Parents everywhere get weepy… over 'The Simpsons'?!

Sunday’s episode of The Simpsons, which explored the dread parents have of facing an empty nest, clearly struck a chord with viewers who have experienced similar feelings on both the parenting and child side.

Called “A Mid-Childhood Night’s Dream,” this is the second episode of the show’s 35th season and was written by longtime Simpsons writer Carolyn Omine. Here is a look at what happened and how viewers — and Omine herself — reacted.

The episode

The story centers around matriarch Marge Simpson, voiced by Julie Kavner, who is in and out of a lucid dream — or “lucy dream” as described in the episode — after a rough night of drinking too many glasses of frosé.

It opens with a scene in which Bart is an excited toddler and Lisa is a barely speaking baby. As the episode goes, so does the dream, with Marge realizing that an aging Bart is a big part of it.

As she tries to figure out why she’s dreaming about Bart, she retraces her thoughts from that previous day, which includes removing a splinter from Bart’s hand and noticing how big his hands were getting.

She also looks back on a meeting with Bart’s teacher Rayselle Peyton, voiced by Kerry Washington for a fourth time in three seasons, where the teacher mentions looking ahead to middle school for Bart. But as Marge hears it, Bart’s childhood is almost over.

“It’s not a nightmare, it’s reality. Bart’s growing up,” Marge says after realizing why she is having these feelings. “I should have treasured every time he held my hand because I don’t remember when he stopped.”

Then the wheels keep turning and she realizes that the younger girls, Lisa and Maggie, will see a similar fate.

“Bart is just the beginning. One by one my babies will leave the nest. I’m gonna lose all of them,” she says.

That realization spurs an homage to the nuclear nightmare from Terminator 2: Judgment Day, according to writer Omine, which leads Marge to admit that she was being “a bit negative.”

Eventually, Marge’s illness and empty nest anxieties get the best of her and she ends up in the nurse’s office during a school function. She realizes that she had misheard the things Bart’s teacher was saying — except the stuff about Bart needing deodorant.

“Bart’s got a lot of childhood left,” Ms. Peyton reminds her. "I mean, he scores in the 50th percentile for knowing his right and left."

Marge feels good enough at the end to meet up with Bart at the school function and embrace the aging child in him and the stuff he is now into (even if that's "taking cutting edge, no-holds-barred comedy photos... inside-out-eyelids and Scotch tape nose").

The episode ends with mother and son walking away together to the dunk tank — "the gym teacher I hate is on the chair," says Bart — touchingly, holding hands.

The reactions

The theme seemed to be pretty universal based on viewer reactions on social media, with plenty sharing that the episode was an “emotional roller coaster” for them and had them thinking of their own families.

Omine took to X, formerly Twitter, as well during the episode to share inspirations behind different scenes and moments in the show.

The ending

Viewers also took note of the music behind the closing credits, which ended a sentimental episode with a singular piano playing all the different themes, done by Simpsons composer Kara Talve.

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