Suddenly, two anonymous masked and voice-modulated hackers hijack the broadcast and proceed to play clips that paint the show in a bad or shocking light.
Among such scenes include Lenny being a figment of Carl's imagination, a middle-aged Bart traveling back to the first episode and telling the family about future events in order to astound the world with their predictions, Martin actually being an adult married man with a family working as an undercover cop at Springfield Elementary, and Homer waking up from a coma after his fall down Springfield Gorge.
The scene then shifts back to the end of the Boy Explorers episode, where Bart and Lisa, having somehow gotten lost in the woods during the broadcast interruption, manage to make their way out safe but scared by the experience, and Homer and Marge reveal that they almost got divorced over a small and insignificant matter but were able to get over it quickly.
[4] Advance promotion for the episode only referenced the Boy Explorers storyline, but noted Anna Faris' guest role as a female hacker.
Showrunner Matt Selman, after being questioned about the similarities between Ashley the female hacker and the avatar used by the YouTuber The Simpsons Theory, stated that "I feel like this is an example of magical cosmic osmosis but who knows?
[3] Buoyed in part by a Fox NFL doubleheader game as its lead-in in much of the country, the episode was watched by 3.43 million U.S. viewers during its initial broadcast, per Nielsen estimates.
"[11] Conversely, Marcus Gibson of Bubbleblabber gave the episode a 2 out of 10, deeming the premise a "tiring fourth-wall-breaking joke that wore out its welcome after the first few minutes," and concluding that "the overall experience was one of the most disappointing things to happen to The Simpsons.