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Recap / The Simpsons S 25 E 7 Yellow Subterfuge

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After Skinner promises the most behaved students on a trip on a submarine and starts by giving everyone a clean slate, Bart tries his best to do just that. Meanwhile, Krusty sells his show rights to other countries (as per Lisa's advice), but soon regrets it when the Krustys from other countries become more successful than the domestic Krusty.

Tropes of this episode:

  • Aesop Amnesia: Acknowledged by Marge.
    Marge: Bart, sweetie, this is an opportunity for you to turn things around yet again, and I believe in you. Yet again!
  • All Crimes Are Equal: Skinner marks students off the list for any damn reason he can think of, even spilling crumbs on their shirt while eating and their lips touching the drinking fountain.
  • Atrocious Alias: Homer and Bart tell Skinner that he'll have to start a new life under the name "Dick Fiddler."
  • Brilliant, but Lazy: An interesting case as we see that when Bart isn't being lazy or troublemaking, he's capable of legitimately earning A+ grades without cheating. He's so unused to good grades that he doesn't know what they are.
  • Comfort Food: Marge wants to cook such a meal for Bart. She's sure he won't manage to be good long enough to get to the school trip because it's only for the best-behaved kids.
    Marge: Sweetie, about the submarine... What's your favorite food to eat when you're disappointed? I'm going shopping tomorrow.
    Bart: Ice cream sandwiches. Why?
  • Chased Off into the Sunset: Krusty and his agent end up fleeing in a golf cart from an angry mob of international licensees after Krusty makes it clear that he's not sharing any more of the profits from his exorbitant fees with them.
  • Continuity Nod:
    • During the submarine video, you see the words Yvan Eht Nioj.
    • Skinner's attendance sheet includes "Isabel Gutierrez," Lisa's friend and class presidential rival from the previous episode.
    • Bart once again uses the Buffy Speak phrase "school guy" to refer to Skinner.
  • Cultural Translation: Lisa shows Krusty an Italian-language version of Spongebob Squarepants as a way to recover from his debts, so Krusty sells the rights of the show around the world. We end up seeing an "Itchy and Scratchy" segment from Jamaica called "Itchum and Scratchum." The Irish version goes for intense melodrama.
  • Disproportionate Retribution: Convincing Skinner he killed his mom, Agnes, and getting him out of Springfield, all because he refused to accept Bart on the submarine trip despite his good behavior. Agnes was in on the hoax.
  • Funny Background Event: In the submarine, a sailor lets Milhouse fire a torpedo, telling him that the hold is empty. When the scene cuts back to Homer and Bart at the pier, a lighthouse can be seen blowing up in the distance.
  • Idiot Ball: Why would Skinner even willingly follow Homer and Bart's advice, especially when Agnes' "murder" happened coincidently after he refused Bart to go in the submarine?
  • Jerkass Ball: Skinner is way stricter than usual and thinks he's in the right for what he does in this episode. Bart, Homer, and Agnes set him straight, thankfully.
  • Kick the Dog: After Skinner takes Bart off the list because he accidentally tracked mud even if he was a model student otherwise (not that it mattered, he was kicking everybody out of it for the flimsiest of reasons anycase), he makes Bart wash his car and do other odd jobs, thinking that this will put him back on the list if he accomplishes them and listening to his very sincere plea to be allowed into the sub after all of this. It doesn't, and Skinner tells him so, so the split second between Bart finishing his plea and before he closes the hatch and tells the sub captain to dive.
  • Laser-Guided Karma: Despite how Bart's prank was quite extreme, you can't help but feel that Skinner deserved it for acting like a Jerkass when Bart was actually trying to be nicer and better at school (even if it was on a condition).
  • Loophole Abuse: Skinner does this to Bart when the latter tries to make it to school on time on foot. He does beat the clock but Skinner points out he unintentionally tracked mud in the school, which to him, is enough to count it against Bart.
  • More Popular Spin-Off: In-universe. Krusty sells the rights to his show around the world, with the result being that every spinoff was innately more popular than the original.
  • My Beloved Smother: Skinner accepts the fact he killed his mother and doesn't remembers doing it by admitting he had subconscious desires to do it for real. Agnes not only swears that she will be even more militant with her nagging from now on (even stopping to take the pills "that make her act nice"), but the episode-long Running Gag of Skinner imagining he's a cowboy well and truly ends with the imaginary Skinner being incarcerated in a whorehouse full of nothing but copies of Agnes. The singing even lampshades that things just got weird.
  • Papa Wolf: Homer initially doesn't believe that Bart is capable of being good, but the moment he sees Skinner screwed him over even after Bart did his absolute damnedest to be in his good graces (even tearfully begging him to allow him into the sub after washing his car, among other odd jobs) he tells Bart that they are going to seek revenge together.
    Homer: What weaknesses does [Skinner] have?
    Bart: Everything!
    Homer: [Very sinisterly] Excellent!
  • Pet the Dog: Homer laughs in Bart's face at the idea that he'll manage to go on the coveted submarine trip, saying he'll never be able to behave himself that long and that even if he could, his track record with Skinner is so bad that he doesn't stand a chance. However, when Bart stays on his best behavior and Homer's prediction still bears out, it's payback time.
  • Running Gag: After Skinner imagines being a cowboy at the beginning, he continues to get Old West-styled imagine spots, sound effects even and a Django-like Leitmotif throughout the episode.
  • Say My Name: Skinner's Leit Motif, which borrows from the main theme of Django, has the chorus shouting out "SKIN-NEEER!"
  • Serious Business: Bart trying to be good doesn’t convince his family at first until Homer saw what Skinner did.
  • Shout-Out: The woman in space is from the movie Gravity.
  • Soapbox Sadie: Lisa asks Skinner to be marked off the list to protest his absurd amounts of strictness that makes him mark people off for reasons as flimsy as having crumbs on their shirt. Skinner does so without hesitation, and Lisa is actually relieved for it.
  • Too Dumb to Live: An Italian SpongeBob parody shows Spunga Roberto note  giving Squidardonote  a land mine explosive as a birthday present.

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