Summary Marge’s Stone Age scenes in The Simpsons season 35, episode 13 weren’t comedic, but surprisingly dark and dramatic.
Taking Marge’s internal world seriously heightened the stakes and made her anger feel justified in the episode.
The decision to cut back on gags in season 35 allowed for more impactful, introspective storylines in The Simpsons.
Warning: This article contains SPOILERS for The Simpsons season 35, episode 13
While The Simpsons season 35, episode 13 took a big stylistic risk with its animation shift, this gambit proved successful for the long-running series. The Simpsons has been around for longer than any other scripted television series, so it makes sense that the show feels a little tired and formulaic from time to time. The Simpsons season 36 might throw away the rule book when it comes to the show’s routine but, as of season 35, the series has a relatively reliable structure that most episodes follow. Despite this, some experimental efforts still snuck their way into the show.
In season 34, The Simpsons attempted its first full-length Treehouse of Horror episode with a twenty-one-minute parody of Stephen King’s IT. The same season featured a finale that took place entirely in the few seconds between Homer crashing his car and landing on the ground, a surreal odyssey whose lesson Homer promptly forgot in season 35. Season 35 has kept this trend alive with episode 2, “A Mid-Childhood Night’s Dream,“ which illustrated Marge’s internal world through trippy dream sequences. As if this weren’t enough, The Simpsons season 35, episode 13 “Clan of the Cave Mom,” took this approach even further.
The Simpsons Season 35 Episode 13’s Stone Age Scenes Aren’t Comedic
Flashes of Marge’s internal world were taken surprisingly seriously
Close
Large segments of “Clan of the Cave Mom” abandoned the typical visual aesthetic of The Simpsons in favor of a different animation style. After Marge viewed a 4D movie about the Stone Age, the episode used vignettes set in the era to bring Marge’s emotional landscape to life. When Luann Van Houten criticized Bart, Marge’s primal brain jumped into protective mode and visualized Luann as a snarling saber-toothed cat. Inspired by the novel Clan of Cave Bear and its movie adaptation, “Clan of the Cave Mom” drew some surprising comparisons between Marge’s plight and her prehistoric ancestors.
In a fascinating, risky decision, the episode’s interludes weren’t comedic in tone. The Simpsons season 35’s Marge-centric plot featured only two visual gags in the lengthy Stone Age scenes, and even these rare jokes were dark. One gag centered on how long it took a grunting Homer to die after he was impaled on a rock, while another saw Grampa hit with a pile of snow as he sacrificed his life to feed the Simpson children. These bleak, brutally dark jokes were few and far between, which made the Stone Age sequences feel authentically dramatic and compelling.
Why The Simpsons Needed To Take This Subplot Seriously
Treating Marge’s reveries as real events heightened the episode’s stakes
It was easier to see why Marge was overreacting to Luann when her internal world was so vividly, genuinely dark. If Marge’s Stone Age fantasies were full of constant gags like the episode’s main plot, then her reaction could have seemed excessive, and the plot would have lost its stakes. Instead, by taking the prehistoric scenes seriously, The Simpsons made Marge’s anger matter. The sheer number of jokes featured in The Simpsons can sometimes hamper the effectiveness of its more dramatic moments as Youtuber Super Eyepatch Wolf noted. Stripped-back episodes like season 33, episode 12, “Pixelated and Afraid” avoid this issue.
That outing saw Homer and Marge fend for themselves in the wilderness against a wolverine, much like season 35 episode 13 pitted Marge against a similarly formidable foe in her Stone Age storyline. In both cases, the stakes of the story were clear, since the series didn’t make light of Marge’s plight. Thus, when Marge careened through a set of traffic cones and hopped a security fence to get Bart into a concert in “Clan of the Cave Mom,” it was easy to see why she saw this as a life-or-death struggle. Inevitably, the episode’s ending saw her return to normal.
The Simpsons Season 35 Episode 13 Continues A Positive Series Trend
Cutting back on gags is a surprisingly good choice for the show
Close
The Simpsons doesn’t cram as many gags into season 35 as the show did into seasons 28–32, but this allows for better pacing and more introspective storylines. The Golden Age of The Simpsons was filled with constant gags, but the show’s humor typically came from its characters rather than zany background occurrences or random gags. In contrast, seasons 30-33 of The Simpsons failed to find the right balance between madcap cartoony mayhem and character-centric storylines. While season 35 has cut back on the sheer volume of jokes, this has opened up the show to plots that feel more impactful.
As a result, The Simpsons can get away with darker storylines like the Stone Age scenes of “Clan of the Cave Mom.” If these scenes featured a deluge of gags, the episode may have become overstuffed and its central drama wouldn’t have been compelling. However, by contrasting a dark subplot with a lighter, sillier story, The Simpsons managed to make Marge’s internal battle engaging while also offering a wild, unusual take on an otherwise familiar story. Viewers have seen Marge embroiled in fights with other mothers before, but never in the way that The Simpsons season 35 brought this plot to life.