By Brandon Nolta

THE SIMPSONS, “Little Orphan Millie”: Milhouse’s folks are getting remarried, which should be good news, right? As with everything else in the universe of Homer and the rest, the wedding is just another opportunity for Homer to make a huge tactical error. In this case, he admits to Marge that he doesn’t know what color her eyes are. Dumb ass. Anyway, while Milhouse is hanging with the Simpsons, his folks manage to fall off the cruise ship and are believed dead. Way to start an episode off right, Groening.

Anyway, Milhouse moves in with the Simpsons, but even that carnival of weird isn’t sufficient to help Milhouse shake his depression … until an encounter with Maggie convinces Milhouse to start acting like a man. In his case, though, being a man means acting like an existential loner, which thrills Lisa no end but damages Bart’s cool factor. Meanwhile, Homer continues to take a beating in a battle of wits with Marge, who is becoming desperate to find out what color her eyes are but is thwarted at every turn.

Fortunately, old man Simpson reminds Homer of a song he wrote that pulls him back into Marge’s good graces. Meanwhile, Bart’s effort to cure Milhouse of his sadness by bringing his super-cool uncle from California to Springfield somewhat backfires when Milhouse decides to move away, but all ends right in the end when Bart, Milhouse and Uncle Zack end up stranded on the same desert island with Milhouse’s parents. See? Happy ending all around. Good stuff.

KING OF THE HILL, “Death Picks Cotton”: It’s date night for the adults in the Hill family, and Bobby’s babysitter cancels. Peggy’s not happy, and she’s even less so when Hank’s jackass father Cotton offers to watch Bobby. Of course, things don’t go as planned, leading to Cotton making a complete ass of himself at the Japanese restaurant and getting a trip to the hospital out of it. Thanks to his injuries and previous health issues, Cotton is given just a few hours to live, the news of which Hank greets by heading home to finish the shed his dad screwed up. Not a lot of love lost there, as you can tell.

Because Bobby is one of the few people who seem to actually like Cotton, he gets left for the duration of Cotton’s dying with Luanne and Lucky (guest star Tom Petty), who are apparently in competition to see which one is dumber, so imagine how this might turn out. Anyway, it finally sinks in to Hank that Cotton’s about to die, so he goes to the hospital to make his peace with the old bastard. Naturally, Cotton doesn’t get on board with this, and after haranguing Hank on being a wuss, goes into heart failure. This makes Hank feel bad, until the old bastard comes back. Amazingly, he doesn’t begin chowing down on the flesh of the living. Guess it’s not that kind of show.

Anyway, Hank does his best to have a heart-to-heart with Cotton, but since it’s dubious the old bastard has one, it falls to Peggy to psych him out and convince him to finally let go. In a way, this episode shows just how strong Hank and Peggy’s marriage is; it’s strong enough to survive being Cotton’s constant target of denigration for years, anyway. In a bizarre fashion, one of the sweeter ones I’ve seen.

FAMILY GUY, “Lois Kills Stewie”: In the second part of last week’s episode, Lois returns from the dead to reveal the truth we’ve all known for years: Stewie’s a homicidal lunatic who ends up taking the Griffins hostage after his plan to kill Lois was revealed. After a big block of exposition explaining where Lois has been for the past year, Stewie ties up his family, kills Cleveland and forces Brian to drive him away from the manhunt. Where are they going? Considering the next scene is a flashback to Stewie’s disastrous audition for AMERICAN IDOL, I’d say revenge on Simon and the rest would be a fair guess.

However, it would be wrong; Stewie and Brian actually go to CIA headquarters, where Stewie acts upon his plans for world domination. There’s even a nice crossover moment for Stan and Mr. Bullock (Patrick Stewart) from AMERICAN DAD. Against all likelihood, Stewie succeeds in his plan, and becomes president of the world. Soon enough, Lois reaches her “mad as hell” point, and arms up to take out Stewie. Violence, gunfire and violent gunfire: it’s like John Woo went to work for Warner Brothers. Just when you think Lois is about to get it for good, Peter saves the day with a well-placed shot or two.

Of course, since killing off Stewie would put the kibosh on the show, it naturally turned out that the whole episode was simply a computer simulation Stewie ran to see if he was ready to kill Lois and take over the world. As it happens, he isn’t ready … yet. Cue the dramatic music!

AMERICAN DAD, “Haylias”: Poor Hayley; a recurring dream of being trapped in a classroom and being forced to color in the lines has been haunting her repeatedly, leading her to break her boyfriend’s arm. This is a piss-poor basis for a relationship, as you might imagine. Anyway, Hayley decides that this dream is a sign she needs to live her own life, so she announces plans to move to France and live the bohemian lifestyle. Francine and Stan are less than supportive.

Meanwhile, Roger and Steve decide, after binging on the Sleuth Channel, decide they want to open their own detective agency. However, they have a little issue in developing personas, which they find out when they both show up in wheelchairs. Let the fighting begin. We turn back to Stan, who is so not thrilled with Hayley leaving the country that Stan activates her buried sleeper agent training and turns her into a super agent. Imagine how this might turn out. Especially since Stan is forcing her to go out with what appears to be the reincarnation of Truman Capote cross-pollinated with Tennessee Williams. That’s right, creep factor nine.

Of course, there’s a deadline on the deactivation of Hayley’s programming, which Stan misses. Unfortunately for Stan, missing the deadline doesn’t erase her free will like he thought; no, it causes her to turn homicidal toward her handler, or in this case, Stan. Whee! So now, instead of being a normal teenager forced into a marriage, she is now an unstoppable agent of destruction forced into a marriage. Let the violence begin. Oh sure, it all ends happily: everybody gets back to normal, the family’s all happy again, Stan gets shot in the head. Was there any doubt?