Fridge / Mr Burns: A Post-Electric Play

Fridge Brilliance

• The play follows the same three-act structure as "Cape Feare." Act I opens with the cast trying to remember how the episode starts, with Bart receiving threatening letters and the family trying to figure out who's sending them. Act II sees the actors rehearsing several of the midpoint scenes, where the Simpsons join the Witness Protection Program and Sideshow Bob clings to their car. Finally, the play in Act III eliminates the leadup altogether and is entirely about the dramatic confrontation between Bart and his would-be killer (now Burns) on the houseboat.
• The three-act structure also increasingly shifts the emphasis from the (In-Universe) reciters of the story to the story itself. In Act I, they're just discussing the events of the episode around a campfire. By Act II, the same group of people is mounting the episode as a play complete with costuming and character decisions, and Act III's Distant Finale setting 75 years later means that we only see the play as an audience would see it, having no idea what in-universe characters are playing the roles.
• When the characters discuss "Cape Feare"'s references to the films that inspired it, Maria mentions that one of the few things she remembers about the 1991 film is when Juliet Lewis' character "sucks Robert Di Niro's fingers in a gross way." A similar scene is enacted between Lisa and Burns in Act III.
• Although the characters in Act I have mostly-accurate recall of the episode's gags with only minor discrepancies that don't change the punchline (like Matt remembering the pandas behind Moe's bar playing poker), they remember Sideshow Bob as using a bottle of ketchup to write the letters to Bart. In the episode, the gag is that he's really using his own blood to write, not only the death threats, but other mundane things like letters to the editor, causing him to pass out from blood loss at the first act break. It's a memorable enough joke that it's surprising they'd recall a completely different gag until you take into account that what they're primarily seeking from The Simpsons, at this point and throughout Act II, is comfort. They've unconsciously created a Lighter and Softer version of the episode in which no blood appears that stands in even greater contrast to Act III's iteration, which is Darker and Edgier now that its purpose is no longer Escapism but In-Universe Catharsis.