Ok damn. Sorry, my bad. Should have checked the list today.
Alright I’m under pressure so I’m going with somewhat of an unorthodox pick outside of season 10 threshold - “The Computer Wore Menace Shoes" Season 12 E6
This is a real sleeper episode that has so many easy references to what’s been going on in the last year it’s kind of crazy. Here is the synopsis:
Homer discovers the Internet and starts his own web page, where he calls himself Mr. X and begins revealing Springfield’s secrets. When it is announced that Mr. X’s work has won a Pulitzer Prize, Homer reveals himself in order to claim the prize. However, with his identity as Mr. X now public, Homer can no longer obtain any secrets as no one will say anything while he is around. Homer then begins making up stories to put on his web page. When one of those stories turns out to be the truth, he is captured and taken to “The Island”, a place where those who know too much are taken out of society.
Homer’s online identity is “mister X” which has shades of Q. Everyone in springfield is just dying to know who Mr. X is as homer spills all these secrets. I laughed really really really hard at one scene in which Homer is trying to get a scoop, and overhears Krusty confessing a really scandalous crime while Apu was confessing that all the bagels in springfield are just old stale donuts. Homer of course thinks thinks the scandal is about the bagels, and wiggum as a precautionary measure seizes every “bagel, pastry, bear claw, and bagel” in the entire city “for evidence.” LOL. I loved that whole sequence.
When homer runs out of scoops, he starts making shit up, including stuff about vaccines, which everyone takes as fact. Anti-vaxx propaganda on the internet? This episode has a lot of similarities to stuff that’s going on today, and this is a 20 year old episode. Pretty trippy. I really thought it was interesting how it kind of predicted how the internet would shape society, and this was in the very early 00’s when the world wide web was still kind of in its infancy. Very prophetic.
On the island part of the episode it gets very cerebral and trippy. Eventually we find out homer was taken there because his anti-vaxx propaganda was actually true and they didn’t want the truth getting out. Then at the end of the episode the 4th wall is broken and the viewer is hit with the toxic gas that was a gag throughout the episode. I watched this after I had smoked and this whole episode was trippy as hell. I recommend it.