“The Simpsons” Permanently Kills Off Longtime Character After 35 Seasons: ‘She’s Dead as a Doornail’

Springfield has lost one of its own.

In the Nov. 16 episode of The Simpsons, the fictional city’s First Church Organist Alice Glick suddenly died in the midst of a sermon. The character, initially voiced by the late Cloris Leachman before Tress MacNeille took over, and has regularly appeared on the show for 34 years and a total of 35 seasons.

In the season 37 episode, titled “Sashes to Sashes,” Alice was honored in a memorial service by Springfield Elementary, where it was revealed she left her entire estate to fund the school’s new music program.

This isn’t the first time Alice has seemingly died — in season 22, she was attacked by a rogue Robopet, leaving fans to wonder if she had been killed off. However, she returned for several episodes over the following years, sometimes alive and sometimes as a ghost.

This time, executive producer Tim Long tells PEOPLE in a statement that Alice is gone for good.

“In a sense, Alice the organist will live forever, through the beautiful music she made,” he said. “But in another, more important sense, yep she’s dead as a doornail.”

The character made her debut in season 2’s “Three Men and a Comic Book” episode in 1991, where Bart Simpson is completing tasks for Alice in an effort to save enough money to buy a collector’s item comic book.

Fans took to X to react to the news, with some simply writing, “Alice Glick is dead…Again,” and “RIP Alice Glick.”

“Nooo. 😔” declared another.

Others highlighted that they’re still getting over the last permanent death on The Simpsons, Larry  “the Barfly” Dalrymple: “1st Larry, now Alice Glick. The Simpsons are killing off everyone….”

Larry, who had been on the long-running series since its pilot in 1989, was killed off in an April 2024 episode called “Cremains of the Day.” This left audiences around the country shocked.

Lead character and Simpson family matriarch Marge Simpson (voiced by Julie Kavner) also had her death teased in a flash-forward storyline during the show’s season 36 finale, which aired in May. That same finale episode saw future students mentioning taking over for the school’s fashion club when teacher Dewey Largo (Harry Shearer) died, but it was later revealed he was not actually dead.

Jessica Conrad, who wrote the season 37 premiere, explained to TV Line that she wasn’t worried the throwaway line would rile up fans, adding “for something like this, I would welcome the riling up if you actually believe that [we] would kill him off off-camera.”

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The Simpsons airs Sundays at 8 p.m. ET on Fox.