Season 27 of The Simpsons will finally take on the sexuality of one particular character who’s kept the secret from his boss.

Simpsons executive producer Al Jean revealed in an interview with TV Line that Smithers will be coming out to his boss Mr. Burns during season 27, which kicks off this Sunday on Fox.

“In Springfield now, most people know he’s gay, but obviously Burns doesn’t,” Jean said. “We deal with that in two episodes. … We actually do a lot with Smithers this year; he gets fed up with Burns not appreciating him and considers his options.”

Longtime Smithers fans have had good reason to suspect the character is gay. There’ve been several hints dropped throughout the series, like this scene in which Smithers happily accepts an invitation from Mr. Burns:

Or this scene when Smithers was frightened by strippers:

These scenes happened in the presence of Mr. Burns, but the raspy-voiced boss never caught on to what these incidents meant.

One episode in the series even suggested that Smithers had an interest in Mr. Burns: The personal assistant had an animation version of Mr. Burns on his computer that would digitally say to him: “Hello, Smithers. You’re quite good at turning me on.”

Al Jeans’s new comments about Smithers and Mr. Burns suggest they’ll be having at least one get-down-with-Jesus moment in season 27 of The Simpsons. Maybe Smithers will go so far as to explicitly profess his love for the boss?

Smithers won’t be the first out character on the show. Others include Marge’s sister Patty, Comic Book Guy’s gay cousin Comic Book Gay (lol?), and Lisa’s music teacher Dewey Largo.

We’re happy for you, Smithers.