Treehouse of Horror XVIII

"Treehouse of Horror XVIII"
The Simpsons episode
Episode no.	Season 19
Directed by	Chuck "Bloody" Sheetz
Written by	Marc Wilmore
Original air date	November 4, 2007

"Treehouse of Horror XVIII" is the fifth episode of The Simpsons' nineteenth season and was first broadcast on November 4, 2007. In the eighteenth annual Treehouse of Horror episode, Bart harbors Kodos the alien in "E.T. Go Home," Homer and Marge are husband and wife assassins who try to take each other out in "Mr. and Mrs. Simpson," and Ned Flanders is given God-like powers during his demonstration on the wages of sin in "Heck House." It was written by Marc Wilmore and directed by Chuck Sheetz.

Plot

Opening sequence

In the opening sequence, Marge talks about Halloween being "last week" and suddenly various logos for other Fox shows pop up on the screen, including the mini logos for American Idol, Fox Sports, Prison Break, Cops, House and 24. Marge winds up killing several miniature characters that pop up from the logos and bakes them into meatloaf, which she serves to her family. When she cuts it, the other characters' body parts are shown to spell out the title, "Treehouse of Horror XVIII" and the opening credits.

E.T., Go Home

In a spoof of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Marge tells Bart to get butane from their "butane storage shed" in the back yard. As he does so, he finds Kodos there. Kodos states his desire is to return home and that he had come to Earth in peace, though he hints that he was really sent there to destroy mankind. Bart, however, is oblivious to this, and decides to help his return home. Lisa arrives and is happy with the alien in their home and decides to help Bart and Kodos obtain a list of devices (including 2 tickets to see Avenue Q) that he can use to contact his home planet, though this appears to be part of his diabolical plan. Homer discovers Kodos when the two accidentally share a shower, but he and Marge decide to let the kids help Kodos anyway, after Kodos hints it would be racist to turn him away (He said that they didn't wanted him in the house because he was Jewish). When NASA agents arrive at the Simpsons home, Homer distracts them by dressing as Abraham Lincoln while Bart sneaks Kodos out. However, when Kodos kills several agents along the way, Bart begins to think Kodos's intentions are not as friendly as he was led to believe. Finally, Kodos reveals that the devices he had the Simpsons collect were for a portal-generating device so that others of his planet can come to Earth and wipe out the human race and eat their heads. When the aliens (including Kang) invade, the rest of the Simpson family shows up, along with the military. A brief war is waged, and Earth ultimately overpowers the aliens. When Bart is given the option to board a helicopter and shoot Kodos, Bart, seeing Kodos' smile, decides to spare him. However, Homer shoots Kodos several times. In the end, Earth emerges victorious and the world is saved. The Simpsons are invited to see Kodos's dissection, where they reflect that since Kodos was an evil-looking alien who turned out to be bad, it must be good to judge a book by its cover. It is revealed that Kodos is still very much alive, as he points what's happening is actually vivisection, only to be suffocated with a pillow.

Mr. and Mrs. Simpson

In a spoof of Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Homer and Marge appear to attend marriage counseling and recount a brief moment of tension between them. In the flashback, when arriving home, Homer locks himself in the bathroom and communicates on a hidden flat screen television, where it is revealed Homer is an assassin assigned to eliminate news reporter, Kent Brockman, by order of Homer's boss, Mr. Burns. Although the bathroom is locked, Bart somehow got in and is seen sitting on a Mortar, which was the toilet. Before he leaves, he tells Marge he will be coming home late from "Midnight Monkey Madness"; Marge also states that she is busy turning over wheelbarrows, making up an equally farfetched excuse. When Homer prepares to shoot Brockman at his rooftop party from a faraway platform, a woman with large blonde hair (who Homer dubs "the Mystery Skank") stabs Brockman in the chest, killing him instead. After Homer attempts to repeatedly shoot the woman (ending up with several civilian deaths), he manages to shoot the wig off her head, revealing it is Marge, also an assassin. Arriving home, the two avoid each other's eyes, and Marge makes an excuse for the blonde wig. Unfortunately, Homer (thinking that he is talking in his head) exclaims "I'll kill her after dessert!" which leads the two attempting to kill one another with various weapons such as grenades, rifles, and a minigun, all the while arguing why the other was an assassin, and up destroying most of their house, and killing Abe Simpson. After killing Chief Wiggum with a crossbow, the two realize they are more attracted with one another when they kill someone together. For this, they soon begin making love over Chief Wiggum's body and, back to where the episode started, they both realized that they did not need any marriage counseling, but to kill people together. In the end, it turns out that they were not talking to a marriage counselor, but to Principal Skinner regarding Bart's misbehavior on the school bus. This causes a rather confusing situation as to why they went to Skinner, thinking he was a marriage counselor in the first place. But, both Homer and Marge turn a blind eye to Bart's misbehavior and simultaneously shoot Skinner instead.

Heck House

On Halloween night, Bart, Lisa, Milhouse and Nelson become frustrated by Agnes Skinner refusing to give them candy. Deciding to honor the true meaning of "trick-or-treat," they begin to pull pranks on everyone. Soon, however, their pranks turn into vandalism and everyone begins to complain. Ned Flanders then offers his services to teach them a lesson and fashions the church into a "heck house." This attracts their attention and they decide to give it a try.

Ned tries to simulate what could happen to them for their sins through the use of crude roleplaying by Rod and Todd Flanders, but they scoff at his attempts. Ned then turns to God to give him the power to scare them into loving God and subsequently transforms into the Devil (essentially reprising his role from Treehouse of Horror IV), sending the kids to Hell, even Lisa despite the fact that she hadn't done anything. There he brings up an enormous crystal ball revealing Springfield to be full of the Seven Deadly Sins, and shows them simulations of how they may suffer;

• Gluttony: Homer slurps his spaghetti too fast, and ends up being turned into spaghetti himself.
• Wrath (called Anger here): Groundskeeper Willie kicks his tractor in frustration and ends up decapitated by it after it transforms into a robot.
• Pride: Doctor Hibbert gets crushed by a truck after putting a bumper sticker on his car that touts his child as an honor roll student.
• Sloth: Homer (despite being killed by "that magic spaghetti") is killed again when he falls through the mesh of the hammock and is sliced into pieces.
• Lust, Greed, and Envy: Moe lusts after a stripper as she performs, steals her money out of greed, and envies "the crotchless" after the stripper kicks Moe in the groin.

Hell is then shown with various people from Springfield who have punishments from their doings on Earth. The children resolve to not perform any of the sins (however, Nelson remarks "All we'll do is pray, and fight in wars"). Ned returns them back to the surface, reverting back to his original form.

Ending sequence

The episode ends with Ned telling the viewers that they will go to Hell for watching Fox and its affiliates and reading The Wall Street Journal.

Production

On July 27, 2007, creator Matt Groening and the producers attended a panel which encompassed the topics of both The Simpsons Movie, and the nineteenth season. The panel revealed that Peter Griffin from Family Guy would be one of the miniature characters featured in the opening sequence, although he was removed from the scene.

Cultural references

The segment "E.T., Go Home," parodies the film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, with Bart in the role of Eliott and Kodos as E.T. When Marge calls Bart he is seeing "Samba with the Stars", parody of Dancing with the Stars. Kodos asks Bart and Lisa for 2 tickets to Avenue Q.The "Mr. and Mrs. Simpson" segment is a parody of the 2005 film Mr. and Mrs. Smith. In the final segment, "Heck House", Groundskeeper Willie's tractor transforms into a robot and kills him, parodying Transformers.

• In Heck House, when the kids are making tricks the song that play is Blitzkrieg Bop by The Ramones.

Reception

In the USA, the episode averaged 11.7 million viewers and a 5.7 overnight Nielsen rating and a 13 percent audience share, making it the highest rated episode of the season. Combined with a new episode of Family Guy, it tied for first in the 8:00 PM hour with the NFL Pregame show on NBC. Despite this, the Fox Network finished the night fourth overall in ratings.

Robert Canning of IGN called the opening segment, E.T. Go Home, "the weakest segment because it just wasn't really all that funny", and thought the end of the segment was the weakest part of the episode, writing "watching the military decimate the aliens and then seeing Homer use a pillow to suffocate Kodos at the end was really off-putting. The deaths weren't funny, just uncomfortable." Canning, however, described the final two segments, as well as the opening as being solid segments. He gave the overall episode a rating of 7.4/10.

External links

• "Treehouse of Horror XVIII" at The Simpsons.com