Season 31 Episode 4
Original airdate: October 20, 2019
The 30th Treehouse of Horror features a demon Maggie, a mission to rescue Milhouse from another dimension, dead-Homer's spirit trying on some new bodies for size and Selma finally finding love in an unlikely place - the alien in the basement.
Tropes
Opening sequence
- Call-Back: This isn't the first time that Maggie was shown using demonic powers. (Though in the aforementioned example, Maggie's powers were justified because she was under Pazuzu's influence).
- Driven to Suicide: Jimbo, Shauna, and Kearney hang themselves because of Maggie.
- Exorcist Head: Maggie makes her stuffed animals' heads twist around.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Demon Maggie uses her powers to tear apart the church, causing falling spires to impale Ned, Homer and Marge, spelling out the "X X X" in this year's TOH.
- Ironic Death: Strangled by his own stethoscope, stuffed into a baby incubator and flash-fried...not Dr. Hibbert's best day at the office.
- Irony: Ned said he was going to have to dig three graves, implying it would be Maggie and his slacker-transformed sons, only for him, Homer and Marge to end up dead after Demon Maggie goes on a rampage.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Homer trades his secondborn son for Maggie ignoring that she's evil. She would later kill him and Marge.
- Number of the Beast: Ned shows the Simpsons the "Mark of the Beast" on Maggie's head — a Mickey Mouse-shaped birthmark. He then realizes he was showing them the wrong mark, and shows them a 666 on her head. At the end of the sequence, the full mark is revealed to read "Episode 666 (or 667 if Fox rescheduled)". Doubles as Biting-the-Hand Humor.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: Maggie's eyes glow red when showing her demonic nature.
- Sdrawkcab Name: Homer puts a Nemo poster in Maggie's room. When he looks in the mirror, he sees the character's name spelled as "Omen". He replaces it with a poster for Racecar, and when he sees it in the mirror, he shouts "Aah, palindrome!"
- Unrelated in the Adaptation: Maggie isn’t the biological child of Homer and Marge, but one they adopted after Homer ignored her obviously demonic presence.
- Wanted a Son Instead: Inverted Trope. Marge gives birth to a boy, much to Homer's disappointment since he fears him growing into another Bart. This prompts him to exchange the baby for Maggie, despite Dr. Hibbert warning him "she tested positive for evil". After Maggie kills Dr. Hibbert, Homer responds with, "Still better than a boy."
- Whole-Plot Reference: To The Omen (1976).
Danger Things
- Ambiguous Time Period: Downplayed. While it's definitely meant to be the 80s, the cultural references are from throughout the decade, leaving Chief Wiggum to ask what year it's supposed to be.
- Chalk Outline: After Milhouse is abducted, the police make outlines of his inhaler and the massive pee stream he left behind.
- Meet Your Early-Installment Weirdness: The "Over-Under" has the early The Tracey Ullman Show versions of Bart and Lisa.
- Mythology Gag: The arcade machine Bart plays is called Space Mutants.
- Reference Overdosed: To The '80s — everything from the E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial Atari game to New Coke.
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Shallow Parody: Lampshaded, with Comic Book Guy noting that someone didn’t watch much of season 3 of Stranger Things before writing the segment. - Whole-Plot Reference: To Stranger Things.
- Women Are Wiser: To the point they develop psychic powers the boys lack, apparently.Lisa: Girls are afraid to use them because then we're called "unfeminine". We needlessly lost a lot of good witches in Salem.
Heaven Swipes Right
- Death of a Child: After Homer takes over Moe's body, it turns out that Moe is now in Maggie's body, which only means that Maggie died at some point so Moe can live in her body.
- Disney Owns This Trope: Heaven was bought out by Google.
- The Cameo: One of the prospective bodies Homer looks at is Professor Farnsworth.
- Formerly Fit: Homer is reincarnated in the body of a football player, which Marge is excited about. Unfortunately, the following morning, Homer has eaten so much the body is now as fat as the original Homer; to top it off, he instantly loses his hair, leaving him as bald as original Homer as well.
- High-Tech Heaven: After been bought out by Google, heaven is full of smart electronics now.
- Whole-Plot Reference: To Heaven Can Wait (1978).
When Hairy Met Slimy
- Bizarre Alien Sexes: Kodos hooks up with lesbian Patty, claiming that they have thirty sexual identities.
- Elective Mute: The other cleaning lady (who's supposed to be the one to fall for an alien) turns out to be this because she can't stand talking to Selma.
- Grievous Harm with a Body: When he's caught escaping, Kang bites off Smithers' head and spits it at Burns, dazing him enough for Kang, Selma and Homer to get away.
- Interspecies Romance: Between Selma Bouvier and Kang.
- No-Sell: Zig-zagged. Burns seemingly survives a finger snap from Kang's Infinity Gauntlet knock-off, only to be knocked out/killed by a thrown can.
- Offscreen Teleportation: Selma calls Homer to help her free Kang with the prospect of her moving to another galaxy. Homer immediately appears next to her.
- Pop-Culture Pun Episode Title: The title is a pun on When Harry Met Sally....
- Whole-Plot Reference: To The Shape of Water.
