At the funeral for beloved theater teacher Franklin Chase, Marge reminisces about the Y2K musical she stage managed back when she was in high school. She decides a revival of Y2K: The Millennium Bug is in order.
Marge imagines she has the voice of a Disney princess. In the revival of the musical, Marge will also be a stage manager.
All the actors are still in Springfield, except for one:
- Lenny Leonard
- Helen Lovejoy née Schwartzbaum
- Dr. Hibbert
- Kirk van Houten
- Barney Gumble
- Waylon Smithers
- Sasha Reed, who's become a big success on Broadway and probably won't be coming back to Springfield even though Marge has supposedly contacted her.
At the suggestion of Bart and Lisa, Homer joins the production even though he'd rather be a supportive husband from Moe's. Despite his initial reluctance to be a "theater weirdo," he quickly warms to the idea.
Sasha Reed returns to Springfield to boast about her success on Broadway and take over production of the musical, excluding Marge from a cast bonding session.
Marge discovers Sasha Reed is a fraud, she's really a sales associate at Sephora. Marge exposes Sasha to the rest of the cast in a song in which she wears a cape, carries a broom and is lifted on a rope to float above the stage. Sasha walks off. Without Sasha, the other cast members don't want to be in the show, so they leave.
Marge decides to apologize to Sasha. Rehearsals resume. The performance is a success, despite the play's abrupt ending at 11:59 p.m. on December 31, 1999.
Sasha predictably gets all the accolades. Marge is feeling lonely when some young stage managers who regard her as a living legend invite her to dinner at Ruthie's Diner.
Meanwhile, Sasha throws another party at Marge's house without inviting Marge.
Tropes:
- Actor Allusion: Marge says that, in her mind, she has the voice of a Disney Princess. Her singing voice is Kristen Bell, who indeed has been a Disney Princess.
- Alpha Bitch: Sasha seems to be one for the theater kids, excluding Marge from activities, even a party thrown at her own house.
- A Day in the Spotlight: Marge is the focus of the episode, with Homer having a secondary role and Bart and Lisa only having a few token appearances.
- Dreadful Musician: Marge's actual singing causes everyone else except Homer to recoil in disgust.note
- Episode Code Number: QABF17. The next episode is QABF18, but QABF16 is "Treehouse of Horror XXXII", which first aired after both this episode and the next.
- Everyone Went to School Together: Marge, Lenny, Helen, Dr. Hibbert, Kirk, Barney, Smithers and Sasha all were involved in the same high school play. Of course, Homer was at that school too, though he wasn't part of the play.
- For Want Of A Nail: It's strongly implied that a Wild Teen Party thrown by the theater kids at Marge's house without her knowledge was singlehandedly responsible for her life turning out the way it did; after Lenny injured himself falling off the Bouvier's roof, Marge's parents got sued and had to file for bankruptcy, leaving them unable to afford to send her to college.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Marge gets jealous when she notices that the cast has formed a tight-knit group and purposely excluded her.
- "I Am" Song: Sasha's introduction, though what she says in it turns out to be untrue.
- Karma Houdini: Sasha got absolutely no punishment from holding a party at Marge's house and getting Marge's family sued for it that it ruined Marge's college future. Marge's mother does show up to scold Sasha in the end credits, but beyond that, she gets no balanced repercussion.
- Mock Millionaire: Sasha pretends to be incredibly successful.
- Modesty Shorts: Sasha can be seen wearing a pair in her introductory song.
- Musical Episode: Marge gets a different singing voice for the song numbers. The songs were written by Jack Dolgen of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend fame.
- Musicalis Interruptus: Barney begins a song about how he never fulfilled his hopes and dreams, but is just starting the chorus when Sasha interrupts him, saying that the story is sad enough already.
- Never My Fault: When the whole cast quits the play after Marge fires Sasha, she continues to blame Sasha.
- No Ending: The Y2K play abruptly ends with no resolution. Bart and Lisa complain about this and call it a copout.
- Retcon:
- Follows "That '90s Show" in putting both Marge and Homer at school during The '90s, instead this time it was high schoolnote instead of college. Also quasinote -retcons their iconic "Life's a Glitch, Then You Die" Y2K-inspired segment of "Treehouse Of Horror X" in that it changes the Simpsons' Y2K story.
- Marge's singing voice. In "A Streetcar Named Marge", she was the leading star and got a standing ovation at the end for not only her acting but her singing voice. In this episode, she says that she has no singing voice and has a fantasy about a different singing voice and likes to work backstage.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Marge gives one to Sasha in song form.
- Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Homer's musical number has elements of this, especially considering it comes from Homer of all people.
- Shout-Out:
- Boasting of her Broadway success, Sasha Reed drops some big names: Lin-Manuel Miranda, Patti LuPone, Sutton Foster and Stephen Sondheim.
- When she reveals the truth about Sasha, Marge makes herself look like Elphaba with a black costume and green stage lighting.
- Sudden Anatomy: During his musical number, Homer's toenails can be briefly seen.
- Take That!: Lisa complains that Bart replaced her Kashi cereal with the wood chips used to line the hamster cage, to which Bart retaliates that she didn't even notice the difference until he told her.
- Title Drop: The title of the episode is dropped in one of its musical numbers.
- Two-Person Pool Party: Sasha strongly hints that she and Barney had sex in a hot tub in the past.
- Vocal Dissonance: Marge's singing voice is provided by Kristen Bell, whose sweet, melodious voice is a harsh contrast with Marge's rough, scratchy speaking voice, which is especially noticeable when her voice switches back and forth between the two in her first song. Justified in that it's supposed to be what Marge's singing sounds to her inside her mind.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Homer delicately gives this to Marge about her actions exposing Sasha and ruining the play when she complains about everyone being mad at her instead of Sasha for lying, in song form no less!
- Wild Teen Party: Marge discovers that Sasha threw a party at her house in high school, which led to her family getting sued and not being able to afford sending her to college. In the end of the episode, the cast drives by with Homer shouting "Party at Marge's house!", implying that they're about to do it again.
- Witch with a Capital "B": Marge dresses like a witch when exposing Sasha's lies.
