Recap / The Simpsons S7 E1 "Who Shot Mr. Burns? (Part Two)"

Part One | Part Two

Original air date: 9/17/1995

Production code: 2F20

The shooting of Mr. Burns leads to a massive manhunt... And Homer is the prime suspect.

Plot Summary

Kent Brockman reports that Burns was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead. He was then taken to a better hospital and pronounced alive. With Burns in a coma and the only witnesses to the shooting being Maggie and Santa's Little Helper, the police suspect Smithers. Smithers also suspects himself, because he has a gun that was recently been fired. Recalling shooting someone, a guilt-addled Smithers goes into a Catholic confessional to vent, which turns out to be a trap by Wiggum. On TV, Smithers makes a comment from an episode of 'Pardon My Zinger' that aired on the night of the shooting. Sideshow Mel realizes that if Smithers saw that episode he could not have been at the town hall to shoot Burns, and reports his thoughts. Smithers realizes that the man he shot was Jasper, but only in his wooden leg. Meanwhile, the sunblocker is torn down, crushing Shelbyville.

With the prime suspect being the first one cleared, police are once again, and as usual, baffled, as their only clue is the bullet pulled from Burns' body. Lisa, wanting to help, names some suspects and their motives; Skinner, Willie, Moe, and Barney, whose livelihoods were endangered by Burns' oil drilling. Wiggum realizes that Tito Puente is also a suspect by that logic, and the police go out to investigate.

• Tito's 'vengeance' turns out to be a slanderous mambo, much to the entertainment of the police.
• Skinner admits to preparing to attack Burns but was applying combat make-up at the time of the shooting. A flashback shows that he mixed up his mother's make-up, and while Superintendent Chalmers can vouch for his alibi, "Anything else he says is a filthy lie."
• Willie claims to have a crippling arthritis in his index fingers from Space Invaders ("Oh yeah, that was a pretty addictive video game." "Video game?"), vouched by his medical records.
• Via Lie Detector, Moe is also proclaimed innocent (and a pervert who ogles women in the Sears catalog).

After a bizarre dream involving strange symbolism and Lisa talking backward, Wiggum checks the suit Burns was wearing when shot. He finds an eyelash, and a DNA scan reveals that it came from the Simpson line. At this time Burns wakes up, crying, "Homer Simpson!"

The police raid the Simpson home and find a gun in the family's car. It not only has bullet markings identical to the one from the shooting, but Homer's fingerprints are on it! Homer is arrested but escapes when Wiggum turns over the paddywagon while trying to get fast food from a drive-thru.

Lisa is unconvinced by the evidence, as the DNA was 'Simpson', not just Homer's. And a flashback reveals that Homer got his fingerprints on the gun by feeling around for an ice cream scoop he dropped.

Meanwhile, a check-up by Dr. Nick ("Hi, everybody!" "Ho, Mersimp Son!") reveals that "Homer Simpson" is the only thing Burns can say, the result of brain trauma.

Lisa goes to the town hall to investigate some more and has a revelation on who the shooter is. Smithers issues a reward for Homer's capture "Dead or alive", and word gets out that the fugitive is at the hospital Burns is at! The entire town hurries there to find Homer shaking Burns, demanding that the 'accusation' be taken back. This cures Burns' trauma, and he still has no idea who Homer is.

His speech returned to normal, Burns reveals who shot him: Maggie Simpson!

Burns reveals that after the town meeting, he saw Maggie in the Simpson car with a lollipop. Wanting to actually 'take candy from a baby', Burns went at it but found his strength to be lacking. During the struggle, his gun fell out and into Maggie's arms, firing.

Burns demands that his 'assailant' be arrested, but is shrugged off. After all, it was an accident.

Wasn't it?

The reveal of the real shooter has been referenced in several episodes since.

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This episode contains examples of:

• Aborted Arc: The story concerning the oil under Springfield Elementary that dominated Part 1 is quietly dropped and forgotten about, as is all of the damage that Mr. Burns caused in his efforts to seize it.
• After-Action Villain Analysis: Smithers provides some.
  Smithers: [Burns] became consumed by greed, he'd steal from anyone...and when he tried to steal our sunlight, he crossed that line between everyday villainy and Cartoonish Supervillainy!
• The Alibi: Chief Wiggum goes down the list of suspects and finds that each one has an alibi or other exculpation.
  • Smithers, who at first confessed to the murder, makes a comment from the show Pardon My Zinger while being interviewed. Watching the news, Sideshow Mel realized that the show aired at the time of the shooting, and thus Smithers was not the shooter. Further interrogation revealed that he had shot Jasper in his wooden leg while in a drunken rage.
  • Tito Puente planned revenge on Burns but chose to do so with a slanderous mambo.
  • Principal Skinner confesses he was on his way to shoot Burns but was still applying face paint when the shooting occurred. Superintendent Chalmers can vouch for him, "but everything else he says is a filthy lie." (Chalmers had caught him putting on his mother's makeup by mistake.)
  • Groundskeeper Willie couldn't have fired the shot because of crippling arthritis on his index fingers, which he got in the seventies from Space Invaders. ^note  "Yeah, that was a very addictive video game." "Video game?"
• Alien Invasion: Groundskeeper Willie states that he got arthritis from "Space invaders" in 1977. Chief Wiggum assumes he's talking about Space Invaders. However, Willie wasn't aware of the game, which debuted in 1978.
• All Just a Dream: Smithers wakes up in his apartment to find Mr. Burns in the shower, perfectly fine, and concludes with relief that it was all a dream. Burns then informs Smithers that they are the stars of a 60s detective show called Speedway Squad, at which point Smithers wakes up again and realizes, "Wait, that was all a dream!" — Mr. Burns really has been shot. Smithers then remarks, "Hey, then maybe I haven't become a hideous drunken wreck, and —" only to realize that he's in the exact same state he started the episode in, and his mouth still tastes like an ashtray. The whole scene is a spoof of the infamous ending of the eighth season of Dallas, an egregious example of this trope.
• Amazing Technicolor Population: Doctor Colossus has turquoise skin. Then again, he is a cartoonish super-villain.
• Ambiguous Innocence: Despite it being confirmed that Burns being shot was just a freak accident on his part, the ominous shot of Maggie that closes the episode implies it wasn't.
• Ambiguous Syntax: When Sideshow Mel visits the police station and tells the officers that they have arrested an innocent man, Chief Wiggum thinks he's talking about Dr. Colossus.
• Analogy Backfire: After Sideshow Mel clears Smithers of shooting Burns, Marge remarks that it's never the most likely suspect. Lisa shoots down Marge's theory by saying that 95% of the time, it is the most likely suspect (the other 5% being down to a deranged lunatic who did it for no reason).
• And There Was Much Rejoicing: The Springfielders who tear down Burns's sun blocker rejoice once Principal Skinner states the town it crushed was Shelbyville.
• Appointment Television: With the help of Sideshow Mel, this was the reason Smithers was proven to be innocent: he couldn't have been the one to shoot Mr. Burns, since his favorite television show was on at the time of the crime, and he never misses it.
• Artistic License – Biology:
  • In-universe; Marge is under the impression that marrying Homer gave her Simpson DNA. Lisa is not impressed.
  • Out of universe: Ironically, Marge has a point, even if she stumbled on it by accident. Even given how primitive DNA testing was in the mid-90s, there's no real way to implicate Maggie (the shooter) and Homer (her father), Bart and Lisa (her full siblings), all of whom share 50% of her DNA, without also implicating Marge (her mother), who also shares 50% (albeit the other 50% from Homer).^note Bart and Lisa share 1/2 of their paternal DNA and 1/2 of the maternal DNA with Maggie - 50% total, 25% from each parent. For narrative purposes, "Simpson DNA" implicates Homer (the obvious Red Herring) and the actual shooter (Maggie) while exonerating Marge, whom we know is innocent. Ironically, there is a legitimate way (though it was brand new at the time) to implicate all three Simpson children and one of their parents: mitochondrial DNA. However this is inherited from the mother and would exonerate Homer completely. Testing the DNA for the sex of the shooter would have also eliminated Homer as a suspect.
• Bait-and-Switch: The climax of the episode sees Homer sneak into Mr. Burns's hospital room and moves towards him, hands raised, intending to make sure Burns stops saying he shot him. When everyone rushes into the hospital room later on, we see Homer yet again shaking Mr. Burns by the shirt.
• "Basic Instinct" Legs-Crossing Parody: There's a segment where Groundskeeper Willie is being interrogated by the Springfield P.D. while wearing a kilt. When he uncrosses his legs, the cops recoil in horror, before one of them pulls out his sidearm and warns him not to do that again.
• Big "NO!": Parodied in the foiler ending.
  Burns: The one who shot me was... (freaks out upon seeing Smithers) Waylon Smithers!
  Smithers: NOOOOOO! Wait a minute, yes.
• Bond Villain Stupidity: Burns left no security to guard his almighty Sun-Blocker and it's easily taken out by the townspeople after he's shot. While it's certainly Burns' arrogance, it's also justified: He was in the hospital and Smithers had been fired. There was nobody to give or relay orders or to make necessary arrangements (ex. payroll).
• The Bore: After the Description Cut from the Tito Puente interview, Skinner is taking a long time recalling where he was during the shooting, hemming and hawing all the way, and all of the policemen in the room are literally falling asleep from the boredom.
• Bus Crash: It's mentioned the "better hospital" Mr. Burns stays at as mentioned below in Narrative Backpedaling is the Dr. Marvin Monroe Memorial Hospital, the implication being that the Simpsons' former family psychiatrist was Killed Offscreen some time during Season 6, a theory seemingly confirmed in subsequent episodes. Like Burns, this later turns out to be subverted; He later appears complementing Marge's novel in Season 15's "Diatribe of a Mad Housewife", stating that he'd just "been very sick".
• Cardboard Prison: Double subverted for Dr. Colossus: when he tries to escape the police precinct's prison with his "Colosso-Boots" after gloating, he's unable to punch through the roof and he asks for his lawyer, but when Sideshow Mel arrives and says that Wiggum has arrested an innocent man in error, Wiggum immediately assumes he's talking about Colossus and lets him go before Mel can say that he meant Smithers.
• Cartridges in Flight: The bullet◊ removed from Mr. Burns.
• Cartoonish Supervillainy: Smithers's recap of Mr. Burns's actions in Part One is the Trope Namer.
  Dr. Colossus: Bah! He was a rank amateur compared to Dr. Colossus! (Evil Laugh)
• Chalk Outline: Provides Lisa with a clue which turns out to be a Contrived Coincidence.
• Chekhov's Gag: The first thing the police do is bring in two "witnesses", who they question despite being an infant and a dog. Turns out the baby was the culprit.
  • The gag about Burns wanting to literally take candy from a baby in Part 1 turns out to have been the critical clue to the whole case, as Maggie was holding a lollipop when Marge put her in the car. As Burns himself admits, Smithers wasn't around anymore to curb his lowest impulses.
• Crossover: A special episode of America's Most Wanted aired before this episode's debut, looking at the clues and suspects from Part 1.
• Comically Missing the Point:
  • When Lisa first shows up to help the police investigate, Wiggum mistakes her voice for Lou's and praises his ideas.
  • Willie damaged his index fingers in The '70s playing Space Invaders. He was addicted but he had absolutely no idea that he was playing a video game.
  • Marge believes that marrying Homer means that her DNA literally became Simpson DNA.
  • Chief Wiggum can't figure out what Dream Lisa is trying to tell him, even when she spells it out to him.
    Dream Lisa: This suit burns better... Look.
    Chief Wiggum: Come again?
    Dream Lisa: Better... look... burns suit.
    Chief Wiggum: I'm not following you.
    Dream Lisa: Burns's suit. Burns's suit.
    Chief Wiggum: What?
    Lisa: [normal voice] Look at Burns's suit! Yeesh!
• Compressed Vice:
  • This is the only time in the series when Jasper is revealed to have a wooden leg, which has never been brought up before or since.
  • It's revealed that Willie has a crippling arthritis that makes him unable to use a firearm, but he was seen using them before in "Bart's Comet" and later on in "The Great Money Caper".
• Confess in Confidence: Smithers goes to confession.
  Smithers: Father, I'm not a Catholic, but... well, I tried to march in the St. Patrick's Day parade. But anyway, I've got a... rather large sin to confess. (sniffles) I'm the one who... shot Mr. Burns!
  Wiggum: (pokes head out, cocks gun) That's all I needed to hear! Boy, this thing works great.
• Continuity Cavalcade: The Freeze-Frame Bonus of names in the DNA computer includes the family names of nearly every character to have appeared in the series to date, mixed in with those of the show's staff.
• Continuity Nod: Dr. Colossus had previously been mentioned as one of Stacy Lowell's previous five husbands in "Lisa vs. Malibu Stacy."
• Contrived Coincidence: Burns fell on the sun clock in a way that seemed to be him spelling "W.S./S.M." (for "Maggie Simpson") by sheer coincidence. His actual final conscious act (aside from walking away from the crime scene and snarking at Jimbo) was to swallow all of his jewelry so the paramedics wouldn't loot from him.
• Couch Gag: The theme from Dragnet plays as the couch slides away and a police lineup height chart unfurls, which the family lines up in front of.
• Description Cut: After Tito Puente's mambo, Wiggum hopes all of the suspect interviews will be as much fun. Cut to the police interviewing the very dull Principal Skinner.
• Dirty Cop: An unusual twist in that the "dirty cop" in question is actually a lab technician taking a bribe from a cop. The lab technician who Chief Wiggum tasks with analyzing the police's DNA evidence warns him that it could take days or weeks to process, before holding out his hand expectantly. Wiggum gives the tech a carton of cigarettes, to which the technician immediately corrects himself to say processing the DNA will take seconds. Five seconds later, the analysis shows that the DNA belongs to one of the Simpsons.
• Disability Alibi: Groundskeeper Willie is cleared as a potential suspect due to being medically certified to be unable to use a gun from playing too much Space Invaders in his youth.
• The Dog Was the Mastermind: The culprit behind the shooting was none other than Maggie Simpson, who can't even talk.
• Dramatic Irony: Lou and Ed's interrogation of Maggie and Santa's Little Helper becomes this on the re-watch. They're trying to get the pair to confirm if Smithers was the shooter — and have no idea the real shooter's sitting across from them (never mind that she can't reveal this).
  • Similarly, if the audience was paying careful attention at the end of Part 1, they'll know during Act Two that the SPD are wrong and that Homer can't be the shooter. Aside from such a development threatening the show's status quo, Burns clearly recognized his attacker — thereby eliminating Homer since Burns always forgets his name.
• Drive-Thru Antics: Chief Wiggum tries to order while driving a paddy wagon containing Homer. Because the vehicle is above the window's maximum height requirement and can't fit under the bar, it tips over, allowing Homer to escape.
• Dumb Ass Has A Point: Lisa says that Tito could not have shot Mr Burns because he is famous. Wiggum goes to talk anyway either BECAUSE he's famous or because everyone who had a motive needed to be questioned anyway. After a few real life celebrities have been involved in crimes, Wiggum and co were not wrong to question Tito.
• Easily Forgiven:
  • Everyone in Springfield seems to just drop their previously murderous vendettas against Mr. Burns, and if anything, are relieved that he recovers at the end no worse for wear.
  • In the alternative ending where Smithers is the culprit, Mr. Burns "punishes" him by cutting 5% off his pay.
• Embarrassing Alibi: Seymore Skinner's alibi is that he was setting out to shoot Burns and was applying warpaint in the school bathroom when Burns was shot. The embarrassing part, which is shown in flashback but he presumably doesn't mention, is that he had mistakenly applied his mother's makeup, and Superintendent Chalmers happened to walk in. Skinner tells the police that Chalmers can vouch for his whereabouts, but "everything else he says is a filthy lie."
• The End... Or Is It?: The final lines of the episode are Marge saying that Maggie is too young and innocent to understand what she had done and Maggie giving a shifty look before sucking her pacifier in a way that makes it sound like gunshots (complete with Staggered Zoom). Future episodes showcase that even if she's too young to even know how to talk, she somehow has access to weapons that the rest of the family don't know about and is an expert markswoman with them.
• Entertainingly Wrong:
  • Homer is falsely arrested for shooting Burns. The evidence against him seems pretty solid, but he turns out to be innocent. When Burns wakes up from his coma, he shouts "Homer Simpson!", the gun Burns was shot with had Homer's fingerprints on it, and was found under his car seat, and the bullet that was removed from Burns matches the other bullets in the gun. However, "Homer Simpson" is the only thing Burns could say due to brain trauma, Homer didn't know the gun was there and left fingerprints on it without realizing it, the gun was the one Burns had bought after Homer had attacked him in his office prior to the town meeting, and it fell out of his pocket, into Maggie's hands and fired at him before ending up under the car seat (along with the lollipop Burns had tried to take from Maggie).
  • Marge mistakenly believes that by marrying Homer she inherited Simpsons DNA, making her a suspect when it turns up on Burns' coat. Lisa prudently moves the conversation along.
• Epic Fail: While it turns out that contrary to popular belief it's actually hard to steal candy from a baby, Burns is such a colossal weakling that trying to take it from Maggie's grip was a Herculean task for him and he started to shake around screaming "give me that!" in a manner similar to struggling with a knife-wielding assailant, which loosened his pistol from its shoulder holster and it fell on Maggie's hands, which was enough of a hard shock to set it off, injuring him.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Tito Puente, when interrogated as a suspect, answers that he's not a man who believes in violent revenge: after all, why shoot someone when he can create a slanderous Ear Worm of a mambo that will probably outlive both him and Burns?
  • Kent Brockman may be notoriously unprofessional to the point of being the Trope Namer for Kent Brockman News, but even he's disgusted by the poor journalism done by Dave Shutton of the Springfield Daily Shopper.
    Dave Shutton: Dave Shutton, Springfield Daily Shopper, who are you, where are you going?
    Kent Brockman: Oh, do your research Shutton.
  • Chief Wiggum often abuses his power, or just ignores the law, but he finds the idea that Burns wants him to arrest Baby Maggie ridiculous.
  • When it's revealed that Burns really did try to take candy from a baby, Yes-Man or not, Smithers just glares at his beloved boss with stern disapproval.
• Failed a Spot Check: Implied with the reveal of the shooter. Even though a gun had just gone off in the Simpson family car, none of them seemed to have noticed the scent of gunpowder when they got back in the car after the shooting.
  • Played straight with Homer in the flashback, whose fingers clearly made contact with a gun, but it didn't register with him.
• Fair-Play Whodunnit: Even though the culprit did seem to come out of the blue, the clues were indeed all there, with the mystery even being drummed up as a contest to see who could figure it out.
• Fake-Out Opening: The episode opens with Smithers waking up and finding a thought-to-be-dead Mr. Burns in the shower a la Bobby Ewing. Mr. Burns suddenly exposits, "The year is 1965, and you and I are undercover detectives on the hot rod circuit!" Cue the opening sequence of a show called Speedway Squad ("In Color!"). Smithers then wakes up for real.
• Frame-Up: Discussed after the SPD discovers the attempted murder weapon in Homer's car (with his fingerprints all over it) and he's taken into custody. Lisa argues there are any number of ways Homer's fingerprints could've gotten on the gun (which the flashback subsequently confirms). More, Lisa points out they don't even know whose gun that is and thinks somebody may have planted it to frame Homer. Marge dismisses this as paranoia, but Lisa ironically turns out to be partially correct. It was planted...by Maggie, who dropped the gun to the car floor after it discharged (which only happened because it accidentally fell out of Burns' holster during the candy tug-of-war).
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: Mr. Burns' hospital room number, 2F20, is the episode's production code.
• Fugitive Arc: Homer manages to escape police custody because of an accident en route to prison and goes on the lam, trying to demonstrate he wasn't the one who shot Mr. Burns... which unfortunately means that the cops find him shaking Mr. Burns for because he's angry that Burns can only say his name, causing the Police to think he was the killer.
• Given Name Reveal: Sideshow Mel introduces himself as Melvin van Horne, thereby eliminating him as a suspect, since his initials are not S.M.
• Gone Horribly Right:
  • Lisa's attempts to help Wiggum solve the mystery. Her assistance and suggestions eventually help the SPD find the shooter...who (at first) turns out to be her very own father.
  • Homer's attempts to get Burns to remember his name in Part One. It finally works...and bites Homer in the ass, because it's the very first thing Burns says upon awakening from his coma. Combined with the discovery of Simpson DNA on Burns' suit, the SPD naturally concludes Homer was the shooter (with the circumstantial evidence they find when they raid the Simpson home seemingly corroborates his guilt).
    • And then of course it gets subverted in the climax when it turns out Burns still can't remember Homer's name and it was actually just his brain working through post-coma damage.
• Gratuitous Spanish: Tito Puente's "The Villain Sucks" Song includes the lines "¡Burns! / Con el corazón de perro^note with the heart of a dog / ¡Señor Burns! / ¡El diablo con dinero!^note the Devil with money," and ends with "¡Adiós, viejo!"^note Goodbye, old man!
• Homage: The opening scene references another Dallas storyline, in which the whole eighth season was revealed to had been All Just a Dream.
• Humiliation Conga: Moe, on the lie detector.
  Eddie: Okay, sir, you're free to go.
  Moe: Good, 'cause I got a hot date tonight. (buzz!) A date. (buzz!) Dinner with friends. (buzz!) Dinner alone. (buzz!) Watching TV alone. (buzz!) Awright! I'm gonna sit at home and ogle the ladies in the Victoria's Secret catalogue! (buzz!) ...Sears catalogue. (ding!) Now would you unhook this already, please?! I don't deserve this kind of shabby treatment! (buzz!)
• Inadvertent Entrance Cue:
  Marge: Why don't you solve the mystery of who put mud in the freezer?
  Bart: Who wants chocolate ice cream?
  Homer: Me! Me! Me!
• Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: Doctor Colossus is a supervillain so terrible Chief Wiggum can keep him locked up, and when told not to go back to his lair just sulks.
  Wiggum: Alright, Colossus, you're free to go. But stay away from Death Mountain!
  Colossus: But all my stuff is there!
• Irony:
  • As it happens, Mr. Burns really can't steal candy from a baby.
  • Once Mr. Burns wakes up, he's incapable of saying anything but "Homer Simpson" despite spending the entire first part not being able to remember his name. Homer even pulls a gun on Burns to get him to stop.
• Jaywalking Will Ruin Your Life: After all of Mr. Burns's crimes, which include stealing Springfield Elementary's oil well, causing immense amounts of property damage, and blocking out the sun, it's stealing candy from a baby that nearly gets him killed.
• Karma Houdini:
  • The people who tore down Burns's device aren't seen receiving any sort of punishment for crushing Shelbyville either, though considering the Shelbyvillains tend to be bigger Jerkasses than the Springfieldians, this may be more of a case of Laser-Guided Karma for Shelbyville.
  • Smithers may be innocent of shooting Burns, but he still drunkenly fired his gun at Jasper, who was fortunate enough to only get hit in the wooden leg. Smithers faces no punishment for this; while Jasper is proud of the bullet wound, he seems to have forgotten Smithers's face and doesn't press charges, and the police just let him go.
  • Homer may not have shot Burns, but he still escaped from police custody, committed assault by violently shaking Burns in his hospital bed, and pointed a police gun at Burns's head. Neither the police nor Burns seem interested in pressing charges once Homer is cleared of attempted murder.
    • Similarly, Skinner confessed to attempted murder when questioned by Wiggum, but he's not charged.
  • Maggie gets away with accidentally attempted manslaughter (even if Burns wishes her to be arrested) because 1) it was an accident and 2) Wiggum doesn't wants to arrest a baby.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: Although the plot eventually demonstrates that the "iron-clad" evidence was the product of a bunch of highly circumstantial coincidences, Wiggum still manages to pull off a decent enough investigation (with some help from Lisa) when prompted that Homer's (wrongful) conviction was almost sure. Before he arrests Homer, Wiggum also investigates many of the other suspects, eliminating them one by one once he interviews them and confirms their alibis.
• Lyric Dissonance: Tito Puente's "The Villain Sucks" Song is an upbeat Mambo that tells Mr. Burns to rot and burn in Hell.
• Make the Dog Testify: Eddie and Lou attempt to do this with Santa's Little Helper and Maggie.
  Lou: Did you see this guy? Was he anywhere near the parking lot when Burns got shot?
  Eddie: No, it's no use. They ain't talking.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Smithers when he believed he shot Mr. Burns.
• Narrative Backpedaling:
  Kent Brockman: At 3 PM Friday, local autocrat C. Montgomery Burns was shot following a tense confrontation at Town Hall. Burns was rushed to a nearby hospital where he was pronounced dead. He was then transferred to a better hospital where doctors upgraded his condition to "alive".
• Never the Obvious Suspect: Discussed, with Lisa pointing out that in Real Life this is not the case. This being a TV show, the shooter is neither Smithers—who himself believes himself to have done it—nor Homer, to whom every last shred of evidence is pointing by the denouement.
  Marge: I guess it's never the most likely suspect.
  Lisa: Actually, Mom, in 95% of cases, it is. The rest of the time it's usually some deranged lunatic who did it for no reason.
  (Everybody looks at Homer.)
  Homer: Hey, I had a damn good reason.
• Noble Profession: Spoofed. Lisa says that Tito Puente can't be a suspect in the case because he's a celebrity. Chief Wiggum doesn't think so, though he immediately changes his mind after he hears Tito's "The Villain Sucks" Song.
• Noodle Incident:
  • Doubling as Bait-and-Switch, after Lisa dismisses the possibility of their family being guilty of attempted murder, Grampa says that one's actions can surprise a person, casually mentioning "I never thought that I could shoot down a German plane, but last year I proved myself wrong."
  • Willie's alibi implies he believes that at some point, he fought actual Space Invaders and received arthritis from it.
• Not Helping Your Case: As Burns snaps out of saying "Homer Simpson" nonstop, he still doesn't seem to know who Homer is, exasperating him.
  Homer: D'OOOOOOOOOOH! (grabs Wiggum's gun; jabs it into Burns' skull) SAY IT, BURNS! SAY I NEVER SHOT YOU! (realizes everybody's watching) ...before.
• Not Me This Time: Homer impulsively steals Wiggum's gun and points it at Burns, threatening to shoot him if he keeps saying he shot him... before.
• Not So Above It All: Lisa's investigating is a big help to the police, but she completely dismisses the idea of Tito Puente being the shooter, despite the fact he has just as much motive as the other suspects, solely because she admires his music. He does turn out to be innocent but the police were right to investigate him.
• Oh, Crap!: Homer has one when the police bust into the Simpson home to arrest him for shooting Burns. He gets another, in the form of a scream, when the gun he claims to have never seen before somehow has his fingerprints on it.
• Once More, with Clarity: At the end of part 2, the shooting is portrayed once again, except this time from Burns's perspective and clearly showing the culprit. Even more so, it changes the meaning of Burns's words. The original scene as depicted in part 1 made it seem like someone, who kept silent, confronted Burns with a gun aimed at him, followed by a Gun Struggle, leading to Burns being shot. What really happened was that Burns saw Maggie and asked why she was happy, with her revealing her lollipop treat. Burns, wanting the candy for himself, demanded Maggie "drop it" and attempted to steal it from her, only for his gun to fall out of his holster and ending up in Maggie's hands, causing it to trigger.
• Parrot Expo-WHAT?: When Smithers asks Jasper to forgive him for shooting his wooden leg, Jasper says "You shot who in the what now?"
• Plagiarism in Fiction: Krusty accuses Smithers of stealing a joke from him, only for Sideshow Mel to remind Krusty that he stole it from last night's episode of Pardon my Zinger. (This is actually a clue that clears Smithers; the episode aired around the same time that Burns was shot, so if Smithers was at home watching the show, he couldn't have been the shooter).
• Police Are Useless:
  • Subverted. Compared to how the police force are normally portrayed, this episode sees them do a competent job of trying to solve Mr. Burns' attempted murder. While Homer is falsely arrested, it's due to the evidence (namely, Mr. Burns saying "Homer Simpson" when asked who shot him). Chief Wiggum even points out that he can't arrest Maggie for the shooting because she is a baby.
  • Played straight when Wiggum releases cartoonish supervillain Dr. Colossus just because Sideshow Mel told him he had arrested an innocent man, without asking for any clarification or evidence. As it turns out, Mel wasn't even talking about Colossus, who is almost certainly guilty of whatever crime he was arrested for.
• Poor Man's Porn: Moe is forced to admit under a lie detector test that he spends his evenings ogling the women in the Sears catalog. ^noteSears stopped sending out Sears catalogs in America at the time of the episode's first airing, but who's to say that Moe doesn't either have a stash of old catalogs or is getting new ones from Canada?
• Rage Breaking Point: Homer's violent shaking winds up snapping Mr. Burns out of his "Homer Simpson" stupor... and his first act is to ask Smithers who is shaking him. Homer full-on breaks, grabs Chief Wiggum's pistol, and jams it into Burns's head, finger on the trigger.
• Rapid DNA Test: Parodied. Chief Wiggum presents an eyelash for DNA analysis, and the technician warns that it may take days or even weeks for the results. Then Chief Wiggum hands the technician a large pack of cigarettes as a bribe and the technician corrects himself and says it will take seconds (and it does).
• Restrained Revenge:
  • Happens in one of the alternate endings where the culprit turned out to be Smithers. Burns punishes Smithers's murder attempt by giving him a 5% pay cut, to which Smithers is utterly dismayed.
  • Tito Puente admits he wanted revenge on Burns, but he expressed said desire through writing a "The Villain Sucks" Song.
• The Reveal: Upon waking from his coma and regaining the ability to speak, Mr. Burns finally identifies his assailant:
  Mr. Burns: The one who shot me was...
  (The camera pans around the gathered citizens until stopping on...)
  Mr. Burns: Aahhh! AAAAAAH! AAAAAH! M-M-Maggie Simpson!
• Riddle for the Ages: We never learn the whereabouts of Homer, Bart, Lisa and Grampa at the time of the shooting (though Bart does appear at the sundial along with the other characters).
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: Lisa dismisses Tito Puente as a suspect out of hand because she's a fan of his music, and Chief Wiggum accepts that he's innocent because of his claim that the only revenge he wants on Burns is to write a slanderous mambo, which doesn't actually prove anything, but both are ultimately correct that he is not the shooter.
• Sdrawkcab Speech: Chief Wiggum has a Dream Sequence where Lisa appears, talking in a reversed speech in homage to Twin Peaks. When Wiggum repeatedly fails to understand her hints, she eventually gets angry and tells him what she means normally.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: From the beginning, the position of Burns' hands on the sundial was hyped as a major clue to the identity of the shooter, to the point that several characters were given names that match the initials. But when Lisa brings it up during the final summation, Burns denies having placed his hands like that on purpose.
• Shared Dream: During a lull in the investigation, Chief Wiggum has a surreal dream in which Lisa tells him to examine Burns's suit. Wiggum wakes up, upon which Eddie approaches him, having come to the same conclusion. Despite coming to the same conclusion, Eddie did not, however, share the same dream to approach it:
  Eddie: Hey, Chief. I have an idea. Why don't we check out that suit Burns was wearing when he was shot?
  Wiggum: Did you have the same backwards-talking dream with the flaming cards?
  [There's a Beat as Eddie briefly glances to the side, bemused.]
  Eddie: ...I'll drive.
• Sherlock Homage: Sideshow Mel reaches the conclusion that Smithers must be innocent. While he ponders over the clues, he lights a Holmesian pipe and orders Krusty (the Watson in this case) to come along with him to the police station.
• Shout-Out:
  • Homer's escape from arrest and sneaking into a hospital disguised as a doctor all spoof The Fugitive.
  • Groundskeeper Willie's investigation while showing he's wearing nothing below his kilt references the most famous scene from Basic Instinct.
  • Chief Wiggum's dream is one to Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me.
    • He's getting his detective advice from a fictional Agatha Christie novel.
  • The "Speedway Squad" sequence from Smithers' dream references the opening sequence of Police Squad!. Additionally, Smithers walking in on Burns in the shower is another Dallas reference.
  • As confirmed by director Wes Archer, one shot of Chief Wiggum loading Mr. Burns' gun is a direct homage to a similar shot from Golgo 13: The Professional.
• Sinister Surveillance: A DNA technician assisting Wiggum explains that the government has records of everybody in the country (including Springfield) who has handled a penny (hence why pennies are still in circulation). Thus, the DNA analysis machine provides an instant result.
• Smart Ball: The normally incompetent Chief Wiggum grabs it when he asks why no one reported Smithers shooting Jasper. The answer is that Smithers got him in the prosthetic leg.
  Wiggum: Wait a second, if another old geezer got shot, how come nobody reported it?
• Snap Back: The sunblocker is destroyed, but the rest of the havoc caused by Mr. Burns's slant oil drill (Springfield Elementary's massive staff cuts, Moe's Tavern shutting down, Springfield Retirement Castle collapsing, countless other damage caused by careless oil spills) are reversed without explanation.
• Status Quo Is God: The 1-year old Maggie Simpson is revealed to be the shooter, having done so by accident. (Maybe.) As a result, nobody is arrested or charged.
• Sure, Let's Go with That: Marge tries to bury Grampa's gun, but Grampa digs it back up:
  Grampa: Oh, you're the bee's knees, baby. I missed you bad.
  Marge: Were you talking to me?
  Grampa: Uh... yes.
  Marge: (shudders)
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: The destruction of the Sun Blocking Machine in Part 2. With Burns in a coma and Smithers having been fired in Part 1, nobody's left to run Burns' operations. So the Springfield citizens are easily able to gain access to the machine and tear it down.
• Take That!:
  • The first hospital Mr. Burns was brought to pronounced him dead, which another hospital disproves as soon as they take his pulse. The first hospital, which is also quite run down, has a sign labeling it the "Veteran's Hospital".
  • The first thing that clues Sideshow Mel in on Smithers's innocence is when he mentioned watching Comedy Central, which Mel took note of because it was unusual (this episode having been made back when Comedy Central wasn't as popular as it was now).
  • When Burns demands Maggie be arrested for shooting him, Wiggum laughs it off by saying no jury in the world would convict a baby, except maybe Texas.
  • "Pardon My Zinger" insults Madonna by implying she was disappointed in missing out on the Tailhook Scandal, a gag later used by both Krusty and Smithers.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: While it's not explicitly pointed out during The Reveal, Homer is unwittingly and indirectly responsible for the entire shooting. While Maggie accidentally shot Burns with his own gun, Burns would also not have been carrying a firearm in the first place if Homer had not attacked him in his own office just before the Sun-Blocker's activation (something which Burns mentioned in Part One when he crashed the Town Hal meeting).
• Varying Competency Alibi: The police believe Homer to be the one to shoot him due to Homer's name being the only thing coming out of Mr. Burns's mouth when he wakes up. However, once Burns regains his memory, he confirms that Homer lacks the skill or mental capacity to be capable of shooting him.
• "The Villain Sucks" Song: Tito Puente's creation of one is his alibi for not shooting Mr. Burns.
  Tito: Revenge? Of course. But why wound his body with bullets when I could set his soul afire with a slanderous mambo?
• Warm Milk Helps You Sleep: Chief Wiggum plans to drink some coffee to keep himself awake. However, he can't find any coffee, so he drinks a carton of warm cream instead. This naturally has the opposite effect.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Chief Wiggum never investigates Barney (there's even a shot of Lisa's chart of suspects with everyone except him crossed out as Wiggum laments that he still hasn't got any leads).^note This may have to do with what was originally planned for the episode as stated on the DVD Commentary in Part 2, in which Barney would have turned out to be the shooter
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: During Tito's song, a group of clams in the kitchen starts dancing to it. The chef looks on in astonishment, smiles and then dumps them in a boiling pot anyway.
• Where the Hell Is Springfield?: According to Chief Wiggum's line about a jury in Texas convicting a baby, Springfield isn't there.
• Who Murdered the Asshole: Downplayed in that Burns isn't killed, but he does everything in his power to become such a colossal example of the Asshole Victim within a handful of minutes/a couple of days In-Universe that the ensuing mystery was treated pretty seriously because even babies wished him dead. Despite Mr. Burns being a massive Asshole Victim, though, the attempted murder is still treated as such, with Smithers even tearing up after thinking he was the one who shot Burns.
• Wrongful Accusation Insurance: Homer pulls a gun on Mr. Burns in the hospital room in front of basically the entire town. Nobody mentions this or brings up potential charges against Homer for it once he's cleared for the shooting.
• Would Hurt a Child: Once everything has been cleared and Homer is declared innocent, Burns immediately points out that things are not over yet and orders Wiggum to arrest Maggie (a baby) for his attempted murder. Wiggum refuses because 1) it was very clearly an accident and 2) no jury in the world would convict a baby... except maybe Texas.

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