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| Addicted to scratch-off tickets is bad enough. Addicted to Big Bang Theory tickets is irredeemable, honestly. |
Plot Summary
Mayor Quimby attempts to make Springfield a tourist attraction by replacing the old Jebediah Springfield statue with something more interactive. A parade is held for the new statue, which turns out to be a total dud, but during the parade Bart instigates a feud between the police and the volunteer firefighters which results in the police's new heavily armored vehicle to crash into the Kwik-E-Mart, injuring Apu and his brother Sanjay. For his part, Bart's misdeed was both seen and caught on camera by Homer, who makes a deal to Bart not to turn him in as long as he stops pranking altogether.
In the hospital, Sanjay admits to Apu that he no longer cares to operate the Kwik-E-Mart anymore and has decided to give the business up to his son, Jamshed who had agreed to rebuild the store. Six weeks later, Apu sees to his horror that Jamshed, who goes by "Jay" now, has rebuilt the Kwik-E-Mart into "Quick & Fresh", a modern store which sells only organic food. Its revealed that Apu became addicted to scratch-off ticket playing after winning $25 on his first try, but in order to fund his habit Apu gave up more and more of his share of the store's ownership to then Sanjay, allowing Jay to have majority ownership of the new store. The two constantly argue, with Jay somewhat offended by Apu being an Indian stereotype, and Apu offended that Jay is acting like a complete hipster millennial stereotype. Ultimately, Jay fires Apu from the store.
Meanwhile, Bart holds up his word and refuses to prank despite Milhouse's attempts otherwise. Bart starts becoming a good student overall, but as Homer doesn't care about that, Lisa connects with Bart now that they've both been shunned.
Wallowing away in his sorrows, Apu goes to Moe's to sulk, but the gang there gets the idea of having Bart pull a prank on Jay as part of a plan to get Apu his store back. Homer is reluctant at first, liking Bart as he is now, but Apu's friendship with everyone is too much to ignore so Homer agrees to have Bart pull the prank. Homer again is reluctant when he sees Bart being good, but when Bart begins to try to negotiate the terms of the prank, Homer realizes Bart has turned once more.
Bart's prank is rather simple: pull the plug on the store's power for a little bit, and since everything in the store is organic, the lack of conditioning would force the food to immediately go bad because that's a thing that can happen. Despite Lisa's last second plea to stop Bart, Bart goes ahead and turns off the store's power and sure enough everything in the store rots. Bart turns the power back on, but that causes an accident in the store that sets it aflame. Apu goes to console Jay over his failure, but notices one scratch off ticket survived the fire as well as a single penny. To his luck, the ticket wins Apu a million dollars, enough for him to rebuild and fully own a new Kwik-E-Mart just like his old one. As thanks to Homer, Apu presents him a golden Squishee cup with free and infinite refills that will only cost him $3 in the long run.
In the episode's conclusion, Quimby orders the police to destroy the failed new Jebediah statue, but the police only end up destroying their new armored vehicle instead.
Quick Review
After a string of disastrous episodes, this one gets the show back on track. Jay was not a good character, I don't know if "buzzword-spouting hipster millennials" like Jay actually exist, I tend to think that's not the case but I may just be naive. In any case, Jay basically brought the episode down single-handedly. The scenes with Apu himself were good, the parade has its moments and Bart's subplot was overall fine, but the episode suffered every time Jay spoke.
Final Score: 7.3
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