Oh god, did they kill Marge?
After years of being the steady blue-haired heart of The Simpsons, Marge Simpson has finally died. Sort of. If that sounds vague, it’s because it is. The episode, titled Estranger Things, aired May 18 and has since gained renewed attention thanks to a late-blooming media cycle. But no, The Simpsons hasn’t actually written Marge off. So, what happened?
A Future Where Everything Falls Apart
The episode opens harmless enough: Bart and Lisa bond over The Itchy & Scratchy Show – until they realize it's targeted at toddlers. Their taste diverges, their screens separate, and Marge, naturally, panics. She delivers a heartfelt warning about the importance of sibling closeness. "Whatever you do, don't drift apart," Marge tells them, eyes glassy. "You share a journey with your siblings that no one else will ever understand." And then the show jumps 35 years into the future.
In the future timeline, Lisa is the commissioner of the newly named MNBA (the merged men's and women’s basketball league), and Bart is scamming the elderly out of Social Security checks. The family is fractured. Lisa thinks Homer is in a retirement home – but he’s actually been dumped back in Springfield due to Bart’s mismanagement.
The death of Marge is relayed not through plot, but through montage. A voiceover by Sarah McLachlan sings it plainly: Marge died before Homer. Her tombstone reads, "Beloved wife, mother, pork-chop seasoner." Marge's final words come via a pre-recorded video. It’s addressed to Bart and Lisa, a reminder of what she hoped for them: that they would look out for each other long after she was gone. Somehow, that message lands. The siblings join forces to rescue Homer from his new fate – being bussed to Florida, now rebranded as a maximum-security prison for the elderly.
Closure Or Cop-Out?
The ending gives a mix of emotional healing and surrealism. Lisa and Bart reconnect. They watch the rebooted Itchy & Scratchy together. Marge, meanwhile, watches from the clouds, not with Homer, but with Ringo Starr – her high school crush and drummer of The Beatles – at her side. “I’m just so happy my kids are close again,” she says, just before kissing Ringo and drifting off toward a celestial shrimp tower. It’s a quiet sendoff, but not a permanent one. The future timeline is just that: a potential future. Like many Simpsons one-offs before it, this one likely won’t be referenced again. Marge is still alive in the main continuity.
Marge’s death might have made headlines, but Estranger Things is more concerned with emotional fallout than canonical finality. It’s not about how she dies, but about what happens after – a thought experiment. Good, because I was just getting over Larry the Barfly's death.