As with many modern seasons ofThe Simpsons, season 36 has been a mixed bag. Fans who stopped watching the show a while ago are always keen to write it off, but the fact isThe Simpsons can still deliver top tier laughs, it justdoesn’t deliver them as consistentlyas it didduring the Golden Age of The Simpsons seasons 3-10. But really, can any show match that level?
One of the highlights of The Simpsons back then was its ability to pair up seemingly any characters and make magic with them. In that time, one of the most underrated duos was equally surly pairing of Abe Simpson and Moe Szyslak. Now season 36 is getting the band back together.
Abe And Moe Are One Of The Simpsons' Most Underrated Duos
Episode 19 of season 36, Abe League of Their Moe, sees Abe and Moe starring together for the first real time in a canon storyline. Their original team up came in season eight’s The Simpsons Spin-Off Showcase, an episode near the end of the season wherein we saw a glimpse of three fake Simpsons spin-offs designed to fill Fox’s schedule between Melrose Place, The X-Files, and of course, The Simpsons itself.
In that episode, Grampa Simpson “floated up to Heaven but got lost along the way” after a passing aeroplane slices off his angel wings. He lands back in Springfield where her haunts the Love Tester in Moe’s Tavern, becoming (as the fake spin-off was called) The Love-Matic-Grampa. He gives Moe dating advice and manages to set him up with a woman who enters the bar, but it ends in disaster. While not the last time we saw the characters interact, it is the last (and only) time they’ve been the stars of the story together, until now.
Things go wrong after Jimbo breaks the Love Tester after it calls him gay. It was a different time.
In the latest episode, Abe and Moe learn they are two of the biggest die-hards for the Isotopes, Springfield’s long-suffering baseball team. This bond helps their friendship grow, but after a superstar suddenly joins the team, a rift grows between them. Plot plot plot, laugh laugh laugh. You know, it’s a sitcom. With both characters extremely quick to fly off the handle, it’s a pairing that works so well it’s a wonder they haven’t done it more often.
Since their pairing in season eight, both characters have developed considerably. While still surly and lonely, we’ve seen a more tender side of Moe through his fatherly relationship with Maggie, and he also had a serious romantic arc with Maya. After the pair met online, they were about to be married, but Maya worried Moe would never fully respect her as a little person, owing more to Moe’s tendency to say the wrong thing rather than any true malice. However, in season 33 Maya returned and the pair did get engaged, though Maya is rarely shown on screen.
Grampa meanwhile had one of the show’s most heartfelt episodes ever, and certainlythe best narrative tale post Golden Age in Barthood, a non-canon flash forward depicting his death and Bart’s lifelong mourning. He’s also had an increasing number of plots in recent years as the show, with Abe League of Their Moe a continuation of that.
