A somewhat continuation of "Holidays of Future Passed", set 30 years from now. In this futuristic installment, Bart goes to a clinic to rid himself of his feelings for his ex-wife Jenda, Lisa must choose whether or not to cure her zombie husband Milhouse after he gets bitten by a homeless zombie, and Marge (after putting up with years of Homer dying and being cloned back to life by Professor Frink) loads Homer onto a flatscreen monitor and throws him out of the house.
Tropes:
- Amplified Animal Aptitude: As with the other animals in the series, the dinosaurs at the zoo display this. T. rex even sleeps with a teddy bear while wearing a nightcap and a blindfold, as well as shedding a Single Tear from not being able to juggle.
- Bait-and-Switch Comment: After spending the night with Lisa's former second grade teacher, Bart says that he now understands why they call her "Miss Hoover"...she vacuumed for an hour after they got back to her place.
- Body Backup Drive: For over thirty years, Homer continously dies from hilarious comedic injuries and Professor Frink keeps making more clones of Homer as a backup. When he eventually runs out of clones, Frink inserts Homer's soul in a small drive and connects it to a screen.
- Call-Back:
- Way back in the Season 13 episode "Poppa's Got a Brand New Badge", the marquee at the First Church of Springfield said, "Tomorrow: Homer Simpson Funeral
◊". In this episode, after Homer's first death, the marquee says, "Homer Simpson Funeral -- We Told You So◊". - Homer being brought back to life via clones is similar to Ralph's situation in Holidays of Future Passed. Additionally, Homer having clones is the main theme of "Send in the Clones" in Treehouse of Horror XIII. Unlike the previous examples, they seem to have the original Homer's consciousness in clone bodies, meaning they're all technically the same Homer.
- Way back in the Season 13 episode "Poppa's Got a Brand New Badge", the marquee at the First Church of Springfield said, "Tomorrow: Homer Simpson Funeral
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome:
- Despite playing a large role in Holidays of Future Passed, Zia, Lisa and Milhouse's teenage daughter, is nowhere to be seen in this episode, and is not even mentioned. However, we do see her in a picture in the Simpson house.
- Maggie is seen in a cameo with Gerald, and in the Death Montage, but her baby is nowhere to be seen.
- Death Montage: One showing Homer dying and being recloned for thirty years.
- Divorce Is Temporary: Subverted. Bart's ex-wife breaks up with her second husband and she and Bart attempt to reconcile, which ultimately leads him to conclude that they still have severe issues and are better off apart. All of this turns out to be part of a simulation Bart was in to help him get over her.
- Domesticated Dinosaurs: The dinosaurs in the zoo Bart works at. They even do tricks!
- Driven to Suicide: Both having fun being together in the same monitor, Homer gobbles up Marge's head in the candy game, before a GAME OVER screen flashes. Moe thinks it's probably suicide, love, or a really boring video game. Of course, she's fine in the stinger after it's revealed to be All Just a Dream.
- Dumb Dinos: Averted with the dinosaurs and pterosaurs at the zoo, which are intelligent enough to be trained and make use of human-made material.
- Extinct Animal Park: Adult Bart works at "Cretaceous Park", where cloned dinosaurs perform for treats like dolphins at Sea World.
- Gave Up Too Soon: Every time Homer or one of his clones died, Moe attempted to court Marge only to learn there's a new cloned Homer. During the last funeral, Moe is about to try again but instead decides to rant about how his hopes were crushed every previous time so he'll never try again. Right after that, Professor Frink shows up and explains there are no more clones. Moe is upset for being himself during such a crucial moment.
- Grievous Harm with a Body: The zombie Milhouse picks up Ralph Wiggum and uses him to club Jimbo, Dolph and Kearney when they try to mug Lisa. Ralph doesn't mind being an Improvised Weapon.Ralph Wiggum: Yay, I'm fighting crime!
- Fluffy the Terrible: One of the raptors at the dinosaur zoo is named "Jolly".
- Interspecies Romance: Bart's ex-wife Jenda (a human) marries Jerry (an insectoid alien).
- I Resemble That Remark!: The zombie who bites Milhouse reacts because he's offended by what he sees as Milhouse's Fantastic Racism toward zombies, namely fearing they have no self-control.
- Lotus-Eater Machine: Most of the episode is revealed to be an illusion to make Bart get over his flashy divorce.
- Nightmare Fetishist: Lisa turns into one after Milhouse gets zombified, with the situation reviving their long-dormant marriage. (In Bart's dream, that is: in reality, at the very least, his zombieism hasn't put her off as she says they're in a "pretty good place" and sighs happily when he gives her a flower, which is as romantic as we've ever seen them get as a married couple.)Lisa: I even prefer the way he smells now! The meat went bad in our freezer, and my heart skipped a beat.
- Pull the I.V.: Played humourously during Homer's death montage. One of these deaths has Homer pull his I.V when informed that he won't be able to eat solid food for two weeks.
- Raptor Attack: The dromaeosaurid trio performing in the stadium of the dinosaur zoo have some feathers, but not nearly enough.
- Really Gets Around: After using a technological procedure to get over his ex-wife, Bart rebounds with a ramen bowl's worth of Noodle Incidents, including Lisa's second grade teacher Miss Hoover and a mystifying ménage that included Krusty and several other clowns. This is later Subverted when it turns out that this was all part of an illusion created as part of said procedure and he never really left the chair, meaning that his ex-wife Jenda remains the only woman we know he's been with.
- Sequel Episode: Of Holidays of Future Passed, while there is a lot of Continuity Snarls between them (such as the deaths of Agnes Skinner and Groundskeeper Willie, both whom are still alive in Holidays of Future Passed) Bart being a divorced dad with two kids and dealing with his ex-wife moving on is the primary connective thread.
- Shown Their Work: At the dinosaur zoo, one person in the audience gets her dollar snatched by a relatively-accurate Pteranodon. Notably, the Pteranodon snatches the dollar using its beak instead of its feet.
- Take That!: Even in the future, Republicans still dominate the American government.Nelson: With Social Security a thing of the past, she (mom) can't afford to retire.Bart: I dunno how that happened in a Senate with 99 Democrats.Nelson: That one Republican is great at getting his way.
- Too Dumb to Live: Taken to eleven and them some. Instead of using his clones to realize how precious life is, Homer sees it as meaning he's immortal and thus can be as reckless and lazy as he wants without any consequences since he has more clones on standby, and proceeds to waste dozens if not hundreds of new chances at life because of thoughtlessness, laziness and his usual brand of stupidity.
- Whole-Plot Reference: Bart goes to a clinic that will program his brain to let him move on from Jenda, framed very similarly to Total Recall (1990). It's then revealed at the end that half the episode exists within the second it took for them to implant those memories, and the actual resolution of those plotlines took slightly different paths.
