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| When you learn you've been on the air for 27 seasons, but the last 15 have all been with the same awful writers. |
Its learned that the Simpsons smell, with Homer, Bart and Lisa being called "Stinkson" by everyone else. This confirms Marge's suspicions that the washer has, in fact, become moldy and unusable which caused everyone's clothes to smell awful. She tasks Homer with spending a hidden stash of savings to buy a new washer. Just before going into the appliance store, Homer sniffs out barbecue and immediately heads out to find the source. There, he finds an old man smoking meat on "the hive", a smoker with a honeycomb-shaped grill with an absurd backstory. Regardless, Homer finds the meat divine, and learns the old man is selling the supposedly legendary grill. Homer buys it with the washing machine money. This, of course, infuriates Marge, but the food Homer cooks on the hive is too good for her to remain being upset. The smoke from the hive reaches other parts of town, and soon Homer's food becomes a hot spot, so much so that a celebrity chef ("Scotty Boom"), challenges Homer to a barbecue cook off for a TV show. Homer is happy to partake, but soon after he becomes devastated after he finds out that his smoker has been stolen.
With the police unable to find leads, Homer just gives up on life, he doesn't even want to drink! Bart and, eventually, Lisa, decide to try and find the smoker to get Homer out of his rut. The sleuths that they are, they quickly find evidence in the backyard which leads them to Nelson; Nelson evades them but unwittingly leads them to a junkyard where Bart and Lisa witness Nelson selling the hive to an unknown buyer. Bart and Lisa try to sneak away with the hive, but its literally too hot to handle, and it rolls right into the buyer's truck which drives away. Bart and Lisa both just give up on life.
Despite these events, the family still has a cook off to compete in. At the competition, Marge decides to fill in for Homer, but her meat ends up being subpar, and thus Marge just gives up on life. However, celebrity judge Alton Brown learns that Scotty Boom's meat has honeycomb-shaped grill marks, which obviously do not match the marks found on Boom's grill. Boom is disgraced and the Simpsons win the cook off. Bart and Lisa notice the buyer from before nearby, and give chase. As Lisa is subdued, Bart convinces a still defeated Homer to care just enough to trip the buyer and allow Bart to catch up with him. It turns out the buyer is Scotty Boom's son, Tyler, who gained Nelson's help to steal the smoker in a plot to ruin his father because the two don't spend any time together. As the Booms reconcile, Homer is also reunited with his smoker, which refills him with the will to live.
In the credits, Marge is shown trading the hive to Nelson anyway for a washing machine. Time is then skipped ahead where, ultimately, the hive survives multiple post-apocalyptic scenarios.
Quick Review
Like the last episode, this one starts off strong but finishes rather weakly as it puts too much focus on the mystery of the stolen smoker (and the few jokes that accompanied it weren't so great). A few too many references and slightly too much Lisa also hold the episode back as well.
Final Score: 7.0
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