Homer goes through some self-reflection during a car crash.
Time slows to a crawl. Homer calms down, sure he'll be fine due to his seatbelt, or his airbag, or the windshield's shatterproof glass. Then he remembers, he used the seatbelt to tie up his hammock, and the airbag as a pillow, and the windshield's glass shatters. In Homer's slowed state, he appreciates the beauty of the world around him, but this euphoria is broken by the voice of Maggie's Happy Little Elf doll, Goobie Woo, or rather, a trauma-induced projection of Homer's psyche. It dawns on Homer that he's been through a car crash, and Goobie Woo is gonna use this as an opportunity for some self-reflection, starting with finding the source of Homer's anger.
In a glass shard, a flashback begins with Homer at the bank earlier that day, wanting to open a safety deposit box for a potato chip shaped like John Travolta. But the family already has one, rented out by Marge a decade ago, and in it contains the will of her father, Clarence Bouvier. And in that will is a trust to pay Marge a thousand dollars a month, and in all that time, Homer never knew about that money. Feeling betrayed, Homer goes into the fury the episode began on. Back in the slowed present, Homer remembers his anger at Marge's financial infidelity. Goobie Woo understands why he's angry, but it's the wrong thing to feel. They're gonna work through this, but they don't have much time because Homer is going to hit a tree in 0.3 seconds, and as the potato chip slips out of his shirt and shatters on the tree, it's clear Homer is running out of time.
Homer is literally and metaphorically spiraling, how could Marge keep that money secret from him? His attention is drawn towards a pair of glass shards, containing images of Bart and Lisa, who knew about Marge's cash stash the whole time. Bart found out while still pretty young, opening some mail with steam, and lets Lisa know in his excitement of thinking his mom is routinely getting a hundred thousand dollars a month, before Lisa taught him about decimal points. They come to Marge about this, and she admits it. They didn't let Homer in on the information because they thought he couldn't handle it. Despairing, Homer tries to swim through the air towards the tree, wanting to speed up the inevitable, but Goobie Woo asks him what does he think Marge spends the money on. He imagines Marge being served caviar hoagies by a robot butler while handsome shirtless handymen do chores. But Goobie Woo interjects, why would Homer think Marge would spend that money so frivolously? Homer answers he would spend the money in a similar fashion. Goobie Woo slaps Homer, Marge is a better person than he is, she wouldn't spend money like that. She begins singing about how Marge was using money to solve Homer's problems. His bar tab? His medical bills? His DUI? "That was Marge, bitch!" Homer is relieved, he's got the greatest wife in the world, and he missed the tree! "You're gonna live, bitch!"
Homer's no longer mad, and Goobie Woo says that if anything, he should be mad at Marge's dad. Concerned, he tries to ask for more information, but the doll tries to downplay this to a nice resolution. He spies a glass shard with the flashback for this, but Goobie Woo objects, he's almost achieved inner peace. Homer decides to gamble with his fate and his soul, and smacks the doll away to get a peek at the shard. Marge's dad doesn't approve of Homer and doesn't think of him as a provider, and that's why he's supplying Marge with that trust, so she'll have a guaranteed source of income, because he's facing every father's worst fear, their child finding true love with a true loser. Homer is insulted, but now he's confused about how he's seeing these flashbacks he's never witnessed. The answer to that? He's dead.
With his body impaled on a metal fence pole, and for the sin of wrath against his father in law, Homer is in Hell. Plus the other six sins he committed at the very last moment. Homer's punishment is eternity in a boiling lake of blood, but the line is so long it takes millennia to get there. After 20,000 years, Homer loses his patience, Homer is let out of the line and given a buzzer that will electrocute and burn him when his eternal torment is ready. Homer explores hell, and finds a poker game with Genghis Khan, Benito Mussolini, and Clarence Bouvier. Homer tackles him and beats him up, believing what his father-in-law did to him is why he's been damned. A devil Wiseguy clarifies he's actually down there for foraging checks. Clarence takes Homer aside, and shows him a vision of a future, an adult Lisa in love with Mercer, a short-tempered board game maker, with an overcomplicated creation called "Sidegammon". Homer says he's a loser, and he understands what Clarence saw in him. He understands Clarence's point of view perfectly, he was worried about Marge, the same way he's worried about Lisa. They just want to make sure their girls are okay. Just as the time for Homer's punishment comes, a light shines on him. In accordance with hell's rules (which the devil Wiseguy admits are dumb, as are the rules about changing rules), for this epiphany, Homer is allowed to come back to life. His life resumes with experiencing the car crash at full speed, dodging the tree and the pole for a painful but non-lethal landing on the ground.
The ambulance and his family arrives. Marge wants to know why Homer sent that angry text, but Homer says it doesn't matter, he's put his ego aside and is thankful for his blessings, Marge foremost among them. Or at least Homer tries to say that, but the pain of the crash is making him speak gibberish. Seeing Homer in such pain, Marge bribes the ambulance attendant from her trust stash to provide Homer with some painkillers.
Tropes:
- Animated Actors: The credits show Lizzo and Homer working on voicing the episode, while Lisa and Bart oversee production. They begin working on the scene of Goobie Woo slapping Homer, Bart insisting on a real slap sound instead of a pre-existing sound effect, and does it himself after Lizzo declines. He records a few more just to be safe, producing a beat that Lizzo and Lisa jam to.
- Angrish: As Homer brakes during his angry driving, the Crazy Cat Lady rambles at him. He replies in a similarly incoherent fashion. She's touched that someone can speak her lack-of-language.Crazy Cat Lady (subtitled): For the first time ever, I feel like someone gets me.Homer (subtitled): I'm not what you need, but I wish you well.
- Back from the Dead: In accordance to hell's rules, having an epiphany is rewarded with a return to life, with whatever death they had being avoided.
- Call-Back: The episode's title, on top of being a Literary Allusion Title, is a reference to one of the movies you might remember Troy McClure from, "Alice's Adventures Through The Windshield Glass".
- Comically Missing the Point: When Ralph says Lisa's "bald mommy" is about to die, Homer doesn't understand who Ralph's talking about and says it's her problem.
- Continuity Cameo: Discounting the 750 cameos throughout the opening sequence, Frank Grimes and Dr. Marvin Monroe are seen in hell, in queue for eternal punishment, while Queen Chante is one of the people in the heaven/hell exchange scene.
- Continuity Cavalcade: In recognition of the show's
750th episode, the opening sequence features approximately 750 characters (whether regulars, one-timers, non-canon, fictional, deceased, guest stars, real people who weren't guest stars, deceased real people, when in the series they're from, or where they're placed in the timeline), too many to list beyond a few samples. - Couch Gag:
- The billboard gag is a Missing Persons poster for ten different characters. Ozzie Smith, Hugh Jass, the Babysitter Bandit, Dr. Marvin Monroe, Shary Bobbins, Rex Banner, Stacy Lovell, Belle, Poochie and Beatrice Simmons.
- Bart writes "I will not try to cram 750 characters into the opening credits..." while the classroom is packed with Laura Powers, Nikki McKenna and Uter among others standing to the side while Rachel Cohen, Hubert Wong and Sophie Krustofsky among others watch Bart write. Edna Krabappel can be seen just outside the classroom door.
- Lisa gives the usual sax solo, while many of the show's musical guest stars like the Rolling Stones and Dolly Parton (and musicians who didn't play themselves, like John Lennon) stand in the room.
- When the family gathers on the couch, with Lucy Lawless, Roy, Stampy, CHUM, the Leprechaun, the Capital City Goofball, Little Richard and Bob the Drag Queen among many others flanking the couch, Timmy O'Toole gone feral standing in front of the TV, and Raven Bart perched on the painting's sailboat, after an awkward pause as the family looks around, Homer asks "Who the hell are these people?"
- Creepy Child: Ralph Wiggum plays this role, knowing fully well that despite defying fate...Ralph: You died and went to hell! (Serious voice) Ralph knows. (Regular voice) Whee!
- Dissonant Serenity: Homer experiences this as a trauma response, causing Goobie Woo to struggle to make him take the situation seriously.Goobie Woo: You see, I'm a projection of your psyche, and you're in the middle of a very traumatic life event.Homer: Traumatic? What do you mean? I feel great! (humming happily)Goobie Woo: Homer. Homer, what you're currently experiencing is called post-traumatic elation.Goobie Woo: Dammit, man, you are literally in the middle of a car accident!
- Does Not Like Spam: Homer hates eggplant, so he includes a few eggplant emoji in his furious text at Marge as an indicator of rage instead of it's usual usage.
- Even Evil Has Standards: In Hell, Genghis Khan and Josef Stalin prevent Homer from clobbering his father-in-law, with the latter commenting, "Hey, hey, behave yourself! We have standards here!"
- Extremely Short Timespan: Excluding the first minute or so, the first half of the episode takes place in the 0.5 seconds after Homer crashes his car.
- Fictional Board Game: Sidegammon, the creation of Lisa's future husband-to-be. It's a complicated mish-mash of several other board games, but according to Clarence's dictator poker buddies, it's not bad.Mercer: It combines the Stratego-ness of Stratego, the implicit sexual tension of Twister, and the hard driving whimsy of Tic-Tac-Toe! It's called "Sidegammon". Who's up for a game, huh? (Homer and Marge don't repond.) OH COME ON! It's SUPER complicated! You'll be out before you know it! And you'll be HUMILIATED!
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Homer's death, impaled on a pole after flung onto it when he crashed.Ralph: I'm going to see this in every dream now.
- Jaw Drop: Young Bart lets out a couple, one after learning Marge is getting $100,000 dollars a month, and one after Lisa teaches him about decimal points, indicating Marge is getting $1000.00 dollars a month instead.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Marge's father was rude to brand Homer a loser and send his daughter $1,000 dollars a month behind his back to look after him, but Homer realizes he'd do the same thing for Lisa and her future(?) "loser" husband because he'd also do it out of love.
- "Kick Me" Prank: When the episode starts and Homer is kicking everything in sight in a rage, he spots a "Kick Me" sign on Martin Prince, calmly applies it to his lunchbox instead, and kicks that over the horizon, to Martin and Nelson's dismay.
- Literal Metaphor:
- The second act begins with Homer emotionally spiraling while his body spins in midair, literally spiraling.
- Marge's dad says Homer has "jackass" written all over him. Enter Homer, with "jackass" written all over him, the results of a party's aftermath.
- Bart says he found out about the money Marge was receiving while he was "blowing off steam"—that is, using a kettle to steam envelopes open so that he could read the mail.
- Literary Allusion Title: To Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, combined into one title with some substitutions.
- Massive Multiplayer Crossover: Because of the series' crossovers, parodies and cameos, the opening sequence is one of these due to appearances from Bill Cipher, Severus Snape, Agents Mulder and Scully, ALF, Loki and Mothra.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: By her own admission, Goobie Woo is a manifestation of Homer's subconscious, and many of the revelations he has throughout his near-death experience can be explained by his unconscious mind putting two and two together. Things get a little more complicated when he actually dies and becomes a ghost, enabling him to have supernatural insight into things he wasn't involved in, traveling to Hell, and finally getting a second chance at life after having a critical epiphany. The possibility that he never died at all and dreamed the entire experience doesn't explain the fact that Ralph knows about the whole thing. Evidence for "mundane" comes in the The Stinger, where the characters themselves are shown recording their lines.
- Negative Continuity: In this episode, it's established that Marge receives $ 1,000 from her late father's trust fund. Back in "Simpson and Delilah", Homer gets a promotion thanks to a hair-growth formula that restored his hair and, when Bart accidentally spills it, Homer and Marge didn't have a thousand dollars (the batch's price) to buy a new batch before Homer loses his hair and the promotion.
- Non-Standard Character Design: Among the 750 cameos during the intro, Steve Johnson sticks out due to being rendered in an anime art style.
- Oblivious to His Own Description:Ralph: Bart's bald mommy is going to die!Homer: That's her problem!
- Series Fauxnale: This is the finale of Season 34, the milestone 750th episode of the show, and the episode centers on Homer having a Near-Death Experience that makes him reflect on his life, complete with just about every character from the past 34 seasons appearing in some capacity. This would make it a prime candidate for the end of the series...except the show has been renewed for two more seasons.
- Safe Driving Aesop: Homer got into that car crash because he was angry and texting while driving.
- Sassy Black Woman: Goobie Woo, albeit she's green. Her voice actress, Lizzo, appears As Herself in the end credits.
- Secretly Wealthy: Marge's father must have much more than one hundred thousand dollars for at least the past 10 years to keep sending his daughter $1,000 a month, and there's the implication he has more than that if Homer keeps getting into more accidents for the rest of his life.
- Seven Deadly Sins: Homer committed all seven within the last 0.5 seconds of his life, earning him literal last-second damnation. Sloth from a lazy reaction to the crash, Lust from ogling a woman on the sidewalk, Pride for flexing at his reflection in a window, Greed for taking from a payphone's change, Envy for taking Ralph's ice cream, Gluttony for eating it, and Wrath for his anger towards his father-in-law.
- Shout-Out:
- Homer lists off his favorite rock bands who he would frivolously spend money on to do housework, KISS, Bon Jovi and Men at Work because of their work ethic.
- Homer has a Nintendo Switch in his car.
- The episode opens with Homer coming out of a building and furiously ripping off his necktie, an imitation of George Clooney during the opening credits of Out of Sight.
- Special Guest:
- Lizzo as the Happy Little Elf doll, and herself during the credits scene.
- Bowen Yang as Richard, the banker Homer talks to before the episode started.
- Tim Robinson as Mercer, Lisa's loser of a future husband-to-be.
- Take a Number: The front desk of Hell has a "Now serving" sign on it. It should be obvious what number was on it.
- Tempting Fate: When Homer crashes his car, he says his safety belt will save him, only to remember he doesn't have it because he ised it to fix his hammock; he says the air bag will save him, only to remember he used it as a pillow; and says at least the windshield glass is shatter-proof, only to learn it isn't.
- The Stinger: The post-credit scene shows Lizzo and Homer recording the voices for the episode, with Bart and Lisa directing. Maybe the episode was out of continuity — a video written and produced by the kids?
- Third-Person Flashback: Only the first flashback is shown completely from Homer's perspective. He only realizes how strange this is after seeing the flashback of Clarence Bouvier promising Marge that trust, only for Goobie Woo to clarify that it's just something ghosts can do.
- This Is for Emphasis, Bitch!: The title and chorus of Goobie Woo's song "It Was Marge, Bitch" is punctuated with a "Bitch" after each line.
- This Isn't Heaven: The third act begins with Homer surrounded by a light blue background. He thinks he's in heaven, but the camera zooms out to show hell's red landscape. He doesn't realize he's in hell until he's poked by the trident of a "goaty-footed angel".
- Time Stands Still: Time slows down drastically for Homer right after the crash, stretching out half a second to a few minutes. Or so it seems...
- Tomato in the Mirror: Homer doesn't realize until he's almost achieved inner peace that the reason he's been seeing these flashbacks from other peoples' perspectives is because that's something ghosts can do, because he's dead. The Homer that's been having this time-slowed introspection is a ghost reliving his last moment.
- Too Dumb to Live: Marge's father saw Homer as this for good reason, but he knew his daughter truly loved him anyway, so he made sure to send her his will money so she could look after him and prevent his idiocy from making her sad. To prove his point, in this episode Homer nearly died in a car accident, because he was texting while driving, and he previously removed the belt and the airbag in one of his shenanigans.
- Unreliable Narrator: Bart's reasoning for Marge hiding the money is... less than trustworthy. Lampshaded by Homer.Bart: (while imitating Marge) Your father is an ape-faced butt monster who eats booger sandwiches and also sucks.Homer: Why you litte unreliable narrator!
- Values Dissonance: Hell and heaven retroactively enforce sins, making an in-universe example as a group of former sinners are sent to heaven due to their only sin (being gay during a homophobic era from 5000 BC to "like, ten years ago") being no longer considered sinful, while another group is sent from heaven to hell due to committing actions that were tolerated at the time but are sinful from a modern perspective (like William Shakespeare being damned for performing Othello in Blackface).
- Watch Out for That Tree!: Played dead serious, but ultimately subverted. At first, it seems like Homer's gonna fatally collide into a tree, but he manages to dodge it.
- What Are Records?: When the "goaty-footed angel" says Clarence Bouvier was sent to hell for check forgery, he asks if anyone remembers what checks are.
- Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: After Goobie Woo helps Homer realize what Marge is really spending her money on and why she kept it a secret from him, he loses his anger towards her, seemingly resolving the conflict. Then Goobie Woo lets it slip that it's Marge's dad he should be mad at instead...
