Warning: Spoilers for The Simpsons season 34, episode 4.
While Drew Barrymore’s role as herself was a fun cameo in The Simpsons season 34, her appearance creates a major plot hole because of the episode’s other star. The unclear canon of The Simpsons has always confused viewers since the series will often rewrite the backstories of major characters or retcon events out of existence without warning. As a cartoon comedy, The Simpsons has a little more leeway than most sitcoms when it comes to the show’s lack of continuity, but even this can be taken too far at times.
For example, The Simpsons season 34, episode 4 “The King of Nice,” saw Marge become a daytime television presenter while Krusty also transitioned to the genre. Both characters found great success in their new roles, only to soon tire of the daytime television industry. Near the episode's end, Drew Barrymore played herself as a daytime TV host who tried to woo Marge over to her show when Krusty gave up on his. While this episode touched on the mystery of who Marge’s friends are and what her interests are outside the family, “The King of Nice” never addressed the fact that Drew Barrymore was also previously the voice of Sophie, Krusty’s daughter, in “Insane Clown Poppy” (season 12, episode 3).
Why Drew Barrymore’s Simpsons Cameo Doesn’t Add Up
While the same actor can voice numerous characters on The Simpsons (and a lot of the show’s cast do so every week), Drew Barrymore’s cameo runs into a trippier Simpsons paradox. If Drew Barrymore exists in the world of The Simpsons (and hosts her real-life television show), is she the same Drew Barrymore who voiced Krusty’s daughter in season 12? And, if so, is Krusty’s daughter real or fictional? The episode doesn’t answer these questions, although to be fair, The Simpsons season 34 already parodied itself an episode earlier, so two episodes in a row that focused on The Simpsons as a real-life television show could have felt like overkill.
How This Cameo Plays Into The Simpsons Season 34’s Weirdest Trend
While The Simpsons season 34 didn’t necessarily need to explain how Drew Barrymore can be both a real and fictional character on the show at the same time, the show could have avoided this conundrum if it weren’t for one weird recent trend. There is a lot of focus on Krusty in season 34, with The Simpsons basing the plot of “The King of Nice” around the character’s daytime television career and basing the next episode, “Not IT” (season 34, episode 5) around Krusty playing Pennywise the clown in a Stephen King spoof. If it weren’t for this focus, Barrymore’s paradox would have been less obvious.
Much like The Simpsons season 34 brought back Bill Plympton for a couch gag, the show is clearly also determined to return its focus to Krusty more often going forward. If anyone else starred in the episode, the internal inconsistencies of Drew Barrymore’s cameo would have been a lot less noticeable. After all, Barrymore never played Kent Brockman’s daughter on The Simpsons and that news anchor could as easily have produced a short-lived daytime television show alongside Marge. However, The Simpsons season 34 instead opted to focus two episodes in a row on Krusty’s adventures, resulting in this strange internal paradox.
New episodes of The Simpsons air on Fox on Sundays.