Warning: This article contains SPOILERS for The Simpsons season 36, episode 18, “Estranger Things”

While season 36 finale’s homage was sweet, I can’t believe how sad the Pixar reference turned out to be. The Simpsons is the longest-running scripted primetime American TV show in history, and the show has spoofed, referenced, and paid homage to countless other TV shows and movies in the last few decades. With over 780 episodes under its belt, it would be easier to list the movies and shows The Simpsons hasn’t mentioned than it would be to try and name every piece of media the series has referenced.

While The Simpsons season 37 may change this, currently, the most regular outlet for the show’s pop culture parodies is its annual Treehouse of Horror Halloween specials. These anthology episodes feature numerous short parodies of classic and recent genre movies and TV, so they offer The Simpsons an annual opportunity to poke fun at everything from Westworld to Stranger Things to Snowpiercer. Some segments even spoof children’s media, like “Toy Gory” from season 32, episode 4, “Treehouse of Horror XXXI.”

Since that earlier spoof was as surreal and violent as most of the show’s Halloween parodies, it didn’t stand out in the Treehouse of Horror canon. However, thanks to its poignancy and dark tone. Like many episodes throughout The Simpsons history, this outing opened with a self-contained subplot about Bart and Lisa watching Itchy & Scratchy together as children that focused on how much this shared ritual bonded the otherwise dissimilar siblings.

When Marge revealed she had bought Maggie Itchy & Scratchy merchandise, Bart and Lisa were horrified to learn the show was now “For babies." To Marge’s horror, they stopped watching it together. Marge wanted Bart and Lisa to continue watching the series lest they grow apart without this interest in common.

Her fears were soon proved right as guest star Sarah McLachlan performed an emotional rendition of her Toy Story 2 ballad, “When She Loved Me.” In this iteration, the song was now about how Bart and Lisa used to love Itchy & Scratchy, but the montage of the duo growing apart as they forgot their favorite childhood toys retained all the original scene's heartbreaking power. Unusually, The Simpsons season 36 finale didn't play the sequence for laughs.

Instead, the show leaned into the inherent sadness of two siblings growing apart with age, before delivering a devastating emotional revelation. Shockingly, , a twist that was sadder than the “When She Loved Me” scene from the original movie. Although The Simpsons has parodied Toy Story before, this sequence couldn’t be classified as a spoof so much as a very tragic homage.

Unlike "Toy Gory," the scene was uncharacteristically poignant and genuinely sad, recreating the original Toy Story 2 sequence and twisting the knife further with Marge’s unexpected death. However, The Simpsons season 36’s self-aware sense of humor mercifully returned before “Estranger Things” ended, as the siblings were reconciled later in life. When Lisa mistakenly called Senior Services to pick up Homer, Bart and his sister needed to chase a bus transporting the elderly to Florida so they could free their father.

Unable to get the bus to pull over, Lisa had the ingenious idea of playing an old Itchy & Scratchy clip whose running water sounds convinced the bus’s elderly inhabitants that they all needed to use the restroom simultaneously. Thus, the tragic nod to the Pixar classic paid off when Bart and Lisa’s shared love of Itchy & Scratchy saved the day at the last moment. season 36’s finale might have made the scene even sadder, but the episode still found room for an uplifting ending.

Enjoy ScreenRant's primetime coverage? Click below to sign up for our weekly Network TV newsletter (make sure to check "Network TV" in your preferences) and get the inside scoop from actors and showrunners on your favorite series.