Mr. Burns needs a family to deal with his anger issues, and when he discovers virtual technology, he decides to hire Homer's family to act as his virtual family for ten years. Meanwhile, Homer is left alone at home, where be befriends a neighbor who shares certain traits of his.
Tropes
- Clingy Jealous Girl: Marge gets mad at Homer for being friends with another woman. Homer doesn’t help his case by saying Julia is a few years younger than Marge and that he’s shared his feelings with Julia. Marge calms down when she realizes Homer learned a lot about improving his relationship with Marge.
- Continuity Nod: Burns's Villainous Crush on Marge apparently isn't dead.
- Freudian Excuse: A flashback reveals that Maggie refuses to talk because her siblings and her parents were too busy shouting at each other to notice when she finally learned to, though it's debatable whether this is true as Homer and Marge argue over the details of the family therapy appointment where this supposedly occurred.
- Just Friends: Homer and his new neighbor. When their spaghetti scene ends with Homer sucking it for himself instead of how it ended in Lady and the Tramp, it crushes doubts on that matter.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Mr. Burns scripts all the family's interactions, which causes Marge to be frustrated by the fact that she never gets any jokes.
- Misplaced Retribution: When Homer fails to convince Marge that he and Julia were only friends, Marge, in a blind rage, knocks down Homer's TV tray, which a can of Duff beer and a plate of eggs were resting on.Homer: Why are you mad at those eggs? They didn't do anything!
- Not Helping Your Case: Mr. Burns doesn't want people thinking he's insane because the Kaiser would be furious.
- The Internet Is for Porn: Smithers points out to Burns that, since the virtual reality goggles are a new invention, most of the content available for it is naturally porn. Even a virtual reality based on medieval fantasy turns out to be just Dragon porn.
- Shout-Out:
- While browsing for options for the faces of his virtual family, Mr. Burns finds Zoidberg-like faces.
- To test if Homer and the new neighbor are really just friends, Luigi offers them a plate of spaghetti.
- Third-Person Person: Maggie when she talks in the flashback.