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

• Accidental Aesop: Two in "Lout Break":
  • Workplace regulations exist for your safety and everybody else's.
  • If you're feeling ill, stay at home. If Homer had stayed home when his stomach was acting up, his Homerizing virus would have been limited to infecting Marge and the pets instead of infecting the rest of Springfield and the world.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • For murdering Bart 30 years ago, Bob gets his comeuppance when Lisa brutally kills him in his own cell. To make it even sweeter, Maggie, who orchestrated getting Bob and Lisa in the same cell, casually whistles as she savors the sound of her sister killing the very psychopathic killer who destroyed their family.
  • Depending on how much Rooting for the Empire you've done over the years, the Retraux remake of "Cape Feare"'s iconic climax in which Sideshow Bob really does kill Bart might induce more happiness than horror.
• Crosses the Line Twice: The serial murders in "Ei8ht" start with Rod Flanders being found with his torso severed from his legs and get progressively gorier from there before cumulating in the discovery of Sherri's remains, which the killer has turned into a Rube Goldberg Device featuring her skeleton, eyeballs and entrails.
• Fanfic Fuel:
  • The fact that "Ei8ht" has a clear Point of Divergence from a classic episode ("Cape Feare") as its premise opens up a lot about what happened between the alternate "Cape Feare" and the main body of the segment. It helps that the premise eschews the show's typical Comic-Book Time to have the events of "Cape Feare" really occurring on the date the episode aired (in 1993), so that its 2023 segments deal with a Lisa who's aged in real time from there, a timeline preferred by fans who have trouble seeing iconic 90s kids Bart, Lisa and Maggie as smartphone-wielding modern-day youngsters.
  • The segment also peaked the interest of many fans just by being an alternate take on what was otherwise a normal Simpsons episode, opening up potential story ideas that can be had by twisting other episodes of the show.
• Genius Bonus: The motto of Springfield University is "Non loquor Latine", which is Latin for "I don't speak Latin".
• Heartwarming Moments: Ignoring the whole killing spree, the fact that Lisa sacrificed both her freedom and her sanity and Maggie agreed to work as a prison guard in order to avenge their deceased brother Bart is quite touching.
• Just Here for Godzilla: Once again, the segment with Sideshow Bob as the Big Bad is the only one that people care about. It took up a good chunk of the advertising, too.
• Older Than They Think:
  • Lisa having a split personality has been done before.
  • At this point, a Treehouse of Horror segment about multiplying Homers is becoming a recurring plot.
• Tough Act to Follow: This Treehouse of Horror episode has to come out a year after one that not only had the first full-episode Treehouse of Horror story, but also one of the best THOH episodes in recent years. While the "Ei8ht" segment definitely was the highlight, the rest of the episode was basically generic material (a story that is a victim of Production Lead Time; a third act story with a Downer Ending).
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Many fans feel that the plot of "Ei8ht" would've been stronger had it had a full episode to tell its story akin to the previous season's "Not It", rather than having its entire narrative squeezed into a 7-minute segment.

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