Last week, I called “The Temp” a good episode … for a certain definition of “good”. By the general standards of TV comedy, “The Temp” was a fine outing, and a definite step up from how this season began. However, judged by the standards of the original run of Futurama from the 2000’s (which is how most of us will judge it, for we are old and crotchety), “The Temp” was at best average, probably a little below average.

Well, I’m pleased to say that this week I need no such qualifying statements. “The Beauty and the Bug” is a damn good episode of Futurama – full stop.

This is not only my favorite episode of the Hulu revival (so far), but an episode you could place in any era of the show and have it hold its own just fine. Sure, it doesn’t reach the exquisite greatness of eps like “The Sting” or “Roswell That Ends Well”, but it achieves the sort of regular ol’ greatness that, at its peak, was Futurama‘s baseline for “good”.

And it’s interesting that “Beauty and the Bug” achieves this, despite being a very unambitious episode.

(Well, unambitious from a story perspective. From an animation perspective, doing an episode so full of fights and crowd shots and buggalo herds had to be a challenge, and one they rose to admirably.)

What we have here is a very stock “character gets a new job” plot that the show’s done a dozen times before. In this case, it’s Bender becoming a matador, with bugfighting just being bullfighting with the thinnest of the sci-fi glosses. And there’s no attempt to elevate it with deeper themes or character work. There’s a love story, but it’s one we were clearly never meant to be invested in – it’s just there to motivate Bender and provide an excuse for saying “jiggy” a lot. And the animal rights stuff (basically a fusion of “The Problem with Popplers” and “31st Century Fox”) doesn’t have any deep message or satire behind it – it’s just there to get laughs by setting up a standard issue morality tale, then zagging where you expect it to zig.

But doing things just to get laughs? That’s why this episode works. It elevates itself by virtue of just being funny.

Forget themes and plots and character development – on a pure joke-by-joke basis, “Beauty and the Bug” is Futurama firing on all cylinders. While we remember the show’s very best episodes for bringing the funny and some deep or inventive ideas, these sorts of let’s-just-have-fun adventures have always been part of Futurama, and have produced some of its finest outings. As a gag delivery vehicle, “Beauty and the Bug” works much the same as “The Deep South”, and is almost as hilarious – held back only by not having any bits quite as funny as “The Magician?” or “That just raises further questions!”

Of course, it’s difficult to explain what makes a comedy like this so funny beyond just listing all your favorite gags … and I’m feelin’ lazy, so the rest of the review will be doing just that!

Favorite Gags:

• The “Brainometer” – greatest invention since the finglonger.
• Soylent Ambulunch
• “Do you have many more names?” “Yes, many.”
• “Betsy has emotional intelligence.” “That’s the stupidest kind of intelligence!”
• “It’s not a very rich culture, we admit that. We just like to eat grass and kill matadors.”
• “Let us end this barbaric – yet noble – yet barbaric ritual once and for all! Yet noble.”
• “The same old shows at an exciting new price!” *Now With Double Price!*
• Amy expecting Leela to be up for an animal rights cause like in previous episodes, but Leela, who spends the whole ep chowing on buggalo meat, instead goes, “Uh … how ’bout we let this be your issue.”
• The slain buggalo being carved up by chainsaw.
• The Crushinator throwing their “dainties” at Bender.
• Absolutely everything with Don “Beat the Traffic” Cunningham.