The chain's corporate office fires Apu and replaces him with actor James Woods, who is doing research for an upcoming film role.

Kent gives Homer a giant novelty hat containing a spy camera to expose Apu for selling expired food.

Apu is fired by corporate headquarters — despite complying with their unsanitary food-handling policies — and is replaced by actor James Woods, who is doing research for a role in an upcoming film.

Apu hopes to work off his karmic debt for selling Homer expired food by performing household chores for the Simpsons.

Grateful for Apu's heroism, Woods gives him his job back and leaves to "battle aliens on a faraway planet", which is implied to be a real-life situation rather than preparation for another movie.

[1] The Simpsons writers Al Jean and Mike Reiss, who were show runners during the previous two seasons, pitched the premise.

[2] In an interview with the Chicago Tribune, Mirkin stated that when he took over the show, he wanted to "bring it back" to character and story; unlike the previous season, which got "so fast-moving and so full of cutaway gags".

Michael Caine was originally supposed to be the actor in the episode who takes over Apu's job at the Kwik-E-Mart, but he rejected the role.

[2] When the season was in production, producer Bill Oakley wrote on the online fan forum alt.tv.simpsons that David Bowie was being considered for the guest role in this episode.

[2] Silverman noted that in addition to his humorous ad-libbing, Woods's tendency to hesitate while speaking was "great for animation", explaining that it made the character feel more realistic.

The authors of the book I Can't Believe It's a Bigger and Better Updated Unofficial Simpsons Guide, Warren Martyn and Adrian Wood, wrote: "One of the very best, with the gags coming thick and fast.

We particularly like the spy camera concealed in Homer's massive stetson, Apu and Marge's trip to the Monster Mart, and 'Who Needs the Kwik-E-Mart?

song number; James Woods filling in for Apu at the store; or Homer's wise line 'I've learned that life is one crushing defeat after another until you just wish Flanders was dead' — but the entire affair is inspired.

[19] The episode has become study material for sociology courses at University of California Berkeley, where it is used to "examine issues of the production and reception of cultural objects".

[20] In the book Leaving Springfield, Duncan Beard said the episode served as a parody of the peculiarities of the American convenience store.

Beard particularly cited the Muzak and the dinging bell as Homer and Apu entered the Kwik-E-Mart in India, and the sign that read, "The Master Knows All (except combination to safe)".

Beard said, "Here the show presents its own instance of the global culture of consumer capitalism, transplanted intact and indistinguishably unaltered from the suburbs of America to a mountain top in some indefinable region of the post-partitioned Commonwealth nation of India, purely for the purpose of parodically criticizing the banality of quick-stop stores.

"[21] Paul Cantor, who analyzed the episode in his book Gilligan Unbound: Pop Culture in the Age of Globalization, said, "The Simpsons could offer no better image of the bizarre logic of contemporary globalization than a worldwide convenience store empire run by an enlightened guru from the sacred mountains of India."

Cantor also specifically cited the "Master Knows" sign, which he said combined the perceived wisdom of the East with the business acumen of the West.