Fans of The Simpsons have been left speechless after the season finale ‘killed off’ Marge.
First broadcast in 1989, the animated sitcom boasts the title of the longest-running American animated series in history, with almost 800 episodes across 36 seasons.
It is also the longest-running U.S. sitcom and the winner of 37 Primetime Emmy Awards.
The show – known for its satirical humor and clever social commentary – follows the lives of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie Simpson, from the fictional U.S. town of Springfield.
The dysfunctional family is key to the show’s narrative. Yet, in the final episode of Season 36, matriarch Marge – wife to Homer, and mother to Bart, Lisa and Maggie – ‘dies.’
The Simpsons is no stranger to killing characters off.
It has eliminated a string of beloved figures in various ways over the years – from car crashes, poisonings and grisly accidents to strokes and heart attacks.
But now, one of its leading characters has died on-screen – at least, temporarily – in what a shocked critic has described as a ‘promising sign for the show’s future.’
Marge’s death appears in a flash-forward scene in the episode, ‘Estranger Things.’
In a post on ScreenRant, one astonished critic writes: “When Marge’s unexpected death occurred suddenly in the middle of ‘Estranger Things,’ I was genuinely shocked since I didn’t expect the long-running show to kill her off even for one episode’s plot.”
The episode sees a younger Bart and Lisa discover The Itchy & Scratchy Show on TV. They bond over the programme – but as they grow up and stop watching it, they drift apart.
Seeing this, Marge is disappointed.
She tells her children to stay close as they continue to grow.
But in the flash-forward segment, three decades on, Lisa is seen as a high-flying Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) commissioner who considers her brother a failure.
And in an unexpected twist, Marge has died, leaving Homer a widower.
The end of the episode sees the matriarch enjoying a peaceful afterlife in Heaven, looking on as her family reunites and watches a rebooted version of The Itchy & Scratchy Show.
She even cracks a joke about being able to remarry in the afterlife, National World reports.
Despite the tragic scenes, the critic believes Marge’s death ‘bodes well for the continuing life‘ of The Simpsons, with the ‘impactful’ moment showing the show is open to experimentation.
The critic writes that the sitcom, which has killed off more characters, permanently, in recent seasons than it used to, isn’t worried about consistency or canon over genuinely surprising even long-time viewers.’
The Simpsons certainly left viewers stunned after eliminating its beloved character, Larry the Barfly, in Season 35 – with some declaring the move ‘disgraceful.’
“He carried the show,” one outraged fan wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
Another said: “He was such an amazing character.”
And a third said: “I can’t believe they killed off a character who’s been around since the beginning!”
Larry the Barfly was far from the first character to have disappeared from the show.
Bleeding Gums Murphy, Edna Krabappel, Maude Flanders, Alice Glick, Rabbi Hyman Krustofsky, and Fat Tony are among the many figures who have been previously killed off.