Daddicus Finch

"Daddicus Finch" is the ninth episode of Season 30.

Synopsis
Lisa and Homer's bond gets stronger when they start spending real quality time together, and Bart feels neglected. So Marge tries to help Homer balance his attention between the kids.

Full Story
Ralph Wiggum messes over the school play after he forgets the color of broccoli. Because he took too long, the school had to cut Lisa's anti-meat scene. Lisa starts crying out outside after the play so Marge tells Homer to cheer her up. Homer says she was the best one in the play, obviously an attempt to cheer her up. But Lisa knows she didn't get a single line and starts to feel even worse.

To cheer her up, the next day, Homer takes Lisa to a clothing store to get her some new clothes. When he looks around, all of the brands pertain females as a sex object and Homer becomes distasted. After he speaks what he thinks, Lisa begins to see Homer as similar to Atticus Finch, after she was required to read the book To Kill a Mockingbird, although Miss Hoover tells the class that they were supposed to read the Wikipedia article later in the plot, because Homer stands up for what he thinks is right. Homer and Lisa develop a great father-daughter bond, even getting ice cream, going to the museum, and watching the movie To Kill a Mockingbird together. Lisa even starts to dress like the characters in the picture.

Meanwhile, Bart becomes depressed that Homer is neglecting him due to Lisa. So he goes to the school therapist, who because of the school budget cuts must only see each student for less than a minute, tells him to act out to get attention. At Shauna Chalmers' bat mitzvah, Bart gets Milhouse to fake an asthma attack, although he does have a real one in the process, so he can swap the car keys of everyone who is in the church. The valet boy takes Milhouse to the hospital on the bike quickly, excited that he will get to meet a nurse. Bart swaps everyone's keys in the process and walks off. After Shauna's bat mitzvah ends, everyone wants to get the food, but one of the rabbis wants to tell a joke. Superintendent Chalmers tells him to finish quickly because they want to go and when everyone gets out of the church, they complain to the valet boy that all their keys are mixed up. Kent Brockman laughs at them because he has an app on his phone that will bring his Tesla to him, but he runs over Hans Moleman by accident. That being the last straw, everyone wonders who did such a thing when the valet boy denied it. Milhouse somehow returns and calls out Bart and the entire town forms a mob against Bart. Later, the mob arrives at the Simpson house to shoot Bart, but Homer arrives in time to save them with words to calm them down. Chief Wiggum tells the mob that Homer convinced them to disperse and goes back indoors, although he did fire a shot by accident after. Lisa is amazed at how her father was able to convey an entire mob with his words and the Bible and continues to look up to him.

The next day, at school, Marge sees that Lisa's hair is mixed up and that she is rattled. Lisa claims she got in a fight with another kid and the other kid is revealed to be Bart, with a black eye. Lisa got upset and beat up Bart in school because he called Homer "lazy and incompetent." Marge thinks Lisa looks up to Homer too much to the point where she will take her anger if someone says something bad about Homer. Realizing this is tearing the family apart, Marge plans to take matters in her own hands. Marge goes to see the school counselor, who because of a lack of time, tells her not to have anymore kids because then there will be less problems. Since that didn't help, Marge tells Homer in bed that he needs to tell Lisa to not look up to him that much because it is destroying the family. Lisa thinks that it would be best after Homer convinces her that he will always be his father. Eventually, Lisa moved on and Homer gets sad, but when Maggie uses hand gestures to tell Homer that despite their flaws, they will always love each other, Homer becomes happy again, even though he calls Marge to change her diaper shortly afterwards. The episode finishes with a future Bart not choosing what to do. In the final scene, an adult Lisa questions him because he hasn't chosen and he finally plans to kick Homer's butt. By then, the rest of Homer's body is now a machine. A collage of images showing Lisa bonding with Homer, Marge bonding with Bart, and Nelson bullying Milhouse is then shown.

Production
It was called "Lisa Has a Crush on Homer" in the post-production.