The Simpsons continue their Halloween tradition with a dedicated episode to horror movie parodies.
The series is now in its 33rd year and this time around, horror fans are treated to the parodies of The Babadook, Death Note, and Westworld.
Over the years, the Treehouse of Horror series had a lot of hit-and-miss episodes but finally, it has redeemed itself with this episode.
Treehouse of Horror usually includes three segments based on horror movies. The episodes are non-canon, meaning the events take place outside of the show's normal continuity. This means anyone can die or get injured in this show. It also means, we can never guess what is going to happen in these episodes, thus retaining the surprise factor.
In any other episode, we know the main characters are going to be unscathed no matter what circumstances they are thrust into.
The episode for this season opens with the segment The Pookadook. Just like the movie The Babadook (which was a parable for the mother’s feelings towards her life after losing her son and bringing up a troubled six-year-old all by herself), the episode focuses on Marge’s resentment towards being left out of all the family fun.
In the beginning, Marge looks for a book to read to Maggie only to come across The Pookadook several times. She finally reads it to a frightened Maggie and realizes the book is a gateway for the Pookadook to enter.
But it is just a book, right?
At night, Maggie’s screams bring Marge to her room and she sees the book sitting beside her infant. She comforts Maggie by caressing her face. Maggie and Marge have a thing where they stroke each other’s cheeks and call them baby cheeks.
Over the next few days, the book keeps returning to Marge even after she tries ripping it apart and burning it on the grill. When she does the latter, the smoke emitting from the book is inhaled by Marge who becomes possessed.
The Pookadook wants to go after Maggie but of course, the rest of the family is in the way. A possessed Marge devises a plan to get Homer, Bart, and Lisa out of the house by sending them to a sleepover event at the Aquarium.
Maggie tries to outsmart the Pookadook and eventually manages to tie her up. She tries to get Marge out by reminding her of the gifts her family gave to her and some family photographs. At this point, Maggie realizes how unfair the family has been to Marge.
Marge escapes her binds but Maggie caresses her cheek and the real Marge surfaces. The Pookadook is all smoke that is sucked in by the vacuum Marge was gifted.
The vacuum stays in the basement with the Pookadook still inside it.
The next segment is Death Tome, based on the movie Death Note which was based on the anime of the same name.
The whole segment is done in anime style too.
Lisa is seen walking around town, criticizing the corrupt world. A tome falls before her with instructions on how to use it. She places the book in her bag but doesn’t believe in its powers just yet.
At home, when a news report shows a cute cat being held hostage, Lisa writes in her tome of a way to kill the escaped convict in a unique way. She pretty much gives him a heart attack and the cat is saved.
Lisa is shocked about her new powers. She goes to her room where a shinigami has surfaced and refuses to take his tome back as Lisa has already used it. He also tells her his actual name is Steve because it was once a very exotic name.
When Lisa overhears Mr. Burns’ plan to create a devastating flood, she writes his name in his tome but tries to be merciful. Mr. Burns dies in his sleep but he falls face-first onto a grill and his skin is ripped off. Oops!
The shinigami reminds Lisa that even without Burns, there are plenty of employees who could get the floods started.
Lisa jots down different ways for each of the employees to die as she can use only one type of killing. Some employees are killed by an alligator in a toilet, a lion in a toilet, and by drowning in a chocolate fountain. One of them drops dead out of embarrassment.
Considering all these employees died one after another, out of the blue, murder is suspected.
A man however tips about the death tome and Lisa realizes she must get rid of whoever L is. She tries to write it in her tome but it doesn’t work since she must write the whole name. However, she did not know the escaped convict’s name and that worked.
Anyway, Lisa recognizes the handwriting. It is El Barto of course, aka Bart. She begins writing in her tome when Bart reminds her that she is thinking of killing her brother. Lisa is shocked that she has turned into a murderer even as the shinigami encourages her to fall to her murderous side.
Lisa instead writes Steve’s name and the shinigami is destroyed. But uh oh, Lisa is turned into a shinigami now. The episode ends on a happy note. Not a death note.
The third segment is Simpsons World.
In this, we get to see the Simpsons reenact lines and events from previous episodes. But something is off, isn’t it? Turns out, they are all robots who need to be recalibrated or thrown into the compactor should they glitch.
When Homer accidentally wakes up during a tune-up, he increases his self-awareness levels and begins to question his identity. Although he is in “preserve human” mode, he accidentally kills the scientists there and escapes.
He reawakens the defunct Lisa, Marge, and Bart and they try to escape. However, when Homer is stopped by a bunch of bullies who want him to recreate the famous hedge meme, Bart turns off Homer’s “preserve human” mode. Homer rids himself of the bullies immediately.
The family manages to escape the Simpsons world and then find a diner to sit and contemplate their next steps. Except, it’s a burger joint. Bob’s Burgers to be precise.
What the Simpsons don’t know yet is that they have entered a Bob’s Burgers world that sits next to South Park Park, Family Guy Town, A Big Mouth Mountain, Rick and Morty Universe, and Spongebob’s Sea.
The episode ends with Kang and Kodos realizing that everything they say has been predicted in a book they were reading at the beginning of the episode. In fact, the title of the book has changed as well.
The 33rd episode of the Treehouse of Horror is the sixth episode in the 34th season.
Scare Scale: 4/5
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