Original air date: 5/11/2008
Production code: KABF-12
Homer discovers that his runaway radical mother has come back and promises that her days of running from the law are over, which Homer doesn't believe. However, he soon regrets it when Mona dies during the night, and leaves Homer a bizarre last request.
Tropes:
- Abusive Parents: While far better than Abe still in the long run, Mona shows she's not above manipulating her son's feelings, despite promising she wouldn't do that anymore. As much as Homer clings to her and understands her hate of Burns, he remains hurt even seasons later.
- Artistic License – Pharmacology: Marge burns her hemp purse to get the guards at the missile silo high. This works despite hemp not having THC.
- Artistic License – Physics: During the ESPY Awards, Lance Armstrong is offended by a joke Fozzie Bear makes about his trousers, grabs the Fozzie puppet and throws it across the room to reveal a single arm and hand underneath. However, the way the Fozzie puppet is designed in real life is that the performer uses his right hand to work Fozzie's mouth and his left to operate Fozzie's left arm and hand (as he's a glove puppet, as opposed to a puppet like Kermit, whose arm is controlled via a rod), and Fozzie was seen using his left arm before Lance threw the puppet away.
- Angry Fist-Shake: Homer when he realizes his mom manipulated him into a plan of stopping Burns again and it wasn't about spreading her ashes at all.
- Antagonist in Mourning: Grampa has always wanted to dance on Mona's grave after she left him, but doesn't feel like it now that her death finally happened.
As he walks away, one can clearly hear that he's wearing tap-dancing shoes. - Batman Gambit: Mona's posthumous plan to destroy Burns rocket is this to an insane degree. It not only relies on several people acting exactly the way she expects, but is even dependent on the weather itself cooperating with the scheme.
- Black-and-Grey Morality: Mr Burns is his usual villainous self but, while Mona is certainly the more moral of the two, she is willing to use her family as unwitting pawns in a potentially life-threatening scheme to foil his plans one last time.
- The Bore: Marge considers listening to the music radio on the way to the mall to be fun.
- Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie: The entire latter part of the episode revolves around Homer deciding, as a way of trying to show he's sorry, to follow Mona's instructions on how to dispose of her ashes. The third act switch occurs because it turns out that the specific time and place Mona ordered for the disposal would lead her ashes to be picked up by the wind and dumped on the air intake of Burns' rocket, shutting down its launch capabilities.
- Can't Get Away with Nuthin': Homer sulkily rejects his mother's plea for forgiveness, and by the time he feels terrible, she's dead.
- Cerebus Retcon: Homer became the insatiable Big Eater we've seen throughout the series to cope with the frequent absence of his mother over the course of his childhood. Later episodes would hammer it in, but it also implies heavily that Homer's home situation was broken long before Burns got involved.Homer: You left a hole in my heart that could never be filled, so I filled it with food, but I'm never full.
- Chekhov's Gun: Every single thing Mona left on her will (and her diamond earrings, which Lisa took off her nightstand because she left her nothing of actual monetary value) ends up being used to stop the silo launch in a Plot Tailored to the Party fashion. As well, Homer's brick-and-chain "home defense" gadget is used to fight off some Mooks.
- Continuity Nod: Mason Fairbanks, who was Mona's former lover (from "Homer's Paternity Coot") is present in her funeral, as are Seth and Munchie from "D'oh-in' in the Wind".
- Conveniently Placed Sharp Thing: As it was given to Bart by Mona for the Plot Tailored to the Party, the Swiss army knife serves as one. Bart throws it down to Homer to escape the chair he's tied to.
- Crazy-Prepared: Mona left many things for every family member to use for her last hippie action against Burns. What only cements this is the fact she was counting on Lisa, of all people, to steal her diamond earrings to use to burn the bag she gave to Marge to start a smoke alert in the silo. She knew very well Lisa wasn't going to be satisfied just inheriting her nature as a Granola Girl.
- Desperately Craves Affection: Homer's not planning to climb anything even for his mom, but then she tells him she loves him, and he softens right up.
- Dies Wide Open: We don't see Mona's face after her death, but upon finding her in the armchair Homer hopes she fell asleep... with her eyes open.
- Disowned Parent: Homer feels terrible both times and can't keep it going, but all the abandonment, childhood neglect, and broken promises catch up to Mona. Homer even tells Burns that he can have her when Burns implies a Villainous Crush, because, to him, she's been "nothing but trouble".
- Distressed Dude: Homer, near the end, gets the crap beaten out of him and tied to a chair. Mona seems to be aware of her son's tendencies for this and gives the rest of the family inheritance gifts so they can save him.
- Drowning My Sorrows: Homer spends most post-Mona death crying, drinking, and obsessively polishing her urn.
- Dying Alone: Mona dies alone in front of the fireplace.
- Halfway Plot Switch: More like "final act switch", but still, most of the episode is Homer being sad about Mona not being part of his life in one way or another (her being constantly on the run, then dying), then trying to honor her final wish... and then it turns out that Mona set up Homer to raid Burns' super-secret missile silo, turning the episode into a James Bond pastiche for about five minutes.
- Ironic Echo Cut: Mona is sorry for missing most of her son's childhood but is glad he wasn't raised by television. True, he was raised by the fridge instead, and turned to food when she stopped being affectionate to him.
- Love Cannot Overcome: Mona is genuinely sorry that she hurt Homer both in the present and the past, and might have died in Death by Despair, she just hates Burns more and will manipulate her son's Desperately Craves Affection attitude towards her as a final dig to her enemy's plans.
- Meaningful Echo: Mona holds her arms out for a hug, but Homer refuses because he's given her too many chances. Then a flashback happens not long after, with Homer as a child craving a hug but Mona leaving him to go and protest.
- Moment of Silence: The moment when Homer realizes that his mother has passed away is pretty effective. There's no music and the only sounds heard are the crackling of the firewood and crickets chirping.
- Mood Whiplash: The episode starts off with a wacky shopping adventure, with Bart pranking Homer into ripping up stuffies, and then carries on the Cerebus Syndrome of Mona episodes, especially as Homer can't forgive her, then she dies, and then he finds out she used him when he's spreading her ashes. Then it's a silly James Bond parody for a few minutes until Marge has to tell her husband he can't bring his mom back to life, followed by a Really Dead Montage for a woman who kept having to leave her son behind.
- Named Weapons: Homer has a homemade weapon comprised of a cinder block and a chain. He refers to it as "The Defender".
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: When Homer falls from the rocket the guards ask if he's hurt. When he says no, they promptly beat the crap out of him with their sticks before taking him prisoner.
- Not So Above It All: Lisa at first seems to accept Mona leaving her nothing but her "rebellious spirit" in her will, but it later turns out that she stole a pair of earrings that she found on Mona's nightstand, and she tries to play it off as Mona giving them to her. This might have been prompted by Bart making fun of her for not getting an actual item.Lisa: What? Bart got a Swiss army knife!
- Oh, No... Not Again!: When Homer starts tearing apart the stuffed hippos that Bart programmed with insults, Lisa hesitantly tells Marge they have a "Code 4".
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: When Homer puts down pie, you know things are getting serious.
- Papa Wolf: Homer only starts caring about Burns' plan after hearing it's going to hurt that thing Lisa likes (the rainforest), and calls him a monster when Burns mocks that she might like it better with dying trees and mutated animals.
- Parental Abandonment: Mona has abandoned Homer several times, once when he was a child and twice in his adult life. By the time she returns for good, he's so fed up with her leaving to be a radical protester, he wants nothing to do with her.
- Parental Neglect: Mona started neglecting her son when she went out for protests, leading him to act like food was his mother figure instead. Of course, as an adult, he's doing the same thing, using Maggie's baby seat for his mom's urn.
- Parting-Words Regret: Homer's last words to Mona were words of anger because she abandoned him so often. All of the plot past that point is led by Homer trying to make amends for that.
- Pet the Dog: Abe, Bart (spurred on by Marge, but he's trying), Moe, Carl, Apu, and Ned all try to comfort Homer when he's miserable about his mom.
- Please Wake Up: Mixed with Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!. Homer initially hopefully asks if Mona is just sleeping, but soon realizes that something is terribly wrong.
- Pop-Culture Pun Episode Title: The episode's title refers (once again) to The Mona Lisa.
- Rage Against the Heavens: Minor example. When Homer notices the silo and what the ashes did to the rocket, he figures out that he became a pawn for yet another of his mother's anti-Burns schemes and he lets out an enraged "you used me again, Mom!!" to the heavens above.
- Really Dead Montage: The very last thing the episode shows before an
In Memoriam card and cutting to credits is one of these for Mona. - Riddle for the Ages: It's a definite Death by Despair, and Homer thinks it's all his fault for rejecting her, but it's never made clear if Mona unluckily died of old age in the night or killed herself. She knows just a little too much about what will happen after for it to be the former. Another possibility is that she was Secretly Dying from an illness.
- Robbing the Dead: Lisa steals the diamond earrings from Mona's nightstand because she didn't like the fact that Mona hadn't left her any actual physical belongings on her will (she had left her the mission to carry on as a Granola Girl for her).
- Self-Destruct Mechanism: Homer inadvertently activates the base's self-destruct sequence with his brick-and-chain gadget shortly after defeating the guards. Fortunately for the Simpsons, Homer escapes and reunites with them.
- Shout-Out: One of the guards at the base is a fan of Monk.
- Take That!: Homer tells Mona that he doesn't like how she keeps going away and then coming back:Homer: It's not funny. You're just like that show Scrubs.
- Thanatos Gambit: Mona pulled one with her dying wish to make Homer stop a nuclear silo which nearly gets him killed.
- Too Kinky to Torture: Homer lands in a precarious place perched on the rocket, and starts enjoying himself when the worker guys rock it. They tell him off, saying he's not meant to find it fun.
- Turn the Other Cheek: Subverted. Mona expects Homer to instantly forgive her and be cuddly, but he's too hurt by her constantly disappearing.
- Unrequited Love Switcheroo: Mother-son version. When he was a kid, Homer needed affection from Mona but she slowly got less interested, still loving him but taking him for granted. Mona comes back in Homer's adult life, promising he's the only thing that matters to her, but he doesn't want to know.
- Wham Episode: Mona dies, and much like Maude, her death and what she's done get mentioned semi-regularly in the seasons after. It's also a shift in portraying Homer's childhood, less Hilariously Abusive Childhood and more trying to explain why he's the way he is.
- Wham Line: At the end of Homer's apology:Homer: Mom? (no response) Mom?
- Why Are You Not My Son?: Lenny's mom prefers Carl over Lenny and wishes he was her son. She apparently also extends this attitude to Moe as shown when Carl passes on a message from her to Moe saying that Lenny's mom loves him.
- You're Not My Father: Of the "mother" variant, Homer telling Mona to leave come the morning because he's fed up with her scheming and that he doesn't need her anymore.
