Carolyn Omine

When a fire at the retirement home forces Grampa to move back in with the Simpsons, Homer throws out his back on moving day. While "resting" at home, he gets hooked on the super-addictive tablet game, "Villageville." And, in his distraction, he loses the family dog, Santa's Little Helper. Everyone is angry with Homer for not seeming to care about the missing dog, but Grampa tells them the story of Homer's long-lost childhood pup, Bongo.

The family are evicted from Springfield and join an off-the-grid community outside of town. But when Homer and Marge try to sneak back into town, they are welcomed with hostility from their former friends and neighbors and begin to appreciate their new and more accepting home in this milestone 500th episode.

Homer takes a dangerous dive into an isolated canyon on Candy Peak, but when a crashing boulder traps his arm, he channels Aron Ralston (guest voicing as himself) to save himself. In "The Diving Bell and the Butterball," the first of three hair-raising Halloween tales, a venomous spider bite leaves Homer paralyzed, but when Lisa discovers Homer's ability to communicate through natural gases, he is able to express his love for Marge. The killer spells continue in "Dial D for Diddly," when Ned Flanders, devout preacher by day, transforms into a cold-blooded vigilante by night. In the final terrifying tale, "In the Na'Vi," Bart and Milhouse are sent on a mission to obtain a sacred extract on a distant planet. They morph into the land's indigenous one-eyed avatars, but when Bart finds love and an eternal mate abroad, he is caught in planet warfare.

Homer befriends Wayne Slater, the nuclear plant's new security guard, who later saves him and friends from Snake's attempted robbery of Moe's tavern. It's learned Wayne was formerly a CIA agent who's had special training and a number of violent flashbacks from his various missions, including an incident when a Ukranian terrorist's wife was killed. When Wayne's heroics at Moe's become big news, the terrorist has Homer kidnapped in order to seek revenge against him.