"The Simpsons" Just Killed Off Another Longtime Character And It's Pretty Shocking

The Simpsons Kills Off Another Longtime Character

I gotta say, the way things are going down on The Simpsons lately, the long-running TV cartoon comedy feels like it has more in common with Breaking Bad or The Sopranos than anything else.

You might remember at the end of Season 36, when the show made the shocking decision to depict Marge Simpson's death in the far-off future — briefly creating something of an established canon within a show where the characters have not aged at all across more than three decades.

Thankfully, Season 37 is underway, and good ol' Marge is alive and well — but during the recent episode "Sashes to Sashes," which aired on Nov. 16, the show's overlords spilled yellow-colored blood yet again and did away with another longtime Springfield resident.

The deceased in question? First Church of Springfield organist Alice Glick, who keeled over mid-organ-pump in the opening minutes of the episode. (Perhaps you recall her pump-work from this iconic scene in the Season 7 episode "Bart Sells His Soul.")

And unlike Marge, it doesn't sound like Alice will be returning soon — or ever, for that matter. "In a sense, Alice the organist will live forever, through the beautiful music she made," the show's co-executive producer Tim Long told Entertainment Weekly in a statement. "But in another, more important sense, yep, she's dead as a doornail."

Wow. RIP to a real one, I guess. If only there were a gang of roving Homers to help fans deal with their grief...