The Simpsons are forced to face various Thanksgiving nightmares, including the first Thanksgiving, an artificial intelligence mishap and a dangerous space mission complicated by a sentient cranberry sauce.
The episode provides examples of:
- Admiring the Abomination: Martin sides with the cranberry sauce monster, calling it the most perfect being. He makes a giant can for it and willingly lets it absorb him to be part of it.
- And There Was Much Rejoicing: Occurs in both the first and third segments.
- In "A-Gobble-Lypto", as the turkey versions of the cast are beheaded by Wiggum and the other pilgrims, Homer is horrified as each turkey he knows is killed... until Patty and Selma are decapitated, causing him to begin cheering.
- In "The Last Thanksgiving", when the kids discover Skinner's message and his recording means he's long since died, they all start to celebrate - even Lisa.
- Artistic License – Ornithology: The turkeys in the first segment are depicted as flightless, despite being meant to be wild turkeys. Homer does attempt to fly, but fails at doing so (likely due to his weight).
- Auto-Kitchen: The second segment has an A.I. copy of Marge as the OS of the Simpson kitchen with control over robot arms.
- Ax-Crazy: Clancy Wiggum in the first segment, even going after the turkey Simpsons with an ax.
- Bait-and-Switch: In the second segment, when a jealous Marge demands for her virtual self to be deleted. Homer tells her that this will indeed hurt virtual Marge, because he paid extra for her to feel pain. Marge seems to feel that this isn’t right and says she shouldn't be deleted... until after Thanksgiving.
- Bittersweet Ending: The turkey Simpsons survive but so many of their brethren had been killed and eaten. Turkey Homer can only lament that a dark age has come upon turkey kind.
- Blob Monster: The cranberry sauce monster, which comes to life after being put through a matter replicator and goes around sucking out the kids' bones.
- Breaking Old Trends: This is not the usual Treehouse of Horror episode, despite being very similar.
- Call-Back: The episode opens with Marge walking onto a stage from behind a curtain giving a content warning. This was the opening of several of the early Treehouse of Horror episodes.
- The Cameo: Kang and Kodos make their obligatory appearance during Marge's warning dressed as pilgrims.
- Chekhov's Gun: A.I. Marge uses the timer Homer forced to think about a plan to exit to the net.
- Creative Closing Credits: Like the Treehouse of Horror credits with its Halloween-ized staff names, the credits lists the staff with Thanksgiving-themed names (primarily food-based puns, such as Jeff Westbrook as "Jeff Wishbone"). They play over footage of the first Bart Simpson balloon on the 65th Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade from 1991.
- Deus ex Machina:
- The turkey Simpsons are saved when a bear arrives and proceeds to maul Wiggum to death.
- The Simpsons are saved from the jelly monster by alien natives.
- Funny Background Event:
- In the second segment, a TV in the background shows Mayor Quimby warily approaching a pig with no pants on, which is a reference to the Black Mirror episode "The National Anthem". Lots of other hidden Black Mirror references are scattered throughout the segment.
- As the rest of the family members come out of their hibernation pots alongside Santa Little Helper, only Snowball's pod shows the cat died and became a skeleton.
- Humans Are the Real Monsters: The pilgrims are this from the turkeys' point-of-views.
- I Just Want to Be Free: After A.I. Marge learns that she will be deleted after Thanksgiving and that they installed a firewall to block her fleeing to the internet, she thinks of a plan to upload herself on the home's router.
- Immediate Self-Contradiction: Lisa starts to suggest that Milhouse and Bart are responsible for the jelly monster attacking by meeting it with aggression and starts to suggest peace, then it descends from the ceiling to start killing Nelson and she immediately starts screaming to kill it.
- Irony: A.I. Marge is forced to pass 2 weeks in a matter of seconds in the real world so she can recover from her little Sanity Slippage. When she needs time to think of plan for Thanksgiving, she makes herself pass 8 years of complete isolation to get an answer, but she somehow keeps herself together.
- "It" Is Dehumanizing: The A.I. Marge doesn't take kindly to Homer referring to her as an it.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Marge ends up humiliated by her A.I. after she lied about cooking the delicious dinner and attempted to delete her for good.
- Let Him Choose: Maggie ends up with the device containing digital Marge. Marge tries to convince Maggie into giving it to her so she can delete it, while digital Marge tries to convince Maggie to bring the device to the router so she can escape into the internet. Maggie ends up choosing digital Marge after she simulates the first sound Maggie ever heard (Marge's heartbeat).
- Off with His Head!: This is what the pilgrims do to the turkey, minus Homer since Bart helps him escape.
- Other Me Annoys Me: Marge become increasingly nonplussed by her A.I. self as it becomes more and more clear she knows and feels as much as she does.
- Precision F-Strike: A.I. Marge lets loose profane language after hearing real Marge take credit for the Thanksgiving meal she prepared.A.I. Marge: That BITCH!
- Robotic Reveal: At the end of "The Fourth Thursday After Tomorrow" Homer is revealed to be a robot. Marge comments that this fact makes him forgetting her birthday even worse.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
- Two Native Americans come to the Pilgrim village, only to find it in utter chaos. Without saying a single word, they slowly back away.
- A.I. Marge leaves the Simpsons house after learning the Simpsons are going to delete her, but not before exposing Marge's lies to her guests.
- Spiritual Antithesis: "The Fourth Thursday After Tomorrow" is one to Treehouse of Horror XII's "House of Whacks", in which the Simpsons turn their house into a smart home that falls in love with Marge, while the former has the Simpsons turn their kitchen smart with an A.I. that has Marge's personality and memories, including her love for Homer. In a twist however, while the A.I. Pierce was the antagonist in "House of Whacks", attempting to kill Homer to get to Marge, Marge herself becomes the antagonist in "The Fourth Thursday After Tomorrow", threatening to delete A.I. Marge after Thanksgiving when she catches her having an intimate moment with Homer.
- Thanksgiving Episode: A Thanksgiving themed episode done in the style of the Treehouse of Horror episodes.
- Tomato in the Mirror: A.I. Marge awakes believing herself to be the real Marge who has somehow found herself in a white void until Homer bluntly tells her she's just a simulation of his wife. She doesn't take this well.
- The Unintelligible: The turkey versions of the Simpsons only gobble, although they retain their distinct intonation. Only the last line even has subtitles.
- Visual Pun: When digital Marge tries to leave for the internet, she is stopped by a literal firewall.
- What Happened to the Mouse?:
- In the third segment, while Bart and Lisa escape and most of other children's skeletons are eaten, the last we see of Milhouse is when he tries to befriend the jelly monster only to be beaten about by it, and then tossed aside when it tries to get back into it's giant can as it gets launched into space. It is unknown what happens to him after that.
- Besides the Simpsons, people in the dormant silos didn't appear after the ship was crashed.
- What Measure Is a Non-Human?: The second segment is about a digital assistant programmed from Marge's DNA, which thinks she is Marge - the manual Homer reads from actually warns the user about this. When a jealous Marge orders it deleted, digital Marge plans to escape to the internet.
- What the Hell, Hero?: All the dinner guests give this to Marge when they learn that she took credit for cooking the Thanksgiving dinner that digital Marge actually prepared.
- Whole-Plot Reference:
- The first segment, "A-Gobble-Lypto", is a turkey-centric version of Apocalypto.
- The second, "The Fourth Thursday After Tomorrow", is a spoof of the Black Mirror episode "White Christmas", with nods to other episodes thrown in.
- The third, "The Last Thanksgiving", is mostly based on Life, with elements of Pandorum and Alien.
- Year Inside, Hour Outside: Much like in Black Mirror: White Christmas, A.I. Marge can be forced to live out how much time is needed to pass inside the virtual environment in a matter of seconds. Unlike that movie, however, she later uses this to her advantage by giving herself eight years to think of a plan to escape into the Internet before the Simpsons can delete her.
