‘The Simpsons’ Officially Fixed Its Biggest Mistake With the Return of This Character

Published Oct 19, 2026, 12:50 AM EDT

Tania Hussain is an Executive Editor at Collider responsible for creative, editorial, and managerial duties. In addition to leading content ideation and development, she works to generate innovative and compelling ideas for feature articles and reviews with her editorial team across Features, Lists, Reviews, and Interviews. She also serves as the primary editor overseeing Collider’s Signature Series profiles, spotlighting some of the most influential voices in film and television. Tania has helped cover and ideate content for major events for Collider, including the Toronto International Film Festival. She has also conducted more than 100 interviews since her start in the business more than 15 years ago. Some favorites include Joel McHale, Charlie Cox, Jennifer Garner,** Tina Fey, Kate Winslet, Bob Odenkirk**, Andy Richter, Jordan Schlansky,** Jamie Dornan**,** Yeardley Smith, Rafe Spall,** Esther Smith, and a reasonable toss-up between Cookie Monster and Kermit the Frog. She has covered set visits, in-person junkets, and red carpets for several films and TV shows, including most recently, The Sheep Detectives, Masterchef, and Star Trek: Starfleet Academy.

Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for The Simpsons, Season 38, Episode 3For almost a decade, The Simpsons*** ***struggled with one of its most beloved characters, Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, voiced by actor Hank Azaria. As one of Springfield’s favorite neighbors, the Kwik-E-Mart owner faced mounting criticism for a stereotypical portrayal of Indian Americans and was consequently pushed into the background. Although he continued to appear occasionally and was seen in numerous frames of the series with other side characters, Apu suddenly became voiceless after 2017. But that finally changed in Sunday night’s Season 38 episode, “Treehouse of Horror Presents: The Revengening.”

Finally returning to Springfield with new voice actor Sunil Malhotra, Apu’s return proves to be one of the series’ most important comebacks for more than just fan service and nostalgia. After years of avoiding the issue, The Simpsons has finally acknowledged its biggest mistake and found a way to bring the Indian-American character back without ignoring the concerns that led to his absence in the first place.

While Apu’s portrayal has been criticized for years, the conversation gained more momentum when South Asian actors shared their experiences and comedian Hari Kondabolu released his 2017 documentary, The Problem With Apu. Exploring how Apu’s exaggerated Indian accent, catchphrases, and cultural stereotypes affected South Asian viewers’ experiences as Americans, Kondabolu’s investigation underscored how so many grew up being mocked or compared to the character. But what made matters worse was how Azaria, a white actor, was the one voicing him since 1990.

Your instincts, your strengths, and your particular way of thinking under pressure point to one villain you actually have a fighting chance against. Everyone else — good luck.

Jason is relentless, but he is also predictable — and that is the gap you would exploit.

Michael watches before he moves. He is patient, methodical, and almost impossible to detect — until it’s too late for anyone who isn’t paying close enough attention.

Freddy wins by getting inside your head — using your own fears, your own memories, your own subconscious as weapons against you. That strategy requires a target who can be destabilised.

Pennywise is ancient, shapeshifting, and feeds on terror — but it has one critical vulnerability: it cannot function against someone who genuinely stops being afraid of it.

Chucky’s greatest advantage is that nobody takes him seriously until it’s already too late. He exploits the gap between how something looks and what it actually is.

With that kind of perspective perpetuating a stereotypical lens, Azaria eventually apologized for the mistake and stepped away from the role. “I really do apologize,” he said at the time in a report from CBS. “I apologize for my part in creating that and participating in that. Part of me feels like I need to go to every single Indian person in this country and personally apologize. And sometimes I do.” But while the mistake was fully acknowledged, the show chose to cut Apu from stories and stopped giving him speaking roles. The problem was never that Apu existed, but how he had been portrayed, and removing him didn’t actually fix that.

Which is what makes his return in Sunday night’s episode, “The Revengening,” so interesting. The Halloween special, full of blood and guts, follows a mysterious figure seeking revenge against Springfield in an I Know What You Did Last Summer (err, Halloween) kind of way, only for the killer to reveal that he’s Apu. He accuses the town of “forgetting” about him, telling residents, “I am the one you pretended never existed!” Of course, the events align with the episode’s subject matter, but when Bart (Nancy Cartwright) admits they were “too scared” to do anything, and other characters joke about “internal conversations that went nowhere,” The Simpsons is openly making fun of its own handling of the controversy. Because rather than ignoring Apu’s long absence, the show finally admits it didn’t know how to deal with the problem.

window.arrayOfGalleries[“article-gallery-1-1250816579”] = ’“<div class=“w-gallery-carousel”><section id=“main-carousel-1-1250816579” class=“splide splide-gallery” data-gallery-expanded-id=“main-expanable-carousel-1-1250816579” data-gallery-expanded-thumbnail-id=“expanded-gallery-thumbnails-1-1250816579” ><button class=“expand icon i-expand” type=“button”></button><div class=“splide__track”><ul class=“splide__list” style=“—gallery-aspect-sm: 2 / 1; —gallery-aspect-md: 2 / 1; —gallery-aspect-lg: 2 / 1;” ><li class=“splide__slide gallery-main-img”>