Original subtitles

♪ ♪

As we embark on the sacred task of choosing a new pontiff,

let the Holy Spirit guide us.

In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.

BART: The Doge of Venice sends his regards,

you (bleep) papal stooge.

Choke on your own junk, Petrucci.

That'll teach you to exclude the Ecumenical Council,

you (bleep) papist lapdogs.

Throat cut. Head chop. Taste it.

(bleep), (bleep), (bleep).

(groans): Oh!

Where did you learn to talk like that?!

- Was it Selma? - Aw, honey,

we're just worried that this bloody, potty-mouthed game

- is turning your mind to... - To (bleep).

Oh, fine.

- Then can I play Future War: Death Guts? - No.

Future War 2: Brain Carnage?

No!

But then what do I play?

I have to play some game.

Of course you do.

MARGE: Do you like your new game, sweetie?

- No. - Do you want to stop playing?

- No. - Perfect.

That's right in the video game sweet spot.

I found that blocky game on a moms' group.

It's an online world where you learn to help, share,

and get virtual stickers for celebrating our differences.

(groans)

It's good for all ages,

so I'm also letting Maggie play.

Let me help you get set up.

I downloaded the instructions and... Oh.

I guess giving you that thing to shut you up at restaurants

really paid off.

MILHOUSE: And these bushy eyebrows

are the cherry on top of this hunk sundae. Uh-oh.

My nose is glitching.

Yeah, this stupid old computer is super glitchy.

Why is the flat screen so thick?

Is it also a microwave?

Look, I bought this mohawk with Bobux.

What the hell are Bobux?

It's the money you use in the game.

You buy it with your parents' credit card

so you can get skins, costumes, wigs,

even a dragon codpiece.

BART: Ah, you're the only person on Earth

who looks lamer in a mohawk.

See if this rando will buy it.

"I'll sell it for one Bobux."

(cash register rings)

MILHOUSE: Booyah!

BART: Well, that's weird.

You got the money, but you got another mohawk.

See if you can sell it again.

(cash register rings)

BART: Another one.

Whoa, it's like printing money.

It's probably 'cause we're playing

on this crappy old computer.

Don't they have these same old (bleep) Colecos

in the school computer lab?

(chuckles): They're even older and more crappy.

Then that glitch is gonna make us rich.

All we need to do is round up a bunch of nerds.

Nerds we got.

- (video game music playing) - (cash registers ringing)

(video game sound effects playing)

Wow, Maggie.

You really love this game, huh?

So involving. Hmm.

I'm gonna log in to see what's so fascinating.

Brought you some strawberries and bananas.

Oh, you like bananas but not strawberries.

Good to know. Wait!

You just talked! You're talking!

With tiny pictures! Do it again.

You hate broccoli.

Oh, my God, we're having our first conversation.

This is amazing.

I'm talking to my baby.

(gasps) Thank you, screen time.

Skinner, your school's test scores made the paper.

- Hmm? - The Chinese press is using them as proof

of the decline of the American educational system.

Well, we did have all that lead in the water fountain pipes.

Oh, lead, lead, lead.

Everything's always lead with you.

This school is a train wreck.

I want those numbers up, Seymour.

Get me a PowerPoint presentation Monday.

I'll have it done by Sunday night.

Don't ruin my weekend.

(sighs) Hmm.

Strange, the download rate is 87 megabytes per second.

We're paying for 91.

Better check the router.

Hmm?

Why aren't you students in class?

Um, we're playing Oregon Trail and no one's having a good time.

Hmm. I don't see any oxen with dysentery.

Milhouse, what's really going on here?

We found a video game glitch that makes money

and now Bart is the boss of a lucrative criminal enterprise!

You want strawberries or Nutella?

A crepe station?

Simpson, you are staring down the barrel

of a harshly-worded email to your parents.

That I will follow up on.

Seymour, walk with me.

Well, I do need 9,000 more steps.

I'm gonna be straight with you. We're printing money.

Yes, I saw Hubert's Rolex fidget-spinner.

Now, I know you'd never take any sketchy cash for yourself,

but what if we gave this train wreck of a school

a piece of the action?

I wish people would stop

calling this school a train wreck.

(exclaims)

(sighs)

Everyone else sees Seymour Skinner

as a broken-down sad-sack never-was in a cheap suit,

but I see a broken-down sad-sack never-was in a cheap suit

with a vision for this school,

a vision he never dared tell anyone about.

I do have a vision... no, no, a desperate prayer...

that could save this school.

Tell me everything.

♪ In my dream there's a theater ♪

♪ A theater so cool ♪

♪ They'll turn this dump ♪

♪ Into a magnet arts school ♪

♪ No testing to standardize ♪

♪ When all the kids are "dolls" and "guys" ♪

♪ Academic benchmarks cannot be exacting ♪

♪ When all you teach is dance and acting ♪

♪ If the baseball team's on a 12-game slide ♪

♪ We're not athletes, that's a point of pride ♪

♪ All you need is just one famous grad ♪

♪ An Idina Menzel or even one Josh Gad ♪

♪ No more STEM classes for this wide-eyed fool ♪

♪ Only fails and passes when this dump becomes ♪

♪ A magnet performing ♪

♪ Arts ♪

♪ School. ♪

Aah!

(groans) I'm in.

- (video game music playing) - (cash registers ringing)

Giving all these kids computer lab passes

for the rest of the term was a great idea.

Too bad we can't work after-school hours.

What if we say it's midnight basketball?

Ooh, Skinner, who knew you were such a devil?

Well, I learned from the best.

- Or should I say, the worst? - (chuckles)

So, how do you turn the game dollars into real dollars?

We use the Bobux to buy cucumbers

in the game Vegetable Crossing.

Then brine those into Pickle Pesos,

which convert ten-to-one in Delta miles,

then use those to buy Panda Express gift cards,

which you donate to Amnesty International,

then you can sell the tax credits

for cold, hard Danish kroner.

(speaks Danish)

MARGE: Now that we're finally talking,

there are so many things I've been dying

to chat with you about.

Like, what's your favorite animal?

Elephant!

And what do you want to be when you grow up?

An elephant doctor.

Aw!

(gasps) You love me.

Oh, Maggie!

Uh, Marge, you're in this game world all the time now,

so I'm trying to dry my pants in the microwave.

Should I set it on "potato" or "popcorn"?

Homie, Maggie just said "I love you" to me.

I never thought I'd hear it for the first time

in a massively multiplayer online roleplaying game,

but I'll never forget it.

Wait, in this game Maggie can talk?

There's so many things I've wanted to ask a baby.

Why do you make eye contact when you poop?

Do you remember when I lost you at Home Depot?

Where do faces go during peekaboo?

Maggie heart doughnut man?

But I'm doughnut man!

She loves me. She loves me!

One of my three kids loves me!

Whee...!

(laughs)

Stupid art school.

(grunts)

We're gonna have gum-proof floors,

acoustics that make second graders

sound like sixth graders.

And the ceiling's gonna be so high,

our resident opera ghoul won't bump his head on the rafters.

Ouch!

Seymour, where on earth did you find the money for this?

Um, look at the parent donation thermometer.

(chuckles)

Ah, well, the thermometer doesn't lie.

You wanted to see me, sir?

- We both wanted to see you. - Martin,

when you run a business, as we are,

you need a product and a market

and a workforce that isn't full of...

- Jive-ass snitches. - I'm sorry?

We've heard you're gonna sing to your parents about this...

victimless thing of ours.

I-I have signed a mutual honesty compact with them.

Oh, look, your report card.

Beautiful little A you've got here.

(whimpers)

Would be a shame if something happened to it.

God, no!

You sick bastard.

Okay, okay. I'll keep your dirty video game secret.

Oh, man is wolf to man.

(cries)

Skinner, are you feeling this?

I know it's insane, but we're like a team.

Working together, shared interests,

we're more than a team.

We're colleagues.

Would you like to put your feet up on my desk

as we daydream about our goals?

(helicopter blades whirring)

(chuckles)

(both sigh)

And top salesperson of the day goes to...

Sherri, who unloaded 150 rainbow mohawks

at ten Bobux a pop.

(cheering)

Couple more days like that,

and you're getting the trip to Honolulu.

(gasps)

This is new.

An ice cream truck.

Wait, they're shooting ice cream at us.

(grunting)

BART: It's an ice cream drive-by. Run!

(Milhouse panting)

Oh, no. It's a trap.

(Bart yells)

Not unicorns.

They're my second-favorite magical horse.

JIMBO: "Boblox belongs to us."

People, looks like we've got ourselves a turf war.

(grunting)

- Bad news, we've got competition. - Who?

The Sunflower gang's IP address belongs to some place called...

Limitless Frontier Horizons.

Hmm, what do you know?

The Montessori School.

Check out the fancy groundskeepers.

Those aren't groundskeepers. They're parent volunteers.

Pay for tuition, then work for free.

What a racket.

(grumbles)

Good morning, Principal Skinner.

Hello, "kids-call-you-Sandra."

Um... (clears throat) maybe you're not aware of this,

but, uh, some of your students have been interfering

with some of my kids', um, independent study project.

Ooh, I'd love to help, but our curriculum is student-led.

So if their passion is the monetization of coding errors,

it's part of our core belief system that I support them.

That's, uh, progressive school mumbo jumbo for "screw you."

You can't tell me you want war with us.

Um, well, "can't" is a word we don't use here.

We also don't say "don't." We just can't.

Are you even in charge?

No! I just send out emails

trying to convince parents there's a plan to all this.

Oh, please come to our silent auction next week.

One of our dads is Drake.

He'll emcee but not perform.

(sighs) That'll be all, Sandra.

Oh, that is a really nice tower, Truth-Anne.

Yeah, yeah, they're all nice.

Let's take a walk.

Let me show you what I've built here.

From day one, these curiosity seekers have been told

they can succeed at anything they set their mind to.

Do you think you can win against that unbreakable,

unearned self-confidence?

Look, there's room in the Boblox scam for both of us.

You take the gumdrop fields and teddy bear bouncy rooms.

We keep the penguin fun land and the mushroom castles.

Well, sharing is one of the habits of the heart.

We accept.

(chuckles) Can you excuse us for a moment?

What the hell are you doing?

What? We had to make a deal.

With only half the money, there's no revolving stage,

no flying wire harness system.

Good luck doing Angels in America.

We can't go to war with these psychos.

Their self-esteem is off the charts.

Take the deal.

(groans)

So, fellow lifelong learners, do we have an understanding?

Yes, uh, we have an understanding.

Understand this:

"When you come at the king, you best not miss."

(chuckles): You're going to quote The Wire to me?

My dad directed three episodes in the dockyards season.

That season was slow, and also:

This. Is. War.

(groans)

Look, we can still get a deal with these guys.

- Let's just go back in there and... - You're out.

- What? - You don't have the stones

for the mohawk trade.

You can't fire me.

You're right, people who are fired get a severance.

You get nothing.

This is my grift. I brought you in.

It's all in the game, son.

All in the video game game.

Those self-esteem punks are gunning for us.

I need a ruthless, bloodthirsty general.

- Milhouse, you're up. - (spits, coughs)

Me? But what about Bart?

(scoffs) He's history,

and this school doesn't teach history.

Do it and you'll never have to play dodgeball again.

And I get the pretty teacher for fifth grade.

- Mrs. McCarthy? - You know who I'm talking about.

Mm. Ms. Tanaka.

Let's hit these sunflowers where it hurts.

They steal our princess tiaras, we kill their unicorns.

They strangle our gnomes,

we glitter-bomb their pumpkin patch.

So get out there and paint the streets

with the blood of tomorrow's leaders.

ASTRID AND FRENCH FRY: Let's talk Boblox!

Hey, everybody! It's me, Astrid.

And it's me, French Fry!

- Hi, Astrid. - Hi, French Fry.

Have you been seeing all this craziness in Boblox?

It's so crazy.

The Springfield kids were selling mohawks,

but so were the Montessori Sunflower kids,

so they got in a gang war.

Everyone is being so grouchy, makes me sad.

Check out what happened to the Springfield kids

at the Candyland.

I like bears, but this one looks mean.

(growling)

- Aah! - Ew. He was mean.

You are always right about bears.

Don't ever rip me in half, French Fry.

(gasps) I would never, Astrid.

BOTH: Online friends forever!

Oh, look, it's a fashion show.

I love fashion shows.

This Nelson guy looks so cute in a vest.

Cutie alert!

Ouch. That Sunflower kid is stabbing him.

Stabbing's for jerks.

The Springfield gang is getting wiped out.

Astrid, why are candy canes only for Christmas?

Great question.

Subscribers, post your theories.

No racist stuff, you guys.

BOTH: Bye!

HOMER: We did it. We made our house in Boblox.

Aw, I wish Lisa were here, too.

Guys, you've been in this game so long

that, out in the real world,

the lawn is overgrown, Bart bought a Lexus,

and I had to go to my own parent-teacher conference.

Turns out I'm a joy to have in class and I might need glasses.

Guess what, honey. Maggie talks in here.

Whoa, Maggie, you're communicating using only emojis,

like an old person trying to act like a teenager.

Ha! And, Dad, you're not at Moe's?

Why would I be at Moe's

when we can play volleyball with my head?

(grunts)

- Whee! - (laughter)

Who would have thought that our family would be happiest

inside a video game?

HOMER: It's heaven, and it's all from the comfort

of my real-life toilet.

♪ My dream of a theater ♪

♪ Has turned out so cool ♪

♪ The moment has come for my magnet ♪

♪ Performing arts school. ♪

We're getting butchered everywhere!

Good God. What about our revenue stream?

They've taken it all.

Hmm. I'm gonna show these kids

something they have no idea exists:

the real world!

(grunts)

Ah, stupid Skinner.

I'm done trying to make money out of nothing.

I'm going all in on NFTs.

(phone chimes)

(groans)

(gasps) Apathetic face emoji?

Arts school!

He's destroyed the community wasabi garden.

He's heading for the computer lab.

What kind of nurturing is this?

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

Out of my way.

Don't do this, Seymour.

Oh, I'm doing it.

If I crush their computer lab, we beat these psychos.

Look at yourself. You're about to bulldoze a school.

They took Daddy's money...

(engine revving)

...and I'm the daddy!

What's happening? We're in unchartered school territory.

(clucks)

I've spent the best years of your life

trying to drive you insane,

and now I don't want that.

This isn't you. You're not a psycho.

You're lame, like unfrosted cornflakes.

But I want to be Lucky Charms.

It's okay. Corn Flakes is a surprisingly good cereal.

But crushing this kombucha academy,

that'll ruin your life.

And being partners with you has made me realize

you're... a human being.

No, I'm not.

You are. Walk away.

But I already rented the costumes for Seussical.

It was never meant to be.

But... Josh Gad.

Josh Gad is not real.

He never was.

(sighs) Right, of course he's not.

(backup alarm beeping)

Maybe there's a teachable moment here.

In a sense, the bulldozer is Anglo-Saxon privilege.

You're fired, Sandra.

Oh, thank you!

Come on, let's head to Krusty Burger.

I'll buy you a shake

and you can tell me about your other stupid dreams

that will never happen.

No, Bart, I'm done living in a fantasy world,

because a fantasy world is no place to live.

Sorry to bother you, neighborinos, but, uh,

the newspapers have been stacking up on your porch.

I just thought I'd peek in and give you a lookie-loo.

Hello?

Mm...

(whimpers)

Captioning sponsored by 20th CENTURY FOX TELEVISION

and FOX BROADCASTING COMPANY

and TOYOTA.

Captioned by Media Access Group at WGBH access.wgbh.org

("Way Down in the Hole" by The Blind Boys of Alabama playing)

♪ If you walk through the garden ♪

♪ You better watch your back ♪

♪ Well, I beg your pardon ♪

♪ Walk a straight and narrow track ♪

♪ If you walk with Jesus ♪

♪ He'll save your soul ♪

♪ You gotta keep the devil ♪

♪ Down in the hole ♪

♪ All the angels sing ♪

♪ About Jesus' mighty sword ♪

♪ And they'll shield you with their wings ♪

♪ Keep you close to the Lord. ♪

Shh!