The Fool Monty

"I want to leave this world in my own terms, jumping off this cliff and crushing as many of those baby turtles as possible. Goodbye, insufficiently cruel world!"

- Mr. Burns

"The Fool Monty" is the sixth episode of Season 22.

Plot
The big TV companies make a plan to make a new disease, named House Cat Flu, that will force people to be scared and watch TV for updates on the crisis. After Homer threatens to burn everything the cat has touched, Marge tells him that here is a vaccination to the flu and they travel to the hospital.

As the townspeople wait in a long line to receive the vaccine, which is being rationed to one child per family, Mr. Burns drives directly to the front of the line instead of waiting for the others to finish getting their vaccine and demands 37 doses: one for himself, one for Smithers and 35 for his dogs, even though they are immune to the disease, as they would see him take it and also want some. This draws glares from the townspeople, followed by open hatred when Burns drives over some boxes containing the town's entire vaccine supply, wasting the vaccine by spilling it onto the street.

After Mr. Burns' doctor gives him the vaccine, he tells him that Burns is dying and that he only has 5 or 6 weeks to live. Mr. Burns tries to take his own life by jumping off a cliff but bounces off things, including an airplane. He then lands on the ground in a forest. In the morning, Bart is walking around poking things with his "poop stick". He pokes Mr. Burns and he wakes up again, with no memory at all. Bart takes him home after he almost gets his tongue pulled out by a bird.

Bart tries to hide Mr. Burns in his room before he runs away from his bath into the living room. The Simpsons then take him to the rest of the town where they decide to take it in turns with Mr. Burns where they can take revenge on him. They make a rota for who gets Burns and when. After a while of arguing over who's turn it is to get Burns, he is returned to Homer for his turn again. However, Homer is getting bored of Burns and lets Lisa take him. Lisa takes him to his Mansion where he sees a picture of him on a throne of skulls and remembers everything.

Meanwhile, Smithers had gotten a new job for Vice President Dick Cheney. He gets told to do jobs such as pull wings off of bees. Smithers obviously doesn't like his new job and boss as much as Mr. Burns.

Burns later comes and picks Smithers up and takes him back with him. The two then fly a helicopter above Springfield and reveal to the townspeople that he plans to drop a dome on Springfield in revenge for the things the townspeople done to him. Unfortunately, the townspeople reveal that it has already been done before. Lou also states that they could always just dig out from it, although that never occurred to anyone before. He then realizes that he had survived for longer than six weeks. Marge thinks it is because he has helped people and been kind. However, after giving Ralph a sweet, he starts to die again. He then realizes that it was the spite building up in him that kept him alive. Burns decides to leave, and finds Nelson in the helicopter forcing Burns to be his father for the school play, otherwise he will crash the helicopter. Burns goes to the play and seems to enjoy it.

Production
The episode was written by Michael Price and directed by Steven Dean Moore.

Reception
"The Fool Monty" was viewed by an estimated 6.63 million viewers in its first American broadcast and received generally positive reviews from TV critics.

Gallery
The Fool Monty