The Simpsons/Homer's Enemy

Homer's Enemy
8x23
Airdate	May 4, 1997
Production Number	4F19
Written by	John Swartzwelder
Directed by	Jim Reardon
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The Simpsons — Season Eight

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Homer's Enemy is the twenty-third episode of the eighth season of The Simpsons, and the one-hundred and seventy-sixth episode overall.

One of the most talked about and analyzed episodes of the series' run, the action focuses on Frank Grimes, who is hired as executive vice president at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant. Homer tries to become friends with him, but Grimes quickly dislikes Homer for his poor work habits and manners and soon grows to loathe him intensely when he realizes that much of Homer's successes and things he's gotten in life were by sheer luck, while Grimes, despite his hard work, has little to nothing to show for it.

The subplot had Bart wander into real estate auction and buys an abandoned factory for $1. Hijinks ensue.

Guest Stars: Frank Welker (Executive Vice President), Pamela Hayden (Milhouse Van Houten)

Plot Overview

The episode opens with the family watching Smartline and the segment "Kent's People," where Kent Brockman profiles a man named Frank Grimes, a young man who has had it tough all his life and all he wants is for life's breaks to go his way. The story is heart-tugging: He was abandoned by his family at age 4, and as an (implied) street urchin worked as a delivery boy delivering gifts to wealthy and loving families. Later, he was injured in an explosion, and he later had to take correspondence courses to get a college degree in science.

Mr. Burns and Mr. Smithers are also watching the program, and are intrigued by Frank and his seeming qualifications, and want to give him the big break that had long been denied him: A job at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, for the newly-created executive vice president's position. But, as always, Murphy's law prevails, and he is (at the last second) assigned instead as supervisor of the nuclear safety inspectors, specifically Sector 7G, where Homer works. (It seemed Mr. Burns was more interested in hiring a heroic dog for the executive vice president's position, after watching a human interest piece on a later Smartline.)

It is while working alongside Homer that Frank slowly begins to become unnerved, either by observing his work skills or poor tact. The more Homer tries to befriend him, the more frustrated he becomes with him. Homer pulls out all the stops, one night inviting him to dinner at his home, where Frank finally decides to no longer hold back and speak his mind about Homer, in that he deserved nothing in life and is an utter fraud, before he declares him an "enemy."

At the SNPP, everyone continues to refuse to listen to Frank's concerns that Homer is someone he believes not poses an immediate risk to himself and fellow employees, but could, either by accident or negligence trigger a worldwide headline-making event (i.e., Homer's inability to stop a chain of events from happening to trigger an explosion that vaporizes Springfield and miles around and kills hundreds of thousands of people and sicken millions more). So Frank takes matters into his own hands by promoting to Homer a contest where entrants are invited to design a nuclear power plant ... intentionally redacting parts of the original flyer that said contest was intended for grade-school students.

In the end, Homer wins the "Design a Nuclear Power Plant" contest when Mr. Burns praises his derivative model. Grimes can't take it anymore and has a mental snap, running amok in the plant and behaving irrationally, imitating Homer's habits and going on a tirade about how he is a bad person, that the rules of life (seemingly) don't apply to him (Homer) and declaring everyone crazy for supporting him. The others try to get Frank to calm down but can't get near him as he runs amok and becomes even more worked up. Eventually, Frank spots a pair of exposed high-voltage wires, with a warning sign above them; Frank, having lost all touch with reality and common sense, declares he doesn't need safety gloves or take other precautions "because I'm Homer Simp ... " ... and is fatally electrocuted when he grabs the wires upon contact.

At the gravesite service for Grimes, Homer falls asleep, muttering "Marge, change the channel," evoking laughter from the Rev. Lovejoy and the other mourners as the coffin is lowered into the ground.

The subplot involves Bart wandering into foreclosure auction at the Springfield Courthouse, and his bid for buying an abandoned factory for $1 is not only taken seriously, it is the winning bid! Bart and Milhouse spend their days running amok at the plant, as though it were still operating. Eventually, the building collapses one night while Milhouse was on "night watch duty." The rats flee the collapsed factory building but quickly find a new home ... Moe's Tavern!

Arc Advancement

Happenings

• Despite being told in the Tracey Ullmann-era short "The Funeral" (aired nearly 10 years earlier) that they would never be allowed to go to a funeral again, Bart, Lisa and Maggie are among the mourners at Frank Grimes' funeral. Here, Bart behaves respectfully, unlike the short where after cackling with glee in anticipation of viewing a dead body he faints, and later where he attempts to "direct" the pallbearers carrying the casket to Hubert's grave site. Bart, Lisa and Maggie were also mourners at Maude Flanders' funeral in Season 11's "Alone Again, Natural-diddily" and multiple other episodes involving a funeral. The most common explanation of this plot change is that some of the situations from the Ullmann-era shorts were not considered canon and thus ignored when "The Simpsons" became a series.

Characters

• Frank Grimes: One of the most notable one-time characters in the series' run, Grimes was the episode's main anti-hero, a man who was constantly beset by bad luck and circumstances, and had to scratch and claw to get even a fraction of what others have. An already embittered Grimes is hired at Springfield Nuclear Power Plant as its executive vice president, but the job is suddenly given to someone else and instead he is assigned to work beside Homer. After slowly becoming more and more frustrated by Homer for various reasons, not all of it Homer's fault, an declaring Homer his "enemy," he pulls a stunt – getting Homer to enter the "Design a Nuclear Power Plant Contest" intended for children without telling him it's for elementary school students only – that would likely get him fired anywhere else. But the attempt to expose Homer as a fraud, an utter imbecile and someone who should be shunned by anyone with common sense fails, and Grimes to finally have a psychological snap, going on a rant about how the rules of life don't seem to apply to Homer and in the end, having lost all touch with reality and common sense, he is killed instantly when he touches a pair of high-voltage electrical wires. An author on the website TV Tropes interpreted the entire episode as "a repudiation of the Hard Work Fallacy," wherein Grimes bemoans how he's gotten little reward for a lifetime of hard work when he should have been justly rewarded, but two things work against him: 1. He fails to understand that Homer, in spite of himself (obvious lack of competence to do his job, poor judgment and so forth), had the needed people skills and ability to use his life experiences to compensate for his shortcomings; and 2. Grimes is overwhelmed with envy and jealousy over Homer seemingly "getting by" on sheer luck and the ignorance of others. In the end, his desperate attempt to validate himself by convincing Homer to enter the "Design a Nuclear Power Plant Contest" and expose him as a failure not only backfires but it is the final life experience to set off a psychological breakdown, and if he hadn't gotten electrocuted it is possible an episode of excited delirium would have either killed him or rendered him a vegetable. For certain, he was in severe need of long-term psychiatric counseling.

Trivia

Allusions and References

• Falling Down: The character of Frank Grimes is modeled after William Foster (played by Michael Douglas), a disillusioned, divorced father who recently lost his job as defense engineer and was estranged from his daughter. Much like how "Homer's Enemy" tracked Grimes' slow descent into insanity after his encounters with Homer and belief that nobody is willing to listen to him or take his concerns seriously, Falling Down followed the "everyman" Foster on his trek to reconnect with his daughter, slowly losing touch with reality as he deals with various situations with increasing irrationality and violence.
• Robert Fulghum: His famous essay "All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten" was the basis of the chalkboard gag, where Bart writes, "I did not learn everything I need to know in kindergarten."
• Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies: The satirical 1961 Warner Bros. short "Dog Gone People" has a plot where Elmer Fudd is promised a promotion to vice president of the (unnamed) company he works for, but the promotion is given to the CEO's dog instead, with Fudd instead reassigned to a job painting the flagpole (literally) high atop the corporate building. This mirrors the same luck for Frank Grimes, where after being promised the executive vice presidency of the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, he is immediately reassigned to a much lesser position, and a dog is instead ascended to the vice-presidency.
• Newhart: The final episode, "The Last Newhart," had a scene where Bob Newhart's character, Dick Loudon, grows increasingly frustrated by the eccentric townsfolk who have gathered at his bed-and-breakfast inn, and when the party grows too chaotic and nobody will listen to him, he has a psychiatric breakdown and goes on an irrational tirade ... before being hit in the head by an errant golf ball and is presumably killed. (That, before the scene dissolves into the famous bedroom scene and Bob Hartley (his character from "The Bob Newhart Show") revealing that he just had this wild dream ... .) This is similar to the penultimate scene where Frank Grimes loses his sanity after employees and the administration at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant outright refuse to listen to his concerns that Homer is a dangerously unqualified employee and a potential a safety threat to Springfield and the entire region, and an overall fraud and contemptible person ... and eventually is killed in an accident at the plant (by touching high-voltage wires).
• Richard Nixon's "enemies list": Homer's lament that Frank Grimes has declared him "his enemy" and Moe producing a list of names of people he (the tavern owner) hates is a nod to the 37th president's list of major political opponents against whom he hoped to gain revenge. (However, Moe's "list" is actually Nixon's ... until Moe hastily writes in Barney's name, just to be a jerk and because Barney pointed out whose list it actually was.)

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