Recap / The Simpsons S 35 E 5 Treehouse Of Horror XXXIV

"Treehouse of Horror XXXIV" is an episode of The Simpsons that first aired on November 5, 2023. Directed by Rob Oliver. Written by Jeff Westbrook, Jessica Conrad and Dan Vebber. Episode Code Number OABF17.

This year's segments include:

"Wild Barts Can't Be Token"

Bart is turned into an NFT and Marge fights her way through a blockchain to rescue him.

"Ei8ht"

Set 20 Minutes into the Future in an alternate ending of "Cape Feare", Lisa turns to her brother's murderer Sideshow Bob for help in tracking down a serial killer.

"Lout Break"

Homer eats a contaminated donut, which causes a DNA-altering outbreak that is turning Springfield's populace into a plague of Homer-ish oafs.

Full Recap

Wild Barts Can't Be Token

Mayor Quimby holds a meeting in front of the Springfield Museum of Art, now nearly empty. He's announcing that the museum will be closed forever, and it's contents will be digitized and sold on the blockchain as NFTs. Homer and Bart sneak into the museum, seeking to turn a profit by digitizing their art, and Bart believes his mooning butt is enough of a work of art to go first. But as the digitizer starts working, Homer and Bart realize too late that by being converted into an NFT, Bart's physical form will be destroyed. Homer gets a notification that Bart has been minted, and his despair turns into glee after realizing Bart is worth 1.5 million dollars.

Homer tries to break the news to Marge, but she's less than pleased, but pleasantly surprised after seeing how much Bart was worth as the first human NFT. She briefly considers Lisa's potential worth as an NFT for a moment, but decides against it, wanting to get Bart back. Three cloaked figures appear in the kitchen, saying that Marge must enter the blockchain to get Bart back. The three figures reveal themselves to be Kylie Jenner, Rob Gronkowski, and Jimmy Fallon, guardians of the cryptoverse and well-versed in how it works. At the museum, Kylie equips Marge with a USB key that can get Marge and Bart out. Rob spikes a football at the activator button of the digitizer, and Marge is digitized and minted.

Marge is surrounded by nearly-worthless NFTs in a dingy train car. A turtle NFT explains that this is the blocktrain, moving endlessly through a digital icy wasteland, powered by FOMO. A mixtape NFT further exposits that this is the last car of the train, housing the NFTs that are barely worth anything at all, which is to say, 99% of all NFTs. Marge looks at her price of $8.02, and figures that being the second human NFT isn't special enough to have any real worth, and a stereotypical Frenchman egg NFT says Bart is at the front of the train, but Marge can never go there. She tries to open the door to the next car, but slips and cracks open the egg. Marge sees that her price has increased to $21.80 and is teleported to the next car. The kittens of the next car tell her that by killing another NFT, she's being a disruptor, and crypto bros will pour money into her as a result. Marge knows what she must do, kill every NFT between her and Bart.

As Marge's kill count goes above 700, Lisa sees Marge's worth is skyrocketing, but because of FOMO, everyone wants in on human NFTs. Enter, Kirk Van Houten, dragging Milhouse along, wanting in on the new trend. Chief Wiggum also enters the scene with Ralph in tow, also wanting to be the owner of the third human NFT. Ralph and Milhouse get digitized at the same time, becoming an abominable amalgamate NFT who appears before Marge, wanting to die. Marge gives Ralphhouse a Mercy Kill, and now worth 10 million dollars, Marge is teleported to the front of the train.

Marge finds Bart, and he's reluctant to leave. He's being treated like royalty, surrounded by jaded ape servants. Meanwhile, in the real world, Mr. Burns offers to buy Bart for 100 million dollars, but this would mean Bart will be stuck in the blockchain forever. Homer is overcome by FOMO, having missed out on so many bubbles. Lisa urges Marge to act fast, and Marge takes Bart and heads for a door. But as Marge turns the key, Homer hits "sell" on his phone.

Lisa is in disbelief about what Homer has done. Marge and Bart de-digitize, and back in the real world, Bart wonders where Homer is. Lisa clarifies that he sold himself, choosing to token his own life over miss out. Homer is at the head of the blocktrain as a hundred million dollar human NFT, but the blocktrain grinds to a halt. The FOMO is gone, the craze is over, and the multi-million dollar NFTs prices drop to mere cents. Homer lets out a "D'OH!" loud enough to start an avalanche, burying the blocktrain in digital snow.

Ei8ht

This segment begins 30 seasons ago, as the Thompson houseboat drifts to Springfield as Sideshow Bob performs H.M.S. Pinafore for a captive audience of Bart Simpson and, having wiggled to a viewing position while still in her bindings, Lisa. But right before the last note of the finale is sung, Sideshow Bob realizes he's been played. Bart only requested this performance as a means of stalling for time. Without stalling, Sideshow Bob slices Bart apart with his machete, while Lisa watches.

Thirty years pass, and Doctor Professor Lisa Simpson is America's number one criminal psychologist, and the Dean of the true crime department of Springfield University. Her class is dismissed, and Police Sergeant Nelson Muntz is here to see her. Her help is needed with a murder case, and the killer left a message for her. "HI LISA!" spelled in the entrails of Rod Flanders, sliced in half with "ROD IS THE FIRST" written in blood above him. Nelson is sure a profiler as traumatized as Lisa can solve this. Looking around the crime scene, Lisa figures the killer doesn't play by the rules, seeing an improperly played game of solitaire. Lisa believes this killer won't be satisfied by just one murder, and Officer Dolph Starbeam peeks in to announce another murder. Montaigne Prince, older brother to Martin, converted into a mockery of a clock with his exposed heart as the pendulum. There's another message above the corpse, "MONTAIGNE PRINCE IS THE FIRST". As Lisa ponders how he could also be the first, Jimbo announces there's yet another murder, Dermott Spuckler, flayed apart, with another message saying he "IS THE FIRST". Before Nelson could finish his thought, Kearney reports one more killing, but before that one is found out, Shauna also reports a killing. Sherri Mackleberry, also "THE FIRST". Seeing Sherri's pieces turned into a gory Rube-Goldberg machine, Lisa admits that this killer is too deranged for her to figure out. But she knows someone who can.

Lisa meets with Sideshow Bob at the Springfield Maximum Security Prison, and he instantly knows what she's dealing with. Lisa wants answers, but Bob isn't gonna give them so clearly to someone who should figure it out. He prefers to be more cryptic, dropping clues in the anagrams he speaks. Lisa doesn't want any of this, and leaves, but Bob taunts her by speaking a limerick about how he killed Bart. Enraged, Lisa promises that Bob will die in his cell, and whenever that is, wherever she is, she'll be dancing.

A funeral is held for Sherri, and Terri has no clues who would kill her big sister. After realizing Sherri is the first-born twin, Lisa connects the dots. All the victims were firstborn, and Sideshow Bob's clue about anagrams was referring to the killer's lair, Ana Gram's Spooky Abandoned Warehouse. Hearing a clattering sound among the meat hooks, Nelson goes ahead, only for the killer to strike. Lisa goes in after Nelson, only to be greeted by blood dripping by his corpse, suspended in midair by hooks. Lisa ran from the scene of the newest murder, only to find the killer's lair, a copy of her old bedroom. Looking at the security footage, Lisa finds out the killer's identity; herself! Shocked and confused, Jimbo, Dolph and Kearney appear to arrest her.

At Springfield Maximum Security Prison, Sideshow Bob returns to his cell, only to find Lisa is his new cellmate. Lisa explains that she killed all those people so gruesomely in order to get admitted to this specific prison, and with help from one of the prison guards, Maggie, she got to Bob's cell. Bob is impressed by Lisa's killings, figuring she didn't have it in her. Lisa clarifies that Professor Lisa Simpson didn't have it in her, but she does. After Sideshow Bob complains about how cliché the split personality killer trope is, Lisa makes it clear that the firstborn in her mind is gone, her last victim, soon to be second-last. Sideshow Bob tries to make a break for it, only to step on one last rake. With a knife in hand, Lisa puts on a record of the finale of H.M.S. Pinafore, and dances as she avenges Bart.

Lout Break

Homer is having a snack break in the turbine room, despite a sign clarifying eating there is forbidden. Homer complains about the "Nanny State" forbidding the irresponsible actions he likes. Homer gets up to leave, but knocks over a donut that rolls throughout the plant. Homer picks it up in Mr. Burns' life extension laboratory, covered in all sorts of oogies, including nuclear waste. Homer happily eats it in protest of the nanny state. That night, the nuclear donut is giving him a DNA-altering stomachache.

The next day, he gets up to steal Flanders' newspaper, only for Flanders to show up, ready to give the newspaper. Homer's glowing guts gurgle as he burps out a green gas. Ned is instantly feeling sick, but he goes to church anyway, but mid-sermon, Ned is feeling strange. He instantly gains weight, grows a muzzle, and loses his hair as his voice changes. He has become his neighborino, and after he expresses the desire to watch football instead of going to church, he burps a whole cloud of the green gas. More burps are heard as the church doors open, revealing everyone inside has become a Homer-like lout, with the only piece of their original personality remaining being part of their catchphrase, modified into something more Homer-like.

Bart, Lisa and Maggie are watching the news as nearly everyone in town are being turned into Homers. People in hazmat suits break into the house and take them onto a helicopter to a safe zone, where Professor Frink explains the situation. Homer's genetic code is spreading through a burpborne contagion, and only the original Homer's DNA can fix this. Only the three of them can fix this, because they are the only ones immune. Bart has an idea, and they check Moe's, which is at full capacity, but nobody in there is the one true Homer.

Hours of searching has passed, but no trace of the real Homer can be found. Looking at a discarded bucket of chicken, Bart gets another idea. Homer is at a car wash bathroom, the nearest bathroom Marge lets Homer in the day after eating at Ray's House of Beaks. Homer is more interested in a backscratcher he found than saving the world.

In fact, Homer isn't interested in saving the world at all! Homer is in a world where everyone thinks like him, recklessly. Frink tries to change Homer's mind by revealing that Marge has also been Homerized. The kids are horrified, but after a moment of shock, Homer makes it clear he's never been deeper in love with Marge before. Frink is freaking out, stressing about what would happen in a world without experts, but Homer doesn't care. Frink is left with no other option, he's calling in a nuclear air strike to wipe out all of Homerkind. But before the strike could be ordered, Homer figured he could calm Frink down with a back scratch. His hazmat suit torn open, Frink has become a Homer.

With nothing to stop the contagion, Homer's genetic code has become a globe-consuming pandemic. As burps fill the atmosphere, Earth's population is doomed to become 100% Simpson.

---

Tropes:

• The Bus Came Back: After a four-year absence, Sideshow Bob makes his triumphant return. Of note, this is also Bob's third appearance in a TOH episode after XXVI and XXVII.
• Breaking Old Trends: Much like the last TOH, there's no Cold Open. Only this time, there's not even an interesting Art Shift to compensate.
• Halloween Episode: The one for Season 35.

Tropes for "Wild Barts Can't Be Token"

• All for Nothing: Homer sells himself to Mr. Burns for a large amount of money, only for all NFTs to lose their worth, trapping him on the blocktrain as it gets buried under an avalanche.
• Apologetic Attacker: When Marge realizes that killing NFTs can bring her to the next cart, she kills them and says sorry while doing so.
• Bait-and-Switch: Homer sells someone to Mr. Burns... Himself.
• Big "NO!": Homer's response to realizing Bart has been lost to the blockchain, before becoming a Big "YES!" upon learning Bart's NFT worth.
• Bittersweet Ending: Marge saves Bart, but Homer turns himself into an NFT and sells himself to Burns, only for the Blocktrain to stop and devalue all NFTs, Homer included.
• Body Horror: Ralphhouse, a twitching fusion between Milhouse and Ralph that speaks with a shared mouth. Despite existing for only a few brief seconds, their first words are requesting Marge to kill them.
• Cyber Green: NFT prices appear as green text, and murdered NFTs disappear in a flash of green light. In the case of the first NFT Marge kills, Ennui Oeuf, his egg whites are a bright green sludge full of ones and zeroes.
• Deadly Dodging: Marge takes out the Itchy and Scratchy NFTs by jumping right when they fire their Eye Beams, killing each other.
• Gem Tissue: The golden Poochie NFT has literal diamond hands.
• Hollywood Glass Cutter: Marge uses Poochie's diamond hands to cut a hole in the window, sucking Poochie out along with all the other NFTs in the car.
• Idiot Houdini: Other than not profiting off NFTs themselves, Kirk and Wiggum get away with unintentionally turning their sons into a twitching abombination that Marge mercy kills.
• Mama Bear: Marge kills a train full of NFTs to save her special little guy.
• Mercy Kill: Kirk and Chief Wiggum throw Milhouse and Ralph into the NFT machine at the same time, fusing them into an unholy abomination that Marge is forced to put out of its misery. Though she might've mistaken them for a regular NFT.
• Moment of Weakness: Upon learning Bart is worth $1.5 million, Marge briefly wonders how much money Lisa would be worth.
• Mooning: When Homer and Bart attempt to digitize their art, the first "masterpiece" Bart wants to try is his butt. He steps into the art digitizer and pulls down his shorts. When Homer activates it, the boy disappears with his shorts down/butt out and reappears on Homer's phone as a mooning human NFT.
• Mythology Gag: The segment's title calls back the episode "Wild Barts Can't Be Broken."
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Both Rob Gronkowski and Jimmy Fallon's voices were impersonated.
• Roaring Rampage of Rescue: Marge needs to be as valuable as Bart to reach him on the train and killing NFTs makes her more valuable, so she slaughters her way through the NFTs to rescue Bart.
• Shout-Out:
  • The "Blocktrain" is one to the train from Snowpiercer.
  • The Blocktrain's aesthetics and colors brings to mind the Infinity Train.
• Special Guest: Kylie Jenner as herself, and Matthew Friend as Jimmy Fallon.
• Take That!:
  • To the NFT craze in general, as well as FOMO culture.
  • And Jimmy Fallon, particularly his tendency to laugh on camera when he shouldn't.
• Teleporter Accident: Ralph and Milhouse are digitized together, resulting in the two of them being fused into a twitching Death Seeker.
• The Unintelligible: Rob Gronkowski is portrayed this way as a dig at the many concussions he has suffered.

Tropes for "Ei8ht"

• 20 Minutes into the Future: Played with. This segment takes place 30 years later after the episode "Cape Feare", making the timeframe of this segment somewhere in current day 2023, but is otherwise framed like a "future" episode.
• Absurdly Sharp Blade: With a normal kitchen knife, Lisa can cut a face open and cut a head off with one sweep slice.
• Alone with the Psycho:
  • Like in the original "Cape Feare", Bart ends up alone on the deck of the Thompson houseboat with Sideshow Bob.
  • The victims of the "The First" killings are implied with the killer in their own homes.
  • Bob ends up in his cell alone with his killer.
• Alternate Continuity: To the Simpsons episode "Cape Feare", with Bob managing to kill Bart before being knocked off balance by the adrift houseboat crashing and caught by the police.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: The deceased Simpson family member's tombstones:
  BART SIMPSON: BRUTALLY SLAIN
  MARGE SIMPSON: DIED OF SORROW
  HOMER SIMPSON: CHOKED ON TENNIS BALL
• Artistic License – Law: While the United States has (a limited number of) co-ed prisons, they are only minimum to medium-security. Bob (by killing Bart) and Lisa (by becoming a Serial Killer) would have earned a sentence in maximum security and Lisa's revenge scheme would have come to naught.
• Art Shift: The opening, which recreates "Cape Feare", uses the same animation style and darker color scheme of the original episode, even during the Aspect Ratio Switch. It isn't until the Flash Forward that it switches to the brighter color scheme and animation style the show currently uses.
• Aspect Ratio Switch: The segment opens in 4:3, as a Retraux of Cape Feare. It shifts to 16:9 when Bob goes off script and moves in for the kill.
• Back for the Dead: Martin Prince's rarely seen older brother Montaigne returns in this segment simply to be a murder victim.
• The Bad Guy Wins:
  • Subverted. Sideshow Bob kills Bart, but is arrested and spent thirty years in jail before being slain by Lisa's alter ego.
  • Lisa's alter ego, though imprisoned, arranges herself to be placed in the same cell as Sideshow Bob and kills him.
• Bald of Evil: Sideshow Bob's red tufts are not only greying but receding slightly.
• Best Served Cold: It took 30 years, but Lisa (or her murderous alter ego, anyway) got exactly what she wanted: Vengeance on Sideshow Bob for Bart's murder.
• Bilingual Bonus: The motto for Springfield University is "Non loquor Latine" which is "I don't speak Latin" in Latin.
• Bittersweet Ending: On the very bitter side: Bart, Marge, and Homer are long dead. Rod, Sherri, Nelson, and many other first-born siblings of Springfield are brutally murdered. Lisa is arrested and her serial killer split-personality takes over. However, with the help of Maggie (who works as a guard), Lisa is locked in with Sideshow Bob. Declaring him her last victim, Killer Lisa dances to a 1948 recording of "For he is an Englishman" by the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company while raising her knife above a cowering Bob. Outside the cell, Maggie twirls her keys and whistles as Bob screams and blood splatters the window/pools under the door.
• Bloodier and Gorier: Even when compared to previous Treehouse material that lean on the bloodier side, this segment showcases the murderer's victims' bodies getting horrifically mangled in incredibly graphic detail.
• Bookends: This segment begins and ends with a killer and the music of H.M.S. Pinafore.
• Borrowed Catchphrase: When Sideshow Bob gets transferred to a new prison cell, he is greeted by Lisa, who says, "Hello, Bob!" in the same manner as Bob's "Hello, Bart!"
• Break the Cutie: Lisa was powerless as she watched Sideshow Bob murder her brother in cold blood right in front of her. Even after thirty years, she's a Broken Bird and Stepford Smiler who developed a murderous alter-ego (though without her own knowledge) as a coping mechanism.
• Cardboard Prison: Brutally averted for Bob, who's been firmly and completely incarcerated in Springfield Maximum Security Prison for 30 years after murdering Bart.
• Censored Child Death: 10 year old Bart's murder is not shown onscreen, instead you see a Shadow Discretion Shot and Lisa screaming at the blood splashing around.
• College Is "High School, Part 2": A school bell rings at the end of Lisa's "Criminal Psychology 201" class at Springfield University.
• Couldn't Find a Pen:
  • The message the killer left that brought Professor Lisa into the investigation, "HI LISA!", was written with the bloody chopped up intestines of Rod Flanders.
  • On Rod's bed, the killer used Rod's blood on the sheets to play tic-tac-toe.
  • The message "[X] IS THE FIRST" is left at the crime scene is written in the respective victims' blood.
• Cute and Psycho: Lisa after she's revealed to be the Serial Killer. She's still a pretty adult woman who appears to have a sadistic streak and childish glee in stabbing people to death.
• Darker and Edgier: Easily the bleakest Treehouse segment in the franchise's history. Even what laughs to be had are firmly pitch-black.
• Death by Despair: Marge died of overwhelming grief due to her son's murder.
• Death by Irony: Lisa kills Sideshow Bob while she plays H.M.S. Pinafore; more specifically, the very song Bob originally sang to delay his murder of Bart per his "final request".
• Death of a Child: The segment opens with the murder of ten-year-old Bart Simpson.
• Death of Personality: Given that Lisa flips between her murderous and "original" persona without skipping much of a beat while conversing with Bob at the end, you can't help but feel that Lisa's killer alter ego was her true personality following her brother's untimely demise and that her career was merely a cover for her more gruesome "activities."
• Didn't See That Coming: With a touch of Villain Respect as well. Bob apparently hadn't considered the possibility that Lisa herself was responsible for all the grisly murders, not to mention her plan of committing enough heinous atrocities to get sent to the same prison as him and have Maggie in place as a prison guard to ensure she and Bob would be sharing a cell. Bob applauds her "killer" instinct and cunning, but draws the line at the hackneyed notion of a Split-Personality Takeover.
• Die Laughing: Bob abruptly goes No-Nonsense Nemesis upon realizing that Bart has been getting him to sing in order to put off his execution, but Bart still goes out laughing at the trick he played on him.
• Dies Wide Open: All of the victims of the Serial Killer have their eyes opened after they were murdered.
• Do with Him as You Will: Maggie, now a prison guard, silently delivers Sideshow Bob to the newly-incarcerated Lisa's cell, knowing what will result.
• "Eureka!" Moment: At first, Lisa is confused by the killer all saying all the victims are "the first," since they obviously can't all be. It wasn't until Sherri's funeral, where Terri mentioned Sherri was her older sister, that Lisa realized the victims were all the first-born children in their families.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Lisa might have become a sadistic psychopath, but she and Maggie are still close in their adult years and they team up to avenge the death of their older brother Bart.
• Evil Versus Evil: Unlike Sideshow Bob, Lisa's split-personality doesn't go after children. She still kills more people than Bob ever did, and gruesomely too. But considering Lisa only developed the personality because Bob murdered Bart, you probably won't be too upset with Maggie for helping her sister get bloody vengeance (plus Lisa makes it clear that, since getting to Bob was her true goal and she's in a maximum security prison, she won't be killing again after).
• Expository Hairstyle Change: Lisa's killer persona wears her hair in a wilder, pointier fashion than her professor persona's more brushed-down points consistent with the hairstyle Lisa has sported in other future stories, brushing down her hair when referring to "the Lisa you knew" but shaking it back to normal when she makes it clear that she's not the same Lisa.
• Facial Horror: One of the killer's victims' skin was peeled from his face, showing a gruesome view of his flesh underneath.
• Forced to Watch: Lisa was tied up and could only watch and scream while Sideshow Bob stabbed Bart to death.
• Foreshadowing:
  • In addition to referencing Se7en, the segment's title "Ei8ht" hints that Lisa (normally 8 years old) is the killer. It also foreshadows the total of deaths throughout the segment: Bart, Rod, Montaigne, Dermott, the unknown fourth victim, Sherri, Nelson, and Bob (all present-day victims but the fourth are confirmed to be killed by the killer Lisa personality).
  • During Sherri's funeral, we see Bart's, Marge's, and Homer's headstones side by side in the cemetery, establishing that Lisa has now outlived most of her family. Notably absent is Maggie. Furthermore, when Bob is led to his cell where Lisa is waiting for him, the guard taking him there is seen with the same pointy hairstyle that the female Simpson kids sport.
  • Lisa, now a criminal profiler, appears to have made her peace with Bob's permanent incarceration as sufficient revenge, responding to his taunts with, "You're gonna die in that cell, Bob. And when that happens, wherever I am, I'll be dancing." And dance she does: in the cell beside him as she personally hacks him to bits.
  • When Lisa and Nelson realize that the killer is targeting first-born individuals, one may realize that Bob himself isn't necessarily safe in prison, as he's an older brother to Cecil and first-born child himself, and suddenly Lisa's departing words to Bob seem less like blowing off steam and more like a prediction...
• Former Teen Rebel: It is shown that Nelson and the other town bullies have become police officers.
• Gory Discretion Shot:
  • Complete with Shadow Discretion Shot when Sideshow Bob kills Bart.
  • Sideshow Bob's murder by Lisa at the end of the episode is only shown through his blood splatters on his cell window and his screams.
• Half the Man He Used to Be: Rod was cut in half.
• Harmful to Minors: 8 year old Lisa had a traumatizing front row seat of Sideshow Bob killing her oldest sibling Bart.
• He Who Fights Monsters: Lisa (or, at any rate, her more bloodthirsty alter ego) leans into this intentionally and with no apparent regrets. Realizing that only a truly shocking crime will allow her to be incarcerated with Sideshow Bob, she kills a series of innocent, uninvolved people in the most gruesome ways she possibly can.
• Iconic Item: Maggie still has her old pacifier even as a 30-year-old woman. The implication is that since Sideshow Bob hasn't seen her since she was an infant, she wants to make damn sure he knows who's responsible for delivering him to Lisa on a silver platter.
• Internal Deconstruction: Sideshow Bob's obsession with murdering Bart, a 10-year-old child, has always been Played for Laughs, including the previous Treehouse segment where he succeeded. Not here.
• Ironic Echo:
  • When Bob asks Bart if he's been pulling a Scheherezade Gambit, Bart quips back, "Guilty as charged!", echoing Bob's line in the original episode when Bart began said gambit by complimenting him on his singing voice.
  • "Hello, Bob."
• Irony: After walking upon Sherri's murder, Lisa claims even she can't get inside a mind that twisted... not knowing she's talking about her own mind, having developed a Split Personality and not remembering any of her crimes.
• Jekyll & Hyde: Professor Lisa is Jekyll, and her Serial Killer alter-ego is Hyde. By the end of the episode, Murderer Lisa takes full control and claims Professor Lisa is now gone.
• Just Toying with Them: Lisa left a rake in Sideshow Bob's cell, just to see him humiliate himself by stepping on it one last time before murdering him.
• Karmic Death: At the end, Sideshow Bob gets brutally killed by Lisa for murdering Bart, done to the very song Bart tricked him into singing 30 years ago.
• The Killer in Me: The killer Lisa is searching for turns out to be Lisa herself.
• Killed Offscreen: Marge and Homer apparently didn't last long in this continuity after Bart's murder, as Marge passed away from overwhelming grief and sorrow. Homer was choked up as well... but on a tennis ball.
• Late to the Realization: Bob catches on to Bart's ploy to stall him, just as he's about to sing the final note.
• Like Father, Unlike Son: In the future, Rod grew up to be a vulgar stand-up comedian, a career that a moralistic and uptight man like Flanders would not approve of.
• Musicalis Interruptus: The Point of Divergence from "Cape Feare" occurs when Bob halts midword before the final note of "He is an Englishman" ("He remains an English...!"), realizing that Bart has tricked him. This comes back around when, thirty years later, the adult Lisa prepares to finally kill Bob: she plays the final stanza of the song on a record player, bringing his "performance" to a close at last.
• Mythology Gag:
  • This is the second TOH skit to have Lisa with a murderous Split Personality.
  • It's also not the first time Lisa and Nelson have teamed up in a TOH skit.
  • It's also not the first time that Bob has succeeded in killing Bart in a Treehouse of Horror segment.
  • The 30-year Time Skip reflects the real-world passage of time since "Cape Feare," which aired roughly 30 years before this episode on October 7th, 1993. The flashback even cites this date as the night Sideshow Bob invaded "the Thompsons'" houseboat to kill Bart.
  • It also isn't the first TOH segment in which Lisa investigated a serial killer.
• No-Nonsense Nemesis: When Bob realizes Bart has tricked him, he immediately goes for the kill.
• Noodle Incident: Lisa and Nelson never actually enter the room containing the fourth murder, as they get called away to Sherri's murder before even getting to the door. We never find out who it was or how it was displayed.^note Due to the lack of a fifth picture of siblings who are targets in the recreation of Lisa's old room, no accompanying flashback from Lisa's recount and the reveal of an accomplice, it possibly implies that Maggie was the one who did the fourth murder instead. Still doesn't clarify who was the victim and how though.
• Off with Her Head!: How Sherri was murdered.
• Once More, with Clarity:
  • The first hint that this isn't a shot-for-shot remake of "Cape Feare" is in the middle of Sideshow Bob's finale, there is a shot of the rest of the Simpsons tied up and Lisa crawling her way to the window to see what's going on.
  • After Lisa realizes that she's the murderer, we get a montage of her actually committing all of the crimes in question.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: At the end of the segment, Lisa's Serial Killer alter-ego kills Bob for murdering Bart 30 years ago.
• Point of Divergence: Unlike the original episode, Bob sees through Bart's ruse before finishing the finale of HMS Pinafore and kills him on the spot.
• Psycho Knife Nut:
  • Sideshow Bob, of course.
  • Lisa is shown to use a butcher knife during her gruesome crimes, and that's also how she kills Sideshow Bob.
• Psychopathic Womanchild: Lisa's Serial Killer alter-ego stems from the trauma of watching Bart's murder at 8 years old, and her hideout is a perfect replica of her childhood bedroom, showcasing she hasn't left that place mentally.
• Rake Take: Bob somehow steps on a rake in his own cell room. It might have been left there by Lisa as one last humiliation before killing him.
• Red Herring Shirt: When Sideshow Bob is being led to his cell at the end, no particular attention is given to the guard escorting him... until Lisa reveals she had help getting placed in the same cell as him, and the guard removes her hat and pulls out a very familiar pacifier.
• Romancing the Widow: During Sherri's funeral, Terri makes a move on her sister's widower.
• Rube Goldberg Machine: Lisa and Nelson investigate a crime scene that had a murder done this way with Sherri's remains.
• Serial Killings, Specific Target: "Killer Lisa" committed the serial killings in order to be arrested and be incarcerated in the same jail as her real target Sideshow Bob in order to kill him.
• Shadow Discretion Shot: Just before Bob brings his knife down onto Bart, the scene changes to Lisa watching through the window as Bob's and Bart's shadows are shown on the wall while blood is flying everywhere.
• Shout-Out:
  • The first shot of Lisa as a true crime professor is similar to the pilot of How to Get Away with Murder.
  • The concept of Lisa hiring Bob to track down a serial killer brings to mind The Silence of the Lambs.
  • Bob's prison number is once again 24601, the same number as Jean Valjean.
• Sibling Team: Also counts as Siblings in Crime. Maggie has become a prison guard, and helps Lisa be incarcerated in Bob's cell so she can exact her revenge.
• Significant Anagram: Parodied and subverted. Bob mentioned an anagram will lead them to the killer's lair. Eventually, Lisa realizes he's just talking about "Ana Gram's Spooky Abandoned Warehouse."
• Slasher Smile: When overcame by her murderous alternate personality, Lisa sports a crazy smile when she butchers her victims. She also gives a terrifying one to Sideshow Bob before getting her revenge for Bart's murder.
• Spiritual Antithesis: To Wanted: Dead, then Alive as both depict Bob killing Bart. But Wanted: Dead, then Alive has Bob managing to elude legal consequences while "Ei8ht" shows an older Bob in jail.
• Split-Personality Takeover: While Lisa assumed she overcame the trauma of watching Bart die, she developed a second murderous personality that murdered many firstborn Springfielders. She eventually gets total control after Lisa is arrested, considering the original personality another of her victims. To Sideshow Bob however, he complains about how cliche the Split Personality trope is, which doubles as a Fourth Wall break.
  Sideshow Bob: Trope alert! Call the first thought police!
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Bob's wit and charm may have gotten him breaks in the main continuity as far as being regularly paroled and thrown in a Cardboard Prison or two after his murder attempts, but in this continuity where he actually gets the deed done? Life in a maximum security prison without parole, although he's gotten used to it.
• That Woman Is Dead: A crazed Lisa tells Sideshow Bob her original "Professor Lisa" personality is gone now, considering her her last victim... or rather, second-to-last.
• Theme Serial Killer: All of the killer's victims are firstborn; Rod Flanders, Montaigne Prince, Dermott Spuckler, Sherri Mackleberry, and even Sideshow Bob. Arguably, Professor Lisa counts too, if you consider her to be the original personality, and thus, the firstborn in her own brain. The only exception seems to be Nelson, whose siblings were only mentioned and it's not clear if he's the firstborn.
• Thousand-Yard Stare: Lisa has one after seeing Sideshow Bob murdering Bart.
• Tomato in the Mirror: By day, Lisa is a true crime professor who "turned her trauma into healing" and helps her old friend Nelson investigate a series of murders... so you can imagine her shock when she realizes she was the serial killer this entire time and killed a lot of innocent people, including Nelson.
• Too Dumb to Live:
  • Compared to the clever ruse that saved his life in canon, when Bob realizes Bart had him perform the H.M.S. Pinafore as a distraction, Bart gleefully admits to it and laughs, causing Bob to butcher him on the spot.
  • Homer's tombstone reveals he died by choking on a tennis ball.
• Trivial Title: The short shares very little in common with Se7en aside from them both focusing on investigating murders. The latter's Seven Deadly Sins theming is eschewed in favor of the killer going after firstborn children, and Lisa going to Sideshow Bob for help or turning out to be the killer herself aren't based on anything from the film. Heck, Lisa doesn't even commit eight murders (unless her Death of Personality and Sideshow Bob are both counted).
• Unexpectedly Dark Episode: While it's hardly the first Treehouse of Horror episode to go heavy on macabre themes, it's a real Mood Whiplash to find this story about a traumatized adult Lisa still coping with Bart's childhood death at the hands of Sideshow Bob sandwiched between the far sillier segments before and after.
• The Voiceless: As is tradition with Simpsons "future" episodes, Maggie not only remains silent, but, for some reason, still sucks on her pacifier even as an adult.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: As it turns out, Lisa has been intentionally murdering Rod, Sherri, Nelson, and many other first-born children of Springfield in order to get herself arrested as part of her plan to get revenge on Sideshow Bob for killing Bart. And she succeeds in her plans by arranging herself to be placed in Bob's cell with the help of Maggie.
• Wham Line: What shows the audience that this segment is in an Alternate Continuity:
  Sideshow Bob: (stopping singing) Wait, did you only ask me to sing to forestall your gruesome end?
  Bart: Guilty as charged.
  (Bart laughs without noticing Bob approaching him and attacking him with his cutlass while Lisa helplessly watches)
• Wham Shot:
  • Upon finding Nelson dead, Lisa runs into a room... her childhood bedroom.
  • Followed by her checking the security cam feed, only to find herself killing Nelson.
• What If?: ...Bob had gotten wise to Bart's attempt to distract him at the end of "Cape Feare" and kills him in front of Lisa?
• Whole-Plot Reference: To Se7en, in the broadest sense.
• Would Hurt a Child: This time, Sideshow Bob actually manages to gruesomely kill Bart.

Tropes for "Lout Break"

• Bait-and-Switch: To convince Homer to help them save the world, Professor Frink shows him Marge after she had been turned into a Homer clone. This shocks him but it turns out he is more attracted to her now and is happy to see her like this.
• Butt-Monkey: Ned is the first victim of the virus outbreak, which ends up causing it to spread in the first place.
• Call-Back: In the previous segment, Rod Flanders was revealed to have become "a shockingly foul-mouthed prop comedian" as an adult. Here, just before his father turns into a Homer clone, Rod can be seen reading a book on prop comedy.
• The Cameo: Kang and Kodos make a non-speaking cameo among a Homerized crowd.
• Can't You Read the Sign?: When Homer is told he can't eat in the turbine room, he asks "Since when?" A "no eating" sign next to him reads "Since always." Later, as Homer is about to eat the donut that rolled all over the life extension lab floor, another sign appears behind him which reads "No eating here either."
• Character Catchphrase: Many a character's catchphrases get a Homer-y twist upon turning into Homers. For example, Nelson's becomes a weird combination of his "HA-ha!" with Homer's "Woo-hoo!"
• Chekhov's Gun: When Frink and the kids track Homer to a public restroom, he's indulging in a typically crass action: scratching himself with a backscratcher he found in one of the stalls. He later inadvertently dooms humanity when he uses the backscratcher to scratch Frink's hazmat suit, tearing the fabric and allowing The Virus to permeate.
• Dance Party Ending: A dark example. After Frink is infected, the Homerized Frink starts singing David Lee Roth's "Just Like Paradise", and soon, the Homerized Springfield (except Bart, Lisa, and Maggie) joins in, with the Homerized humanity eventually following.
• Death of Personality: Seems to mostly be the case with those infected by the Homer virus, with the infected developing not only Homer's physical traits but his personality and tastes-for instance, Moe's ends up packed with Homerfied Springfield residents. Aside from some physical features, the only clear remnant of their original selves lies in speaking patterns and catchphrases.
• Downer Ending: With the exception of the Simpson kids, everyone else turns into a Homer clone with civilization falling apart. On the bright side though, Homer did bring about world peace.
• Gasshole: The gas from Homer's burps spreads a virus that turns others into Homers.
• Hazmat Suit: The only individuals shown not succumbing to the infection who are not related to Homer wear these, including Frink, his team of scientists and Moe (who wears a more improvised one than Frink to serve the Homerfied Springfielders flooding his bar). Frink's suit being breached by Homer is what ultimately dooms the human race.
• The Immune: Since the infection is caused by Homer's DNA, Bart, Lisa and Maggie, who already have it, are immune to its effects.
• It's the Only Way to Be Sure: After failing to make Homer see reason, Professor Frink calls in a nuclear air strike to obliterate Springfield in order to wipe out the Homer epidemic. Unfortunately, he got Homerized before the call could be completed.
• Jerkass Ball: Homer holds it pretty firmly in this segment, rejecting Frink's efforts to get him to submit his DNA to cure the outbreak because he's happy the rest of Springfield shares his personality and tastes. This goes even further when he reacts to Marge becoming a clone of him by declaring he prefers her this way. This attitude ultimately causes the world to turn into Homer clones save for Bart, Lisa and Maggie.
• Lady Looks Like a Dude: All of the transformed women in Springfield get Homer's large gut, beard line, and unique pattern baldness (or at the very least receding hairlines), but are still explicitly female.
• Mike Nelson, Destroyer of Worlds: Homer ends up dooming the planet because he wanted to have donuts while working.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Homerized Krusty just looks like regular Krusty, referencing how Krusty was originally supposed to be Homer in disguise. Doubles as a reference to "Homie the Clown", as his appearance matches Homer as Krusty.
  • Homer finding Marge more attractive as a clone of himself can be seen as a nod to his brief fantasy about marrying himself in "There's Something About Marrying".
• Narcissist: Homer prefers the town turning into clones of himself, seeing it as a utopia, or rather, "a me-topia".
• Painful Transformation: Ned undergoes one as he changes into his neighborino in church.
• Screw Yourself: If anything, Homer is more attracted to Marge when she's Homerfied.
• Seven Deadly Sins: Homer displays all seven throughout the course of the segment. The plot is kicked off by his gluttony in eating when he's not supposed to (he's also later shown to eat entire buckets of fried chicken for meals), and he expresses both wrath at what he views as overbearing rules and envy for countries that don't have such "nanny state" laws. Avarice shows up when he steal Flanders' newspaper, and when nearly everyone in town has been transformed into a version of him, he's too slothful to bother changing everyone back, and—worst of all—insists that the entire world will be better off acting and thinking like him when it's clearly a disaster, demonstrating immense pride. Finally, he lusts after the Homerized Marge, finding her more attractive than before.
• Shout-Out: A Captain Ersatz of Animal is among the animals in Burns' life extension lab.
• Too Dumb to Live: Homer, as per usual. The plant has several rules and signs put in place to prevent him from doing things that could get him killed. He complains and calls it the Nanny State. Naturally, this spread to his clones. He is happy to see them disregarding safety rules, saying they aren't hurting anyone even as the bodies start to pile up while his back's turned.
• The Virus: Everyone exposed to a Homer belch turns into a Homer.
• Wham Shot: When Homer refuses to change everything back, Professor Frink tries to make him change his mind by showing him Marge having turned into a Homer. Lampshaded by Frink, calling it an “Earth-shattering reveal”.
• Whole-Plot Reference: To Outbreak.

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