The Simpsons Season 33 Has Retconned 4 Story Details

Although some fans dislike the show’s tendency to dismiss consistent continuity and canon, The Simpsons season 33 has ignored their complaints and retconned many details of earlier episodes. As a fast-paced satirical sitcom, The Simpsons has never been overly concerned with keeping the show’s canon consistent. The show generally revises the rules of its universe from episode to episode, changing everything about the series on a whim to accommodate as many goofy gags as possible.

However, The Simpsons may have gone too far in recent seasons when it comes to the show retconning its own continuity. Although The Simpsons season 33’s surplus of guest stars is often cited as the show’s biggest problem, the show’s dismissal of its continuity is an equally contentious issue. While some fans and critics (and producers) argue that this keeps the series fresh and funny, others feel that inconsistent canon robs The Simpsons of consistency and reliable characterization.

Despite the misgivings of these fans, however, The Simpsons has not been shy about revising the past of its characters so far in season 33. The show began the season as it meant to go on, with the season 33 premiere changing Marge’s age so she was a teen in the ‘90s rather than a middle-aged mom at the time. The Simpsons season 33 then retconned Homer’s mother’s story, revealing he met Mona during his teens despite the well-received Golden Age outing claiming  he never saw her after his early childhood. Furthermore, that same episode offered an internal contradiction in the logic of The Simpsons, as the season premiere depicted Homer as a  ‘90s teen alongside Marge but the episode that retconned his history with his mother Mona showed him as a teen in the ‘70s. Here’s everything The Simpsons season 33 has retconned.

The Simpsons Season 33, Episode 1 Retcons Marge’s Age

The Simpsons season 33’s premiere, “The Star of the Backstage,” (season 33, episode 1) asserts that Marge acted as stage manager for the high school musical “Y2K: the Millennium Bug” while she was still a student. This makes the character a teen in 1992, where earlier episodes depicted her as a middle-aged mom during this time. For example, one classic Simpsons ‘Treehouse of Horror’ segment from the era saw Homer and Bart sent hurtling toward the sun while Marge and Lisa escaped earth due to the widespread calamity caused by the Millennium Bug. In contrast, season 33 depicts Marge as a teen during this time and a middle-aged mom now, meaning she would have needed to marry Homer and have a 10-year-old child in the eight years between staging the school musical and the arrival of the Millennium itself.

This is not the first time that The Simpsons depicted its heroes as teens during the ‘90s, an era when the show was at its critical height. “That ‘90s Show” (season 19, episode 11) caused controversy years earlier when its depiction of Homer as a gunge band frontman resulted in his romance with Marge taking place in the early ‘90s and not the late ‘70s as previously depicted. However, The Simpsons season 33 did not limit retcons of existing character details to their ages, as proven by the show’s inconsistent depiction of Homer’s relationship with his mother.

The Simpsons Season 33 Retcons Homer’s Relationship With His Mother

Homer’s fraught relationship with his mom was retconned in “Mothers and Other Strangers” (season 33, episode 9), which saw him reveal that he met his mother Mona briefly in his teens. This flies in the face of “Mother Simpson” (season 7, episode 8), which depicted an adult Homer seeing Mona for the first time since he was a small child. The moving events of “Mother Simpson” provided the show with one of its most poignant stories, and Glenn Close’s Mona remains one of few Simpsons characters to be permanently killed off by the show. However, in showing that Homer met Mona in his teens and never thought to mention this in the intervening years, The Simpsons arguably tarnished the memorably bittersweet tone of Mona’s first appearance and blunted the surprisingly sad dramatic weight of Homer’s relationship with her.

The Simpsons Season 33 Retcons Homer’s Age (From Earlier In Season 33)

Bizarrely, The Simpsons season 33 retconned its own version of events when Homer was depicted as a ‘90s teen in the premiere, but then later depicted as a ‘70s teen in “Mothers and Other Strangers”. For some time, Marge and Homer Simpson were pretty consistently depicted as ‘70s teenagers, with some of The Simpsons’ sweetest moments centering around their early parenthood in the ‘80s and their teenage romance in the ‘70s. However, The Simpsons season 33 both confirmed and denied this in different episodes, depicting and changing Homer’s age from being in his teens in the ‘70s when he encountered his mother shortly after showing him as a ‘90s teen in “Star of the Backstage.” While this internal inconsistency may seem striking, it is in keeping with the show’s recent approach to continuity.

The Simpsons Season 33 Killed Off (& Brought Back) Fan-Favorites

In the two-part special “A Serious Flanders,” (season 33, episodes 6 and 7), The Simpsons killed off fan-favorite characters like Disco Stu, Rich Texan, Mr. Burns, and Fat Tony, only to revive them immediately afterward. Mere episodes after being killed by Kostas Becker, Mr. Burns was back befriending guest star Beck Bennett’s football player, while Fat Tony’s demise was so short-lived that he became Maggie’s temporary godfather only a few episodes after apparently being killed off. Although it is evident that the events of “A Serious Flanders,” are not part of The Simpsons canon, the fact that the special is not a Treehouse of Horror Halloween episode makes it tough to guess which events do count toward the show’s continuity (if any). Judging by the insistent storylines of The Simpsons season 33, the series seems to reboot its continuity episode by episode and can’t be relied on to keep anything consistent between outings. However, whether this means that The Simpsons can bring back dead characters is unclear, as season 33 has yet to use this flexible approach to canon to do much more than rewrite classic episodes and undo the events of well-liked earlier outings.

About The Author

Cathal Gunning
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Cathal Gunning has been writing about movies and TV online since 2020. His obsessions include The Simpsons, Stephen King, the Scream series, and the horror genre in general. He has spent more time thinking about Stranger Things than the writers of Stranger Things, and he has never seen a Star War.

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