Frustrated with the local government, Marge decides to run for mayor, and to win public support, she begins making Homer the butt of her jokes.
Tropes:
- Awful Wedded Life: Turns out being the mayor had made Quimby's wedded life such a pain in the neck that he resorted to constantly cheating on his wife multiple times. Not being the mayor actually mended their marriage. Marge being the new mayor, her wedded life goes to crap because she makes fun of Homer.
- Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Upon being voted out, Mayor Quimby rekindles his romance with his long-suffering wife, realizing that he still loves her and that it was only the stress of being mayor that lead to his constant philandering.
- Back for the Dead: Sebastian Cobb, the scientist who helped Marge back in "Marge vs. the Monorail", returns saying that "I Warned You about keeping that monorail!" gag before being run over by said derelict monorail.
- Call-Back:
- The episode starts with Mayor Quimby trying to turn the monorail tracks into something useful for the town.
- The title is a reference to the song "The Old Gray Mare Ain't What She Used To Be", which was sung by a crazy homeless man in "Krusty Gets Kancelled" (an act that, ironically, made him a TV celebrity).
- Digging Yourself Deeper: Marge’s attempts to reason with the guy stopping her from demolishing the tire fire only brings up his traumatising experience in Vietnam.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: When Marge tells Homer her position as Mayor of Springfield doesn't place them above the law, he assumes she's saying it because her office is bugged.
- Evil Is Petty: The constant humiliation that has Marge in danger of being impeached started by Helen Lovejoy calling her useless in a town hall meeting... because someone (revealed instantly to be her in an inner monologue of her husband Tim) brought a lousy cake to a cake sale and she's putting the blame on Marge.
- Happy Ending Override: "Marge vs. the Monorail" ended with the runaway monorail successfully stopped before anything serious can happen. This episode opens with the abandoned monorail reactivating and causing devastation in Springfield.
- Honor Before Reason: Marge decides to stop mocking Homer and the citizens turn against her. It's revealed she got impeached, leaving the town back in the hands of a dangerous jerk like Quimby. Not that there was much "reason" — the danger of being impeached was dangling over her head thanks to Helen Lovejoy and a very fickle audience anyway.
- I Resemble That Remark!: After Marge roasts Homer at a show with Krusty, Krusty points out they're all here to support whales. Homer stupidly believes he was talking about him and defends himself by saying he's not a whale despite having harpoon scars. Cue a harpoon suddenly hitting him and making him flop around like a whale.
- Kick the Dog:
- In case you don't like the Monorail (and Quimby's stupidity as a result), its runaway rampage ends by flattening a statue of Leonard Nimoy (which was dedicated to his role helping in the first monorail crisis, ironically). Quimby also spends his whole time deflecting Marge's questions afterwards by being a sexist jerk.
- Helen Lovejoy calls for Marge's impeachment because of a lousy cake sale that is her fault.
- My Significance Sense Is Tingling: As we've seen several times, Homer can tell when someone says something that would cue his "Mmm" Catchphrase, and bothers to call up Marge just to utter it when she mentions a pie chart.
- Never Recycle a Building: The events of the episode happen because of an aversion: the creation of a skywalk complete with gardens and an amusement park on the abandoned rails of the Springfield Monorail. The drama that then ensues is because nobody thought of getting rid of the train.note
- Noodle Incident: Marge eventually was impeached under disgraceful circumstances that we never find out.
- Nominal Importance: Two Mayoral candidates make a brief appearance before it's announced they didn't get enough votes at surveys to qualify for the debate. Their names aren't revealed to the viewers.
- Shout-Out: The title is an allusion to folk song "The Old Gray Mare".
- Small Role, Big Impact: If not for the man who prevented Marge from fulfilling her promise regarding the Springfield Fire Tire, she wouldn't need to humiliate Homer to retain public support.
- Status Quo Is God: The main story ends with Marge still mayor even after she stops mocking Homer and a Time Skip shows that she did many important things as mayor later on, but she was still impeached and Quimby regained his position as Mayor of Springfield.
- The World's Expert (on Getting Killed): Sebastian Cobb, the scientist who helped with the chaos of the original runaway Springfield monorail, reappears for a few seconds yelling that he warned about keeping the damn thing unscrapped before being run over by the runaway monorail and killed.
