Original airdate: March 8, 2009
After a decade of lavish Mardi Gras parties, Homer's abuse of home equity loans comes back and causes the house to be foreclosed upon. Ned buys it and rents to the family, only to get stuck with every outrageous complaint they have, taking advantage of his kindness.
Tropes:
- All There in the Script: According to the official captions on the FXX website, the tenants who try to buy the Simpsons' home from Ned at the end of the episode are named Nat and Nancy Gladness.
- As You Know: Parodied when Homer recaps his plot-irrelevant purchase of ice cream, then starts to describe the dialogue that just happened.Homer: So, after I paid for the ice cream cones, I said "thank you" and was on my way.
Bart: We know, Dad. We were there.
Homer: (chuckles) I know it seems that way, because I'm such a vivid storyteller. Now here's another story called "Bart's Mistake." We were walking home when— - Bait-and-Switch: When Ned comes to tell the Simpsons that they are free to stay, Homer says he needs to take care of "a surprise" that he left in the bedroom. The initial way the scene is set makes it look like Homer did something awful for the sake of revenge like take a dump on the bed, but it turns out that he had left behind a bouquet for any future tenants with the note "Please love our home as much as we did."
- Bedsheet Ghost: Bart does this when Homer tries to convince the news crew that the house is haunted. Bart claims to have died when his dad sat on him causing Homer to choke him.
- Bungled Suicide: Homer was so upset about losing the house that he tried to hang himself in the backyard. Instead, the tree gives way because of his weight and it crushes his car.
- Cranky Landlord: Initially inverted after Ned becomes the Simpsons' landlord, as he has no problem fixing the house if they ask for it, however, as the episode progresses, the trope is played straight after Ned gets sick of his demands, especially after the Simpsons try to make Ned's life a living hell by humiliating him on TV and Homer poke fun of his religion by "dressing" as Jesus and attempts to use his belief to convince him to not evict them.
- Crazy-Prepared: Lisa has a nice framed headshot of Bart on hand to hold in front of him when he prepares to ruin a group picture by making faces, and Bart himself has a picture of himself making the same face he was trying to make to hold over that picture.
- Disproportionate Retribution: An exhausted Ned refuses to go over to the Simpsons in the middle of the night to fix something after spending all day doing just that. The Simpsons become so angry that they complain about him to the media.
- Hated by All: When Ned kicks the Simpsons out of their house, the other neighbors respond that their leaving is like Christmas to them. When Ned lets them move back in, everyone else on the street instantly puts their houses up for sale.
- Jerkass Ball: Marge is as bad as Homer when it comes to taking advantage of Ned, assigning him tasks all over the house upon realizing that he's able and willing to do home repairs, and going along with the loophole Homer employs to keep Ned from evicting them.
- Jerkass Has a Point: As selfish and mean-spirited as Homer is throughout the episode, it's at least easy to see why he didn't want to invite Ned to his Mardi Gras party when the latter declares Ash Wednesday at the stroke of midnight and urges the guests to "put down your gins and confess your sins!"
- Kent Brockman News: The news piece on Ned paints him to be "the worse person who ever lived" by morphing a smiling normal picture of him into a devil-like creature with fire-red skin, a scowl on his face, a Hitler mustache and wearing a Detroit Lions fan t-shirt.
- Laser-Guided Karma: The Simpsons losing their home near the end is unfortunate, but ultimately well-deserved. Homer's constant re-mortgaging of the house (just so he can throw expensive Mardi Gras parties) finally comes back to bite him. When Ned Flanders (whom Homer has constantly mistreated for years) buys the house and rents it out to the Simpsons, they bombard him with ridiculous complaints, then paint him as a monster the one time he doesn't help them. When the family finds a loophole that allows them to stay in the house as long as Grampa comes to live with them, they treat him like garbage, even leaving him home alone while they go out to get ice cream. Because of all this, Ned evicts them, and Grampa is content to let it happen. In the end, the Simpsons have nobody to blame but themselves; if they were that close to being homeless, you'd think they would be nicer to the people who were responsible for keeping a roof over their heads.
- Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: Grampa allows Ned to evict the family while they went out for ice cream because of the usual awful way they treat him (including not bringing him along to get ice cream!)
- Mythology Gag: When the Simpsons and Flanders families take a picture again, Bart starts making faces, referencing the "Family Portrait" short from The Tracey Ullman Show. This time, Lisa has a normal picture of Bart to use instead. Bart has a framed portrait of him making a crazy face and puts that in front of Lisa's right before the picture is taken.
- Paper-Thin Disguise: During the news piece on Flanders, Homer "disguises" himself by sitting in the dark and talking through a cup with the bottom removed to alter his voice. After this, he "dresses" as Jesuchrist with an obvious fake beard and not even hiding his bald head with the intention of convincing Flanders to not evict the Simpsons, but an unimpressed Flanders sees through him and decides to stick with the eviction.
- Redheads Are Uncool: In a brief gag, Bart's hair has begun to revert to its "natural red" after he's forced to spend days indoors without sunlight. He's not happy about it.Bart: I don't wanna be called "Rusty" again! I don't!
- Shout-Out:
- While living at the homeless shelter, Bart and Lisa were wearing Hulk shirts. Bart's was from "The First Hulk Movie" and Lisa's was from "The Second Hulk Movie".
- Also, Ned's would-be tenants had a dog named Woofi Goldberg.
- The "expose" of Ned allegedly being a bad landlord is titled "The Evil Ned".
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: The exorbitant Mardi Gras parties that Homer annually throws was bound to bankrupt the family, aside from the fact that he's the sole provider and usually wasteful with his money.
- Taking Advantage of Generosity: Ned purchases the Simpsons' house and allows them to stay as their new landlord. It is never mentioned how much Ned is charging them as a landlord, but it definitely must be within their capacity to afford if it's not for free. He also fixes the stuff they demand him to fix with little protest. They force him to fix stuff at all hours of the day and Homer goes to the news to paint him as a monster when he doesn't answer one single call, which was done in the literal dead of night, and wasn't even a priority.
- Tempting Fate:
- After the Simpsons were evicted, Homer drew comfort from the fact it wasn't raining. They then looked at the sky as if expecting it to rain just because Homer said it wasn't but then no rain came.
- Homer tells Marge to let loose for once, saying they have nothing to worry about. The next day, it turned out she had every reason to worry, as Homer ends up spending what was left of their mortgage and the party's expenses are the final straw that leaves them homeless.
- Ungrateful Bastard: The Simpson family, but Homer especially is this towards Ned. If it weren't for Ned, they'd be homeless, yet they kept taking advantage of his generosity, and even slandered him when he failed to answer a phone call in the middle of the night for something the Simpson family could have easily done themselves. Then, when Grampa comes to live with them (because the family can't be evicted if they're taking care of an old person), they mistreat him as well; at one point, it's implied they don't even feed him "people food".
- You Are Fat: In the news piece that badmouths Flanders, Bart dresses up as a ghost to show the house is haunted and claims that "I died when Homer sat on me". He promptly gets angry and chokes him on camera in response.
