Recap / The Simpsons S 20 E 18 Father Knows Worst

Homer becomes a helicopter parent to help Bart's failing grades and Lisa's lack of friends. Meanwhile, Marge makes herself at home in the basement sauna she uncovered.

Tropes:

• Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: When Homer works at the school's cafeteria, he promises Bart he won't embarrass him. The exact opposite happens and now the school knows Bart was afraid to sleep alone that he went with his parents to sleep, besides Homer taking off his clothes little by little.
• Comically Missing the Point: When Dr. Hibbert told Marge that Homer's burnt tongue would negatively affect their sex life, she thought he was talking about it being difficult for Homer to express any desire to have sex.
• Compressed Vice: Marge is uncharacteristically checked out after discovering a hidden sauna in the house that turns her into a G-Rated Stoner. This, and a conversation with a helicopter mom at Springfield Elementary, causes Homer to reverse his typical Hands-Off Parenting and interfere with his children's lives.
• Continuity Nod:
  • The billboard gag for this episode is "Principal Skinner — I Paint Houses". In "Skinner's Sense of Snow", it's shown that Skinner has a summer job of painting houses.
  • In the school cafeteria, Ralph reminds Homer that he dated Lisa. Homer doesn't care, and is just there for the food.
• Creator's Apathy: invoked Discussed, and defied by Homer. When Bart needs to build a model for school, Homer wants to go with the easiest choice possible: the Washington Monument. Skinner tells him that this is the laziest, most uninspired choice there is: in his words, building it is basically admitting, "I don't care. My kid's a loser." This leads Homer to go for the hardest model available, instead: Westminster Abbey.
• Disqualification-Induced Victory: Bart's entry at the scale model contest is declared the winner because the judges consider it the only one that's not too good to be something built by a kid without help from adults. Subverted when Bart confesses that Homer actually did build the model for him, feeling that he didn't deserve to win when he didn't follow the rules.
• Door Dumb: When exiting the model store, Homer tries to pull open a push door. He gets frustrated, punches out the bottom pane of glass, and leaves through that.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: At the bar with Lenny, Carl, Barney, and Moe, Homer invites everyone out for frozen yogurt. He then apologizes to Moe, saying that he didn't mean "everyone everyone". Moe runs off to sulk in the back room, crying, "If I didn't sell booze, they probably wouldn't even come here!"
• Got Me Doing It: Noah repeats the state capitals in alphabetical order, reciting another one every time his mother claps. After a few claps, we cut to Homer clapping along, too.
• G-Rated Drug: Marge is completely checked out of her family's problems throughout the episode due to her discovery of a hidden sauna in the house, which causes her to become a G-Rated Stoner.
• Helicopter Parents: Hoping to make his kids’ futures better, Homer tries make Bart “excel” in his studies and Lisa popular. It doesn’t go well at all.
• Ignored Epiphany: When helicopter parenting goes wrong, Homer admits that it's best to just stay uninvolved and distant. Lisa suggests that there is a middle ground he should aim for instead, but Homer refuses to listen.
• Imagine Spot: Marge has one about what would happen if Homer knew about the basement sauna.
• Imagine Spotting: Bart accurately recalls one of the quotations that Oscar Wilde used in Homer's dream.
  Bart: Why can't you guys let us do things for ourselves? In the words of Oscar Wilde, "Experience is simply the name we give to our mistakes." I saw him too, Dad.
• Immediate Self-Contradiction:
  • When Bart gets upset at Homer eating at the school cafeteria to him:
    Homer: Well, I know when I'm not wanted. (Beat) Am I wanted?
    Bart: No.
  • After choosing the hardest model available to build, Homer claims all he has to do is follow instructions, which is easy. He turns to leave the store, but can't figure out that he's supposed to push it instead of pull.
• Kids Are Cruel: Once again, the girls in school prove to be demons to Lisa.
• Literal Metaphor: Homer's decision to be a helicopter parent is followed by him sticking his arms out and spinning around, making sputtering noises with his mouth. He then slams into a row of lockers.
• My Beloved Smother: Noah's mom makes Agnes Skinner look laid-back, proudly embracing the "helicopter parent" role by accompanying her son to school and literally hand-feeding him his lunch.
• Never My Fault:
  Homer: Oh my God, my son's a loser and my daughter's a loner. Way to go, Marge!
• Noodle Incident: After Marge finds the basement sauna, she says that this is the first good surprise she's found in the house.
• Post-Treatment Lollipop: After Homer's tongue cast is removed, he tastes a lollipop, but finds the taste too extreme for his newly-sensitive tastebuds.
• Rule of Three: Subverted when Homer talks to Lisa about cliques.
  Homer: Sweetie, our country was founded by a clique: the Continental Congress. Dolphins swim in cliques. Those are my two examples.
  Lisa: Hmm. Well, they are good ones.
• Stealth Insult: Homer gives Lisa advice to use "un-sults": insults disguised as compliments. He tries it out on Lenny by saying, "it takes a lot of courage to wear suspenders when you're not in the circus." Lenny is first angry, then realizes, then desperately asks for Homer to be his friend.
• Sucky School: The food served at Springfield Elementary is so piss-poor that Homer (who's sensitive to food with even the tiniest bit of flavour after his tastebuds were burned) is immune to its taste.
• Super-Senses: Homer's sense of taste after his accident is magnified to such a degree that any food with even the slightest amount of flavour is inedible and potentially hazardous.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: The story about Homer developing a heightened sense of taste after burning his tongue and being unable to tolerate most food serves its purpose after leading him into the second plot, when eating at Springfield Elementary's cafeteria—which serves the only food bland enough for him to tolerate—causes him to notice the struggles his kids are going through and become a helicopter parent. His new sensory issues never come up again, even when he chugs an entire jar of mayonnaise.
• Work Off the Debt: Unable to eat anything that has any flavour, Homer decides to eat at Springfield Elementary School. Since he doesn't have the money to pay for his meal, he gets a job at the school's cafeteria to pay for it.