Thank God It's Doomsday

Infobox Simpsons episode
episode_name = Thank God It's Doomsday
episode_no = 354
prod_code = GABF14
airdate = May 8, 2005
writer = Don Payne
director = Michael Marcantel
blackboard = None
couch_gag = Everyone in the family looks like Moe Szyslak--including the female members.
guest_star =


image_caption = Jesus on the swing in Heaven.
season = 16
"Thank God It's Doomsday" is the nineteenth episode of "The Simpsons"' sixteenth season. The episode aired on May 8, 2005, in the US.

Plot

Hiding from bad haircuts and picture taking classmates, Bart and Lisa drag Homer into the movies. They see "Left Below", a parody of "Left Behind". Homer comes to fear that the Rapture is coming. Marge comforts Homer by telling him that the Rapture would not go unannounced. Homer is won over by her reassurance.

The next day, as Homer drives around Springfield in his car, he sees the devil (actually a man in an advertising costume) and blood falling from the sky (actually from an injured whale hanging from a helicopter), which he takes as signs that the Rapture is coming. He uses nonsensical numerology to calculate the date and time, finding that it is only a week away.

As he goes around Springfield, Homer predicts that stars will fall from the sky, with Kent Brockman reporting on this, and indeed they do when there is a blimp accident at the "Krusty Celebrity Salute to Specials" special. This causes many of Springfield's residents to believe that Homer is right in predicting that at 3:15 p.m. on May 18th, the apocalypse will come, and so the believers follow him to the Springfield Mesa to wait for it. However, the predicted hour passes without incident, and the dismayed citizens go home. All of them are annoyed at Homer, particularly Moe, who had sold his tavern to a Japanese sushi bar. Homer goes home and starts throwing away the books he bought, but suddenly realizes he has made an error in his calculations: there were 13 people at the last supper, not twelve. His new prediction is for 3:15 a.m. on May 19th, but since he can't convince his family to come with him again, he returns to the mesa alone. When nothing happens at first he thinks that he is wrong again, but the next moment he is naked and floating through space.

Homer arrives in Heaven, where the tour guide dresses him despite Homer being comfortable naked ("because this is Heaven for 'everyone'"). They fly past several heavenly places including a waterslide which will not be available for another year (thanks to Heaven's using Leprechaun labor). The tour guide informs Homer that whatever he wishes for comes true, so he promptly makes the guide's head explode, causing the tour guide to put Homer next to the kiddie pool.

Since his family would not follow him to the mesa, he asks if he can see them on the big TV screen in his luxurious room. Marge and the kids are shown being tormented by the devil. He has a talk with God about saving his family. When God refuses to help, due to the fact of what happened to Jesus by the Crucifixion, Homer assures Him that He just made a powerful enemy. Homer runs around trashing Heaven, trying to change God's mind, and gets stopped by security. God finally agrees to undo the Rapture by turning back time (because, Homer points out, "Superman did it"). God incants, "Deus ex machina". Homer later wakes up on the mesa and is reunited with Marge, Bart and Lisa. He suspects that it was all a dream, but the fact that his final wish was granted (Moe's Tavern having been restored) indicates that the events were real. The final scene in the tavern parodies the painting "The Last Supper".

Cultural references

*The song playing when Homer is throwing away his books on the Rapture is Three Dog Night's version of Easy To Be Hard from the musical Hair.
*In the barber shop at the beginning of the episode, a song similar to Who Let the Dogs Out is playing.
*God's Chair is a Aeron chair manufactured by Herman Miller of Zeeland, Michigan.
*Among the deceased seen in heaven are Leonardo DaVinci and Dean Martin.
*Charlie Brown is shown for the fourth time. The first time he was seen in his ghost costume in Treehouse of Horror II, the second time a candle version of him was seen in Grade School Confidential and the third time as a costume in Treehouse of Horror XIV.
*The song played as Homer enters heaven is "The Flower Duet" from the opera "Lakmé" by Léo Delibes.
*Homer suddenly realizing that his Rapture dating methods are wrong by means of simple calculating errors is a reference to William Miller's 1843 prediction of the Rapture. After Miller was originally proven wrong, he changed his prediction to a later date, only to be proven wrong again and lose almost all support from his followers in an event known as the Great Disappointment.
*The abstract painting above the bed in Heaven resembles the works of Piet Mondrian.
*When God turns backs time, he exclaims "deus ex machina". This literary machinism is used ironically because it means "to abruptly resolve a conflict".
*The final shot of the episode, with Homer and his friends in Moe's bar, echoes the Da Vinci fresco, "The Last Supper".