While The Simpsons have provided numerous glimpses into the future of the show’s heroes, the best of these fates left Bart in a pretty sad state. Although the show has been accused of predicting the real-life future, The Simpsons has never been entirely clear on the future of its own heroes. Numerous times, The Simpsons has jumped ahead a few decades to see how the lives of the show’s heroes turn out but, each time, their futures have been markedly different.
Some of these changes are minor, like whether Lisa ends up dating Milhouse or almost marrying a blue-blood English aristocrat. However, some are much more substantial, with one Simpsons future depicting Lisa as the president while another has her working as a businesswoman who has a child with Milhouse. While Lisa’s future is in flux, though, it is Bart who arguably fared worst from the best future that The Simpsons has depicted so far.
Despite Bart being the moral center of one of The Simpsons' best-loved earlier Christmas episodes, “Holidays of Future Passed” (season 23, episode 9) leaves him in an unenviable position. According to the version of the family’s future seen in the episode (bearing in mind that each future episode has its own standalone canon), Bart is divorced, estranged from his kids, and living in the rundown remnants of Springfield Elementary. He gains the begrudging semi-respect of his kids by the end of “Holidays of Future Passed”, but it is still a pretty sad prognosis for the character who was originally the lead of The Simpsons. This is despite the fact that the episode itself depicts a generally positive and uplifting future for the rest of the cast.
Why Bart’s Simpsons Future Is So Grim
By the episode’s end, Homer, Bart, and Gramps have all made peace with their sons, and there is a touching scene where Bart and Lisa bury the hatchet once and for all. However, the original hero of The Simspons is still divorced, jobless, and facing eviction as the episode reaches its conclusion, a position that The Simpsons was evidently content to leave him in. The season 33 finale of The Simpsons reaffirmed this with a grim musical number that informed Bart he would never get a comfortable middle-class job like the one Homer enjoyed, meaning the show may still be planning a similarly bleak end for the character’s story. This sly economic commentary may explain why Bart always gets such a rough deal.
“Holidays of Future Passed” was written as a potential series finale, and it works as such, providing a poignant end to The Simpsons as a whole while also informing viewers of where each of the titular family’s members ended up in the long term. However, the critically acclaimed Simpsons Christmas episode saddles Bart with a brutal end and proves that The Simpsons was willing to give its former hero a fairly miserable ending if the episode had ended up as the show’s finale. Fortunately, The Simpsons could still ameliorate this with another, brighter future look at the eventual fates of the eponymous family.