Annoyed by the Sea Captain focusing on basketball games with his staff instead of serving their food, Homer tells the final story as a parody of the 1972 film "The Poseidon Adventure", taking place on the luxury liner S.S. "Neptune" on New Year's Eve during the 1970s. At midnight, Captain Burns fails to notice a massive freak wave, which hits the bridge, capsizing the ship and killing most of the passengers. Led by Selma, survivors Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, Lenny, Carl, Comic Book Guy, Old Jewish Man and his wife, and Sideshow Mel ignore Purser Wiggum's advice to stay put in the ballroom and decide to climb up the decks to the engine room. While climbing up through the smokestack, Lenny panics and falls to his death. Comic Book Guy swims through a flooded deck to help the others get to the engine room, but he has a heart attack and drowns face down in the deck. The group makes it to the engine room, but Sideshow Mel's hair is set on fire by a blowtorch from the rescue team, and he faints in shock. The rest of the group makes it off the ship, at which point they encounter the walking skeletons of the "Bounty" crew who are still trying to get back to Tahiti. In its original airing, the episode was watched by 7 million viewers, the lowest ratings of season 17.