Did 'The Simpsons' kill off Marge Simpson?
Doh! "The Simpsons" killed off mom Marge Simpson. Well, kind of.
On the legendary sitcom's epic Season 36 finale episode, titled "Estranger Things" (episode 18), the storyline centered around a sibling rift between Bart and Lisa.
"Your father and I won't be around forever. When you get older, you'll need to lean on each other. Whatever you do, don't drift apart, you share a journey with your siblings that no one else will ever understand," Marge said in a foreshadowing scene. "You must never, ever, ever take that for granted."
Then, naturally, the pair drifted apart.
Years later, Lisa found success in business as a professional basketball league commissioner while "Bart remained Bart." In the future, after Marge dies before husband Homer, the siblings actually do become estranged before reuniting.
In the episode, after the siblings reunited, Marge appears during a scene where she is in heaven and reunites with her first love, Ringo Starr, suggesting that the family matriarch died. Then, the episode ends.
Writers on "The Simpsons" love to find new ways to keep the show fresh. In September, the hit animated series aired its "final episode," but in actuality, it was a meta-way to start the Season 36 premiere.
Is 'The Simpsons' ending? Why the show aired its 'series finale' Sunday
Titled "Bart's Birthday" and presented as a "Fox special presentation," the episode kicked off with animated celebrities shown rolling into the "Dolby-Mucinex Theater" for the occasion, hosted by Conan O'Brien.
"It's such an honor to be with you all for the series finale of 'The Simpsons,'" O'Brien says to the onlooking crowd, flanked with animated versions of stars who have appeared on the series, including Seth Rogen and Mr. T. "I knew I was the right man for the job because I've hosted the last episode of three of my own shows, and counting."
Contributing: Taijuan Moorman; Charles Curtis, For The Win
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Yahoo
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Why Marge Simpson's death suddenly has viewers talking about The Simpsons again
Crack open a Duff beer and pour one out for Marge Simpson, the blue-haired, raspy-voiced matriarch of The Simpsons who has left behind her beloved but sometimes dysfunctional family. Don't fire off the emails about spoilers just yet. News of Marge's death in the recent season finale may suddenly be trending, but it's likely not the last we've seen of television's longest-serving mom. Though the season 36 finale aired on May 18, recent articles lamenting the loss have reinvigorated a conversation about a pop-culture institution some critics say is long past its prime. What happened to Marge? The episode titled Estranger Things, is a look into the future of the Simpson family in a world in which brother and sister Bart and Lisa have drifted apart. In a flash forward, we learn that Marge's life was cut short. "Marge passed before Homer, if you can believe it," Canadian musician Sarah McLachlan sings in a montage showing family and a few friends standing over her headstone that reads, "Beloved wife, mother and pork-chop seasoner." We don't know exactly how or when Marge dies, but the plot moves 35 years ahead of the present day, when a very successful Lisa returns to Springfield to find deadbeat Bart living in the family home with Homer, who was supposed to be residing in the same retirement home where his own father, Abe, a.k.a Grandpa Simpson, had languished. A senior's protection agency buses Homer off to Florida, sending Lisa and Bart on a mission to get him back. In the process, they discover a video Marge recorded before her death urging her eldest children to stick together. Eventually, the family is reunited again at 742 Evergreen Terrace (minus "chatterbox" younger sister Maggie, who is off somewhere living her dream as a farm equipment auctioneer.) And don't worry about Marge. Though she said in her posthumous message she looked forward to reuniting with Homer in heaven, she appears to have found a new love in the afterlife — Ringo Starr, her high school crush. WATCH | Simpsons' producers move to recast white actors voicing characters of colour: Which Simpsons deaths have hit the hardest? Marge's apparent death seems to have struck a nerve on social media, but The Simpsons has a history of poignant goodbyes to beloved characters, dating back to its early seasons. has tallied a dozen recurring character deaths since the show's inception. Sometimes it was because actors left the show, other times it was due to their real-life deaths. One of the show's first deaths of a recurring character 30 years ago this year was Bleeding Gums Murphy, a local jazz musician and Lisa's sax-playing idol. 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The character's death was addressed in a later episode — and dealt a second blow to Ned Flanders who'd fallen in love with and married Krabapple years after Maude's death. The Simpsons dealt with another actor's death quite differently. When Canadian-born actor Phil Hartman was murdered in 1998, two of his popular characters — B-movie star Troy McClure and shady lawyer Lionel Hutz — were permanently retired rather than written out. But cast departures don't always mean characters disappear. Pamela Hayden, who voiced Bart's friend Milhouse for 35 years, retired in 2024. Singer Kelly Macleod replaced Hayden and debuted in the same episode that Marge dies. Even after 790 episodes, The Simpsons isn't going anywhere anytime soon. Fox, which has aired the series in the U.S. since its 1989 premiere as a standalone show, announced in April it had renewed the show through its 40th season, taking it up to 2029. 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Did 'The Simpsons' really kill off Marge? The answer is complicated
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There was a death of a beloved character on the Season 36 finale of 'The Simpsons' last month that people are still grieving. But in the colorfully animated world of Springfield, it's probably safe to save our tears for now. In an episode titled 'Estranger Things,' the fate of matriarch Marge Simpson is foreshadowed. A flash-forward 35 years in the future shows a successful Lisa working as the commissioner of the NBA. Bart is running an unlicensed retirement home, where their father Homer lives, paid for by Lisa. The siblings have drifted apart after they stop watching 'The Itchy & Scratchy Show' together. A funeral scene reveals that Marge has passed away. The now-adult Simpson kids stand by her grave site with a tombstone that reads, 'Beloved wife, mother and pork-chop seasoner.' After Lisa finds a video from the past in which her mother advises her children to remain close to each other. Lisa and Bart reunite and their mother looks on from heaven. 'I'm so happy my kids are close again,' Marge says in her afterlife, where it is revealed that she has married her longtime crush, Beatle Ringo Starr. 'Love, we'll be late for the Heaven Buffett,' Starr tells her. 'There's a shrimp tower.' 'Okay, Ringo,' Marge tells him. 'I'm just so glad that we're allowed to marry different people in Heaven.' The internet was not happy. 'OMG THEY KILLED MARGE 😭 it's a sad day for us Simpsons lovers,' one person posted on X. The show - and Marge - aren't going anywhere anytime soon. 'The Simpsons,' the longest running animated series in television history, has been renewed for four more years.
