The Simpsons is pretty familiar with violence, but it’s always been cartoon violence on a literal and figurative level. We don’t need to recount all of the ways in which members of the eponymous family have broken themselves, let alone the allegorical and delightfully gory asides of Itchy & Scratchy.
That being said, straight-up showcasing a suicide definitely feels like a first.
That being said, straight-up showcasing a suicide definitely feels like a first.
During the brand-new promo of The Simpsons‘ upcoming episode, the viewer is taken straight into The White House‘s press room. The shot focuses on White House press secretary Sean Spicer, hanging from a noose, wearing a sign reading “I quit.”
A stylised Kelly-Anne Conway flees the scene. And that’s it. That’s the joke – that President Donald Trump’s administration is so bad, and that the pressure to spin his bullshit is so horrific, that Spicer would choose to take his own life than continue.
Donald Trump reviews his first 100 days in office. Watch an all-new episode of #TheSimpsons this Sunday at 8/7c on FOX. pic.twitter.com/rDtvNgusFs
— The Simpsons (@TheSimpsons) April 26, 2017
The rest of the promo charges through a series of brutal tropes about the president that’d feel kinda familiar even if the sequence didn’t open with an animated suicide. How’s this for a trope: The old Simpsons was way, way better than this.
Source and photo: The Simpsons / FOX.
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