All hell breaks loose on Halloween when a killer comes to Springfield. That is the official episode description for Treehouse of Horror Presents: The Revengening, the standalone Simpsons special Fox airs Sunday, October 18, with Hulu carrying it the next day. The regular anthology, Treehouse of Horror XXXVII, follows on October 25.
XXXVII Takes On Marriage, the Dog and a Driving Lesson
The October 25 anthology runs three segments: Marge gets a new perspective on marriage, Bart and Santa’s Little Helper go on an adventure, and Homer takes a driving lesson. Fox has released photos from the episode.
The Standalone Specials Are the More Interesting Half
Treehouse of Horror started life as a Season 2 Halloween special and spent decades as three vignettes stapled together. The show has been pulling that shape apart for a while now. In 2015 it gave a whole episode over to “Halloween of Horror,” Season 34 took on IT with “Not It,” and Season 36 ran “Simpsons Wicked This Way Comes” under the Presents banner.
The single-story specials have been the better of the two experiments, because twenty-two uninterrupted minutes give a horror joke room to build past its own reference. A vignette has to land the gag and get out.
The Revengening goes first, which leaves Springfield’s killer a full week on his own before the anthology turns up to take the room back.