The Simpsons (animation)/Recap/Who Shot Mr. Burns

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"Who Shot Mr. Burns" (production codes 2F16 and 2F20) is a two-part episode, and the only one in the series. It was end of season 6 and the opener for season 7. The reveal of the real murderer has been referenced in several episodes since.

Part One

Principal Skinner walks into school and discovers that the class gerbil has died. As Groundskeeper Willie digs a grave, he unexpectedly strikes oil. Principal Skinner and Superintendent Chalmers lavishly think of ways to spend the school's newfound wealth, taking many student and staff requests, including Lisa's suggestion of hiring Tito Puente as a music teacher.

At the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, Homer gets upset when Mr. Burns can never remember his name, even after working for him for ten years. He takes a suggestion from Marge and sends Mr. Burns a box of chocolates with a family picture underneath the candy; however, Mr. Burns and Smithers are not interested in the one candy covering Homer's face and discard the box. As a result, Burns writes a "thank you" card only to Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie, further angering Homer.

Meanwhile, Mr. Burns learns of the school's oil and immediately decides that he must have it, even as Smithers voices his disapproval. After failing to convince Principal Skinner to give him the oil, Mr. Burns establishes a slant drilling operation and beats the school to tapping the oil well. The school is told they have no legal recourse, and Willie and Puente are laid off to cover the school's losses.

Mr. Burns' drilling operation causes further harm and distress to many Springfield citizens: Moe's Tavern is closed due to the harmful fumes from the drilling, enraging Moe and Barney; the drilling destroys the Springfield Retirement Castle, leaving Grampa homeless and forcing him to move in with the Simpsons; and Bart's treehouse is destroyed by a burst of oil from the rig, which also injures Santa's Little Helper.

Mr. Burns then reveals to Smithers his grandest scheme: the construction of a giant, movable disc that will permanently block out the sun in Springfield, forcing the residents to continuously use the electricity from his power plant. A horrified Smithers finally stands up to Mr. Burns, insisting that he has gone too far; Mr. Burns fires him in response.

Later, Homer, driven to insanity by Mr. Burns not knowing his name, sneaks into Mr. Burns' office and spray-paints "I am Homer Simpson" on the wall. Mr. Burns catches him in the act, but still seemingly does not recognize Homer. In a rage, Homer attacks him and is hauled away by security. All the citizens affected by Mr. Burns' mad schemes, including Homer and even Smithers, swear revenge.

A town meeting is held to discuss Mr. Burns' actions. Mr. Burns arrives, armed with a gun after his encounter with Homer. Despite the whole town standing up to him, he activates the sun-blocking device, thinking himself invincible. He walks into an alley, obscured from view, and struggles with someone until a gunshot is heard. He stumbles out into the open, wounded, and collapses on the town's sundial. The townspeople find him and Marge tells all of them that since Mr. Burns has angered so many people recently, just about anyone could have been the shooter.

Part Two

As Mr. Burns fights for life at the hospital, the Springfield police are working to find his assailant. Smithers wakes up the next morning and vaguely remembers shooting someone the night before in a drunken rage. Guilt-ridden, Smithers heads for a local church, and is promptly arrested when the confessional turns out to be a police sting. While passing the media on his way to the police station, Smithers makes a witty remark Sideshow Mel recognizes from an episode of Pardon My Zinger that aired at the same time as the shooting. Mel realizes Smithers must have watched it as well, giving him an alibi. As Smithers' memory clears, it turns out he had actually shot Jasper in his wooden leg. Meanwhile, the townspeople pull down the sun-blocker, which crushes Shelbyville to their delight.

With one of the prime suspects cleared, the police, aided by Lisa, eliminate other suspects, including Puente (whose revenge took the form of a "slanderous mambo"), Principal Skinner (who was found by Chalmers to be applying what he thought was camouflage make-up at the time of the shooting), Willie (who cannot fire a gun due to arthritis in his index fingers), and Moe (who is cleared via polygraph test). After a surreal dream about Lisa, Chief Wiggum finds an eyelash on Mr. Burns' suit which matches Simpson DNA. At the same time, Mr. Burns wakes up from his coma, exclaiming "Homer Simpson!" The police raid the Simpson home and find a gun under the seat of their car, covered with Homer's fingerprints and loaded with bullets that match the one fired into Mr. Burns. Homer is arrested for attempted murder, but escapes from the paddywagon when it overturns.

At the hospital, it is revealed "Homer Simpson" is the only thing Mr. Burns can say, suggesting his "accusation" may not have actually been one. Hoping to clear Homer's name, Lisa returns to the scene of the crime to investigate and discovers the identity of Mr. Burns' true assailant. At the same time, Homer arrives at the hospital to confront Mr. Burns. After a police bulletin reports Homer's location, the police, Lisa, and many other citizens of Springfield race to the hospital. Upon entering Mr. Burns' room, everyone finds an enraged Homer vigorously shaking Mr. Burns. This returns Mr. Burns' ability to speak normally, and he quickly asks who the person shaking him is. Apoplectic with fury at Mr. Burns again not remembering who he is, Homer aims Wiggum's gun at Mr. Burns' face, demanding he recant his accusations. Mr. Burns laughs at the idea and confirms Homer did not shoot him. He then reveals the true assailant: Maggie.

After leaving the town meeting, Mr. Burns came across Maggie eating a lollipop in the Simpsons' car. He decided to try stealing candy from a baby, but Maggie would not let go of the lollipop, resulting in a struggle. As he finally yanked it away, his gun slipped from its holster into Maggie's hands and fired at Mr. Burns. The gun and lollipop both fell beneath the car seat; Homer would later unknowingly leave fingerprints on the gun while feeling around under the seat for an ice cream cone he accidentally dropped. Lisa guesses that with his last strength Mr. Burns pointed to the "S" and "W" on the sundial (with the "W" appearing as an "M" from his perspective) to identify his assailant. Mr. Burns corrects her, saying that the positions of his arms were purely coincidental.

Mr. Burns demands for Maggie to be arrested, but he is dismissed by Wiggum, who says no jury would convict a baby for a crime. Marge also adds the shooting must have been an accident, considering Maggie, being an infant, is very unlikely to know how to operate a gun. In the final shot, Maggie is shown with shifty eyes, suggesting that she may have shot Mr. Burns deliberately.

Tropes used in Who Shot Mr. Burns include:

"[Burns] became consumed by greed, he'd steal from anyone...and when he tried to steal our sunlight, he crossed the line from everyday villainy into Cartoonish Supervillainy!"

  • Armor-Piercing Question: Burns of all characters asks one, when Springfield's hatred of him was even more intense than usual.

McCallister: Arr, Burns, your scurvy schemes will earn ye a one-way passage to the boneyard!
Ned: I'd like to hear from Sideshow Mel!
Mel: I'll see to it that Burns suffers the infernal machinations of hell's grim tyrant!
Otto: Yeah!
Burns: Oh, you all talk big, but who here has the guts to stop me?

Smithers: Father, I'm not a Catholic, but...well, I tried to march in the St. Patrick's Day parade. But anyway, I've got a...rather large sin to confess. sniffles I'm the one who...shot Mr. Burns!
Wiggum: (pokes head out, cocks gun) That's all I needed to hear! Boy, this thing works great.

  • Contest Winner Cameo: Subverted. The person correctly guessing the resolution to the season ender would be animated into an episode. Nobody won the contest, however: Only one viewer correctly followed the episode's trail of evidence and concluded that Maggie did the deed, but that person never signed up for the contest.
  • Fair Play Whodunnit: Even though the culprit did seem to come out of the blue, the clues were indeed all there, with the mystery even being drummed up as a contest to see who could figure it out..
  • Foiler Footage: Even though only a few of them could have been guilty, there was a gunshot, and Principal Skinner's gun had a silencer; Moe had a shotgun, which would've killed Burns, and Apu is shown using an automatic weapon that still leaves just one wound. They also shot a full alternate summation where Smithers goes through his whole Motive Rant, and it's explained how all the clues could have added up to Smithers being the culprit.
  • Multi-Part Episode: Notably the only one the show has ever done.
  • No Indoor Voice: During the meeting, everyone seemed to have picked up a habit of shouting out what Burns had recently done to their lives.

'Marge: He's causing us all to yell!

  • Parrot Expowhat: Jasper says "You shot who in the what now?"
  • Pay Evil Unto Evil: Subverted. Burns is portrayed as an opportunist with no moral restraint. When he decides to block sunlight from Springfield, a town hall meeting is called on the subject, and everyone brings a gun to the meeting. But when someone actually SHOOTS Burns (hid behind a Shadow Discretion Shot) he is perceived as a victim, despite his obviously evil nature, and the attempted murder is investigated anyway. This is VERY out of character for Springfield, the kind of town that would leave a boy in a well for previously pranking the town into thinking someone else fell into a well.
  • Poor Man's Porn: Moe is forced to admit under a lie detector test that he spends his evenings ogling the women in the Sears catalogue (even though Sears stopped sending out Sears catalogues at the time of the episode's first airing, but who's to say that Moe doesn't have a stash of them from around the time that they were sent out through the mail?)
    • Sears catalogues were still published at the time in Canada (and Sears still existed at the time in Canada), so maybe Moe was getting new catalogues from there?
    • Moe invokes this trope again when he brings up "this porn channel I'm too cheap to descramble," which turns out to be an infomercial for shoe inserts.

Moe: I've been writing creepy letters to that?

  • The Scream: A variation appears on the first half; on realizing that Mr. Burns has forgotten his name yet again despite all his efforts, Homer takes a deep breath and yells a profanity (starts with an "F", the rest is covered by the sound of an organ playing). It's given exactly the same treatment as The Scream.
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