Plot
After donating money to public television, Marge receives complimentary ballet tickets. She asks Homer to accompany her, and much to Marge's surprise he agrees, confusing ballet with a circus. On the day of the ballet, however, he inadvertently gets his arm stuck in a vending machine while trying to steal a can of soda from it and then gets his other arm stuck in a candy machine, and so is unable to attend the ballet as a result. In disbelief about Homer's story, Marge invites her neighbor, Ruth Powers to attend with her. They both enjoy themselves and arrange to go out again the next night. Marge and Ruth's friendship annoys Homer, who feels Marge should be spending time with him instead. However, ignoring Homer's protests, Marge and Ruth visit bars and clubs in Springfield, and Ruth later shows Marge how to use a pistol.
Homer, attempting to prove to himself he can have a good time without Marge, leaves Bart, Maggie, and Lisa under the supervision of Lionel Hutz and goes out by himself. Finding Moe's Tavern more depressing than usual, Homer visits the hilltop where he used to take Marge prior to their marriage. Ironically, Marge has also taken Ruth there to finish the night, but they leave just before Homer arrives. Chief Wiggum finds Homer depressed and offers him a ride home, which Homer accepts. As Ruth and Marge are driving home, Chief Wiggum, with Homer as a passenger in his patrol car, spots Ruth's car and claims that one tail light is smaller than the other. He decides to pull them over. Reluctant to stop, Ruth tells Marge that she stole the car from her ex-husband when he refused to pay child support. Ruth leads the police on a high-speed chase rather than turning herself in. Homer realizes it is Marge in the car, and believes she is leaving him after discovering that she can have a better time without him. Ruth successfully evades Wiggum by turning off her headlights, which leads him to believe her car is a ghost car.
After seeing Marge and Ruth again while cooking breakfast on his car engine, Wiggum continues his chase of the two, aided by other Springfield Police vehicles. After noticing a cliff ahead, Homer believes that Marge and Ruth are attempting suicide because of him and, using the police megaphone, apologizes to Marge for all the mistakes he has made in their marriage and urges them not to drive into the chasm. Ruth, who had not noticed the chasm, slams on the brakes and stops in time; however, Homer and Wiggum fail to stop and fly over the edge of the cliff only to crash into a landfill. The episodes ends with a description of the fates of each of the characters involved in the episode.
Read more about this topic: Marge On The Lam
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—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
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—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)