16 Years Later, The Simpsons Made One Of Homer's Most Tragic Moments So Much Worse
Homer’s relationship with his mother Mona has always been one of the saddest stories in The Simpsons history, but season 36 of the series managed to make it so much worse with a new twist. There are very few things that The Simpsons takes seriously. Even though The Simpsons season 37’s renewal has not yet been announced, season 36’s premiere mocked the idea of the series ending with an in-universe “Series finale” written by the AI program “Hack GPT.” The show mocks even its own longevity and has never spared politicians, public figures, religions, or institutions.
One of the darkest stories in The Simpsons season 36 even used the real-life “Miracle of the Andes” for inspiration, despite the tragedy claiming dozens of lives. However, despite this consistently irreverent approach to storytelling, there is one thing that The Simpsons does take seriously. The Simpsons cares about family, as implied by the show’s focus on the titular clan. For all the show’s jokes, many of the most moving moments from the long history of The Simpsons center on the theme of family in all its imperfect incarnations. Homer’s relationship with his mother might be the saddest example.
The Simpsons Season 36 Revealed Homer’s Mother, Mona, Is In Hell
Homer Saw Her In A Vision After A Disastrous Helicopter Crash
Homer always had a strained relationship with his mother, Mona, who abandoned him as a child to focus on her work as a radical environmental activist. In season 7, episode 8, “Mother Simpson,” Homer is finally reunited with his mother after two decades of believing her to be dead. He learned she had been in hiding for years after an incident at Mr. Burns’ laboratory left the police on her tail. In the episode’s iconic ending, Homer sat alone on the hood of his car and stared at the stars after his mother was once again forced to leave.
Throughout the rest of Mona’s time in the series, Homer’s relationship with Mona scarcely grew any better. That said, it was still a surprise when season 36, episode 12, “The Man Who Flew Too Much,” revealed that she was in Hell. Homer briefly imagined his mother speaking to him when he was delirious and trying to drag his bowling team to safety after a helicopter crash. Homer, Moe, Ned, Barney, Carl, and the new character Fausto were all nearing death after a week stranded on the desolate mountainside, but Homer found the strength to drag them back to civilization.
Before leaving the mountains at the conclusion of The Simpsons season 36 episode’s dark plot, Homer spoke to Mona and she revealed that she was in Hell with fellow left-wing revolutionary Che Guevara. Glenn Close’s Mona Simpson was killed off for good in season 19, episode, “Mona Leaves-a,” after various earlier outings like season 15, episode 3, “My Mother the Carjacker” teased her fake-out death. That outing ended Homer’s troubled relationship with his mother when he fulfilled her final wish by disrupting a missile launch with her ashes. Since then, she was only seen in flashbacks and memories.
Homer’s Relationship With Mona Was His Saddest Story In The Simpsons
Homer And His Mother Never Saw Eye To Eye
Until this shocking twist revealed she was in Hell, Mona Simpson’s role in recent seasons of The Simpsons had been relatively minimal. Whenever Close did reprise her role, it was usually for an emotionally charged episode that shed new light on her and Homer’s troubled relationship. Season 23, episode 16, “How I Wet Your Mother,” season 29, episode 18, “Forgive and Regret,” and season 33, episode 9, “Mother and Other Strangers” all made Homer’s loss sadder and wrung some uncomfortable comedy from his lack of closure after her death. As Ned Flanders’ Simpsons story proves, the show struggles with death.
it was a big deal when “Mona Leaves-a” killed off Mona and The Simpsons has never fully recovered when it comes to depicting Homer’s relationship with her.
Throughout the show’s record-breaking run of over 770 episodes, The Simpsons has only killed off around a dozen recurring characters permanently. As such, it was a big deal when “Mona Leaves-a” killed off Mona and The Simpsons has never fully recovered when it comes to depicting Homer’s relationship with her. It is tough to draw laughs out of Homer’s grief and the reality that Mona is genuinely gone jars with the playfully inconsistent canon of The Simpsons, where anything can happen and nothing lasts forever. The fact that Homer never fully forgave his mother during her life only makes this sadder.
The Simpsons Season 36’s Mona Twist Might Not Be Canon
Homer’s Outlook Could Cloud His Perception
While it is heartbreaking that Homer never had the chance to fully resolve his issues with his mother while she was still alive, this ironically makes the twist of “The Man Who Flew Too Much” less tragic. After all, it makes sense that Homer would think Mona was in Hell, since he resented her for decades after she chose political activism over raising him. This doesn’t necessarily mean that she actually is in Hell, since viewers only have Homer’s subjective vision as evidence. The Simpsons’ few canonical character deaths make Mona’s brutal eternal fate seem even less likely.
Although The Simpsons has killed off a handful of characters permanently, such as Bleeding Gums Murphy, Larry the Barfly, and Maude Flanders, the show hasn’t revealed that any of these characters are in Hell. As such, it seems unlikely that Homer would coincidentally happen to be the first character in the show’s universe to learn that a dead character from The Simpsons was in Hell and that the character in question would be the absent mother he harbored complicated, resentful feelings toward. Homer’s mother, Mona, may not be in Hell, but he might simply imagine that she is.
The show’s antihero has always had a tragically complex relationship with his mother, whose well-meaning ideological quest left him with only one parent.
Of course, this twist is scarcely any less sad for Homer. The show’s antihero has always had a tragically complex relationship with his mother, whose well-meaning ideological quest left him with only one parent. Homer’s struggles with his mother’s abandonment are a strikingly sad character detail in a show that usually tries to make everything funny, and his inability to move on from resenting Mona seems to be confirmed by imagining her in Hell. As such, this twist from The Simpsons season 36 remains fairly dark even if Mona is only canonically in Hell in of Homer’s mind.
- Network
- FOX
- Cast
- Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith, Hank Azaria, Harry Shearer, Pamela Hayden, Tress MacNeille, Gillian Anderson, Johnny Cash, Ed Asner, Betty White, Alex Rocco, Christina Ricci, Bret Hart, Joe Frazier, Ed Begley Jr., Helen Hunt, Bob Denver, Buzz Aldrin, Tom Kite, John Waters, Jack Lemmon
- Writers
- J. Stewart Burns, Michael Price, Brian Kelley, Bill Odenkirk, Dan Vebber, Kevin Curran, Stephanie Gillis, Dan Castellaneta, Deb Lacusta, Billy Kimball, Jessica Conrad, Cesar Mazariegos, Daniel Chun, Jennifer Crittenden, Conan O'Brien, Valentina Garza, Elisabeth Kiernan Averick, Christine Nangle, Broti Gupta, Loni Steele Sosthand, Megan Amram, Bob Kushell, David Isaacs, David Mandel
- Franchise(s)
- The Simpsons
- Seasons
- 37
