To Surveil With Love

"To Surveil With Love" is the twentieth episode of Season 21.
==Synopsis==
When Homer leaves a gym bag with radioactive waste (planted there by Smithers) unattended in a train station, Springfield has surveillance cameras installed throughout the town. But when citizen video monitor scanner Ned abuses his ability to speak through the cameras' speakers, Homer uses the camera's blind spot.
In the meantime, Lisa, having heard one too many dumb blonde jokes, dyes her hair brown.
==Full Story==
Homer, Lenny, Carl and Barney are at Moe's Tavern, when Duffman (with female assistants) bursts in with free duff stuff, including beer cozies, a shirt that says 'Yo!', sassy seat cushions and flash drives. Then Duffman leaves for a date with his estranged daughter.
When Homer comes downstairs the next morning, he tells Bart to "guess which company had a giveaway at Moe's last night", but Bart refuses. Homer tells him to keep guessing, and then holds up Duff bling on his hands and teeth, which says Drink Duff Responsibly. He then asks Bart what it says, but he answers "responsibly". Homer is saddened by this.
At school, Lunchlady Doris tells Milhouse to pick a gelatin dessert, as he has been starring at them for fifteen minutes. He says it's so hard to choose, wondering whether the yellow one is lemon or pineapple. She gives him it, saying it's his pet canary, and Milhouse walks away with his food. Nelson sticks his foot out as Milhouse is walking and trips him. He says his catchphrase "Haw Haw!", along with "you're a spaz". Lisa, sitting opposite Nelson, stands up and says that's not true. She says firstly, Milhouse fell because Nelson tripped him. Secondly, spaz is short for spastic diplegia, someone who suffers from a serious medical condition. And thirdly, his "Haw Haw" through overuse has lost its power. Afterwards, Nelson says he bows before Lisa's logic, and then punches Milhouse, who's still lying on the floor, hard on the arm. Lisa and Martin walk over to him, and Martin takes Milhouse away for help. A woman, who had been watching Lisa throughout the conversation, walks over, saying she couldn't help but notice how logically she argued. Lisa says she is one, flattered, and two, intrigued.
Lisa introduces herself, and the woman introduces herself as Ms. Dubinsky. She invites Lisa to join the school debate team, which Lisa didn't know about. Ms. Dubinksy tells her it's the one curricular activity that can't be cut, because it requires no equipment. Principal Skinner comes in, and says the school is low on funding, so Ralph Wiggum will be standing in as their lectern. Ralph then says, "I'm a furniture".
Later in the day, Lisa discusses why hybrid car buyers should be given rebates payed for by taxes on hamburgers. When she finishes, Skinner comes in saying the podiums (Ralph and Wendell Borton) are needed as easels in the art room. A judge asks Megan for cross-examination. She bullies Lisa because of her blonde hair, and wins. When Marge tries to cheer her up with the book, it sinks Lisa's spirits furthers as it does nothing to help her stand up to the supremacists. When Bart makes a crude insult about blondes, Lisa had enough and calls him out for being self-loathing and insulting as he is blonde too. However, he merely points out that unlike Lisa who he knows is an exception to the stereotype itself, blond boys like him are supposed to manipulative and evil, while other blonde girls are expected to be dumb and only interested in their looks. Renewing her fight to prove the blonde stereotype wrong, Lisa intentionally dyed her brown.
At the next debate meeting, having the brown hair deliberately presents a weak argument that discusses why school uniform are good for the schools and it encourages conformity, which the judges wholeheartedly agree with. This enrages her rival, Megan, as she believed that it leveled the playing field since Lisa is a brunette and therefore, she can't take advantage of the blonde stereotype. When Lisa realizes this, she points out the judges' bias towards brunettes. She claims that they only agreed with her because she is a brunette and they should have judged her on the strength of her debate skills. Shocked by the accusations for not judging her wisely by the strength of her debate skills, the other judges tried to convince Lisa that she had a strong argument to favor school uniforms. The female judge promptly admits the truth and reveals herself as a proud brunette supremacist and her bias in her belief of the blonde stereotype much to the humiliation of the other judges.
Feeling upset, Lisa tells everyone that there are exceptions to every stereotype. She mentions just because she is a natural blonde, does not automatically make her dumb and only dyed her hair to teach them a lesson. She also points out that just because some people are fat, does not automatically make them jolly and using nearby Comic Book Guy as an example who not jolly due to a comic con convection move somewhere else and is also unhappy with his own life as well. However, when she tried to point out that just because some people are old does not automatically make them bad drivers, Grampa crashes the car through the wall and weakens her argument, as this was the only stereotype that remained true. Despite this, the crowd is inspired by Lisa to look past the stereotypes, and it appears Megan lost the debate since she no longer has the support of everyone.
The next day at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, Smithers informs Mr. Burns that space to store nuclear waste is full, even though there was supposed to be enough space for a million years' worth. Mr. Burns asks if they've jumping on the pile to squash it down. Smithers said it didn't work, and they need somewhere to dispose of the plutonium. Mr. Burns says to find the biggest idiot on their payroll and slip it in his bag. He sees Homer replacing a 'Safety First' poster to a 'Duff Zone' poster and says, "That's a bingo!"
During lunchtime, Homer is eating macaroni and cheese, wearing a lot of Duff stuff. Smithers creeps in wearing a protective suit and holding plutonium with prongs. As Lenny says the best mac and cheese, he's ever had was at the train station, Smithers slips the plutonium in his Duff bag. Not realizing, Homer says he'll have to check it out some time. "As soon as humanly possible", Homer is at the station eating mac and cheese. A man sitting next to him says the best mac and cheese he'd ever had was at a bowling alley in Ogdenville. Homer says he's pretty full, but then the man mentions there are breadcrumbs on the top, and he runs out. A woman sees his Duff bag, and says surely, it's attended. She waits for a few seconds, and then screams "UNATTENDED BAG!" Everyone runs out, and a train conductor shouts, "All panic!"
Later, explosives are attached to the bag, and outside, Chief Wiggum asks what they think is going to happen. An explosives expert thinks they're going to blow it up (and let the liberals ask questions later). He counts down from five but stops at four saying there's no time for a four countdown and blows it up. A clock lands next to where Homer is lying on a hammock and says notices its dinner time (five to six). He leaps out of the hammock humming.
On Channel 6 News, Kent Brockman says that the unattended bag at Springfield Union Station contained deadly plutonium. He says it can only mean one thing: a terrorist plot. There was enough radioactivity released to create seventeen Hulks and a Spider-Man. An artist's concept art is shown (Spider-Man whacking baseball bats at Hulks), which he describes as "quite disturbing".
At City Hall, Mayor Quimby admits that everything he said about terrorism was to cause fear, but now he says it's all true. To protect the city from all future attacks, they hired an external consultant from London, England.
When Bart is skateboarding going home, he realizes that the yard is the only place where the cameras cannot see, and he and Homer begin charging money for people to do whatever they want there. When Flanders finds out he heads to the Simpson home and demands an end to the activities. Homer defends his actions by pointing out that Ned's constant nagging of everyone has forced all of their impulsive behavior into this one small spot, causing them to act out more than if Ned left them alone. Ned admits he just wanted to be the town's conscience, but Homer retorts that it was more like Flanders was trying to be God. Horrified at the idea, Ned realizes he agrees with Homer and start destroying the cameras get to the city as it was before.
In the end, it is revealed that the antics of the citizens of Springfield were broadcast as a reality show in Britain, known as The American Oafs, with Queen Elizabeth saying she'll miss Ralph Wiggum, as he reminds her of her own son, Prince Charles, who walks in and tells his mother that his cat's breath smells like cat food.
==Behind the Laughter==
===Reception===
In an effort for more viewers for May sweeps FOX made a week full of musical segments in all the shows called "Fox Rocks." For The Simpsons, they had the entire Opening Sequence redone with the characters lip dubbing Ke$ha's song "Tik Tok" for that episode. Also, the insult spaz was taken off.
The episode received high positive reviews. IGN gave the episode 8/10 and remarked that "Overall, it was a fun episode, hurt only by the uninteresting filler of Lisa dealing with blonde stereotypes. But even that delivered its share of memorable quotes. If the past few episodes are any indication, this season may go out on a very high note."
*USA: 1st airdate: May 2, 2010
*UK: 1st airdate: June 3, 2010
*UK: 2nd airdate: June 6, 2010
*UK: 3rd airdate: July 23, 2010
== Citations ==
fr:L'Œil sur la ville
pl:To Surveil With Love
pt:Ao Vigia com Carinho
pt-br:Ao vigia, com carinho
Category:Homer episodes
Category:Lisa episodes
Category:Ned Flanders Episodes
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Category:Voice-Over Performance Emmy winning episodes
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Category:Highly Rated Episodes
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Category:Episodes with mixed reviews