You Only Move Twice

Smithers is offered a job at the Globex Corporation but turns it down. Being the next-longest tenured employee of the plant, Homer gets the job. He informs his family that the new job pays better but involves them moving to Cypress Creek. The family initially opposes the move, but they watch a video about the planned community and, seeing that it is much nicer than Springfield, agree to move there. Abandoning their house, the Simpsons pack up and leave town. In Cypress Creek, Homer's new boss, Hank Scorpio, stops by the family's new house to introduce himself. Scorpio takes a shine to Homer and makes him the chief motivator in the nuclear division. Meanwhile, Bart starts school, but he soon finds that his new class is far above the standards of Springfield Elementary and is sent to a remedial education class. Lisa goes for a nature walk and discovers she is allergic to all the wildlife around Cypress Creek. Marge tries to go about her daily chores, but discovers that the house has an automated system to do chores for her. Marge loses her sense of purpose and begins drinking wine. On Homer's first day at work, Scorpio gives him a tour of the company and listens with interest to his secret dream of owning the Dallas Cowboys football team. He tells Homer that his dream may come true someday. Homer does an excellent job of motivating his team. During a meeting with Homer, Scorpio excuses himself, turns to a screen, and threatens the United Nations Security Council by saying they have 72 hours to deliver an unspecified amount of gold or face the consequences via a doomsday device, and blows up the 59th Street Bridge as proof of his capabilities. Homer remains oblivious to Scorpio's supervillainous tendencies, which include work on the aforementioned doomsday device and attempting to kill his arch-nemesis, Mr. Bont, with a laser. Bont escapes, Homer tackles him, and Scorpio praises Homer. Scorpio's guards shoot Bont. At dinner, Homer proudly tells the family how well he is doing at work, but he discovers they hate Cypress Creek and want to return to Springfield. Dejected, Homer visits Scorpio for advice while the United States Army Special Forces assault Globex HQ. Scorpio advises Homer to do what's best for his family. Scorpio straps on a flamethrower and holds his ground while Homer sadly walks away, kicking a grenade in the process. The next day, the family returns to Springfield, and Homer receives the Denver Broncos as a present from Scorpio, who has successfully managed to seize the East Coast of the United States. ==Production==

The episode, along with "El Viaje Misterioso de Nuestro Jomer", was produced for the seventh season. The episode's original concept came from a story idea by Greg Daniels. The writing staff came up with three major concepts. The first involves the Simpson family moving away from Springfield. The writers initially hoped the audience would be fooled into thinking the move was permanent. As a result, they tried to work in as many characters during the episode's first act to make it seem that the family was really leaving. The second involved Homer getting a new job with an employee-friendly boss—in stark contrast to the tyrannical Mr. Burns. The third was that Homer's new boss would be a supervillain resembling Ernst Stavro Blofeld. This element was meant to be in the background, unbeknownst to Homer. There was originally another idea involving Grampa Simpson. He is left behind in Springfield and receives recorded greeting phone calls from the family. The plot went on for four sequences, all of which were cut from the episode because of time constraints but were later included in the DVD release. The show's writers did not worry too much about perfecting Scorpio's lines because they knew Albert Brooks, who was voice acting the character, would rewrite or ad lib most of them. The animators needed to design completely new sets for the episode. Christian Roman, John Reiss and Mike Anderson storyboarded the episode. In the original animatic, Santa's Little Helper and Snowball II were not present, so the animators went back and added them, even though they are not a part of the story. It is a common misconception that Scorpio's design was modeled after Richard Branson. ==Cultural references==

At the beginning of the episode, Waylon Smithers hums "I work for Monty Burns, M-M-M-M-M-M-Monty Burns" to the tune of "Hooray for Hollywood". The sign at the elementary school displays http://www.studynet.edu. Weinstein called it "one of the show's most obviously dated jokes" because the idea of a school having its own website was almost a novelty in 1996. She can be seen attacking a character modeled after U.S. Army General Norman Schwarzkopf. The writers wanted the song to be sung by Shirley Bassey, who sang several Bond themes, but they could not get her to record the part. ==Reception==

, who voiced the character of Hank Scorpio After its original broadcast, "You Only Move Twice" finished 50th in the Nielsen ratings for the week of October 28 – November 3, 1996, with a rating of 8.5, equivalent to approximately 8.2 million viewing households. It was the second highest-rated show on the Fox network that week, following The X-Files. Since airing, the episode has received universal acclaim from fans and television critics. In 2006, IGN named Brooks The Simpsons best guest star citing Scorpio as his best role. The Phoenix.com also placed Brooks at the top of their best guest voices list of Simpsons characters. In his book Planet Simpson, author Chris Turner says Brooks is second only to Phil Hartman among the show's guest stars writing that he "brings hilarious satirical seamlessness to Scorpio's paradoxical nature". He believes the delivery of Scorpio's final line—"But Homer, on your way out if you wanna kill somebody, it would help me a lot."—seals Brooks's place in The Simpsons history. The Simpson family's new street address, 15201 Maple Systems Road, is writer Ken Keeler's favorite street name in the show. Reviewer Robert Canning gave the episode a "Masterful" score of ten out of ten, saying the episode "may well be the greatest Simpsons episode of all time". Gary Russell and Gareth Roberts, authors of the book ''I Can't Believe It's a Bigger and Better Updated Unofficial Simpsons Guide'', called it "a tremendous episode" saying it has "some really good moments, most of them involving Bart, Lisa, and Marge's loathing for Cypress Creek. The remedial kids are fab (especially Warren), and Lisa's second chipmunk encounter is inspired. Scorpio is a good character, especially his Christopher Walken-esque killing spree." They named the owl grabbing the chipmunk during Lisa's trip to the forest one of the greatest sight gags in the show's history. In his review of The Complete Eighth Season DVD set, Raul Burriel described it as one of the "most clever episodes the series has ever given us". Entertainment.ie named it among the 10 greatest Simpsons episodes of all time. In 2019, Consequence of Sound ranked it number seven on its list of top 30 Simpsons episodes. In 2020, Al Jean acknowledged "You Only Move Twice" as an episode many consider a favorite. In The A.V. Club, Erik Adams called it one of the best episodes of the season. He praises the climactic scene: "It's as good an approximation of this type of James Bond sequence as you'll see outside of the first Austin Powers movie, with the added twist that Homer's resignation holds our attention better than any cauldron of scalding-hot green liquids. Character and relationship holds sway—even when one of those characters is strapping on a flamethrower." ==References==