Recap / The Simpsons S 35 E 8 Ae Bonny Romance

Groundkeeper Willie is seemingly abducted, and the Simpsons go to Edinburgh to find him, but what they find isn't an abduction, but a wedding.

Full Recap

Coaches Krupt and Ms. Pommelhorst have a new unit of gym class; social dancing, which means boys and girls dancing together. The girls are uninterested, but the boys are scared of cooties. Bart has an idea to protect the boys from cooties, and dashes off to the nurse's office, and gets what he thinks are band-aids to block all direct skin contact with girls. But after everyone but Bart is covered, the boys find out those were not bandages, but nicotine patches. The boys go into a frenzy. After it's over, Skinner assumes Bart's actions were a prank, and gives him supermax detention with Groundkeeper Willie.

Homer and Marge are in bed, their eyes on their phones, with nothing to talk about except videos they've seen. Suddenly, Marge got an invitation to a destination wedding in the Poconos. Homer is displeased with the whole idea of destination weddings, and rants for days on end about them. However, his rant ends speaking of wasted airline miles, which just reminds Marge that they can use those miles to get to the wedding, which they are definitely going to.

Bart washes Willie's mop clean using a toothbrush, only for Willie to dunk it in "frog juice" and ordering Bart to clean it again. Bart is outraged, he didn't do anything wrong this time, he just didn't want to dance with girls. Willie hears this, and tells Bart to be a man and not to fall apart over some lassie, only to remember a lost love and fall apart, running out of the shack to caber toss a pillar of debris in order to push out these emotions. Bart wonders what that was about, and Willie tells him. Back in Scotland, Willie was in love with a woman named Maisie, and he thought she loved him back, only to get his heart broken, and that's why he came to America, to get away from the pain and forget about her. Willie throws a sink across the field of debris, and Bart gets into the rageful throwing. Willie and Bart become friends over destruction and havoc, because that's how guys express their emotions. They even make a TikTok account together. But as the days pass, Bart rolls up to Willie's shack, only to find him gone. Bart tries looking for him, only to find a drunken Homer in a ditch, still ranting about destination weddings. Then, he gets a video call from Willie, who has been kidnapped and taken back to Scotland. Bart pleads to his parents that they have to do something, but the only way they can go there is to sacrifice the destination wedding invitation and transfer the miles into a flight to Scotland. A sacrifice that Marge was willing to make, and that Homer was very willing to make.

The Simpsons are off to Scotland. After touching down, a brief search in Edinburgh leads to a building Bart recognizes from the video call, the MacWeldon Distillery. Bart calls for Willie inside, and after hearing his voice, Bart rushes inside to Willie's aid, only to find that Willie isn't in distress at all, he's getting married, and much to Marge's delight and Homer's horror, this is a destination wedding!

Bart is angry about being tricked like that, but that anger turns to disgust after seeing Willie and Maisie make out, and confusion because he thought Maisie betrayed Willie. The couple have a wedding slideshow that shows off some more of their backstory. Willie was working for Maisie's father, harvesting peat for his company's whiskey, and sniffing out the best peat bogs, and that's how they met. But her father and brothers didn't approve of them being together, so they made plans to elope, but she didn't show, because she was told Willie was eaten by a sheep. But thanks to Bart and Willie's TikToks, she found out he's still alive, and they reconnected, and Willie headed back to Scotland immediately. Her family welcomes Willie back, and her father can't wait to get his nose back to work. And Homer can't wait to leave, because one thing he hates about destination weddings has just begun, the weird hookups, seeing Superintendent Chalmers flirt with Lunchlady Dora.

Another item on the wedding itinerary is soon to begin, but Bart sees that Lisa is absent. Marge gives the excuse that Lisa doesn't have to do all this because Lisa isn't friends with Willie, so she's off to tour Edinburgh on her own. She becomes enamored with the Fringe festival, because of all the irony, self-awareness, and mediocre cleverness. Homer isn't pleased with such a packed schedule with so many hikes, and shouts his desire for "FREE TIME!" Marge, however, is enjoying this, and won't let Homer ruin this for her, putting those wasted frequent flier miles to waste.

One montage later, it's time for the rehearsal dinner, and Bart wants Lisa's opinion on something. Bart liked spending time with Willie, but now he's getting married to a woman whose family betrayed him, so what can he do? Lisa suggests that Bart should be happy for Willie, because Willie has never been happier. Meanwhile, Marge wants to hear more about the love story from Maisie. It's so romantic compared to how her marriage is at this moment. After seeing Homer fork over some cash for a New York-style pizza, a drunken Marge decides to make a toast. But this toast was mostly a rant about how the love is gone from her marriage, with the only thing they do together anymore being doomscrolling on social media and watching videos of an unlikely pair of animals getting along. Feeling betrayed, Homer storms off. Later, Willie thanks Bart for leading him and Maisie back to eachother, and because of this, he has a big role in the wedding. Leading the dance. Leading girls in dance. His eyes quiver at the thought of cooties, and Bart is outraged, because that goes against their male bonding earlier. He tosses the wedding cake out the window, and Maisie is dismayed. Willie is mad that his only American friend would ruin his wedding, and all Bart has to say is "Good!"

Marge wakes up in the morning hung over, and asks Homer for advice with a hangover, only to find he's not there, he's still outside, still mad. Meanwhile, the wedding is soon to begin, and an angry Bart says "Stupid Willie", but then he hears Maisie's father echo those words. Bart overhears Pa MacWeldon's plot to put Willie back to work, and after finding enough good peat, they can marry Maisie off to someone more respectable. Bart confronts them, but they give him a threat loaded with Scottish slang that Bart only understands through context. Pa MacWeldon and his sons grab Bart and lock him in a tower with a cribbage board and the gift bags.

The wedding begins, and Marge is still sad about the state of her own marriage, but then she gets a text from Homer. It's a video of a baby gorilla and a dolphin being friends. Seeing herself as the dolphin and Homer as the gorilla, she runs off to get Homer, because like those unlikely animal friend videos, they're together despite all the reasons they shouldn't be, despite how unlikely they are as a pair. Against the setting sun, they run to eachother and apologize about how they've acted. They embrace, Marge doesn't care anymore that their love story began on a mini-golf course. But Homer has an idea to consummate their love at the St. Andrews Golf Club, the world's best full-sized golf course. Marge likes this idea, and Homer calls out "FORE...play!"

Bart has to get to Willie, Maisie is only marrying him for his nose. Rummaging through the gift bags, Bart makes a rope out of tied-together sleep masks. Bart calls to stop the wedding, telling Willie that her family only brought Willie back to sniff out peat. Pa MacWeldon and Hamish don't deny it, he's just a nose to them, and they have to compete with the celebrity-owned alcohol companies somehow. But Maisie didn't know about this plot, she genuinely loves Willie, but he has trouble believing. She proves her love by headbutting Willie on the nose, breaking it. Willie knows she truly loves him by ruining his sense of smell, making him useless to the rest of the family, to the "awws" of the crowd and teaching Bart the true meaning of love. The episode ends with Maisie headbutting Willie over and over again, with the intent on giving him permanent anosmia.

The end credits show that Maisie ended up moving to Springfield, and Bart ended up dancing with the girls after all.

Tropes:

• Animal Motifs: Homer's ape motif pops up again, with the unlikely animal friendship video that convinces Marge to forgive him being a video of a dolphin and a baby gorilla, and Marge sees herself as the dolphin and Homer as the gorilla.
• Bait-and-Switch: When Willie disappears, Skinner says to Bart that Willie is probably drunk in a ditch on the outskirts of town. Bart finds someone there, but it's not Willie, but Homer.
• Bedsheet Ladder: Bart is locked inside a tower with all the wedding gift bags. He ties the commemorative sleep masks in the bags to climb out the window and warn Willie of the MacWeldons' plans.
• Both Sides Have a Point: At the episode's climax, Marge realizes that she and Homer just express their love in non-typical ways, rather than Homer just being terrible at romance. Homer admits he has been an ass about the trip.
• Brick Joke: Homer goes on a days-long rant against destination weddings. Some scenes later, Bart goes looking for Willie at a ditch in the outskirts and finds Homer, still ranting.
• Broken Echo: Homer shouts that after Marge complained about the lack of romance in their marriage, everyone at the wedding will think that "Homer Simpson is vanilla in the sack!", a phrase which echoes all over the Scottish Highlands until the final echo pipes up, "Bad at sex!"
• Call-Back: Marge mentions how she and Homer first met making out in a miniature golf course, as shown in Season Three's "I Married Marge."
• Celebrity Paradox: Karen Gillan and David Tennant, both Doctor Who regulars, guest star. Doctor Who has been referenced numerous times in previous episodes.
• Epic Fail: Springfield Elementary School has a sign that reads "Congradulations on Tenf Place in da State Spillink Bea!".
• Fourth Wall: Parodied when Lisa goes to a play titled The Fourth Wall, which has an actual fourth wall blocking the audience's view of the stage.
• Intergenerational Friendship: Bart bonds with Willie when Skinner forces him to do detention in the shack and he soon becomes Willie's Only Friend.
• Interspecies Friendship: Once again in a romantic rut, Homer and Marge have been spending a lot of their evenings together scrolling through their phones and sending each other viral videos about unlikely animal friendships, much to Marge's disappointment. However, during Willie's wedding when Homer sends her a video of a monkey riding on a dolphin, she immediately understands that he's referring to their own mismatched relationship.
  Marge: They shouldn't be together, but they are!
• Irony: Homer keeps Marge from going on a destination wedding by choosing to help Bart in going to Scotland to find a "kidnapped" Willie (just to excuse themselves from wasting money to the destination wedding they were invited to), only going for Willie ends up as another destination wedding, much to Homer's frustration and Marge's delight.
• Not Me This Time: Skinner assumes Bart gave the boys nicotine patches on purpose as a prank, but he actually mistook them for bandages to keep from touching girls. With Skinner's doubt and refusal to believe Bart's innocence owed in part to the amount of pranks in the past he did that were entirely his fault.
• Pun: Maisie refers to her and Willie meeting as a Peat Cute.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: The boys under the effects of the nicotine patches have red, glowing eyes, a sign they're about to frenzy.
• Red Herring: Maisie is not in her family's scheme to have Willie back just to exploit his peat-smelling skill and truly does love Willie, so much she used a strong Headbutt of Love on his nose to ruin his sense of smell (out of love) for it.
• Removing the Crucial Teammate: Maisie's family made whiskey using peat collected by Willie, who could sniff out the best peat for the recipe. They split Willie and Maisie up by telling Maisie that Willie had died, but losing him caused their whiskey to lose its edge. In the present, they're willing to let Willie marry Maisie to get his sense of smell back.
• Series Continuity Error: Lisa mentions eating a scotch egg (a boiled egg covered in sausage meat and breadcrumbs) despite being a vegetarian.
• Shout-Out:
  • Martin Prince's face upon finding out about the nicotine patches is a reference to a Vince McMahon meme.
  • After the Nicotine Patch incident, Skinner tells Bart that he "really wet the mogwai this time".
  • Willie calls America a "blighted land of Barbenheimering wrestling believers!"
  • The airline that sends the Simpsons to Scotland is named Planespotting Airlines.
  • Fed up with the hiking, Homer shouts "FREE TIME!" in a manner similar to Braveheart.
• Special Guest:
  • Karen Gillan as Maisie.
  • David Tennant as Pa MacWeldon.
  • Paul Higgins as Hamish and the star of "Ticket Booth".
  • Belle and Sebastian as themselves.
• Status Quo Is God: Subverted. By the end, Willie and Maisie are Happily Married, with Maisie moving into Willie's shack with him.
• Title Confusion: Sources aren't sure whether to capitalize the "ae" in the title. Ones that spell it as "AE" are probably assuming it's an acronym, when it's actually just "a" (i.e. "one") being pronounced with a Scottish accent.
• The Unreveal: We never find out who invited the family to the wedding in the Poconos.
• Use Your Head: To prove her love is true, Maisie gives Willie a literal Headbutt of Love and headbutts him right on the nose, ruining his sense of smell to prove to him that he's more than just a nose to her.
• Violent Glaswegian: Along with Willie, who is shown throwing debris to vent his frustrations, Maisie also shows her love for Willie by head butting him on the nose.