Sky Police

"Sky Police" is the 16th episode of the 26th season of the American animated sitcom The Simpsons, and the 568th overall episode of the series. It first aired on the Fox network in the United States on March 8, 2015.

"Sky Police"
The Simpsons episode
Episode no.Season 26
Episode 16
Directed byRob Oliver
Written byMatt Selman
Production codeTABF09
Original air dateMarch 8, 2015 (2015-03-08)
Guest appearance(s)

Nathan Fielder as Doug Blattner

Plot

Chief Wiggum is mistakenly delivered a military jet pack, which he gleefully accepts. He later is found by a military general who originally bought the jet pack, and received his order for an off-brand dust ruffle. Chief Wiggum tries to escape, but is shot down by the general's soldiers. The jet pack still goes, however, and then crashes into the church. The congregation, led by Marge, must resort to gambling and counting cards, taught by Apu, in order to collect money to pay for the repairs. Marge then proceeds to go to the casino with Sideshow Mel, Ned, Agnes Skinner and Reverend Lovejoy and his wife Helen. They win enough money for the church but Homer finds out and goes looking for Marge at the casino.

The casino then holds Homer hostage in exchange for return of the money won, which they can't because they already gave it to the contractor, who laughs at the idea of giving it back. While there Homer asks why they want the money back since card counting is not illegal or even cheating at the game. The thugs holding him, unable to come up with an answer, shut him up by putting his head in a vise.

Marge prays in the middle of the casino which attracts a huge crowd. The casino lets Homer go because Marge was causing a "disturbance" that hurt business. The owner tells them they can even keep the money they won, but are banned from ever entering the casino again. Homer refuses and demands the casino stop treating people who count cards like they're cheating when all they're doing is playing by the rules. He is then thrown out by a robot.

Cultural references

Chief Wiggum's song "Sky Police" is a parody of Baby Face as sung by Julie Andrews in the musical Thoroughly Modern Millie.

The main plot of the episode is an homage to the film 21, in which a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) graduate is recruited to a card-counting ring by his college tutor and gambles in order to raise tuition fees; in a similar way, Apu reveals he attended an "MIT" twice - first the Mumbai Institute of Tantric-Sex, where he was recruited by a card-counting ring and earned enough money to buy fake SAT scores to get into the real Massachusetts Institute of Technology; there, he failed every class and was kicked out and therefore had to move to Springfield.

The casino montage scenes are a parody of the casino montages in the 2000s Ocean's films, with betting values flashing up on-screen and a music theme that echoes David Holmes' soundtracks for the Ocean's films.

Reception

The episode received a 1.6 rating and was watched by a total of 3.79 million people, making it the third most watched show on Fox that night after Family Guy and The Last Man on Earth.[1]

Matt Selman was nominated for a Writers Guild of America Award for Outstanding Writing in Animation at the 68th Writers Guild of America Awards for his script to this episode.[2]

gollark: Our cookies are laser-cut, actually.
gollark: No, we did that ages ago, it's in the company handbook.
gollark: Our containment octahedra can protect them from this actually.
gollark: It's not like we haven't had access to the platonic realm of forms since 2007.
gollark: If they were, they would already retroactively have been.

References
  1. "Sunday Final Ratings: 'The Last Man on Earth', 'Bob's Burgers', 'Family Guy', 'Brooklyn Nine-Nine' & 'Revenge' Adjusted Up". TVbytheNumbers. 2015-03-10. Retrieved 2015-05-04.
  2. McNary, Dave (13 February 2016). "WGA Honors 'Big Short,' 'Spotlight,' 'Mad Men' at 68th Awards". Variety. Retrieved 23 February 2019.
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