The Simpsons: Halloween of Horror recap

In the first ever Halloween episode of The Simpsons that’s not part of the Treehouse of Horror series, Lisa has a bad experience while at Krustyland and Homer winds up getting some seasonal employees fired.

It’s the day before Halloween which means the Simpsons are out decorating their house. Homer and Marge go all out and in a play on their address, they give it the title of “Everscream Terrors.” After turning the lights on, Ned Flanders comes by and asks if they’re gonna head to the treehouse and tell three terrifying tales. Homer brushes him off by saying they’ll do that next week. He leaves and the Simpsons remark that more and more people are pretending they aren’t home on Halloween.

After condemning anyone who could reject a holiday where you can serve candy from a salad bowl, Homer makes a run to the Halloween pop up store. They run into Apu who manages it on a seasonal basis along with his young employees who occasionally get high off glow sticks and silly string. One of them offers Homer a deal at the store’s expense and while Homer accepts it, he also inadvertently reveals it to Apu. He immediately fired them all and they tell Homer that he’ll be sorry for that.

Later that night Homer takes Lisa and Bart to the annual Halloween Horror Night at Krustyland. As Lisa is finally old enough, that means it’s her first year. She’s thrilled to go, but finds out quickly that it’s a lot scarier than she imagined. Homer convinces to stay, but she gets lost and eventually gets so scared that park security finds her and shuts down the event in keeping with their protocol.

On Halloween the following day Lisa is reluctant to celebrate the holiday. The decorations at school bring back memories of the night before and she eventually panics and hides in a locker until Marge gets her and brings her home. She also suggests that Homer take down the decorations, an idea he refuses. But when he sees how she’s resumed using a childhood toy to calm her down, Homer agrees to take down the decorations, which Bart hates. But Marge mollifies him by agreeing to take him Trick-or-treating to the biggest block party around.

But while Homer tries to spend a non-holiday related evening with Lisa, the fired Halloween store employees come knocking at the door while wearing masks, but no costume. He sees who it is and sharply dismisses them. But when they ring the doorbell a second time they leer at Homer while standing under a street light.

Marge and Bart arrive at the block party, but it turns out that it’s residents only and despite Marge’s best efforts, they are made to turn around and go home. Bart comments that this year he’s missed Halloween, while back at the Simpson house Homer resolves to not let Lisa know the angry ex-employees are stalking the house. He eventually takes her to the Flanders’ house, but she goes running back when she finds that she left behind her childhood toy. Homer runs after her and the two are eventually met by the three ex-employees and their fog machine.

They run to the attic and hide while Marge tries to come up with an idea to save the evening for Bart. But it’s too late as the houses all go dark for Trick-or-treating and the adults all come out for their one night of fun (while singing a parody of “Time Warp” from The Rocky Horror Picture Show).

The store employees begin trashing the house and Homer admits to Lisa that while he is scared, you can’t let fear shut down your brain because between the two of them, she had the good one. This makes Lisa come up with an idea to use the Halloween decorations in the attic to signal for help. The two use some Halloween lights to climb on the roof and light 4th of July fireworks to wake up the neighborhood. Since it’s windy, Lisa uses her old childhood toy to light the fuse and the fireworks get the attention of the entire town.

After the partying adults arrest the ex-store employees, Marge, Bart, and Maggie return home to see the entire town at the Simpson house (which is now fully decorated again). Lisa’s holiday spirit has also returned, while Kang and Kodos comment that the episode is not their usual holiday experience. But it turns out to be just Lenny and Carl in costume and the episode ends with Maggie restoring Lisa’s old toy and hugging it, while the theme from Halloween plays.