Homer develops an addiction to tipping.
At a Star Wars-themed boba restaurant, Homer gets Lisa her treat, and after paying, the Squeaky-Voiced Teen prompts Homer to enter his tip. Homer's finger hovers over "No tip", but seeing the pleading look on the teen's face, Homer begrudgingly enters an 18% tip. Next restaurant, a fro-yo place, and the wiseguy at the counter there wants a tip too, despite this being a DIY place where he did nothing. With no option to not leave a tip, and with a crowd of judgmental looks in line, Homer enters the middle tipping option of 22%. More restaurants, more tips, some of them charging as much as 31% as the lowest default setting. Homer is exhausted, but now it's his turn for a treat, at the Springfield Pub & Brewery, formerly a library.
After his meal, Homer gets out his glasses, dreading the inevitable tip. Much to his outrage and relief, the service fee is included in the bill, he doesn't have to do more math. But the server, Sandee, points out there is room for an additional gratuity, pre-signed with a thank you. Disgusted that he effectively has to tip twice, he leaves a note. "No, thank you, here's $1 OK!". They leave, but Sandee runs after them and gives Homer a hug, thankful, and reading the bill, Marge gasps. The "OK" and lack of space before it makes it look like Homer tipped her $10K. They can't afford to pay $10,000. Homer asks for the check back, and he imagines a scenario where he rips it, the gathered crowd of staff and passersby beating him up with a command of "Get 'im!". Not wanting to get beaten up, he underlines the check instead of ripping it, the gathered crowd of staff and passersby lifting him up with a command of "Get 'im!" Marge gives her signature humming growl, she knows this will not end well.
Homer's tip has went viral, but views don't erase the debt they're in. Marge wants Homer to go back to the pub and explain things, but on the way, he's recognized. He gets a newspaper due to him being on the front page, but with a gathered crowd anticipating him making a big tip, Homer empties his wallet, to the praise of the crowd. Homer feels on top of the world, and he's gonna keep on making huge tips. A montage set to Soul Bossa Nova plays of Homer giving huge tips to every service worker he sees, including the ATM. He even gives a 999% tip to an Eightbucks Coffee employee before throwing the coffee away. But Marge is not in a good mood, she's been getting alert after alert from her banking apps. Homer's tipping is getting out of control, he even tipped Bart's bike away. Homer recognizes he's got an addiction, and he's going cold turkey. No more wasting money to fill a void.
Smash Cut to Homer downing a beer at Moe's. Homer pays with exact change, but ever the devil on Homer's shoulder, Moe encourages Homer to pretend to tip but take the money back before it exchanges hands. But Homer can't resist the temptation, and tips Moe ten bucks, and doesn't want to stop there. In an innuendo-laden scene, Homer tips Moe until his wallet "climaxes" all over him.
The addiction refueled, Homer goes out to satisfy his tip-phomania, which can't be done by Moe alone. A montage set to an off-key version of Soul Bossa Nova plays of Homer trying to give huge tips, but everything is closed. He even tries to tip inanimate objects, but the wacky waving inflatable arm-flailing tube man smacked its tip away. Homer's addiction reaches the point he breaks into a pharmacy so he could put his money into the tip jar, right next to the opioids. After a failed attempt to tip his own reflection in a puddle results in the ten dollar bill floating into the sewer, Homer hits rock bottom. Meanwhile, at home, Marge and Lisa are looking at the bills. Homer sees Marge break down in tears, and he can't face them, reasoning they're 22% off better without him. Looking at the pub bill that started it all, Homer rationalizes the only person who would accept him now is Sandee. But things did not go as he imagined, and he gets pepper sprayed off her houseboat, and he sinks into the depths.
Homer awakens, surrounded by crabs. Homer ended up on "Portuguese" Fausto's crab boat. Homer tries to tip Fausto for saving his life, but he rejects it. Hearing about Homer's tipping problem, Fausto tells Homer he's in luck, he drifted to a place where tipping is forbidden. Little Europe.
Back at 742 Evergreen Terrace, Homer's family notices Homer has gone missing. Patty and Selma are being as unhelpful as usual, focusing more on getting Marge a new man than actually finding Homer. Lisa has a lead, the home laptop is still logged in to Homer's Amazon account, and he's ordering items. Bart sees Homer has ordered cologne but no soap, and he knows where Homer is. They meet up with him in Little Europe, and he's satisfied with life in Little Europe. Even if he has to pay a mix of several European currencies at multiple shops in order to get the ingredients for a single sandwich, at least he doesn't have to tip. With a few taps of "0%" on the tip screen, Homer begins a 90s-style Eurodance song about the wonders of the flat prices, living wages, and a lack of income disparity between the staff members. Bart and Lisa are taken in by the economic wonder, and Lisa encourages Homer to make a change, and try to make Springfield like Little Europe. With Bart chiming in his two pence about how America has a tendency to claim some European concepts as its own, Homer is in on this plan. Homer has an idea for how to spread this message.
That night, it's the S.A.G. Awards, referring to the Servers of America Guild. Homer barges on stage, and shares to the crowd of service workers his woes of how tipping has caused him misery, and his idea to get rid of tipping in favor of a living wage. The crowd cheers, and tipping is abolished, ushering in a new era of prosperity for the service workers of America... or at least that's how Homer imagines it. In reality, Homer gets booed by the crowd, with some of them beating him up with a command of "Get 'im!" Though one person appreciates his actions that night, Marge, and has an idea to fix their money problems and his tipping addiction. Homer becomes a server, but unfortunately, his first customer is Agnes Skinner.
Tropes:
- Affection-Hating Kid: After Bart and Lisa find him in Little Europe, Homer greets them with kisses in stereotypical European fashion, to Bart's obvious displeasure.
- Award Show: Apparently there's an awards show just for restaurant servers. You'd think that would've been part of Homer's fantasy about fixing the tipping system in the US too, but it turns out that part is real.
- Call-Back: Lisa's confused reaction to Bart explaining the concept of "Mom-and-Dad in-car bait-and-switch" videos is similar to Bart's reaction to Milhouse using fancy words his tutor taught him in "The PTA Disbands".
- Can-Crushing Cranium: Parodied. Before having a serious discussion with Marge after his first big tipping spree, Homer gets some "Mexican courage" by shotgunning his burrito and crushing the empty tortilla against his head as if it were a can of beer.
- Daydream Surprise: A Running Gag with Homer, first with trying to take the mistaken tip back, then when he's asking Sandee to let him stay at her home, and finally, giving his anti-tipping speech at the awards show.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?:
- Homer splashing Moe with bill after bill with suggestive dialogue until his wallet explodes plays out like a sex scene, much to Lenny, Carl and Barney's discomfort.
- Homer's addiction to tipping resembles drug addiction or alcoholism, complete with the Drunken Montage after all the establishments where he'd typically get his fix are closed.
- Dream Reality Check: Homer begins the third act waking up, wanting someone to pitch him in case it's a dream. Unfortunately, Homer woke up in a net full of crabs, so he got many pinches.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: The full list of Punny Name foods that Homer ordered is only visible on his receipt for a brief time.
- Homage: Homer's first tipping montage is an homage to the opening of the first Austin Powers movie.
- Incredibly Lame Fun: The Flanders boys get excited when they find out they're going to church instead of Krustyland.
- I Reject Your Reality: When it turns out the family really does have the entire day booked for medical appointments, Bart simply refuses to abandon his theory that the trip was a cover story for a surprise outing and spends the whole ordeal pretending he's at Krustyland (a stolen IV of drugs helps).
- Letting the Air out of the Band: The second "Soul Bossa Nova" montage is played off-key, for Homer cannot find any open place to tip to.
- Noodle Incident: Homer finds that his 10k dollar tip for Sandee has made the front page of the newspaper, and he exclaims, "I'm in the paper for something I remember doing!"
- Parody Assistance: The Eurobeat song about the European lack of tipping is a parody of "Planet of the Bass", partially sung by the original singers, Kyle Gordon as DJ Crazy Times and Chrissi Poland as Ms. Biljana Electronica.
- Portmanteau: Bart describes the Bait-and-Switch Krustyland prank as "Funk'd", a cross of Fun and Punk'd.
- The Problem with Pen Island: The main plot of the episode begins when Homer writes "HERE'S $1 OK!", which is misinterpreted as "HERE'S $10K!" due to the lack of space or comma between the 1 and the O.
- Rule of Three:
- Bart shows Lisa three Bait-and-Switch videos, the first two of parents revealing to their kids they're going to Krustyland instead of getting braces or spreading ashes, the last being Ned Flanders telling Rod and Todd they are going to church instead of Krustyland.
- Homer has three Imagine Spots.
- Shout-Out:
- After Maggie gets her eye test, she puts on sunglasses CSI: Miami-style, her pacifier sucking along to the guitar hits of "We Won't Get Fooled Again".
- The Springfield Pub & Brewery named their dishes after the books the building once stored, including Chicken Tenders is The Night, A Farewell to Parms, Occurrence at Owl Creek Ribs, Vladimir Nabokov's Pale Fire-Brewed Beer, Catch 22 Ounce Soda, Lord of The Curly Fries, Love In The Time of Collard Greens, and A Clockwork Orange Sherbet.Homer: Mmmm... Fried references...
- Homer's tipping montage parodies the opening musical number of Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, with that film's
Real Song Theme Tune, Quincy Jones' "Soul Bossa Nova."
- Signs of Disrepair: The Springfield Public Library has been turned into the Springfield Pub & Brewery by partially covering the engraved words with a sign reading "& Brewe".
- Take That!
- The episode is a huge one against tipping culture in general.
- The Starbucks parody is named "Eightbucks Coffee" and has a dollar sign in the logo, a jab at Starbucks' coffee prices.
- Word-Salad Humor: Downplayed. The Eurobeat song is mostly comprehensible, but on top of there being some grammatically incorrect English in it, some lines are a mishmash of other things in the song that don't convey anything.
- Bart: Don't tip them bicycle from the Bart!
- Work Off the Debt: Homer took an extra job as a waiter to pay the tips.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: Bart isn't worried about a long day at the medical plaza because he's seen videos that turn out to be a Bait-and-Switch, where parents promise something boring, get their kids in the car for it, and then reveal they're doing something fun instead on the way there. He's convinced that he and Lisa are going to Krustyland for the whole car ride, but unfortunately, they actually do end up at the medical plaza. Bart then proceeds to treat the place like Krustyland, hook himself up to some saline, and hallucinate that he's there.
