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Duderocks5539
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The Simpsons: Uncut Femmes (2021)
An illogical Retcon that is just horrible, and even messed up
Wow, not what I was expecting for a Sarah Wiggum episode. The idea of giving her one is fantastic and that's perfectly fine, but the execution of it was absolutely absurd here, and even messed up if you dive into it more. First, they gave her a new voice provided by Celebrity actress Megan Mullaly, who sounds like Gayle from Bob's Burger's and not even trying to emulate Sarah's original nasally southern like voice done by regular cast member Pamela Hayden which is far more iconic and works better, despite Sarah being a side character Yes, she never got a whole lot of screen time or roles, but her lines and cameos, along with character traits from past episodes is enough evidence to show she is a more kind hearted soft person which is how her personality has been established all of which have been consistent all these years, she has characteristics that are a mix of Clancy and Ralph. Producer Matt Selman tried to justify in an interview that prior to this episode Sarah was a "blank slate" and "Had no personality", which is ironic as character traits are one of the key components of a person's personality, of which she like Ralph and Clancy, is sort of piggish and dimwitted, but is also sweet and naïve, and like Clancy, shows genuine love towards Ralph, along with Clancy as well. Secondly, they changed her design and made her slimmer and "sexier" which is also screwed up as that is Fatphobia and even sexist. And then they do one of these "Shock twist on a minor character in order to make the character interesting plot" of which comes out of nowhere and just doesn't work for the character at all. This is also the same show that cancelled Apu and recasted non white characters with non white VA's because it's not PC, yet apparently this is ok once you dive into it deeper.
She is a completely different person in this episode and not at all the same character. They made her from a sweet and lovable housewife like Marge and some other housewives' of Springfield with quirks of her husband and son, to an immature stereotypical fetish bait femme fatale who is just borderline unlikeable. The whole backstory of her being a criminal along with crime partners is just completely unnecessary and has no build up or any evidence of this in the past. None of this makes any sense to Sarah's already established consistent context, and all of this was just thrown together to try to make her be something and someone all for just attention, but especially in the way they did it on making her look sexy and giving her a "sexy" role is really the tipping point of where this is just gone way too far. If they really wanted to do an episode with Sarah, this episode would've been better off just being a heartfelt episode with Marge and Sarah bonding like how Homer and Clancy bonded in the episode Chief of Hearts, as well as Sarah being voiced by Pamela Hayden. Another thing to note too is that not only is Sarah a mess in this episode, but it makes poor Clancy look bad too and even more of an idiot then he already is due to his wife who is just like him basically using him, and it even makes Ralph look bad too. Talk about ripping lovable characters to shreds.
Here are some red flags and certain things in this episode that don't make any sense whatsoever:
1, at the beginning of the episode, Marge walks up to Sarah acting like they have never met before, and Marge also saying that she's Bart's mom. In past episodes, Marge and Sarah are seen together, ie "The Great Wife Hope" and "The Devil Wears Nada" Sarah is seen in small club gatherings with Marge and others, so they definitely know each other, Sarah definitely knows who Marge is, that Marge is Bart's mom, and knows who Bart is, so these are all consistent continuity. Plus with the other moms ditching her also doesn't make sense either because those other moms are also friends with Sarah as well, one of the lines at that part stuck with me. When Luann comments that she feels bad for anyone that has to stay with Sarah, Bernice comments "What is she looking for, a personality?" This line is particularly weird and makes no sense either because again, Bernice is also long time friends with Sarah as well, which is another thing that is consistent..
2, in the backstory sequence, in the part showing how Sarah and Clancy met is all retconned and changed up to go with the horrible plot line as well, which is also something that didn't need to be done as well since in the episode A Star Was Born Again Clancy was dancing with Sarah at a festival and he was telling her she was the most beautiful she's ever been since the time he fell in love with her to which she blushes and giggles while saying her catch phrase "Oh Clancy", and his excuse to fall in love with her was to plant crystal meth on her so she would notice him because he was too shy to say anything to her, so that way he could arrest her and then hook up with Sarah right there and then and fall and love with her despite being innocent, unless she also fell in love with him at the moment which I'm sure she did since both are a perfect match. She wasn't a drug addict either or did the crystal meth either implying that she is sober. This would be another way this episode should've been done, exploring that backstory in visual form of where Clancy planted evidence on her, say at a donut shop or something.
Sarah isn't even a drinker either, except in the mobile game which is non canon like all Simpsons games, but at least they did her personality right in all the games she's in, minus being a drinker in tapped out. But she took a swig of Whiskey in the beginning of the awful episode in question this whole review is talking about, before she went into the "who the F is this women" mode. But Clancy only planted drugs on her so he has an excuse to arrest her and fall in love despite her being innocent and not doing anything wrong which that moment alone was more charming and cute (especially when she blushed and giggled) then anything in this episode, despite A Star is Born Again was already made a few years after the show declined, but at least they didn't start ruining characters yet and doing stupid one off wacky plot lines like this. Also, if Clancy "arrested" her, Clancy was already a Police Officer, whereas in this episode during the backstory, Clancy is portrayed as being a security guard when he met Sarah, and Sarah was a robber and she is the one that fell in love with him while distracting him while picking open a safe behind him, That right there also changes up Clancy's backstory which has already been long established as well and no mention of him being a front desk security guard at a "pent house" when his early life and backstory was established, or even mentioning that's where he met his wife. None of this stuff during this part of the episode makes absolutely no sense and is unnecessary just like this whole episode is, nothing in the episode makes any sense period. The issue is that all of these elements have remained consistent, and that's what matters. Here they are basically not even acknowledging any of these things happened, and not even adding to it either.
All of that is clear enough to tell you this is a non canon throw away episode that won't have any elements or mention relating to Clancy being a pent house front desk security guard or Sarah being this "robber" both in the backstory and present of this plot, or them meeting like how they did here in any future episodes when they both appear again and or speak. Another thing too in this god awful episode is Sarah at one point says to Marge about Clancy after Marge asks her "You never told Clancy you were a criminal?" Sarah said "Let's just say he's always been better at planting evidence than finding it." which as well makes zero sense because that's how Clancy truly met her as I said above which is not shown or even mentioned here, basically by her saying that is implying how the real Sarah and Clancy actually met in the true universe of the show unlike her in this out of universe one off episode. And how could he have planted evidence and "arrested" her in order to fall in love with her if he supposedly was this security guard? Again, it makes no sense and they are trying to bring "in universe" elements in and try to add it to "out of universe" elements which they fail at miserably here because they know this isn't the true way they both met and that this isn't apart of Sarah's character, personality, and continuity, and even apart of Clancy's backstory prior to becoming a cop. Clancy met Sarah when he was already the chief of police and has been the same continuity since that was said back in the 2003 episode as mentioned above. The crew knows this plot and especially this part of the episode especially doesn't make sense, but why do it then and get a celebrity VA to voice Sarah when all of this stuff is thrown away once the episode ends and basically didn't exist once the next episode starts?
Another thing to point out is multiple times throughout the episode they say "Sarah Wiggum, who are you?" or like when Clancy says "She's just my little schmoop-a-doop, and that's all there is to her." Just to drill that point in your face. To anyone who likes this episode, please explain what is so good. "A background character was given an episode" or "The episode was AMAZING" isn't a logical reason why it was so good. People like me that say this episode is bad have logical explanations and points that make perfect sense. Plus this episode is repeating a similar storyline from the episode The Book Job with this Ocean's style heist BS. It still doesn't change the fact that its even messed up that they are also not even acknowledging Pamela Hayden's work as the character by Matt Selman also saying in the interview, "Lets find these invisible characters and what their voices are."