Originally appeared on E! Online
“The Simpsons” ended its 36th season with a shocking death in the Simpson family.
The animated series killed off matriarch Marge Simpson (voiced by Julie Kavner) during the season finale, which aired May 18. The jaw-dropping moment comes with a caveat, however, as it happened during a flash-forward scene 35 years into the future when Marge’s children Bart, Lisa and baby Maggie are adults.
In the episode titled “Estranger Things,” Marge’s worst fear comes true when her older two grow apart from one another after growing out of their favorite kids’ show, “The Itchy & Scratchy Show,” which they had bonded over.
Their lives end up taking different paths, with Lisa becoming the commissioner of the NBA and Bart running an unlicensed retirement home that their father Homer Simpson lives in without Marge.
While the episode doesn’t share insight into how or why she died, it features a brief funeral scene at her tombstone. At another point, Lisa refers to her “late mother” and later reads a letter that Marge had written “to be opened after I pass,” during which a young-looking Marge calls it “very unlikely” that she’d die before her husband.
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After some back and forth over Homer’s living situation, Bart and Lisa reunite to bring him home and watch their beloved “Itchy & Scratchy Show” again before viewers see their mother looking down at them from the clouds.
“I’m so happy my kids are close again,” Marge says, before The Beatles’ drummer Ringo Starr appears from behind her and tells her, “Love, we’ll be late for the Heaven buffet. There’s a shrimp tower.”
It’s then that the show makes another big reveal: Marge got remarried in Heaven — and to the rocker no less.
“Okay Ringo,” she says before kissing the musician. “I’m just so glad that we’re allowed to marry different people in Heaven.”
Naturally, the episode’s unexpected developments left fans of the show up in arms.
“They f—— killed off Marge Simpson. That’s insanity,” one person wrote on X. “Might as well kill off Randy Marsh from South Park and Stewie from Family Guy while you’re at it.”
As another put it, “Community justice for MARGE that they killing in season 36 finale in a flash forward scene. She has been one of my fav character of Simpsons all these years.”
While the move angered many, there were a few who saw Marge’s death as a welcome change for “The Simpsons,” which is primetime television’s longest-running scripted series in American history.
“Marge Simpson was the glue that hold the family together,” someone explained. “It shows how for so many years she had to put up with Homer shenanigans. So maybe this makes Simpsons more interesting of a show.”
Thankfully for Simpsons fans, the series has been renewed for four more seasons, so they’ll be able to see how the show follows up Marge’s shocking death when season 37 premieres this fall.
