Homer and Bart bond over cheating at blue-collar sports, and Lisa stresses about summer camp applications.
Lisa barges into Principal Skinner's office, wanting a letter of recommendation for the most exclusive summer camp in America, the University of Springfield Summer Camp. Skinner tries to write one up, but his tech is so outdated that his printer caught fire when trying to print it out.
The fishing derby has come, and as Champion Emeritus, Grampa gets to make the first cast. Homer is still unsure about his chances, and after three hours pass, he hasn't caught anything. Lisa is worried about the camp applications, feeling like she's just wasting her time watching Homer fish when she could be volunteering. Marge isn't worried, Lisa gets into everything. Homer casts his line again, but hooks himself by the lip. After floundering about while trying to free and detangle himself, he manages to get a fish into the boat. Homer's fish weighs in at 10.4 pounds, winning the fishing derby and his father's love!
At the backyard, Marge is excited to cook the winning fish. But when Homer slices the belly open, the fish's belly is full of marbles. The same kind of marbles Bart uses as slingshot ammo. Bart weighed down Homer's catch out of sheer boredom, meaning Homer's win isn't legitimate. Homer appears to be outraged at this cheating, but Homer doesn't give Bart a strangle, but a hug, and the same words of praise Grampa gave him.
Homer interrupts Ms. Peyton's class the next day, saying he's taking Bart to a doctor's appointment. But on the drive over, it's revealed he's not taking Bart to a doctor's appointment, but another competition to cheat at, wanting to chase that rush of victory through father-son cheating. But how do you cheat at rock skipping? After a cut to Lisa being concerned about the lack of contact about her USC application, they have an idea. Homer skips a rock for 46 skips thanks to Bart being on the opposite side of the pond with a fishing pole, winning money, prizes, a trophy, and the cheater's high. Bart wants to cheat again, and Homer promises they won't stop doing it. Cornhole, frisbee golf, poker, even competitive face-slapping. All of them cheated, all of them won. Marge and Lisa are taking notice of this strange winning streak, and Marge knows something doesn't add up. She asks Homer if he's cheating, and Homer admits he is, but only for the father-son bond, not for the money, glory and prizes. Marge objects to all this cheating, can't Homer and Bart bond in a more honest way? Homer isn't interested in the honest way, there's no money, glory or prizes in honesty, and perhaps cheating is the only path to success the kids have got.
Lisa refreshes over and over for the University of Springfield website, waiting for the results of the camp applications. She hears a knock at the door, and opens to see a representative of the USC. She's been accepted into the rowing team. Lisa is confused, her application didn't have any rowing in it... or so she thought, until she takes another look at her application, which contains photos of competitive rowers, poorly edited to have her head. Someone cheated for her, and the culprit seems obvious for her.
At the axe throwing contest, Lisa confronts Homer about these photos. But Bart objects, why would they cheat for someone who is good? Lisa is still mad, and loudly accuses Homer of cheating this sport too, and reveals the method of cheating planned, a super magnet behind the target. The competition is mad, thinking that Homer's winning streak must be nothing but a series of cheats. The Simpsons family backs away from the angry axe-bearing mob, and makes a getaway on a pair of ATVs that were won through cheating. They hide behind a sign, but Lisa is getting madder. Homer swears on his "cheaters' honor" that he didn't cheat on Lisa's application, and Marge confesses she was the cheater. Homer and Bart are dismayed that Marge has been corrupted, and Homer vomits from disgust at how his actions lead to Marge doing this. Marge echoes the words Homer told her about cheating for their kids' success, and Homer vomits again. Lisa says that by cheating on the applications, Marge cheated Lisa out of the chance of getting in on her own merits. Homer and Bart have learned their lesson, never to bond again. The axe-bearing mob has found the family, having followed the sound of Homer's guilty vomit. Homer is so guilty over corrupting Marge, he's willing to let the mob hack him to pieces. The mob is confused, they were merely intending to rough Homer up, not kill him, but if that's what he wants... Suddenly, some musclebound men arrive, throwing the Simpsons' into their van and driving away.
The van is headed to the University of Springfield. Lisa figures this is about the fake applications. The dean welcomes them, revealing the muscle men are the football team, and that this university welcomes cheaters. The world is becoming one where cheaters prosper, so they accept students who are prepared for a dishonest future. Lisa, being the honest girl she is, rejects their summer scholarship, despite her body refusing to let her leave the office of the university of her dreams. Marge gives Lisa a push out of the room, and the dean speaks with Homer. He's very impressed by this cheating streak, and offers to make him a professor of cheating studies. Homer turns this down, because after seeing what Marge has done, the only cheating for him is on diets. Professor Bart Simpson, on the other hand...
Tropes:
- The Alleged Computer: Skinner's computer still runs on floppy disc software from 1995. When he tries to print out a letter, it prints slowly, then abruptly burns into flames.
- Bait-and-Switch: After finding out Bart added weight to his prize-winning fish, it looks like Homer is about to angrily strangle him, only to pull him into a loving hug instead.
- Cheaters Never Prosper:
- While it takes a while to get caught, Homer's cheating winds up landing the ire of his competitors to the point of wanting to beat him up. Though Homer initially assumes they want to kill him, much to their confusion.
- Similarly, Lisa assumes her lying on her camp application means she's in trouble over its forgery. As it turns out, the University of Springfield is born and bred on cheating, and have already accepted several other false applications.
- Comically Missing the Point: Upon finding out that Homer and Bart have been teaming up to cheat local sports competitions, Marge suggests that Homer do something more wholesome to bond with his son, like coach his soccer team. Homer replies that bribing referees isn't as much fun as the kind of cheating they've been doing.
- Compressed Vice: Homer has never won anything before. This extends to being unable to compete effectively in a fishing contest, although the show has depicted him as a competent fisherman at least once.
- Continuity Nod: The song that plays during the montage of Homer and Bart's competitive cheating lists other ways that people cheat in everyday life and includes "Take your pig to work as emotional support," something Homer has of course done.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: The way Lisa wants to get into a summer camp, listing off her preferences and printing out applications, is presented as if she was applying to an actual college.
- Flipping the Bird: Grampa has a condition that causes him to make rude hand gestures for no reason; Chronic Hand Hate.
- Funny Background Event: Bart's antics in the backyard while Homer is fessing up to Marge, shocking the dog with the "Butt Buzzer" and losing control of one of the ATVs that he and Homer won.
- Honor Before Reason: Lisa, to the point that she endangers her entire family because of it.
- Hurricane of Puns: Kent Brockman's report is full of fish puns.Kent: Yes, it's o-fish-al, after reeling in his twentieth fishing derby win, he's finally bowing trout. Later, stay tuna for our sharking story about a local sturgeon with a Cod complex, who kills patients just for the halibut.
- Idiot Ball: The pictures in Lisa's application are very incompetently edited (one even having Lisa's head pasted over every member of a rowing team), making it appear as if Homer or Bart was behind it, but it turns out it was Marge.
- Incorruptible Pure Pureness: Homer regards Marge as having this and is disgusted to find that he's influenced her for the worst.
- It Amused Me: Bart, per usual, runs on this, claiming that he manipulated the fishing competition to begin with because it was so boring watching Homer lose. In a reference to cheating allegations against chess grandmaster Hans Niemann, he uses an anal buzzer to cue Homer when cheating at poker and continues to shock him with it after he wins, later using it to shock Santa's Little Helper.
- My God, What Have I Done?: After finding out Marge cheated on Lisa's camp applications, Homer and Bart are sickened over their actions. Homer even gets to the vomiting point over it.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Marge faking photos of Lisa rowing in order to get her into camp leads to Lisa getting enraged and blaming Homer for it, exposing his cheating to his competitors in the process.
- Noodle Incident: Bart claims to have cheated on a COVID test in the past.
- Pop-Culture Pun Episode Title: The title is a reference to Do the Right Thing.
- Spoof Aesop: The only lesson Homer and Bart learn from their time cheating is that they should never bond with each other again.
- Special Guest: Sportscaster Dan Patrick makes a guest appearance commentating on LIV Pickleball and the Rock-Skipping competition.
- Take That!: This episode goes hard on known cheaters and cheating as well as the college admission scandals in general.
- One of the lyrics in the song during Bart and Homer's cheating montage included, "Lose an election and call it unfair."
- The initials for University of Springfield Camp are the same as the University of Southern California
. - "You're okay with cheating? Say it ain't so, Dean Belichick."
- As Dean Belichick claims the world they live in now where taxpayers hide money from IRS, lying on dating profiles, and the Houston Astros are cheating in ways you wouldn't imagine.
- The most prestigious scholarship for University of Springfield Camp is the Lance Armstrong Summer Scholarship.
- The USC's faculty of Cheating Studies is named the Sam Bankman-Fried Hall.
- One of the prizes is an electric truck that has been converted to use gas, a jab at Elon Musk's recent announcement and unveiling of the Tesla Cybertruck.
- In the ending, the school Bart becomes professor of Cheating 101 at is the Jim Harbaugh Center for Competitive Imbalance.
- Would Hurt a Child: Though Homer is their main target, the mob also intimidates the rest of the family with their axes, and it's strongly implied they'd rough up Bart in the process.
