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Context Recap / TheSimpsonsS23E16HowIWetYourMother

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1After getting his coworkers in trouble for stealing office supplies, Homer begins wetting the bed. Thinking this is LaserGuidedKarma for what he did, he tries to atone -- only to continue peeing in his sleep. With the help of Professor Frink, the Simpsons go on an ''Inception''-style journey to Homer's dreams to find out why he's been wetting the bed.
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3* AlwaysABiggerFish: As the Grim Reaper falls off a cliff, he realizes that, as the personification of death, he can't die, only to be proven wrong when a bigger, scarier Reaper comes in to claim him.
4* AnimalTesting: Inverted: Frink claims he let the Simpsons borrow his dream exploration machine so that he can find out if it's safe to use on monkeys.
5* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking: Homer's dream is falling, Marge's dream is drowning of fish, and Lisa's dream is having tomatoes thrown at them.
6* TheAtoner: Subverted with Homer. Once he wets the bed after getting his coworkers in trouble, he throws them all a barbeque to apologise. However, once he wets the bed ''again'', he's annoyed he wasted a good deed and decides to get to the root of his bed-wetting problem instead.
7* BaitAndSwitchComment: Once atonement for how Homer screwed his coworkers didn't stop him from wetting his bed, he drew a knife and said it was time for drastic measures. He cut open the plastic wrapping of the yellow pages. (Or, as it's known in-universe, the internet for old people)
8* BigBallOfViolence: The Simpsons end up in one in the Ullman short dream.
9* CastAsAMask: Death/the Grim Reaper appearing in Homer's dream has a gruff masculine voice by Chris Edgerly, but later on "he" unmasks to reveal Mona Simpson, voiced by Creator/GlennClose. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] in that [[AllJustADream it's really a dream]].
10* ChekhovsGun: While taking Bart on a fishing trip, Homer mentions in passing that his father used to do the same thing with him when he was a boy. This turns out to be the key to the entire problem.
11* ContinuityNod: Blink and you miss it, but when Homer takes Bart fishing you can see the empty pig crap silo from the movie lying on the lakeshore.
12* EasyRoadToHell: When The Simpsons are falling to their deaths, Frink tells him that he managed to prove that Hell exists and that everybody goes there.
13* EmbarrassingDampSheets: The plot is kicked off when Homer keeps wetting the bed and sets out to find the cause of the problem.
14* EpiphanyTherapy: Discovering (and resolving) the trauma that causes Homer to develop a bed-wetting problem solves it forever.
15* IFellForHours: The Simpsons falling off a cliff in the first dream. It is a dream, after all.
16* FreudianExcuse: For Homer's bed wetting: turns out that when he went fishing with Bart, it reminded him of the time he went fishing with Abe as a child and tipped the boat over, forcing Abe to rescue him, which he thought was the final straw in having Abe and Mona get divorced a week later.
17* GrimReaper: Appears in Homer's first dream. When the family goes over the side of the mountain, the Reaper joins them and is screaming alongside them before remembering ''he'' can't die... and then turns around and sees a gigantic, beastial reaper with wings flying beside him and roaring like a dinosaur. The first reaper is understandably scared shitless.
18* ItsAllMyFault: Homer believes he caused the breakup of his parents' marriage when he tipped a boat over and ruined his fishing trip with Abe.
19* LaserGuidedKarma: Subverted. Homer develops a bedwetting problem immediately after [[TemptingFate all but daring karma to come for him]] for letting his coworkers take the punishment for something he started, while he was rewarded with an afternoon off. He attempts to rebalance things by throwing an apology party for all his coworkers, but even after winning back their goodwill he's still wetting the bed. It turns out the problem was actually triggered by what he ''did'' on that afternoon off: he went fishing with Bart, which resurfaced a past trauma related to a fishing trip he took with his dad.
20* LatexPerfection: After Death/the Grim Reaper saves the family in one of Homer's dreams, "he" peels off his rubber skull mask, revealing itself to be Mona Simpson, who lives on in Homer's dreams.
21* LostInTranslation: When translated into Brazilian Portuguese, "met" and "wet" (as in "urinated on," not the adjective meaning "covered or saturated in liquid") become respectively "conheci" and "molhei". The translators used the first and completely killed the pun.
22* MagicAIsMagicA: When in a freefall, Lisa suggests going deeper into another dream for time dilation reasons.
23-->'''Bart:''' ''"Dreams have rules?"''\
24'''Lisa:''' ''"Everything has rules!"''\
25'''Bart:''' ''"You haven't seen me when I dance!"''
26* MeetYourEarlyInstallmentWeirdness: In one of the dreams, the Simpsons act and look as they did in the early ''Series/TheTraceyUllmanShow'' shorts.
27* PunBasedTitle: The title is based on the sitcom ''Series/HowIMetYourMother''.
28* RecursiveReality: The family enters several dreams within the initial dream.
29* RedHerring:
30** Homer's bedwetting problem develops [[InstantlyProvenWrong in the immediate wake]] of some serious TemptingFate after he's rewarded for getting all his coworkers in trouble and then dares the universe to do something about it. He, naturally, thinks he's been stricken by LaserGuidedKarma and tries to set things right by apologizing to everyone. The problem actually originated not with his undeserved afternoon off, but with what he ''did'' with it—an innocuous father-son activity that triggered a traumatic memory from his own childhood.
31** When the family searches Homer's dreams for clues as to what's causing the problem, Homer finds a coffin that says "MARRIAGE" and tries to hide it from Marge, fearing that it indicates something negative about their relationship. In fact, it symbolizes his guilt surrounding the breakup of his ''parents''' marriage, which he believes he caused.
32* SeriesContinuityError:
33** Homer has taken Bart fishing in past episodes ("I Am Furious (Yellow)" and a flashback in TheMovie) without any repercussions. It may be that his memory of fishing with Abe wasn't jogged in those cases for whatever reason--he [[ChekhovsGun specifically brings it up]] during their fishing trip in this episode.
34** Again, Homer mentions in "One Fish Two Fish Blowfish Blue Fish" that he and his father never did many of the bonding activities that fathers and sons typically do, including fishing.
35* ShoutOut: When Homer tries to ditch his family in the dream based around his gluttony, he yells he's never going to leave and boards a rollercoaster called [[VideoGame/RollercoasterTycoon "Mr. Homer's Wild Ride".]]

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