Episode Code Number: QABF18.
Abe gets a scam call saying that Bart is in jail and needs ten thousand dollars to get out. After Abe finds out that Bart had not been arrested and the family finds out he had been scammed, they learn that the money would have been Homer's inheritance, making Homer angry at his dad.
After Homer makes a big deal out of it at the school's parent night, Principal Skinner tells Marge about a support group for people who have been scammed, which Abe goes to (and Homer goes to a support group for families of scam victims). Homer learns nothing from the experience and continues to be mad, until the family learns that Homer had purchased a garage worth of Cutlife Knives in a pyramid scheme, meaning Homer had been scammed in a similar way.
When Homer apologizes, Abe gets another scam call, this time telling him that Lisa has been arrested. With Lisa being in the room at the time, the family instantly figures out that Abe is being scammed again, and Lisa has Abe continue talking on the phone as she records the call.
Then Lisa uses internet technology to figure out where they were calling him from. They find an office room full of scam callers at 1300 Business Loop C, and while the police shut it down, they don't get arrested, on the grounds that more will just pop up.
Tropes:
- Actor Allusion: Loki is voiced by Alan Cumming, who previously played the Norse god in Son of the Mask.
- Bait-and-Switch:
- Homer is forced by Marge to attend a therapy session for family members of others who got scammed to avoid giving the "scamees" stress. He takes the chance to learn what not to say...so he can say all that to his father next door.
- To deal with a security guard, Homer brought along some knives. Instead of using them to threaten or even kill the guard, he simply buys him into the knife selling scheme.
- Biting-the-Hand Humor: While making his exit, Loki says he's going to add more blackout dates to Disneyland annual passes, before shapeshifting into Mickey Mouse and laughing his way out and saying "suckers!"note
- Bittersweet Ending: Marge learns the hard way that there are people who take advantage of others for their own benefit. However, Abe gives her hope in the form of mailing her $20 and writing a “thank you” note pretending to be a woman Marge helped at a gas station.
- Bland-Name Product:
- Geezer-bug for Jitterbug (phones for the elderly).
- Oogle for Google.
- Brick Joke: The scammer who scammed Grandpa somehow had a voice ready that replicated Bart's perfectly. Later on, it turns out it came from an elderly employee.Bart: You sound familiar.
Scammer: Don't have a cow, man. - The Cameo: Among Loki's various identities is Bill Cipher."BUY CRYPTO, SUCKERS!"
- Connected All Along: Among Loki's other forms are Jesus Christ, Sun Wukong and Bill Cipher.
- Continuity Nod:
- Abe mentions Bart's grandmother being dead and Homer has a picture of Mike in the diagram for the Ponzi scheme he's been roped into.
- During his cameo, Bill tells the audience to buy crypto, a reference to his line from "Dreamscaperers" in which he tells the audience to buy gold.
- Epic Fail: Mr. Burns owns Springfield Nuclear Power Plant and yet is scammed by someone claiming his electricity will be cut off.
- Gilligan Cut: In a flashback to his first day of work, Abe says he will never need the government to give him money. Cut to the present, where Abe is in line at the post office demanding that the government give him money.
- Heroic BSoD: Marge has this after the police fail to arrest the scammers for playing Grampa as doing so would make more of them take their place, followed by her family stealing the gift cards left behind. She then decides there are no good people on Earth and that the whole of humanity is rotten and decides to try to be rotten herself. Thankfully, Abe snaps her out of it at the end as she gave another scammer $20 for gas money and made her think she wasn't one by mailing her $20 of his own money and a thank you note.
- Humans Are Bastards: Homer basically states this when he is explaining why he is so pissed at Grampa for being scammed. He says that he doesn't believe in the good of others, and that everyone is out to get you. Marge ends up believing this as well after the scammers get off scot-free with their crimes.
- Hypocrite:
- Homer is relentlessly unforgiving towards his old man and the rest of his family unaware that he has already fallen for a pyramid scheme selling knives, which Marge and the kids call him out on.Marge: Face it genius, you got scammed.
- Later, he scams a security guard for the scammers' H.Q. using the same pyramid scheme.
- Moe is attending a support group for scam victims and turns out to have been one of the scammers operating in the same building.
- Homer is relentlessly unforgiving towards his old man and the rest of his family unaware that he has already fallen for a pyramid scheme selling knives, which Marge and the kids call him out on.
- I Have Many Names: As the shapeshifting god of mischief, Loki claims he's had many names and many forms. The scene pans away from him to show a booth consisting of trickster gods Anansi the Spider, Sun Wukong, Jesus, Huēhuecoyōtl, and Bill Cipher.
- Internet Safety Aesop: Grandpa falls victim to a phone scam that convinces him that his grandson is in jail and they need $10,000.00 to get him out. While the family does get the call center closed down, nobody is arrested and Grandpa goes to a support group that helps victims of these scam operations. The moral to the episode is that everyone gets scammed at one point or another and the victims were defenseless and vulnerable people who were simply too frightened to identify their situation as a scam. It's important that you remain calm and judicious when on the receiving end of these scams and you should be more respectful to those who have suffered from them because they are already feeling guilty and ashamed for being fooled and exploited.
- Jerkass Ball: Homer holds this very firmly when learning that Grandpa was scammed out of money that would have been his inheritance. He does the same to the rest of his family when he learns they themselves were scammed as well, as he believes he's the only one smart enough not to fall for obvious scams, completely unaware he himself has long fallen for a pyramid scheme. Before learning how much Grandpa was scammed out of, Homer said he understood why Grandpa would believe the scam and would have fallen for it himself.
- Jerkass Realization: When Homer realizes that he himself was scammed through the Cutlife Knife pyramid scheme, Marge suggests he apologizes to Abe to which he decides she's right.
- Karma Houdini: The various scammers are only ordered to stop scamming but do not get arrested.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: It is unknown whether Loki really did pay The Simpsons a visit or they just witnessed a mass hallucination caused by the restaurant food they ate. Even Lisa isn't sure about it.
- Never Trust a Title: At no point in the episode is Bart in jail (though it wouldn't be the first time); instead, the story deals with Abe being tricked by scammers who convince him that Bart is in jail in a reflection of real-life "grandparent scams." Bart himself is only a bit player in the story that results.
- Not So Above It All: For all Homer's mocking of his family (particularly Grampa) falling for scams, Homer wasn't smart enough to avoid getting scammed himself.
- Papa Wolf: The reason why Abe falls for a scam that tells him that Bart is in jail and gives up $10000 dollars. He was so afraid that his grandson would end up in jail that he didn't even consider if this was fake or not.
- Police Are Useless: When the Simpsons call the police about the phone scammers, they just disperse them without arresting them because more scammers will take their place, and scamming is the only successful business the US has left.
- Ponzi: Homer, who has bragged that he would never fall for a scam, is revealed to be in a knife-selling pyramid scheme.
- Punch-Clock Villain: What the phone scammers turn out to be. They are all just making scams for a job (which doesn't even net them a paycheck, instead giving them gift cards).
- Shout-Out: Homer's dream is a parody of Knives Out.
- Take That!:
- Bill Cipher tells the Simpsons to "Buy crypto, suckers!"
- One of other deities that scams people is Jesus.
- Too Dumb to Live: Abe receives another scam call telling him Lisa's in jail, even though his family is in front of him. He doesn't fall for it, but almost.
