Homer's Enemy

"Homer's Enemy" is the twenty-third episode of Season 8 and first aired on May 4, 1997. The episode was written by John Swartzwelder and directed by Jim Reardon.

Frank Grimes, the new employee at the power plant, is displeased with Homer's incompetence and work ethic and becomes further annoyed with circumstances involving this. This reaches to a culmination when Grimes declares himself as an enemy of Homer. Meanwhile, Bart buys a factory for 1 Dollar and operates it along with Milhouse.

Plot
The show opens with a news report about Frank Grimes, an orphan who experienced many hard times in his life, and finally self-educated himself enough to enter the workplace. Mr. Burns sees the newscast and orders Smithers to hire him at the nuclear plant as Executive Vice President. The next day, Burns forgets this decision and gives the job to a courageous dog, and assigns Grimes to a low level position. Shortly thereafter, Grimes crosses paths with Homer, and immediately dislikes him. It may have something to do with the fact that Homer is lazy, annoying, and thoroughly unqualified for the job he has.

Meanwhile, while on a trip to a local government building, Bart wanders away from Marge and ends up buying an abandoned warehouse at a tax auction for a single dollar. He moves right in, and then hires Milhouse to act as a security guard.

Back at the plant, Grimes' hatred for Homer heats up as he furthers witness Homer's ineptitude. When he brings this up to Lenny and Carl, they don't see his point, and disagree with Grimes' opinion of him. When Homer accidentally almost drinks acid, Grimes' knocks the vial out of his hand and ends up wrecking the cafeteria wall, for which he then gets blamed. At this point, he declares to Homer that they are now enemies, and secretly Grimes makes it his goal to prove to everyone that Homer is a moron.

Upon advice from Moe, Homer decides to invite Grimes to dinner at his house to try and be friends. He has Marge prepare a lobster dinner and the family dress in their usual church clothes. However when Grimes arrives he only gets angrier. This wasn't the life someone like Homer Simpson should have; he sees the house, the two cars, Homer's kids, his beautiful wife and learns of Homer's unlikely accomplishments (like becoming an astronaut, winning a grammy, being on tour with The Smashing Pumpkins and being friends with former president Ford). He rants that it's inconceivable that such a screw-up could achieve so much, when Grimes worked hard for everything and the only thing he has to show for it is his briefcase, haircut and a tiny apartment between two bowling alleys (which impresses Homer). He says people like him are what is wrong with the country and that if he lived anywhere else he'd have starved long ago.

The next day Marge comforts Homer telling him that Frank doesn't hate him, he's just frustrated that life has always been hard to him while easy for Homer, and tells him if he cleaned up his act a litle maybe Frank would be less hostile. After hearing this, Homer decides to clean up his act (in his own way), and appear more professional on the job. When Grimes sees a flyer for a kids "Design Your Own Power Plant" contest, he maneuvers Homer into entering it. Meanwhile, the warehouse Bart owns collapses in the middle of the night, leaving the rats to swarm Moe's tavern.

At the contest, Homer's diorama is a badly-created representation of the current plant, but with fins and a racing stripe. Mr. Burns, impressed by his effort, awards Homer first prize, beating out Ralph Wiggum and Martin Prince, whose model was actually generating the power for the auditorium. His plan having backfired, Grimes finally snaps, and begins to rampage through the plant, imitating Homer as he loses his sanity. In a last desperate demonstration, he grabs an open conduit and electrocutes himself. Homer gets the last laugh at Grimes' funeral as he drools and talks in his sleep.