Funeral for a Fiend

"America has a tradition of turning outlaws into legends after their deaths: Billie the Kid. Bonnie and Clyde. Jesus Christ."

- Kent Brockman

Funeral for a Fiend is the eighth episode of Season 19. It features Kelsey Grammer in his tenth guest appearance as Sideshow Bob, as well as David Hyde Pierce in his second appearance as Cecil Terwilliger and John Mahoney makes his first appearance as Dr. Robert Terwilliger Sr., the father of Bob and Cecil. Keith Olbermann also makes a guest appearance as himself, when he tries to talk Marge out of not watching commercials.

Synopsis
Homer buys a TiVo that allows Marge to skip commercials, but after a dream in which Keith Olbermann chastises her for doing so, she starts watching the ones she skipped, one of which is for a new rib restaurant that turns out to be a trap set by Sideshow Bob; once again, the trap fails and Bob is arrested, but at his trial, Bart throws away a nitroglycerin vial that Bob needed for a heart condition, and Bob falls dead. Is Bob really dead?

Act One
Bart accompanies Homer to Circuit Circus to purchase a battery. The cashier who rings up Homer's purchase explains that if he signs up for a $200 TiVo and a 2 year subscription, he'll receive his battery for free. Homer quickly complies and in no time, Lisa is busy installing the new TiVo system at home.

The family quickly realizes the capability of their new TiVo device as they skip through the commercials (Mostly from former episodes) during Itchy & Scratchy (Entitled: "Spherical on 34th Street"). Marge especially takes a shine to their new TiVo, and becomes a pro at skipping all the commercials and recording all her favorite shows. Her TiVo watching passion quickly becomes an addiction and late one night after falling asleep on the couch watching TV, her guilty conscience gets the better of her in her dreams. Marge dreams of Keith Olbermann speaking to her through the TV and making her feel guilty for skipping all of the television commercials. She makes a vow to Keith that she will be sure to catch up and her advertisement watching.

During a marathon commercial watching session, Marge catches an ad for a "Wes Doobner's World Famous Family Rib Huts" restaurant. With a menu that appeals to everyone in the family, they excitedly head out to visit the new restaurant that night.

The family begins to sense that something is amiss when they see an empty parking lot and a restaurant void of any tables or chairs, once inside. The doors and windows close and latch behind them and Wes Doobner himself steps in through another door and emits a maniacal laugh. Wes reveals himself to be Sideshow Bob and gloats about his ingenious plan to trap and then kill the Simpsons.

Act Two
With the Simpsons tied up, Sideshow Bob provides a slide show to explain what he's been up to since the last time the Simpsons saw him in The Italian Bob. Sideshow Bob then shows the family how he plans to kill them. He places a laptop computer with a defective battery on top of a pile of TNT so that when the battery overheats and explodes, it will ignite the TNT causing it to explode as well. Bob quotes some Shakespeare and then makes his exit, but Lisa calls out to Bob, teasing him for getting the Shakespeare quote wrong. Sideshow Bob, not wanting to be upstaged, quickly reenters and uses the laptop to check Wikipedia about the accuracy of his quote. But while waiting for the website to load, the defective battery explodes in his lap knocking him unconscious. Within minutes Kent Brockman is reporting on the scene and Sideshow Bob is taken under arrest.

At his trial Sideshow Bob confesses that he did try to kill the Simpsons, but that his plot was a product of his insanity caused by Bart's constant persecution. He calls his father, Dr. Terwilliger, to the witness stand. Bob's father testifies that Bob was a peaceful, weak and sickly boy due to a congenital heart defect, until Bart Simpson began "tormenting" him, which led Bob to full-blown dementia. Sideshow Bob pleads with the jury and begins to successfully paint Bart in a bad light and win sympathy from the court.

An outraged Bart snaps and in an outburst tries to convince the court that Bob is lying. Sideshow Bob then reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out a small vial of nitroglycerin, but before he can do anything with it, Bart snatches the vial out of Bob's hand and flings it out the window. Bob screams, clutches his heart in horror and collapses. Dr. Terwilliger rushes from the witness stand to his son's side and Sideshow Bob's mother emerges from the gallery to explain that the nitroglycerin was actually for Bob's heart defect. Dr. Hibbert rushes forward to check Bob's pulse and then confirms everyone's fears, telling them that Sideshow Bob is dead, blaming Bart in the process.

Act Three
Nearly the entire town shows up for Sideshow Bob's funeral and Kent Brockman covers the scene with live coverage. Krusty leads the funeral in song as well-wishers pay their last respects to a peaceful Sideshow Bob, who is lying in a tailor made coffin that accommodates his large feet. The Simpson family enters the church to hostility and Bart storms off, refusing to pay his respects to Bob.

Later Bart sits alone out on the sidewalk grumbling about how everyone hates him for killing Sideshow Bob, when Bob's imprisoned brother Cecil, accompanied by two police officers, approaches. Cecil tells Bart that he once shared the same disdain for Bob, but tells Bart that he'll feel better if he makes his peace with Bob. Bart reluctantly agrees and heads off to the funeral home to say goodbye before Bob is cremated.

Milhouse makes his rounds delivering newspapers and at the Simpson home Marge asks him if he's seen Bart. Milhouse tells her that he did happen to just see Bart a few minutes ago and that he was headed for the funeral home to see Sideshow Bob one last time. When Milhouse asks to sit down because his feet are killing him, Lisa suddenly realizes that Bart is in danger and urges everyone to rush to the funeral home before it's too late.

At the funeral home Bart approaches as Sideshow Bob's coffin, which awaits the furnace, and confesses that he didn't mean for Bob to die. Just then, to Bart's surprise, Bob jumps out of the coffin, alive and well, and quickly throws Bart in. He laughs maniacally as he throws a switch that starts the coffin on its slow journey down the conveyor belt to the furnace.

As the family rushes to the funeral home Lisa explains how she figured out Bob's plan: she chronicles the fact that Bob would have never misquoted Shakespeare--due to his mom being a Shakespearean actress--and that when Bob collapsed in the courtroom, his father must have injected him with a drug to make him appear dead when he quickly rushed to Bob's side.

Back at the funeral home Bob gathers with his entire family, including Cecil and his police escorts, who peel off their latex masks and turn out to be their parents. Bob then plans for Bart's ashes to be mistaken for his, and by the time police figure it out, Bob and his family will be away scot free. As they watch Bart slowly head to the furnace, Lisa, Marge and Homer suddenly burst in to rescue Bart in the nick of time. Homer throws some hobo ashes into Bob's eyes, distracting him, and Marge reverses the switch and stops the conveyor belt.

Once Bart is safe, Chief Wiggum and the real police show up on the scene to arrest Sideshow Bob and his family. As Bob and his family are being led away, Bob asks Lisa how she figured out his plan. Lisa explains that she started getting suspicious when she noticed that Bob's coffin had been accommodated to fit Bob's large feet (when Milhouse said "My feet are killing me."), pointing out that his family wouldn't have bothered to pay for something like that if Bob actually was dead.

In a jail cell with the rest of his family, Sideshow Bob sits in corner, restrained by a straight jacket, and laughs evilly as he daydreams of his revenge on the Simpson family, while his father, son and brother play cards.

Errors

 * Whilist at the funeral as Krusty sings his song, you'll see he takes out a dvd case, however on the front cover Krusty's eyes appear to be red and on the back cover Krusty's eyes are white.


 * In the Itchy and Scratchy show Itchy used hydrogen instead of helium to make Scratchy float. (Hydrogen is lighter than air and is flammable (remember the Hindenburg?), and itchy is shooting a flaming arrow. It is not an error. Had the scene continued as expected, Scratchy would have made a fiery explosion. That was kind of most of the joke)


 * During the Robert Terwilliger Sr's testimony he can also be seen sitting in the audience.

Reception
Robert Canning of IGN gave the episode a 6.2/10, saying "there were some enjoyable scenes, but the half hour lacked in the number of laugh-out-loud moments, and Bob's ultimate scheme wasn't very surprising."