In this Green Aesop fable, The Simpsons decide to give wind power a try by building a turbine while Lisa attempts to save a beached whale.
Tropes:
- All Just a Dream: Lisa has one where the townsfolk rally together and help Bluella get back to the ocean...until she suddenly flies up and becomes a Space Whale. Then Lisa wakes up, and finds that Bluella passed away from being on land for too long.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: When it's Bart's turn to move the turbine, he makes a deal with God to provide him with the wind needed to blow the turbine in exchange for the prayers he craves. This results in a catastrophic storm passing through Springfield that destroys the turbine and beaches the blue whale.
- Big Damn Heroes: Bluella's mate shows up to save Homer from being attacked by sharks.
- Big "NO!": After Rome-O is killed by a landing ship, Juli-X cries out "Tic-Tac- Nooo!.
- Comically Missing the Point: After Homer falls in the water, Lisa states that the sharks are mistaking him for another baby whale due to his size. Homer's response?Homer: Ooh, a baby whale! My diet is working!
- Evil Is Petty: Not only does Snake Jailbird plan to break into the Simpsons home but he also will take great joy pooping on their carpet.
- Failure Is the Only Option: While tryng to save Bluella, Marge warns Homer that saving beached whales has a very little success rate and worries that Lisa will face great devastation for being unable to save her. And tragically, she's proven right.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: Mr. Burns can be seen protesting the eco-friendly energy convention, with a placard reading “Unfair to Earth Polluters”.
- From Bad to Worse: Homer accidentally falls overboard into shark-infested waters, and the sharks take notice of him due to his fat. Two eco-activists toss him a pail for chasing away the sharks, but it hits his head causing him to bleed...and attracting even more sharks.
- Fun with Acronyms: In Lisa's dream, Bluella is saved by an organization called We Helped Airlift Lisa's Enormous Soulmate.
- Green Aesop: Respect the cycle of nature, killing one animal to save another is wrong.
- Hope Spot: Lisa's All Just a Dream where everyone manages to save the whale. When she finds out this wasn't the case, she instead finds Bluella dead and she silently sobs at her demise.
- Halfway Plot Switch: This episode goes from Homer getting a wind turbine in an attempt to get free electricity to Lisa's unsuccessful attempt to save a beached whale.
- Hypocritical Humor:Homer [to Lisa]: "I know it's really hard when you discover your dad isn't perfect."Bart: "Not perfect? You can say that again."Homer: "I'm trying to be a sensitive father, you unwanted moron!
- Idea Bulb: Itchy had one and broke it so he could use it to stab Scratchy.
- Interspecies Romance: Discussed—When Lisa worries about whether or not Bluella's family will be okay without her, Homer assures her that they'll be fine and suggests that Bluella's widowed mate will find and marry a giant octopus and have a baby whale-o-pus. Marge suggests they all draw pictures of that scenario when they get home, and at the end credits we get to see a montage of said pictures, which are adorable.
- Ironic Echo: After the wind turbine goes on maximum overdrive flooding the house with pure power, Marge comments to Homer that it's too much electricity. Outside, Manjula complains to Apu that their house is not as bright like the Simpsons. The two husbands have the same comment.Homer and Apu: Nothing is ever right for you...
- Irony: Just before the Simpsons leave to attend a convention to find better methods of energy saving, they turn on every light imaginable (even Christmas ones) to ward off potential home invaders.
- Kick the Dog: After a convention mascot says "Solar power is a great idea!", Homer responds with "Yeah, so is getting a real job!".
- Mundane Made Awesome: A new movie takes the class Tic-Tac-Toe game but sets it in a sci-fi fantasy setting.
- Naïve Animal Lover: After failing to save Bluella, Lisa tries to save her pod of offspring from a group of sharks. But then she learns the Hard Truth Aesop that sharks need to live too, and in order to live they eat other animals - such as baby whales. Despite this, the whales are still rescued...by their father.
- Of Corsets Funny: Comic Book Guy buys a corset he claims makes him look like William Shatner from Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Little by little the corset gives way, making him look like Shatner from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, Star Trek: Generations, and once it breaks entirely, Boston Legal.
- Of Corset Hurts: Right before Comic Book Guy comes out in his corset, Patty and Selma appear to be wearing corsets as well. Judging by how they're walking and the expression on their faces, both appear to be in a great deal of pain.
- Papa Wolf: Bluella's mate rescues both his calves and Homer from being eaten by sharks.
- Poking Dead Things with a Stick: Bart and Milhouse head toward where a beached whale is lying, and Bart says it will be "the biggest dead animal we ever poked." They don't get the chance, however, as Mayor Quimby had decided to have the carcass blown up.
- Predation Is Natural: When a group of sharks start attacking the baby whales, Homer and Lisa try to save the whales but are stopped by eco-activists who tell them to stop because the sharks are also a threatened species. From them, Lisa learns that she can't kill one animal to save another because sharks are only doing what they need to so they can survive.
- Shout-Out: The Itchy and Scratchy episode the Simpsons were watching was a parody of House.
- Sour Supporter: Lisa rallies her school friends and classmates to help save Bluella but they do the bare minimum with helping.
- Star-Crossed Lovers: The protagonists of the new Tic Tac Toe movie are lovers who are separated by their warring states. Fittingly, they're called Rome-O and Juli-X.
- Steel Ear Drums: A rare non-gun example: Blue whales produce the loudest noises of the animal kingdom (188 decibels, which can deafen a human nearby) yet Lisa and the other residents are unaffected.
- Surprisingly Happy Ending: In spite of Bluella's death and Lisa's sorrow over not being able to save her, the episode ends on a happy note with the reveal of Bluella having children and a (widowed) mate to protect them from predators. The last scene has Homer prophesizing a happy future for the whale family while Marge suggests to her kids that they make drawings based on what he described.
- Take That!: While watching House, Lisa gives a simplistic formula for how every House episode plays out.
- Threatening Shark: Deconstructed. Sharks are the main threat at the climax of the episode, threatening to eat baby whales (and Homer), but they're only doing this because they're predators. The eco-activists even stop Homer from harpooning the sharks, pointing out sharks are threatened due to being hunted to make shark-fin soup (which is, unfortunately, Truth in Television).
- What Happened to the Mouse?: The Simpsons' turbine is forgotten after the storm passes leaving everyone to focus on the newly beached whale.
"La mer au ciel d'été, confond ses blancs moutons. Avec les anges si purs. La mer, bergère d'azur infinie."
