My Mother the Carjacker (S15, E02-315)

Not... quite the same emotional impact as the last Mona episode, I know.

Plot Summary
Marge wins a T-shirt when she sends in a hilarious newspaper clipping to Channel 6.  Homer becomes jealous and tries to do the same.  His quest for his own T-shirt drives him to delusion, looking at newspapers all evening for a funny headline, when he notices something odd about one article about a giant pizza.  The first letters in each line spell out a message for Homer to meet a person at an overpass at midnight.  Homer casually follows this message, and at midnight he's greeted by the mystery person: his mother.

Mona, still on the run from police, felt nostalgic toward Homer and decided to see him again, using 'the liberal media' to her advantage to plant that pizza story for Homer to catch.  However, their reunion is cut short when the police arrive for an unrelated reason, though they identify Mona right away.  Homer attempts to drive Mona to safety, but unwittingly drives right into the police station, and Mona is arrested, much to the glee of Mr. Burns.  During the trial, though, Homer's passionate plea to be back with his mother gets to the jury, who refuse to convict Mona, and the case is dismissed, much to the ire of Burns.

Now a free woman, Mona spends plenty of time with Homer; the two have a lot to catch up on.  Mr. Burns even invites Mona as he turns his old germ warfare building into something more positive.  However, its actually part of Burns' trap and he's able to get Mona to admit to using a phony name on federal property.  She's arrested once more, leaving Homer sad yet again.

Homer regroups, though, and is able to find and hijack the bus taking Mona to a federal prison.  Letting the other prisoners out honor system-style, Homer attempts to drive Mona to freedom.  However, with the police hot in pursuit, Mona decides to knock Homer out and toss him out the bus rather recklessly.  Moments later, Homer witnesses the bus go over a railing and into a lake, crashing, exploding and causing rocks to fall upon it, pretty much sending the message that Mona is dead.

Homer can hardly hold himself together at the funeral, and then later becomes somewhat delusional when he starts searching newspapers for a sign of Mona, believing to of found one in "IMO[next page]K".  The family tries to support Homer in his grief, nobody aware that Mona actually did leave a message in one paper, detailing how she escaped her predicament.

Quick Review
This episode was alright, mostly.  The big (second) return of Homer's mother was handled mostly well, though some of the bigger plot points really came out of nowhere (mainly Mona being arrested again as well as that rather far fetched ending).  Otherwise, the jokes were alright and the episode ends up being good though not great.

Final Score: 7.8