“No Comeuppance”

As a “team-building” exercise, my office has compiled a list of our individual answers to ten questions that are asked at the end of every episode of Inside the Actor’s Studio. My boyfriend, Adam, was grilled during a recent excursion to Baja Fresh. Turns out his two favorite words are comeuppance and smack. Talking “smack” as in trash talking, not “smack” the street term for heroin.[Keeping it clean for all those moms out there. Here’s a gratuitous shout out to my favorite mom from A-Town, Gloria-registered Democrat.]

As for the word comeuppance, Adam is referring to a great Simpsons episode where Homer Simpson moonlights as the Springfield Shopper food critic. Because Homer loves all food, he initially gives very generous “thumbs up” to all the restaurants he reviews. The other critics at the paper (TV critic, farm critic) pull Homer aside one day and chastise him for being too generous because who’s ever heard of “nine thumbs up.” As an aside, cartoon characters only have four fingers per hand so Homer doesn’t even have nine fingers, much less nine thumbs. Homer gives into peer pressure and starts giving maliciously bad reviews to all the restaurants in town since he’s the most powerful food critic in town and he’ll never get his comeuppance. Poor Marge gets his lowest rating; seven thumbs up for her shake and bake chicken. The restaurants in town plot to assassinate Homer because he’s out of control. They try to kill him with a heart attack inducing éclair full of butter and sugar and a large dose of poison. Their murderous assassination plot is foiled and the episode ends with Homer and Lisa running away from the pack of irate chefs chasing them with Homer screaming, “No Comeuppance.”

The word comeuppance immediately brings to my mind Orson Welles’ second film, The Magnificent Ambersons. While everyone thinks Citizen Kane is the world’s greatest film, I’ve got a soft spot for the slightly obscure Magnificent Ambersons. I first viewed it for class and I ended up writing my final paper on the film. I took the class pass/fail and I ended up getting an A for the paper, go figure. The film follows a prominent family over several decades documenting their gradual social and financial decline. The young scion of the family is a very arrogant and spoiled George Amberson Minafer. He’s nasty to everyone and eventually gets his comeuppance at the end of the movie when his once upper class family has lost all their fortunes and he’s living with his old maid Aunt Fanny in a sterile looking boarding house. Tah Dah, there you have it…one of Adam’s favorite words…comeuppance or more specifically, “No Comeuppance.”