The Very Hungry Caterpillars
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"The Very Hungry Caterpillars"
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Episode Information
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Co-runner: Brian Kelley]]
"The Very Hungry Caterpillars" is the twentieth episode of season 34 of The Simpsons and the seven-hundred and forty-eighth episode overall. It originally aired on May 7, 2023. The episode was written by Brian Kelley and directed by Gabriel DeFrancesco. It guest stars Rob Lowe as Cousin Peter.
Synopsis
- "When a plague of insects shuts down Springfield, the Simpsons face their greatest challenge yet... spending time in lockdown with each other."
Plot
At breakfast, Marge is trying to feed Maggie pancakes. However, Maggie refuses to eat because Marge hasn't put ranch dressing on them, and she'll only eat food with ranch on. After Marge finally gives up and gives Maggie ranch dressing, the family gets an emergency alert telling them to watch the television. Kent Brockman announces that a swarm of Dutch Leaf Slurper caterpillars have arrived in town. Mayor Quimby announces that the town is going into lockdown until the situation is resolved. The family decides that they can do activities together, before they end up watching Steak, Cake or Fake? on Binge+. When Homer manages to log out of the account, the family starts to panic.
The next day, Springfield Elementary School starts remote learning via ChatHippo. After the school day ends, Principal Skinner leaves his webcam on, which allows Bart to spy on him. Skinner's Cousin Peter was staying at the house during lockdown and he spent his time sweet-talking Agnes and insulting Seymour. Meanwhile, Marge tries to get Maggie to try some other dips instead of ranch after they ran out. Maggie refuses and Marge asks Homer to go and see if Ned has any they can have. When Homer starts to take Ned's apocalypse survival food, Ned imagines Homer stealing food from him, Rod, and Todd then takes the food back, giving Homer only a small cup of ranch dressing. Marge thinks that they can ration the ranch out for a couple of days before Lisa comes into the room and says that the lockdown could go on for months, which causes Maggie to drink the cup of ranch dressing.
Lisa gets obsessed with reading news about the lockdown and gets increasingly worried over it. As a distraction, Homer and Marge decide to give Lisa her Christmas present early, a Malibu Stacy playset called The Shops at the Orchard. Meanwhile, Bart and the other kids keep watching Skinner's camera feed where Agnes decides to give the Skinner family quilt to Peter, despite having previously promised it to Seymour. Lisa begins playing with her Malibu Stacy playset, but she starts to imagine the dolls talking to her about the lockdown.
The next day, Homer tries to trick Maggie into eating other sauces instead of ranch dressing, but is unsuccessful. Marge then decides that she and Homer will break into Flanders' house and steal his ranch dressing. As the kids watch Skinner's camera feed, they realize that the Skinner family quilt was Seymour's security blanket when he was a baby. Everyone starts to feel sorry for Skinner and they decide that they'll get the blanket back for him. When Lisa goes back to her dolls, she finds that they are building a barrier against the caterpillars. She then imagines that she gets shrunk down to their size so she can join them in the mall. That night, Homer and Marge start the break-in but Homer knocks a tin off the shelf. Flanders goes to check out the noise and Homer distracts him to let Marge escape. Homer and Ned then fight for a bit before Ned tries to drown Homer in the barrel of ranch dressing.
Bart and the other kids come up with a plan to get Skinner's blanket back and have Nelson call Peter looking to buy the blanket. As Nelson starts to get Peter negotiating, Mrs. Muntz walks into Nelson's room and ruins the plan. However, Peter insults Agnes and reveals that he was conning her to Nelson. Seymour then reveals that he and Agnes were listening in via ChatHippo and Agnes throws Peter out the house and gives the quilt to Seymour. In Ned's basement, Marge comes back and saves Homer by reminding Ned that he's a good person. Ned realizes what he's been doing was wrong and he lets the Simpsons keep the ranch dressing. Meanwhile, Lisa helps the dolls make the barricade until one of the caterpillars gets in. Lisa throws a piece of lettuce from her sandwich to the caterpillar, which then starts to eat it. Lisa then realizes that the caterpillar is cute really and her fears go away, causing her to finally stop imagining herself being the size of the dolls.
The next day, all the caterpillars have cocooned themselves and the lockdown is ended. However, the cocoons all hatch and butterflies start to swarm Springfield instead. For this next lockdown, Homer had stolen Ned's GodFlix password and the family watched the Christian programming together.
Gallery
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Wikisimpsons has a collection of images related to "The Very Hungry Caterpillars". |
