Plot
While Bart and Lisa are cleaning out the garage, they stumble upon old home movies. One of the tapes they found has an old episode of the sitcom Perfect Strangers on it, followed by a commercial for a product called "Baby Stink-Breath" -- with Bart as a baby with bad breath. Bart confronts Homer and Marge about the advertisement, who tells him that its revenue made a lot of money. However, Homer had ended up spending it all to buy back incriminating photos that were used in a blackmail scheme. Bart is infuriated and claims he is sick of all of Homer's ill treatments, but he taunts him that he can not do anything about them until he is eighteen (and plans to work Bart like a dog when he's 17 in anticipation for his 18th birthday). The next day, a furious Bart goes to a law firm named "Luvum and Burnham" Family Law, at Milhouse's suggestion after hearing the results of his father, Kirk, crying when Luann sends her lawyer after him. He meets the Blue Haired Lawyer there, and tells him that he wants a 'divorce' from his family.
The next day, during dinner, the Blue Haired Lawyer comes to the house to serve Homer with a subpoena and a side of bacon just to get him to open the door. When the family discovers that Bart is suing them, they are shocked. He declares that he wants to be emancipated, much to Marge's horror and his father's rage. Homer tells Bart that his father was terrible to him while he was growing up and instead of suing him for emancipation, he just dropped him off at a cheap nursing home.
At the trial, the Blue Haired Lawyer uses a doll commonly seen in child molestation trials from whose clothing Bart pulls out the pockets to show the court where Homer swindled money from him. Later, Homer is seen on the stand where Bart's lawyer alleges that he has a clear anger management issue. He blows up for a second and soon tries to convince the court that he is much calmer than that. Unfortunately, Judge Harm does not believe Homer and proves it by not only having the stenographer repeat what he said, but also drawing a picture of him hanging from a noose. Despite acknowledging that Bart may be too young for emancipation, she rules in his favor and declared him legally emancipated. Judge Harm cites Homer's sociopathic behavior and short temperament as the main reason why Bart should not live with him, evident when he threatened the lives of the whole jury and swears a vicious revenge against Bart after he mistakenly believed that he will win. As a result, he is forced to give up half his salary as his punishment for stealing Bart's money. Furious, Homer tries to attack Judge Harm, but the bailiff stops him and drags him away.
The next day, Bart prepares to leave and says tearful goodbyes to everyone except Homer. Marge tries to convince him to stay, promising that she will let him swear in the house more. Bart refuses and tells her that he had nothing against her, Lisa and Maggie. His problem has always been with Homer and now that Bart is emancipated, he's free from his father's abuse. Bart leaves in a taxi, which Homer chases down, until he breaks down sobbing in the middle of the road.
Bart's early experiences in the apartment were rather scary due to its dangerous location, but he soon finds that Tony Hawk is living in the building and throwing a party with pop-punk band Blink-182. He and Hawk become friends, and he is content with his new life. Back at the Simpson house, Marge is still depressed about Bart being gone and convinces an equally desperate Homer to apologize to him. The family goes to meet him at his loft. He apologizes and requests him come home, promising to treat him better by paying back the money. Bart accepts the apology, but tells them that he is going on Tony Hawk's Skewed Tour.
At the event, Homer meets up with Hawk and pleads with him to pretend to lose to him so that he can make Bart proud of him again. Hawk reluctantly agrees and gives Homer a modified skateboard, which does all the stunt work. Later, Homer challenges Hawk to a skateboard match and does a good job, thanks to the skateboard. Hawk, unhappy about being shown up by Homer, decides to "take out the thrash". They duel with their skateboards in mid-air, and Tony falls to the ground. Homer speaks to Bart and finally promises that he will never mistreat him again. Lindsey Naegle approaches Homer and asks him to star in a commercial. Homer accepts so that he can get Bart fully repaid.
At the Simpson house, Homer is embarrassed when he watched the final product, an advertisement for an impotence drug, but Bart tells him that nobody will remember it in 50 years. Fifty years later, Homer is dead, and an elderly Nelson Muntz visits his grave to laugh at him.
Read more about this topic: Barting Over
Famous quotes containing the word plot:
“Ends in themselves, my letters plot no change;
They carry nothing dutiable; they won’t
Aspire, astound, establish or estrange.”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)
“James’s great gift, of course, was his ability to tell a plot in shimmering detail with such delicacy of treatment and such fine aloofness—that is, reluctance to engage in any direct grappling with what, in the play or story, had actually “taken place”Mthat his listeners often did not, in the end, know what had, to put it in another way, “gone on.””
—James Thurber (1894–1961)
“We have defined a story as a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence. A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality. “The king died and then the queen died” is a story. “The king died, and then the queen died of grief” is a plot. The time sequence is preserved, but the sense of causality overshadows it.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)