The Homer of Seville

The Homer of Seville is the second episode of Season 19.

Synopsis
After an injury at an funeral, Homer finds out he can sing very well when he's laid down, so he joins the opera.

Full Story
The episode starts with the family escaping church. Marge announces that she wants to eat out instead of cooking as usual. After finding out every place has lines, the family goes as far as to break into someone's apparent party. It does not take long for them to realize that they actually crashed a funeral. Homer volunteers to be a pallbearer. After falling into an open grave, Homer is sent to the hospital.

While at the hospital, Homer finds out his usual "D'oh!" does not sound as normal. While causing the bed to sit upright and lay flat, Dr. Hibbert notices Homer's diaphragm is safely under his stomach when he is lying down, giving him the ability to sing in an operatic voice that causes newborn babies to cease crying and weak patients to feel strong.

While shopping for organs, Mr. Burns overhears Homer and immediately hires him to sing the lead in his production of La bohème. Homer wows the crowd at the Springfield Opera House. Homer becomes an enormous celebrity who consistently receives attention from older aged women. While Homer and Marge are on a date, they soon find themselves running from a mob of his crazed fans. They are soon saved by a person on a motorcycle, which Homer assumes is a man. However, "he" is revealed to be a "she" named Julia. When Marge goes into the kitchen to make tea, Julia strips butt naked and says she wants to have sex with Homer, and threatens him that she will tell Marge that he attacked her if he tells. Over the next few days, she keeps appearing in sexually suggestive positions. Homer, soon enraged, fires her, but unbeknownst to him, she plots her revenge.

Next morning, Homer finds a poisonous cobra in his cereal box and then, after grabbing it, repeatedly whacks it on the refrigerator causing it to be dazed for the remainder of the morning. Lisa deducts someone is trying to kill Homer. At Homer's next performance, Chief Wiggum goes to general measures, none of which are useful. Julia arrives to shoot Homer with a poisonous blowdart. While Marge saves Homer, the shot fires through a French Horn and back into Julia's neck. Every sniper in the opera house starts shooting at Julia, although all but one miss. She is taken to the hospital, vowing revenge on Marge. Homer gives up opera to work on his new passion: painting.

Reception
The episode had 8.43 million views tuned in. Robert Canning of IGN gave the episode a poor review (4.5/10). He found the plot contrived and found Homer's rendition "If Ever I Would Leave You" unfunny. He did enjoy the episode's opening scenes in the church. Richard Keller of TV squad said, "I thought the episode itself was okay with a few good laughs". He went on to say, "Not only does Castellaneta have a very good professional voice, but he seemed to adapt to all of the Italian opera verses that he needed to sing during the episode."