Original air date: 3/13/2022
Production code: UABF-07
When footage of Homer leaving Santa's Little Helper locked in a hot car goes viral, all of Springfield is outraged and Homer becomes a pariah.
Tropes in this episode:
- 0% Approval Rating: Homer becomes the town pariah once again after a string of accidents. It gets to the point where even his own family is shunning him.
- Biting-the-Hand Humour: One of the memes that prop up from Homer backhanding the Reverend caption Homer “Disney” and Lovejoy “Fox”.
- Cancelled by the Internet: A viral video and a series of comical misunderstandings lead to everyone in Springfield accusing Homer of being an animal abuser and neglectful parent (which...isn't exactly wrong). He becomes a pariah, gets fired from the nuclear plant, and ends up roped into a scheme by other cancelled people to shut down the clickbait media site that hosts the viral videos.
- Destination Defenestration: Reverend Lovejoy gets accidentally pushed out of the church window by Homer during the latter's apology speech. This only makes his current situation worse in everyone's eyes.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: After Homer apologized for what happened, everyone in Springfield begins to treat him with respect once again.
- Everyone Has Standards:
- Despite being treated like a pariah for most of the episode and suffering for it, Homer is not willing to have evidence of his actions erased if doing so means that other, genuinely horrible, people have theirs erased as well.
- As much as Homer wants company and is historically known to degrade himself to get some affection, even he's not willing to go on right-wing podcasts.
- Funny Background Event: Among the people in the dog park are Mr. Largo and his boyfriend Geoffrey with their dog, whom Largo attempts to get to perform tricks by using a stick like a conductor.
- Malaproper: No one is able to pronounce "anonymity" right.
- Memetic Mutation: In-Universe. When Homer's Shaming the Mob rant and accidentally pushing Reverend Lovejoy out the window gets out on the internet, people starting turning it into various memes, even on very popular real-life opinions.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero!: When Homer was about to get some vanilla ice cream, he leaves his windows halfway open and the fan on so Santa's Little Helper doesn't overheat. Not long after Homer went into the ice cream shop, the dog proceeds to jump around and close all the windows and turn off the fan which causes everyone to bash Homer endlessly for it. To be fair, it was an accident and it's hard to get mad at Santa's Little Helper since he's a dog.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Homer leaving Santa's Little Helper in the car for two minutes to get him some organic ice cream ends with SLH accidentally rolling the windows up and locking himself in, causing the townspeople to turn on Homer, believing that he did it out of neglect.
- Parental Neglect: Homer spends so much time trying to get the town to believe his side of the story, that he ends up forgetting to pick up Bart and Lisa from the trampoline place and they walk up to him injured. The crowd automatically assumes he's an abusive father, and not simply forgetful.
- Riddle for the Ages:
- Exactly who the other horrible people outside of Homer's gang and Trump are and what they did are never elaborated on.
- Just what was written on Lisa's apology letter that had everyone forgive Homer's actions is not brought up.
- Running Gag:
- As part of the meme, Homer backhanding the Reverend captions Homer as "Arbys" and Lovejoy as “Digestion”, continuing the show's tendency to mercilessly mock the restaurant chain.
- Also, no one being able to properly pronounce "anonymity".
- Take Our Word for It: At the end of the episode, Homer apologizes for his transgressions using Lisa's apology note, but we never actually hear it and are simply told via narration that it instantly worked.
- Take That!:
- Cancel Culture is criticized for obsessing over everything, including genuine accidents. Homer even calls the town out on this multiple times, to no avail.
- As Homer is about to erase all embarrassing moments from the mainframe, other people (who are truly awful) begin showing up as part of the cleansing. Offscreen from view, Homer is pretty much describing Donald Trump and his family.
- The "Right-Wing Podcast" and its host that tries to welcome Homer are clearly based on Joe Rogan and his tendency to bring in Conservative and otherwise right-leaning guests onto his podcast.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Homer gives one to the church after the town treated him like a pariah after Santa’s Little Helper was locked in the car (despite the dog locking the car and rolling up the windows himself). It would end up backfiring when he accidentally pushed Reverend Lovejoy out the window, causing him to be treated like a pariah for that instead.Homer: I'm Homer Simpson, and I'm truly sorry. [cuts to an Imagine Spot of the crowd as pilgrims with torches]
Crowd: [chanting] Tsk, tsk, tsk!
Homer: Sorry if you pee-pee babies were offended by something that was no big deal and everything's fine. So what's the issue?
Bart: [to Lisa] Amazing job, you really got his voice down.
Reverend Lovejoy: Okay, Homer, I think you've made your point.
Homer: I'm sorry that you don't have enough things to get mad at. I'm sorry that you all have skin thinner than gas station toilet paper. And I'm sorry that your lives are so boring that you take a man who left his rescue dog for two minutes to buy him organic ice cream from a woman-owned local business, and you crucify him! [accidentally pushes Reverend Lovejoy out window] - Tempting Fate: After Santa's Little Helper is freed, Homer chastises the crowd for assuming he's a horrible person, and gets offended when one of the firefighters calls him a bad parent. The very instant Homer denies it, his kids show up injured, and asking why he didn't pick them up.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Though Homer is quickly forgiven, the same is not shown with Helen, Kirk or the other wrongfully accused helping Theo out.
- You Have Failed Me: Theo gets physically harmed for his failure to delete the information of the world's serial offenders. Though whether he survives his beating is never shown.