The Simpsons may have been a cartoon, but Season 20, Episode 3 understood a very adult truth: luck is the only real superpower. And most of us are born without it.

The twist—spoiler for a 2008 episode—is that the rival’s bomb threat forces the two boys to cooperate. They save the day, reveal their identities, and return to their original lives with a new appreciation for what they had. Standard sitcom fare. But watch closely: the episode does not argue that both lives are equal . It argues that both lives are traps . Bart returns to a home where Homer is indifferent and Marge is overstretched; Simon returns to a mansion where his parents are polite strangers. The only moment of genuine warmth in the entire episode occurs when Simon’s butler, in a single line of dialogue, admits he wishes he could adopt the boy.

In the end, Bart and Simon remain friends, promising to visit. It is a fragile, almost tragic conclusion. Because they won’t visit. The class barrier is too wide, the worlds too separate. The episode’s final shot—Bart eating cereal in his underwear, Simon eating caviar in a tuxedo—is not a celebration of diversity. It is a freeze-frame of two ghosts trapped in parallel universes, waving at each other through a mirror that will never break.