Although we always knew this day would come in the abstract future, The Simpsons has confirmed Marge’s actual death for the first time in the show.
Although the famed animated family has been in more than one near-death experience across the 36 seasons and counting (and quite a few supporting characters have met an untimely end) the show has come for another of the central five.
In the finale of the latest season, titled Estranger Things, we follow Bart and Lisa Simpson’s sibling relationship over the years with Marge worried about how close the brother and sister will be when they grow up.
We then flash forward 35 years and see that Lisa is thriving, as expected, and Bart is the owner of an unlicensed retirement home.
The pair discuss their ‘late mother’, confirming that Marge dies sometime before her early 70s although many of the Springfield residents have outlived her.
Throughout the flash forward, we encounter Homer (who is shipped off to a care programme in Florida), his friends, Mr Skinner and Millhouse – but sadly, no Marge.
Lisa then discovers a letter written by Marge to be opened when she ‘passes on’ and in the unlikely event that Homer outlives her – and emotionally appeals for them to stay close to one another.
Bart and Lisa reunite to break Homer out of Florida as Marge looks down from a cloud before ascending to heaven with the help of The Beatles’ Ringo Starr.
Although this was a brief flash forward, and Marge will certainly be back when normal programming resumes for the season 37 premiere later this year, it is a shocking creative choice for the show to solidify her earlier-than-expected death in canon.
‘WHAT DO YOU MEAN THEY KILLED MARGE SIMPSON,’ X user slash_no_info said.
‘Yo they killed Marge off the Simpsons!?!?!?! WHAT?!?!,’ jaywyatt111 added.
As for whether we’ll ever get to the bottom of exactly why Marge dies or when between now and her early seventies remains to be seen, but The Simpsons has now established it in her timeline.
In season 35, the show also jokingly killed off Bart, who died from boredom listening to one of Lisa’s stories, although this is played off as more of a gag compared to Marge’s death.
The long-running sitcom, which has been on screens since the 1990s, has had a turbulent viewership and reception over the years.
When it initially hit screens, parents even banned their children from watching the show.
Creator Matt Groening recently told Variety that this negativity could have actually helped the show get off the ground in those early days.
‘One of the best things that ever happened in the course of the show was that some people forbade the show.
‘It became this exotic, forbidden thing. Bart Simpson Underachiever T-shirts were once controversial and banned in schools. So when we did a Lisa Simpson Overachiever T-shirt, but we got in trouble for that because it said “Damn I’m Good”,’ the 71-year-old said.
The Simpsons is available to stream on Disney Plus in the UK.
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