Um, You Know They Died? Fairly Horribly?

So, Nick and I ended up eating dinner a little late, so we just turned The Simpsons on for the duration. I haven’t voluntarily watched The Simpsons in years, and this tends to make me not to want to watch it again.

This, it seems, was a Valentine’s Day special, with three, vaguely linked stories. This is something of a guess, since we came in halfway through the second story, a re-visioning of Lady and the Tramp with Homer and Marge as dogs.

But it was the last story that bothered me: Bart, compelled to choose a romantic story, selected Sid and Nancy.

I’ll say that again: Sid Vicious and Nancy Spurgeon.

In his version, heroin was replaced with illicit “chocolate”—so at one point, Sid (Nelson) and Nancy (Lisa) were cutting lines of chocolate milk.

By this point, Nick and I were staring open-mouthed at the television, while our neglected spoons slowly dripped soup into our laps.

But it was the end that made me write this entry.

Nancy, having made Sid quit The Sex Pistols, leads him to a career in a duo, where they dress in the archetypally “preppy” outfits of 1950s’ America. But this doesn’t work for the punk club they’re playing in, and they’re kicked out into the alley.

Never mind, says Nancy: why don’t we got back to the bedsit and get smashed (on chocolate)?

Sure, says Sid: after all, he loves her. And she loves him.

And they kiss in the alleyway, while Homer rains “confetti”—in the form of shredded rubbish from a wastepaper bin—down on them.

“Oh, sod off,” says Homer: “It’s Valentine’s Day.”

Um.

They died?

And it was fairly horrible?

In fact, it’s highly likely that he stabbed her to death, but doesn’t remember it because he was so heavily under the influence?

And then he died as well, after a heroin overdose?

I don’t know: I’d hate to think I was entirely humourless, but this? This seems just a little . . . off.

But then I have been rather cranky today.