The Simpsons has never been afraid of poking fun at anyone but its take on religion has been a bit hit-and-miss. "Homer The Heretic" and "The Joy Of Sect" are both good but then we also have "Faith Off", "Pray Anything" and "MyPods And Broomsticks" which don't quite work. Luckily, "Thank God It's Doomsday" fits into the first category.
The subject matter is the concept of the rapture - for which The Bible has ZERO support, but go with it - and sees Homer predict it correctly. There's a twist of course in that you have to be on top of a certain mountain at a certain time or you won't be rescued. His choice to predict this occurrence comes from a hilarious satire of the astronomically wrong pseudo-Christian 'Left Behind' series (or 'Left Below' here) which, as a Christian myself, I'm pleased to see getting mocked due to just how wrong the series is. The movie's dialogue is wonderfully awful ("What happened to the baby I had baptised/my Christian limo driver?) and proves that though The Simpsons has gone downhill over time it still has life in it.
Homer's calculation is filled with randomness (Revelation has 404 verses. Add the number of people at the last supper....minus the number of Filipinos in the bible...) and is another piece of wonderful satire attached to the field of Numerology. For some reason everyone believes him and then the rapture doesn't happen ("Haw-Haw! Life goes on!" says Nelson) and Homer is mocked. Until he realises that his calculation was off by a week (Jesus was at the last supper too, not just the 12 apostles) and the rapture is still to come. This time he's right but only he gets to go to heaven since no-one believed him.
The scenes in heaven are hilarious but it doesn't really get going properly since we only have a few minutes here. Instead the episode shows us how Homer isn't happy there because it's not really Heaven without his family. God refuses to let them join him because they missed the rapture: "Don't tell me about families suffering. My son went to Earth once. I don't know what you did to him but he hasn't been the same since" God tells Homer.
Homer decides to cause chaos to prove his point and eventually God allows Homer to go back to Earth and undoes the rapture. It's a little far-fetched to believe it but remember the subject matter of this episode and you'll quickly see that it works because of the context of the episode. It's a shame that the episode didn't really build up to this properly until the final act but it's permissible since it's done well.
To conclude, a fun episode with top-notch religious satire but don't take it too seriously. 9/10
The subject matter is the concept of the rapture - for which The Bible has ZERO support, but go with it - and sees Homer predict it correctly. There's a twist of course in that you have to be on top of a certain mountain at a certain time or you won't be rescued. His choice to predict this occurrence comes from a hilarious satire of the astronomically wrong pseudo-Christian 'Left Behind' series (or 'Left Below' here) which, as a Christian myself, I'm pleased to see getting mocked due to just how wrong the series is. The movie's dialogue is wonderfully awful ("What happened to the baby I had baptised/my Christian limo driver?) and proves that though The Simpsons has gone downhill over time it still has life in it.
Homer's calculation is filled with randomness (Revelation has 404 verses. Add the number of people at the last supper....minus the number of Filipinos in the bible...) and is another piece of wonderful satire attached to the field of Numerology. For some reason everyone believes him and then the rapture doesn't happen ("Haw-Haw! Life goes on!" says Nelson) and Homer is mocked. Until he realises that his calculation was off by a week (Jesus was at the last supper too, not just the 12 apostles) and the rapture is still to come. This time he's right but only he gets to go to heaven since no-one believed him.
The scenes in heaven are hilarious but it doesn't really get going properly since we only have a few minutes here. Instead the episode shows us how Homer isn't happy there because it's not really Heaven without his family. God refuses to let them join him because they missed the rapture: "Don't tell me about families suffering. My son went to Earth once. I don't know what you did to him but he hasn't been the same since" God tells Homer.
Homer decides to cause chaos to prove his point and eventually God allows Homer to go back to Earth and undoes the rapture. It's a little far-fetched to believe it but remember the subject matter of this episode and you'll quickly see that it works because of the context of the episode. It's a shame that the episode didn't really build up to this properly until the final act but it's permissible since it's done well.
To conclude, a fun episode with top-notch religious satire but don't take it too seriously. 9/10
