The Simpsons will “never” have a series finale, says showrunner

As the series nears Season 40 and a new movie, Matt Selman rules out a traditional finale.

Update: Feb 16th, 2026 23:36 CET

The Simpsons, like everything else that is good in this life, will come to an end one day. However, its current showrunner, Matt Selman, has revealed that there will “never” be a season finale.

This was recently revealed in an interview with The Wrap, where Selman discussed the recently aired 800th episode and the fate of the series. “If the show ever did end, there’s no finale — it would just be a regular episode that has the family in it. Probably a little Easter egg here and there, but no ‘I’m going to miss this place’.”

“We did an episode about a year-and-a-half ago that was like a parody of the series finale. We jammed every possible series finale concept into one show, so that was sort of my way of saying we’re never going to do a series finale,” mentioned Selman, about Season 36 season premiere ‘Bart’s Birthday’ which seemed like a “finale” for the series.

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A universe without apparent continuity

As happened a few months ago with the death of Marge Simpson in the future, Selman recalled that the series lives in its own universe, which, although it restarts “every week. It’s like Groundhog Day, but they don’t know it,” some events, such as the death and departure of certain characters, do not affect life in Springfield. “It’s a hard challenge, but it’s a really fun challenge, that quest for originality; and to really be worthy of the mantle of making a TV show where we can kind of do whatever we want and people still seem to like it. So we’re just the luckiest writer Ding-Dongs in the world. I just don’t want to screw it up.”