This episode deploys two weapons that Futurama busts out only a couple times a season: continuity, and sincerity.
Your typical Futurama episode has little interest in drawing upon the show’s past or in crafting an ongoing narrative. Everything always starts from status quo, and ends the same way. Changes to that status quo have accumulated only very gradually (one might say reluctantly) over the show’s long run, and usually in ways that are easy for any given episode to ignore (like Fry & Leela becoming a couple, where it goes completely unmentioned half the time).
Typical Futurama also has little interest in emotional sincerity. It may go through the motions of someone learning a lesson, growing as a person, or bonding with someone else, but the presentation is usually pure irony. We’re not supposed to care about what these characters feel or what happens to them – just laugh as they get hurt, do stupid and/or awful things, and generally make a mess of things. Which is all fine because, per the light approach to continuity mentioned above, it’s not like there’ll be consequences for any of this.
But, occasionally, Futurama likes to break from this model, and tell a story that follows up on stories from previous episodes, and tries to do so with some genuine heart, a desire to make us care and empathize with the characters, not just laugh at their antics. And the fact that Futurama normally doesn’t do this makes those moments so much more impactful.
I still remember my first viewing of “The Why of Fry”, and my jaw falling open when Nibbler began talking, restarting the story that was seemingly closed for good back in “The Day the Earth Stood Stupid”. And as the episode went on, revisiting the events of “Space Pilot 3000”, casting them in a new light, and treating Fry’s devastated response to these revelations with the seriousness it deserved … well, it got to me. Seeing the goofball lead of our wacky comedy show suddenly dealing with epic plotting and heavy emotions, it’s like seeing a cute little kitten try to claw its way out of a flash flood – the poor little guy wasn’t built to handle anything so dire, so seeing it not only face such a challenge, but triumph, it hits hard.
So dropping the twin bombs of continuity and sincerity: those have absolutely been a winning combination for Futurama in the past.
But why is this the story they felt needed that? Of all the episodes with loose plot threads worth revisiting, how many folks were really eager to see more of Zoidberg’s flowershilling girlfriend from “Stench and Stenchibility”, or Hermes’s dad-what-was-reincarnated-as-a-coffee-plant (as you do) from “Planet Espresso”?
I mean, I’m sure there are some. Looking back at the comments for that old “Stench and Stenchibility” review, I do see some remarks that they liked the idea of Zoidberg & Marianne ending the series as a couple (and dreading the Hulu revival undoing it). And Hermes’s dad dying, but being reborn in a form that lets them finally have the father/son bond they never had before – in theory that’s a strong emotional hook.
It’s just … I personally can’t give a fig. I had no emotional investment in these stories the first go around, and this continuation does jack-all to remedy that … which, to be fair, is a tall order. A lot of this episode wants us to care about Zoidberg feeling hurt and fearing rejection, when Zoidberg’s comedic schtick is built on being hurt and rejected, and us all laughing at the funny crabman’s pain. Trying to pivot that into sincere drama … this isn’t simply placing a goofy character in a serious context, but actively trying to reverse course and tell us “Everything you were laughing at before? Take it dead seriously now.”
And Hermes having heartfelt conversations with a coffee plant, who might only be talking in Hermes’s imagination, or who might actually be Hermes’s dad, who just likes making their kid look crazy? There are maybe shows that could draw sincere emotion out of such a silly premise, but Hulu era Futurama is not one of them.
If you’re only going to do this sort of dramatic, lore-driven story once or twice this season, shouldn’t it have been saved for something with more potential than … this?
Stray Observation:
- It doesn’t help matters that some of the continuity here doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. It tries claiming Zoidberg is only poor because the dude’s been funding Marianne’s education this whole time, when the jokes about Zoidberg being ridiculously poor predate Marianne’s first appearance by a large, large, large margin.
- Now, a good use of continuity this episode? The return of the Whale Biologist Who Hates Whales (who was also briefly the Bear Biologist Who Hates Bears) now a Plant Biologist Who … Guess What? They’re a pretty consistent source of laughs through the whole thing. “Yeah, you better tumble!”
- While the Zoidberg/Marianne/Corpse Flower throuple ultimately doesn’t pan out, the episode still has a more appreciative and optimistic view of polyamory than we saw back in The Beast with a Billion Backs.
- “My disgust matters!” “Only a little.” Feels like this would be prime meme material if Futurama still had the cultural clout to make that happen.
- Ending with a heartfelt rendition of “Walking on Sunshine” … in an episode not about Fry’s dog. Bold choice, Futurama. Stupid, but bold.