The Simpsons Season 33 Finale Proved Its Retcons Make No Sense

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The season 33 finale of The Simpsons featured some of the show’s most incisive satire in a while, but the episode tacitly admitted that the constant retcons in the series make no sense and can undermine the effectiveness of its gags. By this stage, it has been long established that The Simpsons has “flexible continuity” that allows the show’s creators to rewrite its canon with each new episode. Plot holes like the question of whether Shauna Chalmers replaced Bart’s first crush or Laura Powers could still return are constantly subject to change since The Simpsons has no internal logic that drives the show’s stories.

While this approach is intended to make The Simpsons as freewheeling, anarchic, and comedically open-ended as possible, it also limits how satirically sharp the series can be. For example, in The Simpsons season 33, episode 22, “Poorhouse Rock,” Bart learns he will never have a comfortable job like his father due to the changing economic environment of America. However, this storyline only makes sense if viewers ignore numerous other episodes of The Simpsons.

Related: Did The Simpsons Just Mock Eternals’ Environmental Message?

In «Poorhouse Rock,» a guest-starring Hugh Jackman explains to Bart, via song, that he will never have a job as stable as Homer’s nuclear power plant position due to the vanishing middle class in America. The Simpsons season 33 finale’s political satire works surprisingly well, with Jackman's character’s song and dance routine outlining the conditions that have led to Bart’s generation being left in an unenviable economic quandary. However, this entire story is only sensible if viewers assume that Homer was a teen in the '60s or '70s and joined the workforce in the '70s or '80s, an idea