Steal This Episode

"Steal This Episode" is the ninth episode of the 25th season of the American animated sitcom The Simpsons, and the 539th episode of the series. The episode was written by J. Stewart Burns and premiered on January 5, 2014, on Fox.^[1] The title is a takeoff of Abbie Hoffman's Steal This Book.^[2]

In the episode, to combat the poor quality of today's movie theaters, Homer and Bart team up to illegally download movies and exhibit them in a makeshift theater in the backyard, but Homer ends up arrested by the FBI when Marge sends Hollywood a check and an apology note.

Plot

Homer keeps hearing spoilers about Radioactive Man Re-Rises. Tired of hearing spoilers, he decides to watch the movie. At the theater, Homer is upset that the theater shows commercials and gets kicked out from the theater. Bart cheers him up by showing Homer how to download the movie illegally from the Internet. Homer then decides to open a backyard theater that shows illegal movies from the Internet. Marge feels guilty after watching the movie, and decides to send a check along with an apology letter to Hollywood to repay the money for the tickets she should have bought. A manager in Hollywood receives the letter. Alarmed, he quickly calls the FBI to go after Homer.

The FBI raids the Simpsons' house and manages to arrest Homer for movie piracy thanks to a snitch, according to Deputy Director Gratman. Marge feels guilty for it; however, during dinner the next night, Marge maintains she did the right thing even though Bart and Lisa side with Homer. Homer's bus that was bound for Springfield Penitentiary gets taken over by the prisoners who all agree that what Homer did was much worse than robbing a bank or doing drug trafficking. The bus then falls into a ledge where Homer is rescued by a train that is passing by after the prisoners abandon the bus. He returns home and despite Marge's pleading to turn himself in, Homer refuses to turn himself in.

As an alternative, Lisa takes the family to a Swedish consulate to protect Homer from getting arrested since downloading movies is not illegal in Sweden. While in hiding, Marge confesses to Homer that she was the snitch for turning him in but says she tried to apologize to Hollywood. However, this leads a betrayed Homer to turn himself in.

At the U.S. Federal Court, the trial is attended by various Hollywood filmmakers, Judd Apatow, and Seth Rogen. When Judge Apatow asks Homer if he has anything to say before he passes sentence, Homer delivers a speech about his movie piracy. The Hollywood filmmakers who attend the trial are impressed by Homer's story and Judd Apatow leads them into dropping all the charges as the Hollywood filmmaker's want buy the rights to Homer's story to turn it into a movie. As Judd Apatow wants to be attached to be an executive producer, one female filmmaker says that Will Smith's children want to play Homer's children. Homer states that he'll sign with the Hollywood filmmaker who can get Channing Tatum to gain enough weight to play him. A newspaper talks about the release of "Streaming Valor" as well as Channing Tatum's weight loss surgery.

A week before "Streaming Valor" airs, the residents of Springfield gives Homer a surprise special screening with "Streaming Valor" which they downloaded illegally. Homer gets mad at them for illegal downloading since he now gets money from the movie profit and kicks them out from his backyard while telling them to see it when it comes out in theaters.

While watching "Streaming Valor" in the theater, Bart asks Lisa which side were the real pirates: the movie producers or those fighting for Internet freedom. Lisa says that both sides "claim their intentions are noble, but by the end of the day they're trying to steal as much money as they can". She then proceeds to say who the "real pirate" is, but is censored by NASCAR footage during the credits followed by a pirate flag and the sounds of Seth Rogen's laughter.

Reception

The episode received generally positive reviews from critics. Dennis Perkins of The A.V. Club gave the episode a B, saying "The strongest episode of The Simpsons’ 25th season so far, 'Steal This Episode' avoids a few pitfalls the show has been more prone to stumble into in later years, provides a double-handful of funny lines and gags, and actually seems invested in telling a coherent story from beginning to end. Not classic Simpsons by any yardstick, but certainly a welcome respite from what has been a streak of fairly dire late-run episodes."^[3]

Teresa Lopez of TV Fanatic applauded the episode and gave it a 5 out of 5, commenting mainly on the show's use of guest stars, saying "the stars were an essential part of the plot, so it made sense to trot out Judd Apatow and his usual crew of actors (Seth Rogen, Paul Rudd, Leslie Mann). Along with Channing Tatum as well. In essence, the episode really played to the show's strengths. For example, Homer is always behind the times and, once he's caught up, he can't help but take his new hobbies too far."^[4]

The episode received a 4.6 rating and was watched by a total of 12.04 million people, making it the most watched show on Animation Domination that night beating American Dad!, Bob's Burgers and Family Guy.^[5] This marks the most-watched episode of the series since the twenty-second season episode "Moms I'd Like to Forget."^[6]

References