Part One

While burying the deceased 4th grade gerbil, Groundskeeper Willie discovers oil under Springfield Elementary School. Principal Skinner and Superintendent Chalmers accept suggestions from students and staff on how to spend their newfound wealth, including hiring Tito Puente as a music teacher per Lisa Simpson's suggestion. Mr. Burns unsuccessfully tries to trick Skinner into selling him the drilling rights to secure an energy monopoly over Springfield.

At the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, Homer is increasingly upset that Burns can never remember his name. On Marge's suggestion, he sends Burns a box of chocolates with a family picture underneath the candy. However, Burns and Smithers are not interested in the one candy covering Homer's face and discard the box. As a result, Burns writes a "thank you" card only to Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie, further angering Homer.

Meanwhile, Burns plots to take the school's oil, of which Smithers disapproves. Burns establishes a slant drilling operation and beats the school to tapping the oil well. Burns' drilling operation causes distress to many Springfield citizens: Willie and Puente are laid off; Moe's Tavern is closed due to the harmful fumes from the drilling, enraging Moe and Barney; the drilling destroys the Springfield Retirement Castle, forcing Grampa to move in with the Simpsons; and Bart's treehouse is destroyed by a burst of oil from the rig, which also injures Santa's Little Helper.

Burns reveals to Smithers his grandest scheme: the construction of a giant disc that will permanently block out the sun in Springfield, forcing the residents to continuously use the electricity from his plant. When Smithers says he has gone too far, Burns fires him. Homer, driven to insanity, sneaks into Burns's office and spray paints "I am Homer Simpson" on the wall. Burns catches Homer in the act but still fails to remember Homer's name. In a rage, Homer attacks him and is hauled away by security. Many of the citizens affected by Burns's schemes, including Homer and Smithers, gather firearms and swear vengeance.

A town meeting is held to discuss Burns' actions, where several citizens are armed with guns. Burns arrives, armed with his own gun after his encounter with Homer, and activates the sun-blocking device. He walks into an alley and struggles with someone until a gun fires. Wounded, Burns stumbles and collapses onto the town's sundial, falling into unconsciousness. The townspeople find him and Marge mentions that since he has angered so many people recently, anyone could have been the shooter. Chief Wiggum agrees to start the investigation to find the culprit.

Part Two

With Burns hospitalized, the Springfield police search for his assailant. Smithers vaguely remembers shooting someone the night before in a drunken rage. Guilt-ridden, he heads for a local church, and is promptly arrested when the confessional turns out to be a police sting. While passing the media on his way to the police station, Smithers makes a remark to them that Sideshow Mel recognizes from an episode of the fictional Comedy Central program, Pardon My Zinger, that aired at the same time as the shooting. Mel realizes Smithers must have watched it as well, giving him an alibi. Mel and Krusty head to the police station as Smithers' memory clears. It turns out he had actually shot Jasper in Jasper's wooden leg. Meanwhile, the townspeople pull down the sun-blocker, which crushes Shelbyville, to their delight.

With one of the prime suspects cleared, the police, aided by Lisa, eliminate other suspects, including Puente, Skinner, Willie, and Moe. After a surreal dream involving Lisa, Wiggum finds an eyelash on Mr. Burns' suit that matches Simpson DNA. At the same time, Burns wakes up from his coma, exclaiming "Homer Simpson!" The police conclude that Homer shot Burns as revenge for not remembering his name. They raid the Simpson home and find a gun under the seat of their car, covered with Homer's fingerprints and loaded with bullets matching the one fired at Burns; subsequently, they arrest Homer for attempted murder. On the way to jail, the police wagon crashes at Krusty Burger and Homer escapes. Smithers offers a $50,000 reward for his capture.

At the hospital, it is revealed "Homer Simpson" is the only thing Burns can say, suggesting his "accusation" may not have actually been creditable. Lisa returns to the scene of the crime to investigate. At the same time, Homer arrives at the hospital to confront his boss. A police bulletin reports Homer's location and an angry mob of citizens rush to the hospital. Upon entering Burns' room, everyone finds an enraged Homer vigorously shaking Burns. This returns Burns' ability to speak normally, but when he asks who is shaking him, this pushes Homer over the edge; Homer grabs Wiggum's pistol and threatens to kill Burns unless Burns retracts his accusation that Homer shot him. Burns calms Homer down and confirms Homer did not shoot him. He then reveals the true assailant upon seeing her in the crowd of citizens: Maggie.

After leaving the town meeting, Burns came across Maggie eating a lollipop in the Simpsons' car. He decided to try stealing candy from a baby, but struggled against Maggie. As Burns yanked the lollipop away, his gun slipped from its holster into Maggie's hands and discharged. The gun fell beneath the car seat, and Homer would unknowingly leave fingerprints on the gun while reaching under the seat for an ice cream cone he dropped. Burns demands for Maggie to be arrested, but he is dismissed by Wiggum, who says no jury in the world would convict a baby for a crime, before adding "maybe Texas". Marge also adds the shooting must have been an accident, considering Maggie is an infant. In the final shot, Maggie is shown with shifty eyes as she sucks her pacifier, implying she shot Burns intentionally.

Hidden clues

One of the most important clues shows Mr. Burns' arms pointing towards W and S on the sundial.^[5]

A number of subtle clues, and a few red herrings, were planted in Part One for viewers who wanted to unravel the mystery.^[5]

• Almost every clock is set at three or nine o'clock. The point of the clocks was to teach the viewer to view the sundial at the end upside down.^[5]
• Mr. Burns looks from his balcony and talks about stealing candy from a baby.^[6]
• The box of chocolates Homer sends Burns is lined with a Simpsons family photo, and as Burns and Smithers gorge on the candy, Maggie is the first Simpson the audience sees.^[12]
• When Mr. Burns collapses on the sundial, he points at W and S, although from his viewpoint, the W looks like an M.^[5]
• Many of the suspects have the letters S and either W or M in their initials, and the intention was that several "obvious" suspects could be eliminated by the letters. Several characters already had names with those initials, but some were made up specifically for this episode.^[5]
  • Principal Skinner's full name is revealed to be "W. Seymour Skinner" on a diploma in his office.^[5]
  • Smithers's full name is "Waylon Smithers".
  • Mr. Burns calls Santa's Little Helper the "Simpson Mutt".^[5]
  • Moe's liquor license reveals that his full name is Moe Szyslak.^[5]
  • Melvin Van Horne is known to everyone by his stage name "Sideshow Mel".
  • Grampa's gun is a Smith & Wesson.^[13]
  • Groundskeeper Willie was laid off from his job. Although his name was later revealed to be William MacDougal, he is also a Scotsman named Willie.
• Just before entering Mr. Burns' office to spray paint his name, Homer passes in front of the words "ONLY IN" on the pavement (upside down from the viewer's perspective), and very briefly blocks all of the letters except "NO" and a small arrow pointing at him.^[14]
• A television in Moe's Tavern shows that "Pardon My Zinger" is broadcast on weekdays at 3 p.m. on Comedy Central.^[5] It is later revealed that Burns is shot at 3 p.m. Smithers reveals at the meeting that he never misses the show, and afterward is seen heading in the opposite direction that Burns heads.^[5]
• During the scene at the town hall, several citizens are seen stroking guns: Smithers and an unidentified woman have revolvers, Moe has a shotgun, Skinner has a semi-automatic pistol with a suppressor attached, and Barney has a derringer. Snake arrives with a revolver.^[5]
• Also during the town hall scene, Mr. Burns smugly asks the townspeople "Who here has the guts to stop me?", followed by a panning shot of the townspeople glaring at Mr. Burns before each looking away in reluctance. During this shot, Maggie, at the bottom of the screen in Marge's arms, was the only one to continue glaring.
• As Mr. Burns collapses on the sundial, it is seen that the holster under his arm is empty. This was inserted as an intentional freeze frame clue to show that he had been shot with his own gun.^[5]

Alternate endings

Due to the amount of interest in the ending of this episode, David Mirkin wrote several "terrible endings" and, with just Harry Shearer, recorded several alternate endings.^[6] His original intention was to fool the production staff and also leak the endings to various media outlets, but much to his surprise he was unsuccessful.^[6] Several endings were animated that showed various characters shooting Mr. Burns.^[8] Several of the alternate endings aired during the clip show "The Simpsons 138th Episode Spectacular". Various clips showed Barney, Tito, Moe, Apu, and even Santa's Little Helper as the gunmen. There was also a full-length conclusion that aired in which Smithers shot Burns and explained his doing so at Burns' bedside after Homer's wild chase, and fell on "W" and S" on the compass, Waylon's initials; Burns then gives Smithers a 5% pay cut for attempting to kill him.^[15]

Alternate theories

Over the years, fan theories have emerged which hypothetically propose that other characters, such as Marge, Lisa, Grandpa, Bart, and Homer, could have shot Mr. Burns instead of Maggie.^[16] In April 2020, a viral post compared Krusty's appearance in the final scene of Part One to how Homer looked when he dressed as him in "Homie the Clown", leading some to believe that Homer wanted to frame Krusty for Burns' attempted murder by posing as him. On a Twitter post, Oakley revealed that this was an animation error. In addition, released animation notes for the final scene indicate that Homer was not supposed to appear.^[17][18]

Later episodes of the show have poked fun at the reveal of Maggie as the shooter. In season 9's "The Cartridge Family", Homer incorrectly recalls that Smithers was the culprit, which Lisa grumbles would have made more sense. In the season 18 episode "Revenge Is a Dish Best Served Three Times", Homer casually mentions that he shot Mr. Burns and pinned it on Maggie.

Critical reception

In 2003, Entertainment Weekly published a Top 25 The Simpsons episode list and placed both parts of "Who Shot Mr. Burns?" in 25th place, saying, "a two-part comedic homage to Dallas' Who shot J.R.? stunt, [Who Shot Mr. Burns] is perhaps The Simpsons' most grandiose pop moment ever".^[27] The Daily Telegraph characterized the episode as one of "The 10 Best Simpsons TV Episodes".^[28] Entertainment.ie named it among the 10 greatest Simpsons episodes of all time.^[29] When The Simpsons began streaming on Disney+ in 2019, Oakley named Part One one of the best classic Simpsons episodes to watch on the service.^[30]

The authors of the book I Can't Believe It's a Bigger and Better Updated Unofficial Simpsons Guide, Warren Martyn and Adrian Wood, called it "A superb end to the season—and what's more, it's a genuine whodunnit. There's no cheating—all the clues are there."^[2] Jake Rossen of Wizard called the ending the sixth-greatest cliffhanger of all time but expressed disappointment in the resolution, saying: "Sometimes it's better to make up your own ending, kids."^[31] In 2008, Entertainment Weekly included Part One in their list of the best television season finales of all time.^[32]

The song "Señor Burns", which was composed by Alf Clausen and written by Oakley and Weinstein, was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award in 1996 for "Outstanding Individual Achievement in Music and Lyrics".^[33] Tito Puente ranked 19th on AOL's list of their favorite 25 Simpsons guest stars.^[34]

In The A.V. Club, Erik Adams writes, "Eighteen years later, we can look at 'Who Shot Mr. Burns?, Part One' as a successful experiment in The Simpsons thinking big without losing its core charms. The cliffhanger is irrelevant at this point—the central question now is 'Can the resolution pay off this madcap whodunit?' I don’t think so: Like a lot of television mysteries that became zeitgeist-capturing catchphrases—like the one that inspired this first part, or the one that partially inspires the second, 'Who killed Laura Palmer?'—the thrill is in the question mark, not the period. But 'Who Shot Mr. Burns?, Part One' is such an inspired romp that I can’t find a reason to fault the show for not being able to follow through on it 100 percent. Can you?^[35]

Ratings

Part One finished 51st with a Nielsen rating of 8.7, the fifth-highest-rated Fox show of the week.^[36] Part Two averaged 12.3 million households and a 12.9 Nielsen rating. It finished sixteenth in the United States in the ratings for the week of September 11–17, 1995, finishing first in its time slot and was the highest-rated show on the Fox network that week.^[26] It helped the Fox network rank third overall for that week at a time when Fox was usually finishing fourth.^[37]