I Don't Wanna Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

"I Don't Wanna Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" is the 4th episode of The Simpsons ' nineteenth season, and first aired on October 14, 2007, although it was originally scheduled to air on September 30, 2007, It was written by Dana Gould and directed by Bob Anderson. It guest stars Steve Buscemi as Dwight, Ted Nugent as himself and Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who reprises her role as Snake's girlfriend Gloria for the first time since the episode "A Hunka Hunka Burns in Love".

Plot
Lisa is named "Student of the Millennium", so Marge stresses that Homer has to attend her ceremony due to past absences at most of the kids' events. Homer then wakes up early and takes Maggie to the school auditorium. Meanwhile, Marge is waiting in line at the bank, and gets impatient after the line doesn't move, so she strikes up a conversation with an apparent charming man named Dwight. He later takes out his pistol and holds up the bank. Gil Gunderson then arrives, prepared for his new job as a security guard, however he is repeatedly shot by Dwight's accomplice and is apparently killed.

Homer is smugly waiting for Marge at the ceremony. Marge privately calls Homer, informing him she's a hostage at a bank robbery. Dwight notices Marge on the phone. Dwight makes a compromise; he will promise to turn himself in as long as Marge promises to visit him in prison, to which she reluctantly agrees.

A nervous Marge returns home. Homer attempts to convince Marge not to visit Dwight in the prison, but Marge wishes to honor her promise and visit him. However, while going to the prison, she makes continuous stops to avoid going to the prison, and misses visiting hours. At the prison, Dwight expectantly waits for Marge. While watching Snake Jailbird and his girlfriend, Gloria, Dwight becomes depressed. Dwight becomes angry, and Marge's guilt begins to get to her while watching a frightening horror movie about a prisoner who was to be electrocuted. At the same moment, Dwight is breaking out of Springfield Penitentiary. He finds Marge's address in a newspaper, and sets out to find her.

At home, while watching TV, Kent Brockman makes a news report on "Dwight David Diddlehopper"'s escape from prison. Dwight begins stalking Marge in various places, and successfully catches up to Marge and keeps her as his hostage. Dwight takes her to the same amusement park where he was abandoned by his mother, with the intention to have Marge help him repay the time he had lost, and promises to let her go afterwards, to which Marge, out of sympathy, agrees. He and Marge then ride the Viking ship ride together. Chief Wiggum arrives attempting to save Marge, but he is caught in the ride. Dwight jams the ride's gears by throwing in his own body to save Wiggum. He survives, fortunately, and returns to prison after being hospitalized and making a full recovery. Back at the prison, Marge finally visits Dwight, who gives her a flattened dandelion encased in a bar of soap he had carved for her with a message on the back intending to recruit her in helping him another prison break. Marge does not agree to the escape attempt and Dwight, although saddened, says she can keep the token.

Cultural references

 * The title of this episode is a play on the title of the 1969 autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou.
 * The bank robbery is a parody of Dog Day Afternoon.
 * When Dwight crawls though the prison sewage pipe, he sees a "Pure Mountain Spring Water" pipe next to it, and screams "Dammit!", this is a parody of Shawshank Redemption, where the main character in that film gains freedom from prison by crawling through a dirty sewage and waste pipe.
 * The song that featured during the sequence where Marge is being stalked by Dwight is "Who Can It Be Now?" by Men at Work.
 * When Marge and Dwight are at the amusement park you can see the ride "Dilbert's Flying Cubicle" in the background, a reference to Scott Adams's popular comic Dilbert. The theme song of the Dilbert animated series can be heard in the background for a large portion of the remaining scene.