Original air date: 5/7/2006
Production code: HABF-13
Marge goes too far in cleaning the house and passes out after inhaling too many cleaning solvent fumes. When she wakes up in the hospital, she has amnesia, which is seemingly cured when she recognizes herself and her children through her quirks, but doesn't remember Homer at all.
Tropes that apply to the episode
- Amnesiac Lover: Marge gets amnesia but starts to recognize her family as her memories are triggered, finally leaving Homer as the only one she doesn't remember.
- Animation Bump: Homer moaning
◊, which has more in-betweens than usual for the show. - Call-Back: Homer punching George H. W. Bush in "Two Bad Neighbors".
- Comically Missing the Point: Marge desperately cleans her home to keep a cleaning lady from seeing how dirty her family is. This leads to her getting dizzy from toxic fumes, causing her to fall and hit her head, knocking her unconscious and causing her to develop amnesia.
- The Constant: Homer's alcoholism. Saying that he did was the only thing that made Marge remember him for good.
- "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: Homer is annoyed that he wasted so much time trying to get Marge to remember him when just mentioning beer would have done it.
- Darkest Hour: Marge forces Homer out of the house and breaks up with him.
- Easy Amnesia: Played both ways — Marge gets total amnesia that she was ever married with children from a bonk to the head, but the only thing she doesn't recovers within five minutes of this being said is her memory of loving Homer.
- The Favourite: Lisa claims to be Marge's favourite as a means of reminding her who she is.
- Halfway Plot Switch: The episode opens with Bart and Milhouse painting the house numbers of Evergreen Terrace on the sidewalk for money but not finishing the Simpsons' address because Homer didn't want to pay them. This leads to a case of mistaken identity wherein the Simpsons get the mail from a couple in one of the other houses. This leads to them getting a notice they "won a contest" and some maids will be visiting to clean their house for free. This leads to Marge frantically trying to clean the house to prevent gossip and getting amnesia because the fumes make her dizzy and cause her to fall and hit her head on a stool. This leads to 20 minutes of Homer trying (very badly) to regain her love because it was the only thing the amnesia totally erased.
- Imagine Spot: Marge has one with three Irish cleaning ladies gossiping about her family.
- Jerkass: The guy Marge dates from the service doesn't hesitate to dump her after being told she has amnesia and has three kids. Even when Homer rightly calls him out on it, he doesn't seem to care.
- Logical Latecomer: A more complicated example than usual "thanks" to Easy Amnesia, but when Homer tries to restart Marge's memory of him by describing some of his more outrageous (mis-)deeds like being an enemy of the Bush family, Marge's reaction is to be horrified.
- Noodle Incident: Homer punching George Bush, Jr (though Homer beating up George Bush, Sr. was well-documented, as seen on the season seven episode "Two Bad Neighbors").
- Obnoxious In-Laws: Patty and Selma exploit the fact that Marge has forgotten about Homer to make her meet other men in the hopes she will dump him for good.
- Spear Counterpart: Patty and Selma take Marge speed dating, where she meets a handsome bachelor who had his brothers similarly take him speed dating. Said brothers have curly hair and raspy voices, and frequently smoke cigars - they're essentially male versions of Patty and Selma. The two men are actually from a set of quintuplets, three of which had died. After Marge and the bachelor leave, the two men naturally try to set up dates with Patty and Selma, but fail.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Marge combining a bunch of cleaning chemicals with no gas mask inevitably causes her to breathe it in and knock her unconscious.
- Take That!: Homer's excuse for opening (and eating) other people's mail."All our mail's ever brought is bad things: bills, jury duty, Entertainment Weekly..."
- Whole-Plot Reference:
- To the film Regarding Henry.
- Marge strikes her head on a stool that's placed on its side and admits to feeling like she was hit by a boxer when she comes to.
