Four Great Women and a Manicure

"Four Great Women and a Manicure"
The Simpsons episode
File:LABF09.jpg
Episode no.	Season 20
Directed by	Raymond S. Persi
Written by	Valentina L. Garza
Original air date	May 10, 2009
Episode features
Couch gag	A French artist chisels the Simpsons out of a stone block, then turns the sculpture into a general statue.

"Four Great Women and a Manicure" is the twentieth episode of the twentieth season of The Simpsons. It aired on the Fox network in the United States on May 10, 2009. It is the first Simpsons episode in history that Bart makes no appearance, and the first episode to have four acts instead of the usual three. The episode tells four tales of famous women featuring Simpsons characters in various roles: Selma as Queen Elizabeth I, Lisa as Snow White, Marge as Lady Macbeth and Maggie as Howard Roark from Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead. Jodie Foster performs the voice of Maggie Roark. The title is a reference to the 1994 movie Four Weddings and a Funeral. The episode is the lowest-rated episode in terms of viewers in the show's history. It is the only episode in the history of the show where Bart Simpson is not seen or mentioned (not counting the opening credits).

Plot

Marge takes Lisa to a salon for her first manicure, and soon engage in a debate as to whether a woman can simultaneously be smart, powerful and beautiful.

Queen Elizabeth I

In the first tale, Marge tells the story of Queen Elizabeth, with Selma Bouvier playing Queen Elizabeth.

Various royal suitors wish to win the hand of Queen Elizabeth (Selma Bouvier), including a flamboyant King Julio of Spain (who looks like Homer's gay roommate Julio from "Three Gays of the Condo," "There's Something About Marrying," and "Homer and Lisa Exchange Cross Words"). The Queen rejects his advances, and King Julio vows revenge on England, summoning the Spanish Armada. Meanwhile, Sir Walter Raleigh (Homer), falls for Queen Elizabeth's Lady in Waiting (Marge). He leads a British naval offense against the Armada, defeating them by accidentally setting the lone British warship on fire, which then spreads to the entire Spanish fleet. Queen Elizabeth knights him, and then proclaims, "I don't need a man, for I have England."

Snow White

In the second tale, Lisa tells the story of Snow White, with herself as the title role.

Her version features the dwarves Crabby (Moe), Drunky (Barney), Hungry (Homer), Greedy (Mr. Burns), Lenny (Lenny), Kearney (Kearney) and Doc (...tor Hibbert) as the Blue-Haired Lawyer appears and tells her that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs has been copyrighted by the Walt Disney Corporation, and Lisa saves herself from being sued by changing the characters. When a wicked queen (Lindsey Naegle) learns from her magic HD television that Snow White is fairer than she, the queen dispatches her huntsman (Groundskeeper Willie) to murder the young maiden. Willie the huntsman cannot commit the deed of cutting out her heart, cutting out a pigs heart or cutting a heart out of construction paper, though, and Snow White runs away to the forest, seeking shelter in the dwarves' cottage. She keeps house for them while they work in the mines, but the wicked queen, disguised as an old woman, forces Snow White (physically) to eat a poisoned apple. She escapes the dwarves, only to be brutally lynched by an angry group of woodland animals. In Lisa's version, Snow White doesn't need a man to wake her, but is brought back to life by a female doctor.

Lady Macbeth

In the third tale, Marge relates a story of ruthless ambition, embodied by Lady Macbeth.

Lady Macbeth (Marge) is frustrated that Homer does not have the titular role in a Springfield production of Macbeth. She convinces him to murder the lead actor, Sideshow Mel. Homer follows her command and then assumes the role of Macbeth, but his acting receives unfavorable reviews. Furious, Marge orders him to continue his killing spree until he is the only actor left. While scrubbing the blood from her clothes, Marge is visited by the angry spirits of the actors she murdered and dies of a fright-induced heart attack. In Marge's memory, Homer performs a stirring soliloquy in an empty theater. Marge's ghost appears in the audience and raves that he finally gave a great performance. The joy is short-lived, however, when Homer kills himself after Marge urges him to appear in more Shakespearean plays.

Maggie Roark

In the final tale, Maggie is depicted as "Maggie Roark," representing Howard Roark from Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead.

Maggie's architectural brilliance is quashed by an oppressive pre-school teacher (Ellsworth Toohey) who encourages only conformity. She builds several famous landmarks (such as The Taj Mahal in India and The Bird's Nest in Beijing, China) out of blocks and other toys, all of which are destroyed by Toohey who disapproves of the superiority of her creations over those those of the other children. During a Parents' Day at Mediocri-Tots Day Care Center, Maggie dazzles everyone with her rendition of The Empire State Building and ends up on trial for expressing herself. During the trial, Maggie (voiced by Jodie Foster) defends herself by stating that the creative people of her time have never compromised their talent for the sake of others and neither will she. Years later, Maggie is shown as a successful architect who opens a daycare center dedicated to letting babies express themselves freely...

Ending

...but the rest of the story is interrupted when Marge stops Maggie from painting van Gogh's Starry Night on the nail salon wall.

Reception

This episode was watched by 5.16 million viewers, making it not only the least watched episode of the twentieth season, but also of all the show's history. It was, however, the second most watched show of the night on Fox.