In the end the last frame freezes. The camera pulls back and you see that, for the first time in years and years, the episode was animated the old fashioned way, with ink and paint. And you're looking at the final time this will be done, maybe ever.
A pair of hands gently, reverentially, picks up the cells and takes them out of view. The camera cuts to a box. The cells go in, on top of hundreds of others. The hands pick up the box, and again remove it from view.
Outside. It's a brilliant, sunny day in a drab, otherwise unremarkable parking lot. A man carries the box to a pile of others. You instantly sense that the whole episode, an absurd number of individual drawings all piled together, occupy those boxes. The whole of the last episode of The Simpsons, stacked in physical form.
He returns, and begins spraying lighter fluid on the boxes. Maybe you are horrified. Perhaps you are in awe. Or you're just curious.
This was all pre-recorded. Whatever happens next has already happened. Neither you nor your OLED screen have any say, not anymore. Sure, you could turn it off.
A zippo is produced from a pocket. The man lights it. He seems to contemplate the gravity of his next action for a moment, but with absolute certainty in his face, he casts the metal brick into the waiting fuel, and the boxes are slowly wrapped in flames.
The man leaves frame, and the camera doesn't move. Nothing but flames consuming thousands of hours of artwork occupies the screen.
As the boxes blacken and occasional sheets of plastic curl and flutter away, dancing like burning leaves, a song starts to play.
At first, you believe it's an aria, but within seconds you identify the theme song, slowly being sung by a choir. A funeral dirge might have been more expected, but this simple, beautiful, joyful tune, almost like angels at play, somehow feels more appropriate.
The song ends, the boxes have burnt. The screen goes dark. White, cursive letters come into focus on the dark background.
Thank you, and goodnight.
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