After The Simpsons season 37’s renewal has not yet been announced, but the show’s future still seems bright. Despite persistent dwindling ratings, the critical reception of The Simpsons has improved considerably in recent years. Per Vulture, “The Simpsons is good again” as the show has embraced experimentation, character-centric storytelling, and playful ways of toying with its own considerable legacy. The self-parodic streak that The Simpsons always included has been dialed up in seasons 34, 35, and 36 to great effect.

This was never more evident than in season 36, episode 1, “Bart’s Birthday.” Presented as an in-universe “Series finale,” this episode, supposedly written by the AI program “Hack GPT” almost explained why the Simpsons never age. As Bart’s 11th birthday approached, he was horrified to find all of Springfield was changing, moving on, and ending their old habits. Principal Skinner and Chief Wiggum moved out of town, as did the Van Houten family. Homer solved his drinking and anger problems while Lisa was accepted into an illustrious music school. Only Bart appeared to realize that this was too much change.

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Matt Selman Told The New York Post The Finale Would Be A Normal Outing

In the welcome twist ending of “Bart’s Birthday,” Bart tricks Homer into strangling him and this aberrant ugliness shatters the clean, empty illusion of the AI-generated mirage. This proved that the real series finale of The Simpsons shouldn’t be a big traditional ending wherein all the show's lingering plot threads are neatly tied up. Instead, the show's eventual ending should embrace its episodic nature and its love of an insistently unchanging status quo. Even though one episode of The Simpsons season 36 adapted The Miracle of the Andes to Springfield, the show's heroes were still back to normal by the ending.

Per Selman, “We’ll just pick an episode and say that was the last one."

Even a life-threatening helicopter crash and a struggle to survive in frozen isolation didn’t have any lingering impact on Homer, Ned, or Moe, since the events of one episode of The Simpsons almost never impact the next. Showrunner Matt Selman echoed this sentiment in an interview with the New York Post where he revealed what he saw as a fitting finale for the show. Per Selman, “We’ll just pick an episode and say that was the last one. No self-aware stuff. Or, one self-aware joke.” Despite what viewers may have anticipated, this would be better than an entirely self-aware ending.

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Selman went on to clarify that the series finale would need to be “A really good story about the family,” arguing that this would be the best end to the show’s record-setting run. While The Simpsons season 36’s darker stories saw the show flirt with real peril and tragedy for its main characters, it is still vanishingly rare to see the show permanently alter its status quo. As such, a finale that provides convenient endings for each ing character’s arc would not merely feel strange. It would also betray the ethos of The Simpsons, something “Bart’s Birthday” explored.

From Milhouse to Comic Book Guy, everyone in “Bart’s Birthday” gets the best ending they could hope for on paper. However, none of these fates feel fitting. Part of the appeal of The Simpsons is the sense that nothing changes in the show’s reality, and the best way to encapsulate this would be for the show to end with another story about the same family it has always centered upon. The last appearance of Pamela Hayden’s Milhouse wasn’t his triumphant departure in “Bart’s Birthday,” but a quiet comedic moment in the show’s later season 36 Christmas special.

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Milhouse’s appearance in “Oh C’mon All Ye Faithful” felt more true to the character than his departure for Atlanta in “Bart’s Birthday” because happy endings are not what The Simpsons promises its characters and its viewers. Instead, The Simpsons offers a cartoon world where nothing changes, no matter what seemingly changes. In its ribald parody of schmaltzy earlier family sitcoms like The Brady Bunch, Full House, Leave It To Beaver, and The Cosby Show, The Simpsons embraced the unchanging status quo of its format. Instead of hiding the fact that its characters never learned their lesson or changed, The Simpsons celebrated this.

For The Simpsons, never changing is a good thing.

Characters never really grow in The Simpsons and the show has made this into a quiet strength. Season 36’s Christmas special sees the intensely pious Ned Flanders lose and regain his faith after the death of both of his wives and turns a one-note caricature into a complex, tragic, and compelling protagonist. However, if viewers missed “Oh C’mon All Ye Faithful,” they would tune into the preceding episode and see Ned portrayed as a religious zealot, only to tune into the next outing and see the same character. For The Simpsons, never changing is a good thing.

How Likely The Simpsons Is To End With Season 36

The Simpsons Season 37’s Renewal Has Not Yet Been Announced

Selman’s comments on the perfect finale for The Simpsons could be read as a hint that the series will wrap up soon, and this isn’t as inconceivable. The Simpsons season 36’s holiday special was released on Disney+ instead of airing on traditional TV and, despite the show’s critical renaissance in recent seasons, its ratings remain in decline. However, although the end of The Simpsons isn’t as impossible as it once appeared, it is not likely that this will occur in 2025. Given its improving reviews, the longest-running American sitcom series is unlikely to end in the coming year.

Viewers can expect plenty of warning before The Simpsons ends, since the show is a cultural touchstone with a multi-generational fan base. TV shows are canceled without warning all the time, but none of them have 35 seasons and over 770 episodes under their belt. The record-breaking longevity and immeasurable cultural impact of The Simpsons mean the show’s eventual ending will be a major real-life event, even if it is an ordinary episode in-universe. Thus, viewers need not worry about The Simpsons ending suddenly, despite what “Bart’s Birthday” appeared to suggest when the season 36 premiere aired in 2024.

New episodes of The Simpsons air Sundays at 8pm on Fox.

Sources: Vulture

New York Post