Original air date: 11/9/2003
Production code: EABF-18
Homer's mother, Mona, is finally released from prison — only to return due to a technicality.
Tropes:
- All Girls Want Bad Boys: Why Grampa thought it was a good idea to testify against Mona.
- Bait-and-Switch Comment: From one of the other female prisoners on the bus with Mona.Woman Prisoner: [upbeat] I hope this bus ride never ends...[depressed] 'cause I'm being executed when I get off.
- Burying a Substitute: At the end of the episode, Homer's mother hijacks a prison bus and escapes from the pursuing police, only for the bus to go off a cliff and end up trapped under a rockslide. The Simpson family is subsequently shown holding a funeral for Mona (losing the coffin in the process), but Homer later reveals that they Never Found the Body and the coffin was filled with the previous week's garbage.
- Call-Back: Frank Grimes' tombstone makes another appearance.
- Character Filibuster: After the trial Sideshow Mel goes on a long rant about the hotel they stayed at featuring an Opinion Flip Flop; not even the judge can stop him.
- Comically Missing the Point: While announcing the Oops Patrol, Kent Brockman showed a photograph of Marge and Homer asked who got the prize.
- Continuity Snarl: Apparently Wiggum forgot that he was the one who helped Mona escape the first time.
- Contrived Coincidence: Mona arranges a meeting with Homer by planting a coded message in a newspaper article she thinks will catch his eye (about the world's biggest pizza). As it happens, he only stumbles upon it at all because he's recently become obsessed with winning a t-shirt from a local TV news feature that gives prizes for catching newspaper errors, causing him to spend hours combing through news articles. He finds the message on the very night he's supposed to meet with the sender.
- Disproportionate Retribution:
- It turns out that signing the visitor logbooks of national parks with fake names is a federal offense worth instant jail time. Burns exploits this to have Mona put away for good when she's pardoned for destroying his germ lab.
- Homer burned down a blood bank because he wasn't allowed to have more than one cookie.
- Dude, Not Funny!: When Homer starts chasing after the car taking his mother to jail, the driver stops the car to tempt Homer and speed off when he gets close, the other man in the car has this reaction.
- Evil Lawyer Joke:(Homer crashes into the police station)
Chief Wiggum: Luckily all you destroyed were bricks, mortar, and attorneys!
Attorney: Remember me... as a drain on society! - Face–Heel Turn: Chief Wiggum was a big help to Mona in her first appearance but now he's leading the charge against her.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: Mona's second hidden message on the newspaper about a giant taco has a coherent paragraph. However, the second one is pure nonsense of letters written at random.
- Halfway Plot Switch: Marge forces the family to do cleaning, then Homer becomes John Nash levels of crazy obsessed over getting his own "Oops Patrol" shirt, and then it turns out that Mona placed a cypher in the newspapers for Homer to find and they could meet again, which goes from funny to dramatic when Burns gets his revenge.
- Jaywalking Will Ruin Your Life: Burns manages to get Mona tossed in jail for life thanks to a Federal law that says signing up national park guest books with fake names (apparently regardless of whether or not the person signing up actually has something to hide and was otherwise respectful) is an instant-jail offense (and he managed to find out Mona went to many parks while she was on the lam). Homer lampshades how much of a technicality this is.
- Justice by Other Legal Means: Burns, driven to get revenge on Mona when she gets a pardon for the crime of destroying his biowarfare lab, obtains evidence that she went to various national parks while using her assumed identities over the years — turns out that using a false name to sign the visitor logbook is a federal offense and this means she is arrested and automatically sent to jail for the rest of her life. Homer even lampshades that this is the kind of technicality that normally should keep people out of jail.
- Kick the Dog:
- Grampa testified against Mona in court and then tried to get her to take him back. Though he explains he did it because he thought women dig jerks.
- Snake kidnapped a woman and pretended she was his mother and demanded that she keep hugging until they get to Mexico.
- Skinner tries to hug his mother and she instead tells him to hug his floozy, with Edna right there.
- Chief Wiggum makes it a point to arrest Mona despite the fact that her radical activism was the reason why he's even a cop.
- Burns getting Mona arrested for a federal offense right in the middle of the town's celebration of her pardon and gloating about it.
- The federal agents that arrest Mona play keep-away with Homer trying to catch up to their car. One agent is actually disgusted about it, but finds it just funny enough to allow the driver to do it one more time after he says this.
- Lead In: The episode opens with Homer, Bart, and Lisa doing yard work until Marge invites them inside to watch TV, saying it's too nice out for outdoor chores. Bart is happy, but Lisa and Homer suspect an ulterior motive. Marge forces everyone inside by spraying them with a gardening hose, and it turns out that Marge was featured on Channel 6's weekly "Oops Patrol" segment. Homer's ensuing envy sets up Mona's eventual return.
- Never Found the Body: As it turns out the coffin at the funeral contained last week's garbage. Homer missed the pickup date.
- Noodle Incident:
- On the same day as Mona's trial Homer is on trial for torching a blood bank after they only gave him one cookie.
- When investigating Eddie's hunch, Chief Wiggum says that if he's wrong, Eddie and Lou have to kiss. Lou replies that Wiggum is only allowed to make that order once.
- Off on a Technicality:
- Discussed. As Mr. Burns used a technicality to send Mona back to prison, Homer complained technicalities should get people out of prison.
- Homer gets off being arrested with his mother when crashing through the station solely because as Wiggum states, he only destroyed bricks, mortar and attorneys.
- Offing the Offspring: One of the prisoners on the bus says to Homer "You're like the son I never killed."
- Parental Hypocrisy: Mona doesn't take kindly to Homer strangling Bart and is seemingly quite willing to do likewise to him.
- Police Are Useless: Despite helping Mona to escape, neither Wiggum or the rest of the Springfield cops arrest Homer. Not even when he crashes through their station when fleeing the diner and accidentally runs over an attorney in the process. In fact, neither he nor Bart are ever arrested for aiding Mona at any point.
- Punny Name: Anita Bonghit.
- Right for the Wrong Reasons: Homer believes his mother survived because he read what he believes to be a coded message saying "I M O K". She did survive and leave a coded message but it's in another newspaper and explains how she survived and where she went.
- Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: Mr. Burns's view on why he should have won his courtcase.Mr. Burns: This is America, justice should favour the rich!
- The '60s: Kent Brockman presents a montage for people who are to young too remember which features — among other things — the moon landing, Richard Nixon's presidency, Woodstock, and the Batusi.
- Shout-Out:
- Once Homer becomes completely obsessed with finding a print error on the news that will give him an "Oops Patrol" T-Shirt, lack of sleep (and sanity) makes him start to see words on the newspaper just like John Nash did in A Beautiful Mind.
- The episode title to the TV comedy series My Mother the Car. Also a subtle Take That! — the show was a notorious flop and one of the executive producers (James L. Brooks) was part of the show's writing team, and he's made it clear that he considers it an Old Shame.
- Take That!: Homer plans to hide his mother at a place nobody goes and chooses Disney's California Adventure.
- There's No Kill like Overkill: Mona's bus falls of a cliff into a lake where it explodes and is crushed by many falling rocks. Though, thankfully, she escaped just in time.
- Wacky Marriage Proposal: When Homer tampers with a roadside sign to make the bus carrying Mona to prison stop, a few of the messages he cycles through are those of someone who tried to use the sign to propose to his girlfriend, followed by "what do you mean 'no'?" and "I hope your car explodes."
- Yank the Dog's Chain: Mona manages to get a pardon from Quimby both because of being a Cool Old Lady, model prisoner and because the statute of limitations for the destruction of Burns' bio-lab in The '60s has passed. But Burns absolutely refuses to let things go with nothing less than Mona's destruction and obtains evidence that Mona visited several national parks with the various assumed identities she used throughout the years she was on the lam — a federal offense, which will put her in jail for however many years she's got left to live. As a result Mona has to go on the run again, and this time she had to start by faking her death in front of many people, including her own son.
