it smells, how it tastes, but is instead only desirable because of the multitudes of meanings that its physical form belies: if you eat caviar, you will have social status, you will be a connoisseur, a person of taste and so on. The objet petit a, though, is an entity that is permanently absent. In Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis, when discussing the Freudian character of the butcher's wife, who tells her husband that whilst she loves caviar, he must never buy it for her, Lacan wrote:

“You love mutton stew. You’re not sure you desire it. Take the experience of the beautiful butcher’s wife. She loves caviar, but she doesn’t want any. That’s why she desires it.” (1998: 249)

Importantly, the objet petit a does not actually exist. This is why when we finally attain what we desire it loses the metaphysical, theological quality, the objet petit a, which made what we desired desirable in the first place. Homer's hallucinations represent the fantastical excess of the objet petit a: his first feelings of desire towards Mindy are not grounded in material reality, but are rather concerned with such untraceable, intangible qualities.

"Ain't you never seen a naked chick riding a clam before?"

Later in the episode, an interjecting dream sequence depicts Homer's Guardian Angel (who takes the form of Colonel Klink from Hogan's Heroes) showing the difference between the world where he stays with Marge and the world where he instead pursues a relationship with Mindy. Rather than this being a undesirable world though, it is quite the opposite. Not only are Homer and Mindy together, rich and happy, but Marge is the President of the United States, and her "approval rate is soaring". Here we see Homer's unconscious fantasy, that his affair would not only bring him a selfish, short-term happiness, but long-term happiness for himself, Mindy and Marge. But it is a fantasy of which there must be no attempt at realisation. Homer's desire for Mindy is based on the idea that his life, and that lives around him, would improve. To bring that to reality would only expose his desire as a farce, as reality can never live up to the fantasy.

 "Think unsexy thoughts. Think unsexy thoughts."

One of the great strengths of this episode is how Mindy is never shown to be some kind of disruptive, evil woman, a seductress with the explicit aim of destroying the nuclear family; she's given a nice bit of humanity. Meanwhile Marge has very little presence in the episode and even in the dream sequence exposing her potential, alternate life as President, she's only heard from off-screen. Unlike an episode like "Colonel Homer" (S3E20), where a conflict between Homer/Marge is clearly apparent, the story here is not a story about how awful Homer's life is and how he needs an outlet to assuage his mid-life crisis, but rather a story that is concerned with those tumultuous, sudden moments of desire that simultaneously manage to feel essential to our being and completely alien from us.

In Lacan's formulation, the act of desire is not a desire for just one thing (be it a person, food or whatever item you may desire), but is always a desire for desire itself. It's a wholesome sight when Homer returns to Marge at the episode's end and the relief an audience feels is made all the more tangible by how close it seemed Homer had come to pursuing a life with Mindy, instead of persisting with his marriage. Yet, can we not say that this was actually the true calamity? In that, were he to pursue his relationship with Mindy, he would realise she lacks that objet petit a and would realise that his fantasy did not exist in reality. That he returned to Marge has meant that, whilst he ostensibly loves his wife, he has also liberated himself to fantasise about Mindy ad infinitum. In this sense, Homer doesn't want what he thinks he wants, rather he wants to sustain the very act of wanting. By returning to Marge, he frees himself up to desire and fantasise about Mindy with no fear of reprisal. That is, on one level, he no longer has to concern himself with the deterioration of his marriage because of Mindy, but, further, his decision to keep his object of desire at a distance means that he never has to worry about the destructive convergence of his fantasy and reality. By not committing adultery on that one night, Homer frees himself to wander, lust and cheat on Marge every night, in his dreams and unconscious fantasies.

As a final point, I'd look to the scene where Homer and Mindy are eating dinner together at a fancy, romantic Chinese restaurant called Madame Chao's. After dinner, Homer opens a fortune cookie, it read: "You will find happiness with a new love".

"Hey, we're out of these "New Love" cookies." "Well, open up the "Stick With Your Wife" barrel."

This is a notion that Lacan would reject. Rather, we find happiness within our very distance from the objects we believe will make us happy. Desire is a Sisyphean phenomenon where the actual attainment of what we desire is one of life's most morose experiences. That Homer rejects the cookie's advice is telling; we will not find happiness with a new love.


Lacan, J. (1998). The four fundamental concepts of psycho-analysis. London: Vintage.

Simpsonian Status Quo in "The Mysterious Voyage of Homer"

The status quo, and a story's return to it, is often lambasted as a curse. In serial storytelling, few things seem to aggravate a media literate audience than the knowledge that, after this episode or this comic book, the characters and story will reset to where they were before the story's most recent conflict. It's limited whole genres, like the superheroes who everyone knows will inevitably reset to their most popular version, blockbuster film franchises like Star Wars which couldn't move away from a status quo for fear of impacting merchandise sales and, most notably, it has limited television and the sitcom. The downfall of The Simpsons is often attributed to the second episode of season nine, "The Principal and the Pauper", citing that both its deviation from and return to status quo pushed the core fanbase too far. Yet, it is in the realm of television where we can also find the great storytelling potential of the status quo. Not merely a mechanism for ensuring a reliable, popular structure for an audience, the status quo can be used as an effective tool to further immerse audiences into a character's perspective.

And The Simpsons' greatest success in this field came only eight months before its presupposed downfall.

If someone was to bring up the ninth episode of The Simpsons' eighth season, "El Viaje Misterioso de Nuestro Jomer (The Mysterious Voyage of Homer)", you would expect the conversation to diverge into discussions of its psychedelic, hallucination sequence. With a Johnny Cash guest appearance (as a talking-coyote-cum-spirit-guide), it's certainly the headline attraction of the episode and the most memorable feature on initial viewing. Yet, the imagery is mostly either tame or derivative. Where I find the true appeal of the episode is in the emotionally resonant core that reassesses the Homer/Marge coupling and the success in this renegotiation relates directly to how the story deals with status quo.

The episode's story concerns Homer's disillusionment with Marge after a "Guatemalan Insanity Pepper" puts him face-to-face with the idea that his wife may not necessarily be his soulmate (expressed via space coyote). So Homer's search for a true soulmate is the story's emotional centre where, specifically, he searches for one who has a "profound mystical understanding" of his Real self. In Lacanian psychoanalysis, the conceptual Mirror Stage refers to the first time our infant selves see ourselves in the mirror and first understand ourselves as a whole individual. From there, we are caught perpetually distressed by the dissonance between the Imaginary self we outwardly portray and our unintelligible Real self. This is the conflict facing Homer, when he realises that Marge actually has no "profound mystical understanding" of him. If Marge doesn't understand him, then no one can and suddenly Homer is faced with bitter reality- that we are all fundamentally alone.

The early tensions of the episode are drawn from the status quo itself; Homer's reliance on beer is established as having previously embarrassed Marge and any semi-regular watcher of the show can attest to this. A flashback is included, but is wholly unnecessary; Homer the drunk is well known to us. There is no new rift put between them, only the exacerbation of this established one. When Marge allows Homer to go to the fateful Chilli Cook-Off, it is under the condition of him promising not to drink any beer. He sees this through, though not without challenge, to find Marge angry with him regardless. Unfortunately for him, misunderstanding's abound and Marge believed his Insanity Pepper trip to have been the result of drinking. To Marge, Homer has broken his promise. The audience is privy to this extra layer of misunderstanding, so when Marge tells her children why Homer isn't leaving the cook-off with the rest of the family, "Your father decided he'd prefer to come home in a taxi... Or a police car.", it particularly grates. 

Post-pepper Homer returns home and, now believing that he can't find it in Marge (his argument with her and their difference in record collections cement his doubts), begins his search for a soulmate elsewhere. This categorically fails. For a moment, his saviour seems to lie in the lonely lighthouse keeper "EARL". EARL, of course, turns out to be the Electronic Automatic Robotic Lighthouse, a machine no more capable of "profound mystical understanding" than any human being. So Homer is caught in an untenable, but ultimately relatable situation, finally exposed to the true loneliness of our individual selves and, for a moment, seems to understand that he truly cannot be known by anyone. Marge turns up, just in time, to prove herself as the soulmate after all and to assuage Homer's (and our own) fears.

Johnny Cash's most significant mark on popular culture: Homer's Space Coyote.

It's an enchanting moment, as Marge shows that she does in fact "know" Homer, by listing off the "important" things she knows about him. But, what, then, constitutes the "important" things? Marge refers to her knowledge of Homer's opinion on public transport, his preference to walking downhill and his love of blinking lights. More so than a profound knowledge of Homer's real self, Marge professes an understanding of his idiosyncrasies. Can we not say that the "important" things Marge remembers about Homer in the story's finale are really no more (or less) valuable than the "unimportant" ones Homer encounters earlier on? The distinction is drawn between Homer's taste in records and his love for blinking lights, but I'd say there's little functionary difference between them.

One of the truly haunting moments of Homer's pepper-induced hallucination, a reinforcement of the rift Homer is now feeling between himself and his supposed "soulmate". 

So, after an episode's worth of conflict and separation, Homer and Marge reunite. We return to the same Simpson family status quo at the end of "The Mysterious Voyage of Homer" as we do in "The Principal and the Pauper", but instead of aggravating the audience, this time the return moves us. We are grateful to return to the status quo. The episode's ending has been lambasted for its melodrama (and it's not wholly innocent from this), but it would be wrong to say that the emotion we feel at the episode's climax is manufactured or artificial. It's moving to watch Homer realise that Marge has some deep, transcendental knowledge of his true self, and it's moving because it is the fantasy which we all desire: the fantasy that someone can and will finally know us. More than that, it's an ode to the lives we already lead; the status quo of our own lives. Homer finds sanctity, clarity and fulfilment within the same family model that he was disillusioned with. Perhaps we are meant to do the same.

On one level then, Homer's return to the status quo is so easy to root for because of our own anxieties around our unknowable selves. We want to see Homer find his soulmate because it promises us that we also are capable of meeting someone with a "profound mystical understanding" of our Real selves. But, on another level, we can say that the resolution is so affecting because it not only reveals that the little, "skin-deep" differences are of no impediment to a successful relationship, but our lacking of the ability to understand each other is of no impediment either. And that, I believe, is the lesson to be taken from realising the loneliness of our individual selves. I cannot truly understand my Real self and, therefore, cannot expect any other individual to see through the Imaginary self I project and into my own reality.

Throughout this story, we are faced with our knowledge that Homer must return to Marge. The structure must be obeyed, the status quo must be restored. So the conflict of the story is directly concerned with this inevitable return to status quo and the tensions found within that. Why should Homer abet the return to his status quo if his world view, not only that Marge isn't his soulmate but that his true self is totally unknowable, has been flipped on its head? The inevitable return to status quo is on the minds of both audience and character and I think it is telling that an episode so concerned with status quo is also an episode concerned with married life.

It is worth noting that this usage of the status quo as an exploration of married life is not unique to this episode, it is seen in other lauded The Simpsons' stories, such as "The Last Temptation of Homer" (S5E09) and "Secrets of a Successful Marriage" (S5E22), but none quite reach the heights of Mysterious Voyage. That they don't tackle the fundamental rift between our selves and the unknowable nature of others is my suggestion as to why.

Perhaps we can argue that all further relationship problems Marge and Homer have in the series stems from the fact that they have never reconciled with this. They are perhaps doomed to an eternal cycle of believing and disavowing in their own profound, transcendental romance, until such a point where they break that cycle and declare that they can never be known in the way they desire (and change their behaviour because of it). But this matters little to how this particular episode's ending is so successful. We believe in the fantasy. We believe Marge can know Homer. Because we believe this, we can return to the status quo: a status quo treated with optimism and reverence. Here the status quo is left with no scratch or change, instead explored and addressed. Where status quo often creeps up like a phantom in a stories final moments to rob it of agency, "The Mysterious Voyage of Homer" allows the status quo its own narrative role and, in doing so, crafts a stronger episode.


That all being said, the episode does end with the Short-Shorts Song, so maybe I'm just overthinking it a bit.

Lester and Eliza: The Simpsons' Demented, Derivative Double

In the eighteenth episode of The Simpsons' classic seventh season, "The Day The Violence Died", we are introduced to one of the show's most sinister creations- the doppelgänger siblings Lester and Eliza. Unlike the horror-movie pastiches from the show's "Treehouse of Horror" Halloween specials, Lester and Eliza turn up at the end of an otherwise normal episode of the show. Rendered in reference to the early versions of Bart and Lisa Simpson from The Tracey Ullman Show, Lester and Eliza made a strong impact in spite of minimal screen time, yet it is how they make themselves known that reveals to us the true nature of their distinctly uncomfortable presence.

The Simpson family as they appeared on The Tracey Ullman Show. On the right we have Lisa and Bart, the inspirations for Eliza and Lester.

So, why do Lester and Eliza consistently find themselves at the top of fan's lists of most unsettling Simpsons moments? Why are these two siblings capable of instilling so much fear? On the textual level, these characters tap into a perennial fear of an identical other. Our doubles, who may at any given time, appropriate and remove our senses of identity, remind us of the Lacanian mirror stage; we feel a perpetual disassociation between our true selves and the bodies which we show to the outside world. The conceptual doppelgänger is frightening for this very reason, it highlights not only the disparity between the imaginary and the real but also our anxieties around others not being to perceive our true selves.

The episode's narrative concerns itself with Bart finding the homeless original creator of Itchy, Chester J. Lampwick, from the violently popular Itchy and Scratchy cartoons. Having had his work stolen from him by an untalented artist, yet savvy businessman, Lampwick fell into poverty and would never see any royalties or accreditation for his creation. Inadvertently, Bart's mission to find justice for Lampwick leads to the bankruptcy of the Itchy and Scratchy studios. Bart and Lisa attempt to get their beloved cartoon back on the air, finally coming up with a plan and rushing off towards the studio. The sinister siblings get there first and, by taking Bart and Lisa's narrative role as conflict resolvers, Lester and Eliza already imprint a disconcerting presence. It is worth noting that immediately before the appearance of Lester and Eliza, Marge Simpson reaffirms and recounts all the times Bart and Lisa resolved conflicts such as the one featured in this episode. It is presented as a mother motivating her children to succeed in their task at a moment of weakness, but it also serves the purpose of reacquainting an audience with the format of previous stories. There's really no reason not to think that Bart and Lisa will save the day once again. Yet, as we know, they didn't.

Lester and Eliza, resembling Bart and Lisa, resolve the episode's conflict.

In true Simpsons fashion, Lester and Eliza have solved, alongside the A-Plot of saving Itchy and Scratchy, a B-Plot of Apu's public nudity case/Krusty the Clown's estranged wife. We can imagine an alternate episode that exists within this one, where Lester and Eliza's inciting incident occurs at the cancellation of Itchy and Scratchy, telling its own story to the same resolution. Likewise, we can imagine Lester and Eliza experiencing a similar shock to that which faces Bart and Lisa at the end of this episode, only this shock happening on a far more regular basis, whenever Bart and Lisa's adventures are made public. There may then be an element of personal revenge to Lester and Eliza's appearance. These siblings, who only exist in relation to Bart and Lisa, are faced with the same fear of the double, only their doppelgängers are paraded around town as local celebrities. But what I find more interesting is the notion that Lester and Eliza are not so much characters as they are arbiters, particularly arbiters of punishment.

So, beyond merely the fearsome nature of the characters within their relation to the Simpsons and Springfield, there is a metatextual element that has made Lester and Eliza ring through the audience's mind. It is no coincidence that the designs for these doppelgängers so closely resemble Bart and Lisa's former selves, they tie into the stories themes of authorial ownership and originality. Lester and Eliza arrive to exact punishment on Bart and Lisa- the original versions seeking vengeance on the derivative. With the episode's earlier acknowledgment of Chief Wiggum's derivative status (his voice being an impression of Edward G. Robinson's), the show briefly dips into metacommentary. Bart and Lisa have no right to fight on the side of Lampwick, or originality, as they themselves are insipid repetitions. They are not allowed to succeed, with the conclusion delivering the punishment for their hubris.

The final disconcerting shot of Lester passing by, meeting eyes with Bart, is reinforced by a mind-boggling geography; Bart cannot be looking at Lester, from everything we know about the layout of the Simpson house, yet, look he does. Through the final moments of this episode, Lester and Eliza are repeatedly presented to us as something deeply, profoundly wrong. The distortion of the Simpson house is perhaps the most aesthetically clear realisation of this theme, alongside the Tracey Ullman-esque designs, but the distortion of episode normality, where the audience is prevented from ever actually finding out what Lisa and Bart's resolution to the conflict, is arguably just as significant aspect. Foiling their plan ensures the audience never get the payoff of finding out what their plan to save Itchy and Scratchy actually was, meaning that the episode ends on a dejected whimper, rather than any triumphant victory.

Bart looks out of the rear-house window to see Lester in the view of the front-house window.

Bart ends the episode with a comment on how unsettling it is that he and Lisa weren't the ones to solve the conflict. Here he speaks for an audience who are, for a change, suddenly challenged and made uneasy by The Simpsons. Lester and Eliza's fearsome nature, in their minuscule time on screen, is played up, so as to exist properly as arbiters of punishment. Not satisfied with merely stealing the joy of victory from Bart and Lisa, the arbiters of punishment go so far as to steal their individual identities and the natural order of their world. 

"The Day The Violence Died" is a deeply affecting, profound episode, even if all the elements which make it so only occur within the final minutes of the story. It taps into something primal and existential. Bart and Lisa would, of course, go on to have more adventures, paying this experience no heed, but the visceral, lasting effect this throwaway gag has had is worthy of note.