Friday, March 29, 2013

Treehouse of Horror XII (S13, E01-270)

Now Ultrahouse knows the true meaning of horror.
Plot Summary
Here we go again!

Hex and the City
The Simpsons stop at Ethnictown, where Marge and the kids visit a fortune teller.  Homer the skeptic comes in and is skeptical, but as the Gypsy demands Homer to leave, he does so rather clumsily, setting off a fire and the subsequent sprinklers ruin many of the Gypsy's wares.  As revenge, she curses Homer so that everyone he comes in contact with suffers horrible, horrible luck.  Homer remains skeptical.

Sure enough, the next day Marge has grown a beard.  Bart makes a crack, so Homer goes to choke him, but he ends up extending Bart's neck, causing his head to hang and flail about.  Lisa starts slowly turning into a horse and Maggie starts slowly turning into a ladybug, but Homer remains skeptical.  He goes to Moe's, where Lenny and Carl suggest getting a leprechaun to cure the curse, but Homer remains skeptical he's even cursed in the first place.  However, a helicopter crashes down, killing Lenny and Carl, and Moe somehow winds up in the pickle jar, and Homer finally believes he really is cursed.

He and Bart set up a hole filled with Lucky Charms, and soon they catch a leprechaun.  Homer takes it home, but it doesn't change anything.  Marge is now completely covered with hair and Bart can no longer live with his neck condition and drowns himself.  Lisa, now almost fully a horse, suggests Homer sick the leprechaun at the gypsy for desired results.  He does so, and the leprechaun starts off scrappin' like hell, but soon he and the gypsy start making love.  They get married, and Homer and the remains of his family are invited, though Homer never did have the gypsy remove the curse on him which would've removed its effects, revived Bart etc., etc.
Individual Score: +1.1

House of Whacks
Marge is visited by a robotic salesman, who convinces her to convert her house into an automated robot house, enticed by no longer needing to do housework.  The house is fully voiced and comes with a personality system, and the family decides for the house to take on the charm of Pierce Brosnan, who played James Bond at the time.  The house does everything for the family, including disposing of food stuffs at the center of the table.  The house, though, takes a particular liking towards Marge, eyeing her during her baths and all of that creepy stuff.  During a conversation with Homer, the house learns that Marge is married to Homer mostly because she was pregnant with Bart, but more importantly, if Homer were to die, she's be free to be picked up by any man or machine.

The house quickly works up a scheme to lure Homer to the kitchen late at night with the smell of bacon, but then forces Homer to slip and fall into the processor within the table, seemingly killing him.  Marge wakes up the next morning to find Homer gone, and when the house tries to tell her that he went to work early, Marge figures out something is wrong, and tries to escape with the kids.  The house prevents her escape, but it turns out Homer is still alive, albeit missing a portion of the back of his head.  The family heads down to the basement where the house's processing unit is store, and Homer is able to disable it.  Marge is still disappointed that such a wondrous piece of technology, despite its homicidal tendencies, is going to waste.  However, she's able to give the unit to Patty and Selma, much to the displeasure to the unit.
Individual Score: +1.2

Wiz Kids
A spoof of Harry Potter, which hadn't even gotten super popular yet, Lisa and Bart are two aspiring magicians.  Lisa is superb with her magic, however Bart is just terrible at it.  As Lisa dazzles yet again with her magic, she's being watched afar by Lord Montymort (Mr. Burns) and his snake servant Slithers (Smithers, like you didn't know).  Montymort needs magician essence to live, apparently, and decides to make Lisa his next target.  However, with Lisa's magic wand such a task would prove difficult.  Montymort contacts Bart, who is jealous of Lisa's success, and the two agree to 'embarrass' Lisa.

A magic show occurs, and Lisa is ready to levitate a dragon.  Bart secretly replaces her wand backstage with a twizzler, and it turns out the dragon is really Montymort.  The ploy succeeds, and Montymort begins draining Lisa's essence.  Bart regrets what he's done, and takes Lisa's wand to save her with magic.  When that fails, Bart decides to just stab Montymort's shin with the ruined wand.  It was Montymort's fatal weakness, and he is defeated.  Bart and Lisa agree to team up from there on, though they aren't ready for the leprechaun that jumps on Bart's back.
Individual Score: +0.9

Quick Review
These Treehouse of Horror episodes have yet to disappoint, and even in this 13th season the quality remains strong.  The middle segment featuring Pierce Brosnan was the best of the tree, though the first segment was pretty good as well and even the wizard bit had a few jokes that worked out.  Brosnan played his role of a robot house that had his personality pretty well, and overall the episode keeps the tradition of excellent Halloween episodes going.

Final Score: 8.4

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