Days of Future Future

"Days of Future Future" is the eighteenth episode of the 25th season of the American animated sitcom The Simpsons, and the 548th episode of the series. The episode was written by J. Stewart Burns and aired on April 13, 2014, on Fox.^[1] The episode is a sequel to "Future-Drama" and a continuation of "Holidays of Future Passed," set 30 years from the present. In this futuristic installment, Bart goes to a clinic to rid himself of his feelings for his ex-wife Jenda (who is now dating a xenomorph-like alien named Jerry), Lisa must choose whether or not to cure her zombie husband Milhouse after he gets bitten by a homeless zombie, and Marge (after putting up with years of Homer dying and being cloned back to life by Professor Frink) loads Homer onto a flatscreen monitor and throws him out of the house.

Plot

When the morning starts off with Marge finding remnants of pizza boxes scattered around the living room, she hopes that a bear was the culprit. Instead, Homer's groans lead Marge to find her husband on top of the kitchen table. In nothing but his underwear, Homer receives advice from Marge on his health. Just when Homer seems to be taking Marge's words to heart, he marches upstairs to tell his wife that he will take his health seriously only to fall down the stairs because he's out of shape. Cut to Homer's funeral at the church, where everyone in town grieves for the Simpson patriarch. Suddenly, Professor Frink interrupts the proceedings to announce that he has made a clone of Homer. Frink reasoned that he wanted to start out with a sheep first but decided he wanted to experiment with a simpler subject. Marge warns Homer to take this second chance seriously to which Homer asks if she made potato salad for the wake.

Fast forward to Homer's clone's funeral the next day. The third Homer comes in only to die. The fourth Homer falls into the open grave of the third Homer. The fifth Homer electrocutes himself with the toaster. No one knows what happens to the sixth Homer. The seventh Homer lands in the hospital before pulling the plug on himself when he hears that he can't eat solid foods for two weeks. Thirty years into the future, the Simpsons mourn another Homer except that this time Frink cannot bring Homer back much to the surprise of the family. Frink did store Homer's memory in a flash drive, which he plugs into a television screen conveniently in the church. When Marge realizes that her husband is just a face on a screen, she is fed up with him when Homer asks that she reboot the screen. Marge ejects the flash drive to give to Bart, so that Homer can reside with him until she can figure out a way to get used to him in his current form. Besides, she thinks that Bart did nothing in his life for 30 years and that they are perfect for each other.

Bart shows Homer his new digs, an abandoned classroom at Springfield Elementary. As soon as a glum Bart sends his two sons to his ex-wife Jenda's house, he needs advice more than ever now. Homer is of no use when the monitor freezes. Working at a dino amusement park, Bart laments that he misses his kids despite Nelson telling him that he should be happy that he's free. Elsewhere at a zombie soup kitchen, as Lisa feeds the undead with synthetic vegan “brain” food, a worried and paranoid husband Milhouse comes looking for her. A zombie attacks Milhouse, while Lisa's brother continues to hit the melancholy train with Nelson dragging him to a club. Unable to move on from his ex, Bart sees a targeted billboard telling him to move on using shock therapy that makes him forget about his ex. After the procedure, Bart starts to get back into the dating scene, and sleeps with one woman after another. He visits Marge, who claims to not miss Homer that much, but in an attempt to initiate a conversation between her and Homer when he accidentally mixes up his memory with a TV programme recording, he sees she does miss Homer when he sees her excitement and disappointment. She does send him a robot body, which arrives just before Bart's kids get home, where he realises it's his ex-wife who still catches his eyes, especially now since her new boyfriend Jerry has broken up with her. They decide to go out to dinner and talk, where Jenda comes onto him. They decide to try to work things out, but the kids are not so sure about that, especially since Homer and Marge are still not together. Bart and Jenda hit a rough patch because of Jenda's strenuous work schedule and both have tuned out of each other's stories through Jenda's texting friends and Bart's watching sports.

Meanwhile, Lisa and zombie Milhouse are attacked by the same old bullies, and Lisa actually finds it attractive because the old Milhouse would not have had the guts to fight off the bullies. Even though Dr. Hibbert can reverse Milhouse. Unwilling to bring back the old Milhouse, she takes him to see a dinosaur show on the day of the injection, but Dr. Hibbert finds them there and warns her to bring him the very next day.

Now unsure if patching things up with Jenda is the right decision, Bart heads to Moe's for a drink. And Lisa has already beat him there. She is drinking away her dilemma of trying to decide whether to make Milhouse human again or not. She even prefers his rotting meat smell. Marge is there too hidden conveniently behind a shrub as tall as her hair on the table. She points out they have no idea what a rough marriage is. They want to know her secret of how she stayed with Homer for so long. She says when you make a decision with your heart, you stick with it. Even Moe is taking care of Duff Man in his old age. Lisa asks if this means she is going to take Homer back. She states that she is in fact going to join him forever ...as she electrocutes herself and transfers into the TV screen with him.

Back at Dr. Hibbert’s, Milhouse is now just fine. No zombie left in him whatsoever. Lisa seems quite disappointed by that. To test it out, she even waves a juicy brain in front of him causing Milhouse to faint. Back at the house, Bart is explaining to Jenda, on the TV screen, that it just isn't working out. She agrees. That’s why she started to see Jerry again without telling him. Bart, surprised, but knowing that they both did the right thing, declares himself now over Jenda.

Bart then finds himself back in the chair at Moving On. Everything he just experienced was just a neural implant the specialist put in his temporal lobe. It was all a dream and now he can go home. He just wants to make sure he is cured. She explains they treat a lot of people with obsessions including Disco Stu and Gil.

Bart and Lisa visit Marge and find out that she and Homer have finally gotten back together, and she gave him a new robot body and personality. Bart then tells Lisa that in case her and Milhouse don’t work out he knows a place that can help her. He points out Milhouse was cured in his dream, but Lisa reveals that there is no cure for zombie-ism, so things are great.

Reception

Dennis Perkins of The A.V. Club gave the episode a C, saying "Things are even worse for The Simpsons after tonight’s sequel, “Days Of Future Future,” where Burns returns to the (it seems) inevitable sci-fi future of the series and limits the show’s world even more. Losing much of the heart of its predecessor in favor of the sort of ill-conceived and contradictory character arcs the latter, scattershot Simpsons has become notorious for, “Days Of Future Future” reveals a series willing to shrug off what it still could be. Instead, this future Simpsons world seems just a playground for writers to use up whatever Futurama jokes they had left over."^[2] Tony Sokol of Den of Geek gave the episode four out of five stars, saying "The Simpsons’s “Days of Future Future” is a laugh every 2.5 seconds, allowing for wind resistance. A very worth entry into what will someday be an even longer running longest running show that has ever walked slowly up a flight of stairs. I absolutely love Jerry, Bart’s future ex-wife’s new soon to be ex-Alien lover. Nelson’s mom still has to strip at the age of 87 because there’s no more retirement. Even with 99 Democrats in the Senate, because the Republican still knows how to get things his way. Of course Ralph Wigum will be the new chief of police, he’s a chip of the old cop. Santa’s Little Hybrid is an unnatural progression that Cosmo doesn’t teach about."^[3]

Teresa Lopez of TV Fanatic gave the episode four out of five stars, saying "I always love The Simpsons episodes that show the possible futures of Bart, Lisa, Maggie, Homer and Marge. And this week was no exception. Even though the future episodes are not technically canon (I mean, who can say what will really happen in their future?), I liked that this one attempted some continuity." She did, however, criticize the episode's plot twist near the end, saying "What didn't work so well for me in this week's future glimpse was the way in which a portion of the show's events didn't actually take place. They were merely the work of the neural implant that the "Moving On" store used to help Bart get over his ex-wife. Although, the series did a nice job referring back to this little plot quirk at the end."^[4]

The episode received a 1.7 rating and was watched by a total of 3.64 million people, making it the second most watched show on Animation Domination that night, beating Bob's Burgers and American Dad! but losing to Family Guy with 4.39 million.^[5]

References