The Mook, the Chef, the Wife and Her Homer

"The Mook, The Chef, The Wife and Her Homer" is the first episode of season 18. It originally aired on September 10, 2006. It was written by Bill Odenkirk and directed by Michael Marcantel. Joe Mantegna, Joe Pantoliano, Michael Imperioli and Metallica guest-starred as Fat Tony, Dante Calabresi, Sr., Dante Calabresi, Jr. and, respectively.

Plot
Bart and Lisa get on the school bus to go to school. Lisa can't get a seat as Bart refuses to let her sit next to her so she tries to make Otto tell Bart to give her a seat. Otto tells Lisa to deal with her own problems and Lisa accidentally breaks Otto's tape player. When the kids start singing on the journey, Otto gets annoyed and stops the bus when he sees stuck at the side of the road. He offers Metallica a ride but Bart steals the school bus and drives to school. Metallica abandon Otto, telling him not to listen to their music from now on. Otto arrives at the school as Bart turns up and then smacks Bart. Principal Skinner sees this and suspends Otto.

Marge has to carpool the kids to school, picking up other kids on the way. They then pick up Michael D'Amico, who everyone thinks is weird. Michael forgot his Math book so they drive up to his house so he can collect it. It is only then that the kids realize Michael is Fat Tony's son. At school, everyone starts treating Michael differently, being scared of him. Lisa befriends Michael over his love of cooking and encourages Michael to follow his dream of becoming a chef.

Fat Tony's turn to carpool the kids comes along. On the way, the Calabresi mob starts driving after them, trying to kill Fat Tony. Fat Tony throws Milhouse's Garfield binder onto the road, causing the Calabresi car to crash and everyone in the car to die. Fat Tony arrives at the Simpson house and apologizes for being late and Michael invites the Simpsons to dinner at Fat Tony's compound.

At Fat Tony's, everyone sits down to dinner. Louie then comes in and tells Fat Tony that the Calabresis are there for the sit-down that was planned. Fat Tony then goes to meet with the Calabresis, Dante Calabresi, Sr., Dante Calabresi, Jr. and Primo, who reveal they only tried to kill him because they thought he had gone soft. After clearing up the misunderstanding, the two mob families hug and make up. Michael then comes into the room to offer everyone soufflés. After finding out the soufflés were made by Michael, they laughed at him then left. After leaving, they came back in a helicopter and shot up the mansion, injuring Fat Tony in the process.

At the hospital, Michael is told that he has to take his dad's place as leader of the mafia whilst Fat Tony is in hospital. Homer and Bart then agree to help Michael and join the mafia. They go around to the businesses they help look after and collect money from them. Michael then realizes that they are too involved and doesn't like it, wanting to keep the Simpsons out of his business as he likes them. He arranges for the Calabresi family to come to the Simpsons house for dinner and cooks them a meal. After they eat the meal, all three members drop dead. Michael implies that this was an accident as he was only following a recipe. Back at Fat Tony's mansion, Fat Tony congratulates Michael on taking out the Calabresis. When Lisa questions him why he didn't tell Fat Tony that it was an accident, he tells Lisa to stay out of his business. Michael then goes into his room to play with toy cars.



Production
This episode marks the return of Lunchlady Doris, who has now been renamed to "Lunchlady Dora", to a speaking role after her original voice actor Doris Grau died in 1995. The character is now voiced by Tress MacNeille.

When the episode came back from the Korean animation studio, Otto's tape was mislabeled "Grand Fuck", which was only seen in a couple of frames. This scene had to be redone to fix this error. American actor was also asked to be in the episode but he refused because he didn't want to play any gangsters any more.

Reception
IGN said the episode was "charming", and enjoys the episodes' parody of The Godfather, praising Pantoliano and Imperioli's appearances. However, IGN said they were disappointed with "the episode being too random" and "it doesn't have the emotional impact it should have had." The episode was given a final rating of 7/10.

As of March 2018, the episode has a 7.5 rating on and a 8.4 rating on.