Yellow Subterfuge

"Yellow Subterfuge" is the seventh episode of the 25th season of the American animated sitcom The Simpsons, and the 537th episode of the series. The episode was written by Joel H. Cohen and premiered on December 8, 2013, on Fox.^[1] In the episode, when Principal Skinner promises that the most well-behaved at Springfield Elementary will get to ride in a submarine, Bart does everything possible to become a model student. Meanwhile, Krusty, on Lisa's advice, sells the foreign rights to his show in order to rake in more money, but the international Krustys soon become more popular than the domestic ones.

Plot

Principal Skinner announces that the school will go on a field trip in a submarine, however since the space is limited, only the most well-behaved students gets to ride the submarine. If a student breaks a rule, Skinner crosses his/her name off his list. After hearing the announcement, Bart decides to behave more appropriately to get into the submarine. But Skinner crosses his name anyway, because Bart enters the school with a muddy footprint. Bart asks Skinner for a second chance, but Skinner refuses. Bart even uses a laptop with a program to make it sound on Skinner's phone that President Barack Obama is calling him to let Bart go on the trip, until a bird ruins his plan. At the Springfield pier, Bart watches sadly as the sun goes down, and breaks down in tears. Seeing how upset his son is, Homer arrives, and teams up with Bart to get revenge on Skinner. The next morning, Skinner wakes up and finds his mother's stabbed corpse in his kitchen.

He quickly removes the dagger and hides Agnes under a rug. Bart and Homer enter Skinner's kitchen and finds the corpse, then Homer agrees to clean up the mess and sends Skinner upstairs. Agnes wakes up, revealing that she is actually alive and is presumably also a part of Bart and Homer's scheme. Bart and Homer tell Skinner that the cops are on their way to arrest him, then Bart gives him a fake ID as "Dick Fiddler" and sends him on a bus to Juarez. When Bart and Homer arrive at home, they find Skinner sitting on the couch who tells them that he cannot run away from his deeds, but deep down he is probably glad that he stabbed Agnes. However, Marge stops this, having caught on to Homer and Bart's prank and tells them to apologize at once. Agnes comes out alive, revealing she was really in on it with Marge to teach the men a lesson that their behavior is unacceptable. After hearing everything Skinner said about him being glad she was gone, Agnes decides to be meaner to him by stopping to take the pills that keep her nice. Despite getting their revenge on Skinner who is more miserable, Homer and Bart are presumably punished by a furious Marge.

Meanwhile, Lisa learns that Krusty the Clown has gone broke. To earn more money, Lisa suggests that Krusty sell the foreign rights to his show. Then, the foreign "Krusty" shows are gaining high ratings all over the world. However, soon the foreign Krusties are gaining much more attention than the original Krusty. So, instead of raising the foreign Krusties' share of the show profit, Krusty had to do a guest shot on all of the foreign Krusty the Clown shows. But, they all quickly disagree, and chases Krusty, who is running away in a golf cart.

Reception

Dennis Perkins of The A.V. Club gave the episode a C+, saying "While there are a fair amount of laughs along the way, “Yellow Subterfuge” is a rushed, ramshackle enterprise, livened up by some solid Skinner-work. Even Bart’s teary breakdown to Homer that he had actually been trying to be good cribs liberally from the legendary “Bart Gets an F,” one of the first episodes to hint at The Simpsons’ seemingly incongruous ability to wring genuine emotion from overtly silly situations. It’s a damnably difficult balance to achieve—but the show used to be much better at it."^[2]

The episode received a 3.1 rating and was watched by a total of 6.85 million people, this made it the most watched show on Animation Domination that night beating American Dad!, Bob's Burgers and Family Guy.^[3]

References

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Yellow Subterfuge