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Every Man's Dream
Cue Detective
Puffless


"Cue Detective" is the second episode of Season 27.

Synopsis[]

Scotty Boom, a Chew Network super-chef, challenges Homer to a smoke-off. But when someone steals Homer’s secret gadget – a smoker he purchased from a mysterious man at a barbecue shack – Lisa and Bart are on the case.

Full Story[]

After watching a movie at school, the kids realize that Bart and Lisa are smelling terrible and they start teasing the pair about it. Coincidentally, the same thing happened to Homer at the nuclear plant (they started calling Homer "Stinkson"), which they found pretty unusual. Marge then reveals that the smell is coming from their clothes, because their washing machine is old. She then gives Homer a bag full of money (taken from Bender's body) so that they can purchase a new washing machine.

On his way to the store, Homer smells smoked meat and discovers a roadside barbecue stand across the highway. He then tries out the meat and likes it a lot. The figure then reveals that the secret for such a good meat was actually his smoker that grills the meat on a hive shape, which was also available for sale, so Homer buys the smoker instead of the washing machine.

After seeing that Homer spent all their money on a "grill", Marge gets unhappy, but soon after tasting his meat, she forgives him and joins the family for a barbecue. Because of its smell, people from all over Springfield came to the Simpsons backyard to taste Homer's meat. This not only draws attention from all residents of Springfield, but also from Scotty Boom, who challenges Homer to a smoke-off.

While preparing smoked pork to take to the competition, Homer discovers that the smoker got stolen. Homer calls the police, but Chief Wiggum and Lou convince Homer that his smoker is stolen. Homer gets so depressed to the point of not wanting to get drunk. This worries Bart, who asks for Lisa's help to track down the smoker. Lisa is reluctant to help since the smoker is a representation of everything she is against (meat and the environment) but Bart insists they do it to help their dad. They investigate the yard and found out why Santa's Little Helper did not bark when the smoker was stolen: someone gave him natural peanut butter, so he would be licking instead of barking.

Bart and Lisa proceed to the one store in town that sells natural peanut butter, where they "convince" a worker to let them see the security camera footage, where they discover that Nelson bought it. They go speak with him at a park, where he is playing a tablet game called Clash of Castles with some expensive upgrades, he ditches them by making them dizzy only for them to run towards a scrap yard to meet someone shortly after where he gets paid and reveals the smoker under some trees, confirming the suspicion of Bart and Lisa. After Nelson takes off and a moment of distraction from the person he was meeting, the siblings have their chance to obtain the smoker, but as it was too hot, they let it go on a hill, only for it to land on the man's truck and he drives off.

Homer, Bart, Lisa and Maggie then give up hope on the competition, but Marge convinces them that she can handle the smoke-off with the help of a rented condiments rack, but she fails miserably. But when Scotty presented his meat, they realized that the hive shaped grill marks on it did not match the marks on his grill, also revealing that he stole Homer's smoker. Scotty is fired and banned from the competition, so the Simpsons are proclaimed winners. But this does not satisfy Bart and Lisa, who try to find out how the smoker was stolen in the first place. That is when they hear the same cellphone ringtone as the one used by the man that Nelson was delivering the smoker to, so they agree to track down the culprit.

When they catch up to him, they discover that the suspect is a boy named Tyler Boom, Scotty's son, and he framed his own father because he was too busy with his television show, and he did not spend any time with his family. So, he met Nelson playing Clash of Castles and hired a tough customer to steal Homer's smoker in an attempt to frame him. Scotty and Tyler soon reconcile and give the smoker back to Homer.

After the credits, several scenes show the future of the Hive Smoker, ending with alien bee people taking the hive back into space.

Behind the Laughter[]

Reception[]

This episode was well received by fans and critics, many of whom called it funny and old school fun.

Citations[]

Season 26 Season 27 Episodes Season 28
Every Man's DreamCue DetectivePufflessHalloween of HorrorTreehouse of Horror XXVIFriend with BenefitLisa with an "S"Paths of GloryBarthoodThe Girl CodeTeenage Mutant Milk-caused HurdlesMuch Apu About SomethingLove is in the N2-O2-Ar-CO2-Ne-He-CH4Gal of Constant SorrowLisa the VeterinarianThe Marge-ian ChroniclesThe Burns CageHow Lisa Got Her Marge BackFland CanyonTo Courier with LoveSimprovisedOrange is the New Yellow
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