Recap / The Simpsons S 29 E 12 Homer Is Where The Art Isnt

Manacek, a freelance insurance investigator, investigates a theft of a Joan Miró painting which Homer is accused of stealing.

Tropes:

• Alliterative Name: Megan Matheson.
• Always Identical Twins: Each one of the guards in charge of transporting the painting to Megan Matheson's home has an identical twin.
• Bait-and-Switch Comment: In response to closing the Springfield Museum of Fine Art, Mayor Quimby says his position requires him to make difficult choices and closing the museum was not one of them.
• Berate and Switch: A Running Gag throughout the episode, with Manacek being a Phrase Catcher for "I like you, Manacek."
• Brick Joke:
  • Marge is upset at Homer for liking art other than the representational kind. The epilogue shows her lecturing him on that matter.
  • Homer belittles Manacek for being a freelance investigator who needs to deliver invoices to collect pay. The epilogue shows an invoice where Manacek collects 1.5 million dollars for investigating the theft.
  • After making a long series of flirtatious comments, Marge tell Manacek he has a lot of lines and he replies she will get a lot of lines too cause his sheets are corduroy. In the epilogue Marge is seen ecstatic to get corduroy bedsheets.
• Celebrity Paradox: Krusty says that he is as happy as Steve Martin, who played Ray Patterson in Season 9's "Trash of the Titans".
• Clueless Mystery: Lampshaded, Manacek's investigation only serves to more fully explain the motives shown in the Cold Open and does practically nothing to lay down the clues necessary to figure out how the crime was committed. As it turned out, Megan, Burns and Lisa had all replaced or stolen the painting before the other, via outlandish methods that wouldn't work in a realistic mystery (convincing two sets of identical twins to betray their brothers, building a duplicate auction house to pass on a fake painting and switching the original painting with a tote bag replica).
• Evil Twin: Megan Matheson hired evil twins of the guards protecting the painting to steal it.
• Foreshadowing: Megan rejects Manacek's advances because she's dating a scientist who's working on a cure for malaria. It turns out she plans to use the insurance money to finance the research.
• Insurance Fraud: Megan Matheson is a suspect because she insured the painting for double the money she paid for it. It turns out she hired people to steal the painting.
• Hero of Another Story: This episode is presented as an installment of a series focused on insurance investigator Manacek, with the Simpsons regulars as supporting characters.
• Karma Houdini: Lisa faces no consequences for stealing the painting. Of course, she is only eight years old.
• Mistaken for Prank Call: In order to trick the auction house into thinking he's wealthy, Homer passes Moe's as a bank. When the auction house calls Moe's to verify Homer's claim, Moe reacts like he usually does whenever he's pranked or assumes someone's pranking him.
• Overly Long Gag: Manacek walking to work, as a parody of the opening titles of 1970s detective shows. He goes from one room to another in a seemingly endless montage of lobbies and hallways.
• Phrase Catcher: "I like you, Manacek." Subverted when Homer says "I don't like you, Manacek" instead.
• Politically Incorrect Hero: As a parody of '70s TV detectives, Manacek smokes, drinks and hits on any woman he can, including Happily Married Marge. He claims it's part of his process. He also has no qualms about knocking out a woman or an old man with one punch.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: Mr. Burns' motive to steal the painting is his inability to accept the fact a woman managed to outbid him.
• The Reveal: Megan Matheson hired people to steal the painting but they stole a copy made by Mr. Burns, who had the trouble of having people make a copy of the auction house so he'd be able to steal the real painting but he also stole a copy. Lisa stole the real one to preserve the bonding she and Homer have over it.
• Rule of Three: At the auction, three people make bids for the painting: Homer, Mr. Burns and Megan Matheson.
• Serious Business: Marge is quite upset that Homer likes non-representational art. She even asks if there are other lies in their marriage and if he's even a certified DJ.
  Homer: I took the classes, but I failed the test.
• Shout-Out:
  • During the time lapse montage of Homer staring at the painting, you can see an Egyptian statue moved into different positions despite nobody touching it. This is a reference to a statue in a Manchester museum that allegedly moved on its own.
• Special Edition Title: Instead of the usual title sequence, after The Simpsons title there's a Cold Open, followed by the title sequence for Manacek.
• Tempting Fate: Mayor Quimby tells Lisa to stop calling the Springfield Museum of Fine Art SMOFA because it'll never catch on. When the museum's art works are being auctioned, the sign announcing it does call the museum SMOFA.
• Whole-Plot Reference: To the obscure 1970s detective series Banacek, but also features a pastiche of similar shows like The Rockford Files or Columbo.