'The Simpsons' Brings Apu Back With an Apology. Restoring Beats Erasing.

After nearly a decade of silence, Apu Nahasapeemapetilon spoke again on "The Simpsons" Sunday night, with a new actor behind the voice and a storyline that amounted to an on-screen apology from the town of Springfield.

The facts come first below. My opinion follows in the section marked as opinion.

A secret kept until airtime

Sunil Malhotra, a voice actor whose credits include "Grey's Anatomy" and "The Legend of Korra," now voices the Kwik-E-Mart owner, Variety reported. Apu had been seen but not heard since the October 2017 episode "The Serfsons." Fox did not share a screener of Sunday's episode, "The Revengening," and everyone at the table read signed nondisclosure agreements.

Janina Gavankar of "The Morning Show" debuted as Apu's wife, Manjula. Executive producer Matt Selman said the family will be seen and heard more often. "We love this character, and wanted to bring him back in a smart, 'Simpsons'-y way that allowed him to evolve," he said.

Hank Azaria voiced Apu for close to 30 years until a 2017 documentary ignited a backlash over how the character represented South Asians, Deadline reported. That film, "The Problem With Apu," was made by comedian Hari Kondabolu. Azaria announced in 2020 that he would no longer voice the character, The Guardian reported. "I apologize for my part in creating that and participating in that," he later said on Dax Shepard's "Armchair Expert" podcast.

An episode about being left for dead

In "The Revengening," a lead-in to next week's "Treehouse of Horror," a man in a costume is accidentally killed again and again around Springfield, then returns for revenge. He turns out to be Apu. "I am the man you left for dead. I am the one you pretended never existed!" he says, according to Variety.

Marge answers for the town: "Apu, we're so sorry we left you for dead. Believe me, we wanted to do the right thing." Homer offers to sacrifice himself and admits, "We took you for granted. I took you for granted." The threat turns out to be a nightmare. Apu wakes up back at the Kwik-E-Mart with Manjula, and Homer invites him to a Halloween party. He says yes.

Malhotra said the call about the audition "actually made my stomach sink." He said he once turned down his first professional job offer because it required playing a stereotype, and he was prepared to walk away. He agreed only after meeting Selman and co-executive producer Cesar Mazariegos. "Bringing Apu back feels like a reclamation," he wrote on Instagram, as quoted by the Guardian.

Opinion: Better to restore than to erase

For years, some viewers saw Apu's silence as a textbook case of a beloved character quietly erased because he became inconvenient. Others, including Kondabolu, argued the character did real harm to how people of South Asian descent were seen, Variety noted. Both of those things can be true at once.

What the show finally did was better than either pretending nothing was wrong or pretending Apu never existed. It admitted fault, said sorry, and brought him home with a South Asian actor who cared enough to ask hard questions first. Malhotra's line about kids who "stopped watching at some point along the way" is worth hearing. So is Homer's confession that Springfield took Apu for granted.

The episode also lands on the right note about revenge. Apu plots vengeance, then wakes up and goes to the party. Scripture says, "Recompense to no man evil for evil," and "Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves" (Romans 12:17-19). Jesus told his followers that if a brother has something against you, "first be reconciled to thy brother" (Matthew 5:24).

A good apology names the wrong and tries to make it right. Dock Line made a similar point when Val Chmerkovskiy was suspended from "Dancing With the Stars" over a Will Smith slap post. Cancel culture rarely offers a road back. A cartoon about a convenience store just did. Welcome home, Apu.