“The Simpsons” mix things up and turn their horror sensibilities towards Thanksgiving in an anthology episode that’s both funny and frightening.
When you’ve been on television for over 30 years and turned out over 600 episodes, it’s not unusual to want to experiment with form and take some swings. In its more recent years, The Simpsons has attempted left turns like doing a conventional Halloween episode rather than purely a “Treehouse of Horror” episode. The Simpsons takes a similar risk here by turning Thanksgiving into another centerpiece for horror. There was once a time when this series treated Thanksgiving as a cathartic time for Bart to learn lessons about family, but we’re now at the opposite end of the spectrum. That being said, not only is “Thanksgiving of Horror” very funny, but as far as recent Simpsons episodes (and even “Treehouse of Horror” installments) are concerned, it’s a stronger entry in the series.
“Thanksgiving of Horror” very wryly begins in a moment of self-parody as it evokes the setting and atmosphere of the show’s earliest “Treehouse of Horror” efforts. Marge jokes about how the obligations and responsibilities of Thanksgiving can be a frightening thing, but her cursory warning that we now just generally live in dark times where everything is depressing and overwhelming does ring true. Make no mistake, this episode doesn’t try to tap into some deeper social commentary, but it does create a surprisingly poignant introduction to help segue into this anthology experiment when it just as easily could have done nothing at all.
Some of the later entries in the “Treehouse of Horror” series have lost their punch or embraced crazier ideas due to how there have been over two-dozen of these installments. Thankfully, “Thanksgiving of Horror” doesn’t suffer from this fatigue and manages to come up with some engaging stories that effectively balance silliness with slaughtering. This is perhaps best demonstrated in the episode’s first story, “A-Gobble-Ypto.” This is a tremendously bizarre idea that riffs on Mel Gibson’s battle epic, Apocalypto. The unique angle here is that the Simpson family and a good deal of Springfield become turkeys, while the rest of the town are rampaging pilgrims who are on the hunt during the very first Thanksgiving.
To this story’s credit, “A-Gobble-Ypto” plays out mostly without dialogue and is instead filled with the incessant warbles of turkeys. Just like in Apocalypto, all of this silliness is juxtaposed with abject carnage. It’s a little jarring to watch turkey versions of the Simpsons get their heads blown apart and become reduced to viscera. There are some especially brutal explosions here and a number of graphic beheadings, but it’s this heightened gore that helps make this story stand out. Also Helen Lovejoy’s, “Won’t somebody think of the Pilgrims?” makes this whole thing worthwhile.
“The Fourth Thursday After Tomorrow” is perhaps the weakest of the three installments, but it does verge into what’s eerily the most plausible territory as it plays around with A.I. Homer gets Marge a virtual A.I. assistant for the kitchen, but what initially seems like an advantage soon turns into something more sinister. The episode builds off of the idea that systems like Alexa get to thoroughly learn who you are, yet this goes one step further where the A.I. inside Marge’s kitchen assistant is actually a tiny virtual version of her. This turns into a fascinating struggle where Marge is competing against herself as Homer becomes more drawn to this less complex and “easier” version of his wife. It raises some scary concerns about where technology is headed and it actually succeeds in being thoughtful with its resolution. It’s also just an exceptionally strong Marge story by all accounts.
“The Last Thanksgiving” is the final entry in the episode and it shifts the focus to Bart, Lisa, and Springfield’s younger generation who wake up from their cryo-sleep on a space shuttle. “The Last Thanksgiving” initially feels like it might be playing around in Ender’s Game territory, but soon an innocent gesture to conjure the familiarity of a Thanksgiving dinner throws the crew of the ship in danger. “The Last Thanksgiving” is like a combination of both The Blob and Alien in the best possible ways. A gelatinous cylinder of cranberry sauce gains sentience and tries to steal the bones of everyone on board. The way in which this entity rips the bones out of its victims and reduces them to empty skin husks is genuinely disturbing. This manner of execution is much more upsetting than if it simply ate or murdered them. The way in which Martin pleasurably sacrifices himself to the growing mass is also particularly eerie.
“Thanksgiving of Horror” is absolutely one of the goriest and most graphic installments of The Simpsons, even in terms of their crazier non-canonical entries. In spite of the copious carnage and bloodshed that’s on display here, this oddly feels just as much like it’s a showcase for science fiction as it is for horror. Granted, previous “Treehouse of Horror” entries have included sci-fi in their larger umbrella for horror, but it almost feels like this is The Simpsons’ take on Black Mirror more than anything else. This is most rampant in the episode’s second installment, “The Fourth Thursday After Tomorrow,” which doesn’t try to hide these comparisons, but there’s a heavy sci-fi flair in the final story, too. This isn’t a negative thing, but if there are future “Thanksgiving of Horror” entries it should be interesting to see which genre it skews towards more.
“Thanksgiving of Horror” is a wonderfully fun installment of The Simpsons that is worth checking out even if you’ve been sleeping on the series for the better part of a decade. Dan Vebber, one of the stronger writers of both Futurama and The Simpsons is responsible for the episode’s script and he gives it his all here. It’s an entertaining episode that would make a fine addition to anyone’s Thanksgiving (or Halloween) viewing lists. There’s such an obvious amount of love and joy that went into this production; one of the best little touches is that all of the crew names in the credits are changed to food puns, rather than the spooky ones that are done for Halloween.
It’s unclear if “Thanksgiving of Horror” will remain a one-off fluke or if The Simpsons will attempt “Christmas of Horror” or “Mother’s Day of Horror” in the future. However, this endeavor is enough of a success and the material feels different enough from their Halloween fare that it will hopefully turn into a tradition for The Simpsons. More annual excuses for horror is never a bad thing.
