The apocalypse is something that fits into both science fiction and horror quite nicely. We’ve heard of zombie apocalypses and robot apocalypses, so it’s certainly a ripe topic for The Simpsons to tackle, and of course references both the 1971 film The Omega Man and the novel that inspired it, Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend.

The setup for the apocalypse is great: American Intolerance! It is an unknown slur from Mayor Quimby towards the French that gets Springfield in hot water. “I stand by my ethnic slur! Do your worst you frenchies!” Quimby taunts through the camera. Homer, while watching, is only invested enough to say “Stupid frogs,” echoing the glazed over intolerance of Quimby through his own sort of couch potato judgement. Marge, worried that there might be an actual follow-through by the French, asks Homer to get a shelter–his crude shelter in the back is merely a cardboard box with an emphatic “U.S.A” written on it–to protect the family.

Homer goes to the military surplus store to check out what kind of shelters are available. “This here is the ‘withstandinator'” says the store’s owner, “It can take a six megaton blast, no more, no less.” Kind of inefficient when you think about it when it comes to those 2-5 megaton blasts. Anyway, while inside, the French make their move.

Inside their war room the French decide to nuke Springfield. “We’ll show them who looks like a frog eh?” Their laugh of course echoes a frog, with deep guttural groans and bulging throats. Of course this isn’t meant to represent the French, it’s to represent the parody of the french that Springfield knows. Like always with Springfield, we’re living in a world where the United States rules whether by military or pop culture force. So in the world that the Simpsons and Springfield exist, the French are formed by their stereotype, not the other way around, and the joke is that these french have moulded their identity to the one that American pop culture has given them.

So anyway, they launch “le bomb neutron” and it heads right for Springfield, landing at comic book guy reading an Aquaman comic…”Oh I’ve wasted my life” he says as the bomb goes off, decimating Springfield. Homer, luckily was inside the “withstandinator” for what must have conveniently been a six megaton blast. He leaves, after sampling some of the shelter food…”Euuuch, you call that prime rib?” not noticing the skeletal corpse in front of him or the sky’s change of colour to sickly green.

He eventually figures out, after punching Kirk VanHouten’s skeleton to dust, “Hehe, Still Got it!” that he is the last man alive. After a quick moment of reminiscing for those he lost he decides to take advantage of the situation and enjoy being the last man alive. What does he do? Dance naked in a church! Homer’s spite towards religion of course would see him desecrating the sacred place of worship first and foremost.

It’s while inside the church that he realizes that he’s not alone and that some Springfieldians have been horribly mutated, though Moe tells Homer “We don’t like the word mutants. We prefer ‘freaks’ or ‘monsters.'” Whatever they are, they begin to attack Homer, preferably to eat his skin as all mutants are required to do. Homer drives to safety–mistaking the pale Edgar Winter Group for mutants and killing them in the process–and reaches home. He closes the door behind him and holds it until he hears the doorbell ring–“That better not be the mutants.”

Of course it is the mutants, and of course he opens the door. But, surprise! Homer’s family is alive and they share a tender moment of compassion, enough to “bring a tear to your eye socket.” They mutants have a turn of heart and say that, yes, maybe freaks and norms can live together. Marge agrees…until she and the rest of the Simpsons pull out their well concealed shotguns and kill the mutants. “Friends with mutants, right!” With the mutants dead they do the only sensible thing in a world decimated beyond repair: steal ferraris.

The apocalypse is a great philosophical subject. It becomes horrific for two reasons: 1) What would push the human race towards an apocalypse? (in this case American intolerance) and, 2) How would those remaining structure themselves? (i.e. though they were skin eating mutants, those remaining had ideas to build a fully functioning society while Homer was quite content to live in a lawless society). Though Homer is our central character his ignorance, on par with Quimby’s ignorance that doomed Springfield, is shown to be uncooperative in building a new civilization and this has passed on to the rest of his surviving family (who survived due to yet more ignorance–as Lisa says, “All the layers of lead paint in the house made it the perfect bomb shelter!”) who refuse to make peace with the mutants because they’re “different.” The Simpsons, again, kind of mocking American culture without making it so obvious.

Tomorrow: Hell Toupee

See the previous segments here: Send in the Clones, Citizen Kang, Bart Simpsons’ Dracula, Time and Punishment