How often have you thought about Jacques, the four-fingered Lothario tried to steal Marge’s heart?
The French seducer was a memorable character in the season one episode “Life on the Fast Lane” and he’s just made his comeback – 33 years since he last had a line on the long-running show.
Jacques was one the many one-off characters who have tried to detour either Homer or Marge away from their marriage vows, but the couple always found their way back to one another, spurning the advances of an interloper.
In the 1990 episode, Jacques was a bowling instructor who became besotted with Marge, who had taken up the sport to spite Homer after his selfish choice to gift her a bowling ball (with his name engraved on it) on her birthday.
Resentful at her loutish husband, Marge is tempted by the attentions of someone new – but ultimately chooses Homer.
In “Pin Gal”, which aired over the weekend Jacques returns to coach Marge for a bowling tournament. And actor Albert Brooks even comes back to voice the character.
But it’s not his one-time unethical pursuit of a married woman that has fans miffed, it’s that there was a glaring plot hole in the middle of Jacques’ return.
Fans on social media pointed out that in the new episode, Homer has no idea of Marge and Jacques’ past, which directly clashes with a scene from the sixth season episode, “Another Simpsons Clip Show”.
In that scene, Homer and Marge are sharing with each other the details of their many almost-cheating encounters, and it references the incident with Jacques.
So Homer definitely knows.
Of course, if you really dived into the continuity of The Simpsons, you’d have to ask yourself a bunch of other unanswerable questions, such as why none of the characters have aged in 34 years or how can you fit that many Halloweens into one school year?