Professor Frink gets Homer a job at a nuclear power plant in Shelbyville by Playing Cyrano, but Homer needs him to keep it up out of fear he will screw everything up if he were to think for himself. Meanwhile, the applicant who got passed over for the job by Homer tries to get revenge.
The day of the interview has come, and Frink is just offscreen for moral support. Homer logs onto Zoom a bit early, interrupting an interview with another potential hire, Dr. Lori Spivak. Feeling confident, Dr. Spivak logs off for a moment. The head of the new nuclear plant asks Homer what he thinks about the NRC. Homer ponders for a moment, confusing the NRC and NRA. He looks over to Frink, and Frink decides to help him, and Frink tells Homer that the NRC is the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, what that means, why they're important, and gluhaivak. Homer parrots these words, Frinkisms included. The rest of the interview follows suit, and Homer gets the job, and Dr. Spivak doesn't. She's furious, writing "DEAD" over Homer's Zoom feed before tossing her roommate's laptop. Frink thinks his job is done, but Homer objects, it's not enough to get him a job, he has to do Homer's job too. Looking at a test tube containing a tear he shed in empathy, he accepts.
Homer is quitting the Springfield nuclear plant, and because he's quit almost 700 times, Smithers has a form made just for Homer getting a new job. With a few boxes checked, Smithers gives Homer the go-ahead to storm out dramatically.
Frink figures he can't be with Homer all the time, so he's made something for this scenario. The Earano Frinkatalk, a combination glasses-earpiece so Homer can parrot his words, like a parrot, or his budgie.
Homer begins his job at the Kevät Kenttä Nuclear Power Plant. Homer is shown the plant's employee canteen, and is amazed he can use a place like this for free. Other job benefits include free daycare and massages. Homer is shown his workplace, and Dr. Spivak is there, hired to be Homer's assistant. She's bitter and is clearly plotting something, but Homer is cheerfully oblivious.
Back home, Marge is happy for Homer. She likes how he seemingly takes time to think before speaking, and she's thrilled that they have daycare now! She now has enough free time to take multiple baths! They're on their way to the upper-middle class!
Dr. Spivak is suspicious that Homer keeps switching from speaking smartly to speaking stupidly and back again. She thinks Homer is using a chatbot, but Homer confirms he only uses chatbots for dirty limericks. Later, she's seen meeting Lenny and Carl, wanting to know what Homer was like at Springfield Nuclear. Time passes and whiskey is shared, and she knows the depths of Homer's incompetence. She goes into his office, and finds the Frinkatalk, and shames Frink for letting Homer steal a job he wasn't qualified for. Frink realizes he's crossed a line.
Homer comes home from another fine day of work, in such a good mood that he willingly has an exchange with Flanders. Frink confronts Homer in the driveway, demanding he thinks for himself. Homer thinks otherwise, he can't keep this up if he were to think his own thoughts. Flanders tries to de-escalate the situation, but Frink tells him to shut up, and Homer follows suit, thinking Frink was back to telling him what to do.
Shelbyville Nuclear is having a corporate retreat in the mountains, and Homer and Marge are invited, Homer having failed to talk his way out of it. After asking Frink for directions to the ski resort, Frink declares he's had enough, throwing away his own headset and shattering the test tube with the empathy tear. At the resort, Homer's boss wants to talk about the turbines, but Frink isn't picking up the headset, with Homer getting advice from Frink's budgie until Dr. Spivak hacked the frequency. She's on her way to the ski resort.
Dr. Spivak gets onto a ski lift with Homer and Marge. She introduces herself to Marge, saying Homer took her job. Marge is already mad. Dr. Spivak questions to Marge why Homer requires an earpiece, and asks Marge that doesn't seem unfair that another woman is cheated out of a job by an unqualified man? Marge defends Homer, by saying that shouldn't she be happy that another woman is free to take a bath in the middle of the day? But with Spivak's words of female affirmation and a catchy lament Lisa wrote echoing in her mind, Marge acquiesces, and tells Homer to tell the truth. Homer admits on the mountaintop that he's a fraud, and he quits. But while he quits, Homer is unknowingly skiing over a cliff. With his health insurance cancelled, Homer demands that nobody call an ambulance for him as the credits begin with him taking a very bumpy fall down the cliff.
The mid-credits scene shows Homer being rehired at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, with Smithers having another form prepared for giving Homer is job back. Two checks and a signature, and Homer is back, and on break.
Tropes:
- All for Nothing: Dr. Spivak's plan to get Homer to admit to being a fraud and quit his job works, but it ends up creating a chain reaction that causes several other employees to admit to their own fraudulent behaviors. Two of them, one lying about being Finnish and the other using a picture from nine years before getting the job, wind up being treated as far worse in comparison to Homer's lying.
- Acronym Confusion: Homer thinks the NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) is the NRA (National Rifle Association).
- Ambiguously Human: Professor Frink admits he has hypothesized about his own humanity, with his tear of empathy confirming his human status.
- Based on a True Story: Referenced. The episode opens with a card reading "This episode is based on true events. Every other episode is nothing but lies." It kind of is, as the topic of this episode is Homer using an outside knowledgebase to get a job he wasn't qualified for, not too dissimilar to the growing use of AI for similar situations, which is a hot button topic in the real world when the episode aired because many people HAVE been caught using ChatGPT and the like to do their jobs for them or (in the case of school students) using it get higher grades than they would have otherwise gotten.
- Borrowed Catchphrase:
- Homer uses some of Frink's Verbal Tic noises when repeating what he said.
- When Ned interrupts a confrontation between Homer and Frink, Frink shouts, "Shut up, Flanders!" Homer repeats it, not realizing this is a phrase Frink took from him in the first place.
- Broke the Rating Scale: When asked to grade Homer's performance at the Springfield plant on a scale from A to F, Carl says "Z", and Lenny admits the alphabet isn't big enough.
- Continuity Nod:
- Lenny and Carl bring up when Homer caused Springfield to get trapped under a dome, which was the plot of The Simpsons Movie.
- When Homer hears about the NRC, he asks "Those are the gun nuts, right?", confusing them with the NRA, which he joined in "The Cartridge Family".
- Homer lamenting his lost ambition for his job and how he used to be high in the company before falling so low actually does reference the earlier seasons, where he actually did take his job more seriously.
- Continuity Cavalcade:
- Homer's resume is seen, showing jobs he's had in the past. Astronaut, World Cup referee, Mr. Plow, toothpaste cap screwer, owner of the Denver Broncos, captain of Springshield, head crossing guard, sanitation commissioner, newspaper food critic, volunteer fireman, took cannon balls in stomach, hosted cable access show, member of The Be Sharps, voice actor, carny, fortune cookie writer, manure salesman, town crier, mall Santa, used car salesman, Krusty impersonator, stand-up comedian, Springfield Woman's Prison guard, roadie, grease collector, prank monkey, fish gutter, and one man band.
- During Lisa's Lament, she has framed photos of Homer in various jobs: bodyguard, barbershop quartet singer, Mr. Plow, Safety Salamander, astronaut, Dancin' Homer, and navy captain.
- Lisa's Lament shows a montage of pictures from past episodes (and the current episode, and a future episode from Season 49) of Homer's jobs. They are, in order: ad executive, astronaut, mayor's bodyguard, boxer, football coach, Duffman, grifter, carpenter, security system owner, hipster, LEGO, mall santa, FBI agent, monorail conductor, worker at the Shelbyville nuclear plant (referring to this episode), film assistant, Pie Man, aphrodisiac salesman, rock star, border patrol, farmer, movie star, and Zardoz.
- Couch Gag:
- The title gag has an angel Flanders rising, playing the harp section of the background music, while a devil Homer falls.
- The couch gag has the family growing on a tree, and they curl up and discolor before falling off like autumn leaves, before being blown away by Groundskeeper Willie.
- Crossing the Burnt Bridge: The form filled when Homer leaves Springfield Nuclear Power Plant has a section about burnt bridges.
- Ear Worm: Marge admits that Lisa's Lament is quite catchy despite being so sad.
- Fully Automatic Clip Show: Lisa's Lament has a compilation of freeze-frames from past episodes of Homer getting different jobs. Complete with an Aspect Ratio Switch for roughly half of the clips shown.
- Frankenstein's Monster.
- Not a literal one, though Frink has a couple of those lying about, too —it's Homer, who, with Frink in his ear, has become an insufferable Jerkass.
- Possibly that genetically-modified ape who tells him he crossed the line between legitimate science and "mad" science a long time ago, too.
- George Jetson Job Security: Homer has quit or been fired from his job and came back so many times, that the Power Plant has dedicated forms for it.
- I Ate WHAT?!: Maggie tastes a meatball that Homer brings home from work, but spits it out once he says it was made from reindeer meat.
- In Vino Veritas: Dr. Lori Spivak gives Lenny and Carl whiskey in order to admit Homer's faults.
- It's All About Me: When Dr. Spivak asks Marge, as a woman, to back her up after a very unqualified Homer snatched a job from a qualified woman, Marge is more concerned with being able to take a bath during the day and wants Dr. Spivak to support her on it, feeling that is more important.
- Limerick: Homer uses a chatbot to write dirty limericks. The beginning of one is seen. "There once was a nerd from Cal Tech, whose dating life was quite a wreck..."
- Mad Scientist: Frink laments about becoming one after getting called out for assisting Homer at his new job, only for an ape he gene-spliced to tell him he already crossed that line years ago.
- New Job Episode: Homer gets a job at another nuclear plant. There are multiple lampshades on the fact there have been countless episodes where Homer has taken new jobs before. Smithers has had enough experience with the previous hundreds of times Homer has quit and rejoined the nuclear plant that he's made standardized forms specifically for him.
- Noodle Incident: Homer's resume lists him as having been a toothpaste cap screwer. Of all the jobs we've seen him do on the show, this has never happened on-screen.
- Oblivious to His Own Description: After hearing a lyric in Lisa's Lament referring to stories she couldn't share with her dad, Homer laughs and says "Boy, I wouldn't want to be that dad!"
- Playing Cyrano: The episode revolves around a platonic variation of this, with Frink telling Homer all the words he has to say to get this job, and for a while, sustain it.
- Real Award, Fictional Character: Professor Frink, Moe, Lenny, Carl and the two background barflies Sam and Larry have all won an Emmy. Barney has won two of them.
- Shout-Out:
- At the end of the montage in Lisa's Lament, a picture of a future episode in Season 49 shows Homer will have Zardoz as a job.
- Homer can be seen reading a Life in Hell-sinki comic.
- Special Guest: Amanda Seyfried as Dr. Lori Spivak.
- Take That!: After getting a massage from a man dressed as a Viking, Homer wonders if there's anything that Vikings can't do. The Viking replies "Win the Super Bowl
". - Take Our Word for It: Homer's chatbot produced dirty limerick isn't shown in full. Homer remarks about just how dirty it is, though.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Dr. Spivak disappears from the plot after Homer leaves the cable car, leaving her story with no closure beyond Homer admitting to being a fraud and quitting.
