The Simpsons find themselves invited by the Van Houtens to join them and a couple other families to a group vacation home in Costa Rica. Marge is excited, as even though it is outside their price range she really wants a special destination adventure with other families. However, Patty comes along with her new girlfriend Evelyn who turns out be more like Homer than anyone could have thought.
Tropes
- Broke Episode: The Simpsons have always been on the verge of poor, but this episode makes a point that the Costa Rica vacation is outside their budget. Marge really wants the experience regardless of their finances, but when Lisa overhears she goes into a nervous wreck.
- Card-Carrying Jerkass: Patty is revealed to have the middle name of "Maleficent" and is made official that she is the most Jerkass of the Bouvier twins.
- Cheated Angle: Regardless of which angle she's seen from, the hair spike that Lisa stressfully twirled until it was bent out of shape will always be the second-lowest one.
- Chekhov's Gag: An excited Marge Drives Like Crazy upon finally being invited on the Van Houtens' group vacation, with the force of her speed knocking a billboard onto Lou the cop and setting a wind chime store on fire, among other havoc. Patty and Evelyn wind up on the vacation after Lou and his sister bow out thanks to his billboard injury and her wind chime store burning down.
- The Con: The Reveal of the episode is that the Van Houtens have been running a scam for a while now: the luxury villa they use for the "shared vacation" is actually owned by their family. So they invite other families to visit, charge whatever they want claiming that they are handling the shared finances but are actually pocketing the money and using that to pay for themselves.
- Dirty Coward: Luann shamelessly throws Kirk under the bus by claiming she had no idea about the other families being scammed. Kirk immediately tells everyone the scam was her idea.
- Distaff Counterpart: Patty's girlfriend Evelyn bonds with Homer over beer and sports, and soon it's revealed that she is pretty much a female version of Homer. Marge outright tells Patty she's dating a Homer, much to Patty's horror.
- Drives Like Crazy: Marge's excited drive home from the Van Houtens after being invited actually directly causes Patty and Evelyn to end up on the trip by injuring Lou and burning down his sister's wind chime store, eliminating two guests from the roster. When they finally stop, Bart stumbles out of the backseat and kisses the ground in relief.
- The Dog Bites Back: Having to put up with her sisters, especially Patty, disparaging Homer all her life, Marge tells her off that Evelyn is just like Homer. Though Marge regrets it when Patty broke up with Evelyn, she convince Patty to give Evelyn another chance.
- Embarrassing Middle Name: Patty's middle name of "Maleficent" is somewhere between this and Names to Run Away from Really Fast.
- False Friend: Milhouse ditched Bart on vacation to hang out with his 'vacation bestie' Dr. Hibbert's son. Though it's completely one sided since Hibbert's son totally ignores Milhouse the entire time.
- Foreshadowing: Homer and Marge point out that Kirk and Luann aren't any more affluent than they are yet can afford to vacation to Costa Rica every year.
- Full-Name Ultimatum: Marge calls Patty by her full name: "Patricia Maleficent Bouvier".
- Funny Background Event: While Marge and Patty have a heart-to-heart on the zipline, everybody else continues furiously ziplining after the Van Houtens.
- Hard-Drinking Party Girl: Patty's new girlfriend, Evelyn, loves beer and is prone to drunken antics. As such, she gets along really well with Homer, much to Patty's chagrin.
- Laser-Guided Karma:
- Patty hates Homer for a billion reasons and has no problem going as far as torturing, exploting her sister getting a bout of amnesia, and even proving that she will definitely celebrate Homer's death. She ends up falling in love with a woman that is a perfect female clone of Homer.
- The episode ends with the Van Houtens getting attacked by the monkeys and standing in the middle of the destroyed home of one of Kirk's relatives, which they moan will put them even deeper in the poor house to fix (and even if that went well, now that people know of their vacation scam they will never be able to get as much money as they did before).
- Machete Mayhem: Bart is outright ecstatic at the fact that he can freely carry around a machete in Costa Rica, and him using it to cut down stuff willy-nilly is a Running Gag.
- Manipulative Bastard: Both Kirk and Luann had invited the other families on their trip to Costa Rica, claiming that they'd handle all the budgeting at the end of the trip. However, the Simpsons discover that the Van Houtens actually own the villa and were scamming the other families in order to pay for their own vacation.
- Monumental Damage: The Running Gag of Bart cutting foliage indiscriminately with his new machete culminates with the reveal in the last seconds of the episode that Bart carved a huge "El Barto" out of the Costa Rican rainforest that can be seen from their airplane.
- Mischief-Making Monkey: Homer and Evelyn have a drunken party while the others are away and "invited" some of the local monkeys, who end up wrecking the place. Reaction Shots of the monkeys after a shocking revelation becomes a Running Gag throughout the episode, and it culminates with the monkeys completely wrecking the Van Houten home.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Patty, one of Marge's sisters, and Obnoxious In-Laws supreme, is revealed to have the middle of name of "Maleficent".
- Not So Similar: While they're similar in every way, the one difference is that Homer hates Patty so much (while feels sorry for Selma) and Evelyn loves Patty dearly.
- Obnoxious In-Laws: In a weird example, Marge tells Patty that Homer hates them both, but he also feels sorry for Selma having to live alongside Patty because the former is the less Jerkass of the twins.
- Only Sane Man: Lisa spends the episode bemoaning the fact that their family can't afford their vacation and with Bart's help, tries to get their parents to snap out of it.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: While Marge's typically-sound judgement is clouded by how badly she wants to take the trip, Homer is very concerned about the effect it will have on their finances at first and has to be talked into taking the leap. Overhearing this sends Lisa into a spiral of panic.
- The Reveal: The Simpsons discover that the Van Houten family actually owns the villa and were overcharging the others in rent and expenses in order to pay for their own vacation.
- Right for the Wrong Reasons: At the middle point of the episode, Bart and Lisa think that the Costa Rican vacation is literally too good to be true and assume that the Van Houtens are doing some crime on the side to be able to afford it. They believe at first that it's the smuggling of archaelogical artifacts, but this turns out to be wrong (the "artifacts" are just souvenirs that resemble artifacts). And then in the final act they figure out that the Van Houtens are performing a Real Estate Scam with the villa that they lie isn't theirs.
- Shout-Out: Patty's middle name, according to Marge, is Maleficent.
- Undisclosed Funds: When the Van Houtens give Homer the bill, the glass in his reading glasses breaks and Bart grabs a fan to cool him off with.
- Vacation Episode: This time, the Simpsons travel to Costa Rica.
