Lisa sets out to restore the reputation of Springfield's first female inventor by searching for her first invention in an asylum. Meanwhile, Bart steals a psycho's notebook from the asylum and pretends to be the one who wrote it, which causes him to get institutionalized.
Tropes:
- Abusive Offspring: After Bart fakes his test answers and causes Homer and Marge to believe he's a sociopath, they become afraid to contradict him in any way and comply with whatever he wants. He takes advantage of this big-time until his parents decide they have no choice but to put him in an institution.
- Attractive Bent-Gender: When Willie disguises as a beautiful slender blonde female working at the strip club that lets Lisa and Milhouse into the basement, with tools stuffed into a bra for "her" bust.
- Bad News in a Good Way: When reviewing the results of the sociopath questionnaire.Homer: Well, the good news is that Bart just got his first 100% ever on a test.
- Borrowed Catchphrase: Bart strangles a stuffed animal while muttering, "Why, you little––!", causing a disturbed Homer to wonder, "Where does he get this stuff?"
- Comically Missing the Point:
- Finding a closet full of straitjackets in the abandoned insane asylum, Bart exclaims, "How many magicians did they have here?"
- Marge doesn't suspect that Bart didn't write the psycho's notebook in spite of the fact she'd consider it an improvement if Bart could write in cursive.
- Homer after he and Marge drop off Bart at the mental institution:Marge: I didn't even get to say good-bye.
Bart: Goodbye! I'll never forgive you!
Homer: There. You happy?
- Creepy Child: The other kids at the mental institution Bart was sent to, one of which tried to stab him with a pair of scissors.
- Did Not Think This Through: Lisa enters a solar-powered vehicle at a race to promote the use of clean energy. A blimp prevents her from winning. She even admits she should have made a device to store energy for this kind of eventuality.
- Foreshadowing: Before the beginning of the race, Homer approaches Lisa, making a shadow at her solar panels. If not for the blimp casting a shadow at the finish line, Lisa would have won.
- Freak Out: When Chief Wiggum tells Marge that her son is dead, Marge pulls her Beehive Hairdo apart in anguish. Wiggum then adds, "...inside." Marge quickly reassembles her hive in embarrassment.
- Group Hug: Homer and Marge tearfully hug Bart when he comes home to them, then include Lisa when she comes back reporting on the success of her subplot. Abe and Maggie then get folded in when he announces that she just tried strawberries for the first time.Marge: (weeping) What a day! What a day!
- Lack of Empathy: The sociopathic kids in the institution are being trained for military use due to this trait. Bart is thrown out when it's discovered that he's not really a sociopath, as he's capable of feeling for others.
- Language Fluency Denial: A visitor at the museum tries this trick to avoid having to hear Lisa talking about the invention. He drops the charade and openly reveals his lack of interest when she speaks the language he's speaking while using the trick.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: After they institutionalize Bart, Marge wonders where she and Homer went wrong, causing Homer to exclaim, "We did everything we could for him during the commercials!" This can be read as either Homer referring to his own frequent TV-watching or Homer implying that he and Marge tried to solve the problem in ways we didn't see during the act break.
- Nightmare Fetishist: Bart being one of these is what gets him into trouble when he finds the diary of a sociopathic insane asylum inmate detailing acts of arson and murder and starts showing it off to his friends at school. While he's delighted, the others are less so; even Nelson seems pretty disturbed.Bart: Guys, did you ever read something and think it was written just for you?
- Not Helping Your Case: Bart when he gets taken to the mental institution.Bart: Let me out! I was just playing a joke! A cruel joke on people that love me, that I don't regret! That doesn't make me a sociopath!
- Pet the Dog: Willie and Professor Frink are the only adults who help Lisa in her quest, the former helping her discover the invention, and the latter taking it seriously at the reveal.
- Psychic Children: Comedically referred to by Homer, who seems to have the word "sociopath" confused with "telepath" and fears that Bart will set him and Marge on fire with his mind if he finds out they're testing him for sociopathy.
- Secret Test of Character: The institutionalized kids are told to play in a simulator where they pretend to kill several people and are later told that it was no simulator and they really killed people. When Bart reacts in horror, he's told it was really a simulation and the lie about killing people was just a way to test the kids' sanity. Bart passes and is released.
- Shout-Out: At the Alternative Energy Derby, Nelson's vehicle is powered the same way The Flintstones move theirs. Nelson even names it after Fred's famous expression of joy.
- The Sociopath: The episode asks the question of whether Bart qualifies, ultimately concluding that he doesn't despite displaying a few of the relevant traits. Before becoming aware of what the test Homer and Marge give him is for, he answers "yes" unhesitatingly to the first three questions ("I enjoy manipulating other people," "I believe I'm being followed," "Sometimes I feel as if I must injure myself or someone else"), and later admits that in order to fake a "perfect" score, he only had to change three of his answers. However, he's capable of feeling hurt when he realizes what he's being tested for (hence his manipulation of the results), he's deeply upset and betrayed when his parents deliver him to the asylum, and he's horrified when he's lead to believe that the drone simulation he was playing was real, saying he never wanted to hurt real people. The fact that he doesn't meet the Lack of Empathy qualifier is what causes the institution to release him, concluding that he's a "healthy, normal boy."
- Strange Minds Think Alike: When Homer and Marge decide to send Bart to a mental institution, they fake a birthday party for him and lure him into a bouncy castle and then drive it to the institution. When they arrive, they find other parents using the same trick.
- Then Let Me Be Evil: Bart is so mad that Homer and Marge think he might be a sociopath that he decides to mess with their minds by faking his answers to the test they gave him and then lean into the characterization as hard as possible.
- Things Get Real: Subverted. Bart is told the Drone simulation that he played was actually real and that he did kill actual people. He begins to panic, only for the institution to reveal that this was a test to see if was actually a sociopath and that the whole thing was indeed a simulation.
- This Is Unforgivable!: Bart to his parents when they trick him into being sent into a mental institution, due to believing that his sociopathy act was for real.
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Values Dissonance: When Lisa finds a message left behind by the inventor, the message expresses the inventor's hopes that the invention will be discovered by a free woman who has permission from her husband.
