The Simpsons: Season 24, Episode 18: 'Pulpit Friction'

“The Simpsons”, season 24, episode 18, “Pulpit Friction”

The Simpson family breaks their beloved couch, and Homer orders a new one via the internet. The couch is shipped from Brooklyn, New York, and manages to pick up a nice infestation of bed bugs on its way. The bed bugs tag along on Bart’s friends’ clothes after a sleepover, and they soon infest the entire town of Springfield.

The residents are in a state of panic, and turn to the church for answers. The people all start pointing fingers, trying to pass the blame. Reverend Lovejoy begins a sermon, trying to calm the masses, but it just makes it worse.

As the people argue more, the Parson pays a visit, and he happened to bring a back-up minister (voiced by Edward Norton). He quickly calms and woes the congregation with his pop culture references. They love him, much to Lovejoy’s chagrin.

The entire town is fumigated, and Marge sent all of the clothing in the house to be dry-cleaned, but as she unpacks one of the boxes, she notices that her wedding dress is missing. In its place, she finds one of Krusty’s costumes. She rushes to find him.

She visits Krusty in the studio, and he says that he found the dress, and they used it in a sketch, but he threw it away afterwards, stating there was no further use for it.

At Moe’s, the new Reverend stops by for a visit. He gets to know Homer, who becomes increasingly drunk and honest about his opinions on the church. The Reverend decides to ask Homer to be his new Deacon, because if he can get the guy who sleeps through church to be his guy, the town would realize that religion can be fun. Homer agrees.

Meanwhile, Marge laments the loss of her dress. Lisa asks why it bothers her so much, and Marge says she planned to give Lisa the dress for her wedding. Lisa laughs and says she doesn’t plan on ever getting married. Marge can hardly believe it. She asks Homer to convince her to get married.

 In church, the new Reverend introduces Homer as his new Deacon, and Reverend Lovejoy is aghast at the thought, and realizes that there’s no place for him at the church anymore and leaves.

Lisa informs Marge that she tracked down her wedding dress using police work. She takes Marge to it; a woman is wearing it at her wedding. Marge loves that Lisa found it for her, and she is happy seeing someone getting married in it, and tells Lisa that she doesn’t need to get married.

Homer really gets into his new gig, but Bart can’t understand why, since Homer hates church. Bart asks Homer if he wants to moon the Oogle Street View cams with him, but he refuses. Bart overhears Ned Flanders complaining about the new Reverend, and they decide to work together to get Reverend Lovejoy back.

They track down the Reverend and find him selling hot tubs. They ask him to come back, but he says he’s not cut out for it. Flanders and Bart leave, discouraged. As Flanders complains in the car, he gives Bart an idea on how to drive the Reverend away.

Bart and Milhouse collect all the dead bed bugs from the town and leave a trail from the swamp into town, hoping to infest the town with a frog plague. Their plan works. The citizens all rush to the church, demanding the Reverend help them. But when he can’t, Reverend Lovejoy shows up to save the day. His boring sermons cause all the frogs to fall asleep.

That day at church, Homer and Bart skip out to moon the Oogle Street View cams together.