This year's shocking tales include: Marge entering the blockchain to save Bart from becoming an NFT; a spoof of Se7en and Silence of the Lambs where, years after the events of "Cape Feare", a grown-up Lisa consults Sideshow Bob to help her find a serial killer, and a spoof of pandemic horror movies like Contagion and Outbreak (along with some real-world parallels to the COVID-19 pandemic) where Homer becomes patient zero to a virus that turns Springfield into a city of fat, lazy, moronic slobs.
Plot[]
Wild Barts Can't Be Token[]
Mayor Quimby announces that the art museum is closed forever, and all art will be sold as NFTs. Homer and Bart sneak into the empty museum and find the device that turns real-life art into NFTs. Homer tries to put the iconic boat painting into the machine, only for Bart to enter and moon. Suddenly, Bart gets sold online and is now lost from the real world.
Homer screams in terror when he finds out and screams even louder when his price was shown to be $1,500,000. Homer tells Marge about the situation, for her to also be terrified. Then, mysterious hooded figures tell Marge that she must enter the blockchain. Marge then decides to go in, with the key as a back door to the cryptographic protocol. Marge is surprised to discover the blockchain has manifested as the “Blocktrain” - a Snowpiecer like train “speeding forever through the loveless, icy world created by Crypto bros”. The train is powered by FOMO (fear of missing out). Currently, Marge is valued at $8.02, so she has “boarded” the Blocktrain in the car populated by the cheapest NFTs. One of the NFTs says that Bart is in the front car, and Marge tries to open the door, only for it to be locked.
Marge pulls so hard that she falls backwards and accidentally kills an egg NFT. This added her original value and the value of that egg NFT. After killing it, she goes to the next car with the “Cuddle Kitten” NFTs. Marge removes her red pearl necklace and uses it to kill the NFTs, until moving to the next car. The next car, which is the one where most, if not all, the Art Museum artworks reside. She then goes to the Itchy and Scratchy car, and lets their lasers kill each other. She then faces a golden Poochie, which is a diamond Marge uses to cut a hole in the window to blow it and the other NFTs outside.
Meanwhile, in the real world, Homer and Lisa are tracking Marge's progress. Milhouse is seen entering to get digitized, when Chief Wiggum enters to put his child there too. Ralph and Milhouse merge into 1 NFT named Ralphouse. Now, with Marge being ten million dollars, she enters the final car, where Bart is located. Bart is seen on the throne, using Ape NFTs as slaves. Bart tells her that he likes being an NFT, while in the real world, Mr. Burns wants Bart for one hundred million dollars. Marge opens the exit and Homer sells at the same time; leaving Bart rescued, while Homer, so afraid of missing out, tokened his own life and sold himself to Burns.
Back aboard the Blocktrain, Homer, valued at $100,000,000. embraces his new life - eternity on a “super swanky” train, waited on by Bored Ape NFTs and feasting on a “Twerked Chicken” NFT. Suddenly, the Blocktrain screeches to a halt. The NFT craze is over, Homer is now valueless, and the FOMOMETER is on empty. Homer yells out D’oh, echoing through the icy mountain pass, which then triggers a massive avalanche, burying the train. Perhaps oblivious to the fact he’ll spend eternity freezing on a stranded train, Homer’s only response is to muse about the “romance of train travel”
Ei8ht[]
The episode starts with the scene from Cape Feare back in 1993. Before finishing the song, Sideshow Bob wondered if his singing was to keep Bart alive. While tied up, Lisa watches her brother being murdered. Fast forward to the present, Lisa is at a university, explaining the dark side of serial killing. She is now a criminal psychologist, and Nelson is now a police officer. Officer Muntz tells Lisa to solve a murder case. The three other bullies are now Police officers. The case involves the gruesome murder of Rod Flanders, and Lisa determines he won't be the only one. More victims turn up: Montaigne Prince, Dermott Spuckler and finally Sherri Mackleberry, each with a message that all of them were "the first". Lisa goes to prison to reluctantly ask help from Bart's killer, Sideshow Bob, but he only mocks her. At Sherri's funeral, Terri says that while they were twins, Sherri was born first, making Lisa realize all the victims were firstborn. Remembering what Bob said, Lisa tracks the killer's likely whereabouts to an abandoned slaughterhouse owned by Ana Gram. Inside, Nelson is killed by the murderer, and Lisa stumbles into killer's lair, that looks like her old bedroom. Lisa looks through the security camera footage and is horrified to see herself killing Nelson. She is then arrested and put in the same cell as Sideshow Bob (with the help of security guard Maggie), where it is revealed that she has an evil split-personality that was responsible for the murders all in a plan to be arrested so she can kill Bob. Killer Lisa then plays the H.M.S Pinafore as she kills Bob with a knife, avenging Bart's death.
Lout Break[]
Homer eats a donut near the turbine room, which is not allowed. While complaining, he drops the donut at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant and it rolls, accumulating radioactive elements and dirt, until he finally eats it. While near Ned, he burps a green radioactive cloud with his DNA. At a Mass, Ned finally gets the final side effects, turning into a clone of Homer, gaining his neighbor's signature fat, voice, beard and baldness, and getting an urge to watch football on TV, just like him. Ned then lets out a big burp, letting out a bigger cloud that infects everyone else at the sermon, and the virus ends up spreading quickly, soon affecting almost everyone in Springfield. The news shows the doofi spreading. While reporting the news, Mr. Largo burps at Kent Brockman and he turns into Homer too. Thethreechildren were immediately evacuated, with Frink showing Homer what has come from his virus, a Marge-him. However, Homer actually likes the Marge-him and even celebrates living in a world of him. To make it even worse, he accidentally cuts a hole in Frink's hazmat suit with a backscratcher, exposing him to the virus too.
Behind the Laughter[]
Reception[]
This Treehouse of Horror episode received mixed reviews. The segments "Wild Barts Can't Be Token" and "Lout Break" received negative reviews from critics, while "Ei8ht" received positive reviews.
