Leela's Homeworld

"Leela's Homeworld"
Futurama episode
File:Futurama ep56.jpg Leela as a baby.
Episode no.	Season four
Directed by	Mark Ervin
Written by	Kristin Gore
Original air dates	February 17, 2002
Episode features
Opening cartoon	In a Cartoon Studio, Van Beuren Studio, 1931

"Leela's Homeworld" is the second episode in the fourth production season of Futurama. It first aired as the fifth episode of the fourth broadcast season on February 17, 2002. The episode was written by Kristin Gore and directed by Mark Ervin. This episode reveals Leela's true origin as a mutant who was abandoned by her parents, not an alien who was sent to Earth before her planet was destroyed as she previously believed.

Plot

The Professor announces that Leela's old orphanarium has named her Orphan of the Year. In another announcement, he shows off a machine that makes glow-in-the-dark noses. Unfortunately, the machine produces enormous amounts of toxic waste. The Professor hires Bender to dispose of the waste, and he does so by dumping it into the sewer.

At the orphanarium's award ceremony, the headmaster presents us with a flashback of Leela's arrival. We see that she was left with a note written in Alienese, and a bracelet (translated, the note reads, "Your parents love you very much"). Back at the Planet Express building, Leela is in tears over not having parents. Fry takes her for a walk, and she looks up to the stars, wondering which alien world her parents were from--in the meantime, we see two one-eyed sewer mutants looking up from a drain...

Meanwhile, Bender has expanded his one-time dumping into a full waste management service. The mutants grow angry with Bender's disposal technique, and make a rare surface trip, capturing Bender, Fry, and Leela. The mutants sentence the crew to be lowered into a lake of slick, smooth sludge and chemicals, which would mutate them as well. (Bender, who has no DNA; is sentenced to being beaten up).

Two hooded mutants call out to Leela, then swing the crane around, dropping the crew on the far side of the mutagenic lake. The mutant mob, immune to the effects of the lake, swim across and give pursuit. Fry, Leela, and Bender take refuge in a mutant home, where they find a shrine to Leela's life. The mob captures them, but after a whispered word from the hooded mutants, the crew's sentence is commuted to exile. They ride a hot-air balloon to a surface access ladder hanging over the lake. Fry and Bender emerge on the surface; but Leela, determined to find out what the hooded mutants know, dives into the chemical lake.

She swims to shore, and is confused as she finds she is unaffected by the chemicals (she is initially believed to be shown with an octopus' head, but it turned out to be another mutant). Fry heads to the orphanarium to try to get some clues as to what's going on, and the headmaster gives him the note that was left with Leela. Fry takes the note back to the Professor for analysis and they discover the shocking truth: Leela is not an alien, but actually a mutant, but was born "the least mutated mutant ever". Her parents, realizing she could pass as an alien, decided to leave her at the orphanarium with an Alienese note (her mother somehow has a PhD in exolinguistics), and agreed that they would rather die than ever let her find out the "shameful" truth.

Meanwhile, an armed and irrational Leela has pursued her still-hooded parents through the sewers, back to the home with the shrine to herself. Leela reveals that her mother has the same bracelet she has. Seeing this, Leela comes to the conclusion that they killed her parents, leaving her an orphan. She plans to kill the two in her rage, who are willing to let her do so. Fry falls through the ceiling at the last second and stops Leela before removing the mutants' hoods, revealing the two middle-aged, one-eyed mutants as her parents. The two confirm Fry's discovery to Leela, who has regained herself. A tearful reunion ensues (while Bender pours more garbage over them and looks upon them in sympathy), and the episode closes with a montage of scenes of Leela's parents secretly watching over their daughter throughout her life.

Continuity

This episode reveals Leela's origins, something she had been searching for all through the series. Until this episode Leela believed she was an alien and was searching for her planet of origin. The revelation of her true origin in this episode was previously foreshadowed when Leela's parents appeared in a crowd of mutants in "I Second That Emotion".

Production

The idea for the character Leela and her back story were conceived of by Matt Groening and David X. Cohen before they even pitched the series to FOX. Because they knew from the beginning that Leela would later be revealed to not be an alien, they intentionally included a shot of Leela's parents in the previous episode "I Second That Emotion". As the plot for this episode developed though they realized that the design of the characters needed to change to look less normal. In the original design, Morris had a normal mouth; and Munda had normal human arms, one of which was visible in her original appearance. For a while the idea was thrown around to stay true to some aspects of this design and Munda had a normal human arm and a tentacle arm. Eventually it was decided to make both arms tentacles and work under the assumption that in the previous appearance she had been wearing something similar to a human flesh colored glove. There was a large amount of debate amongst the writers as to whether the truth of Leela's origin should be revealed to the viewer before Leela realized it or if it should be a surprise for the viewers as well. The final decision was made based on the idea that it would be easier to make jokes if the viewer were in on the plot.

The song played during the ending montage is "Baby Love Child" by Pizzicato Five; the scene was slightly extended due to a desire to include more of the song.

Broadcast and reception

Along with the episodes "Jurassic Bark" and "The Luck of the Fryrish", this episode is considered to be a fan favorite and one of the most emotional episodes of the series. In 2006 IGN.com ranked the episode as number 23 in their list of the top 25 episodes of Futurama. Although the episode delivered fewer laughs, it made up for it with character driven drama which served to enhance the characters for the series as a whole.

When this episode aired in the United Kingdom, it was rated U (the equivalent to the "G" rating on American TV) by the BBFC, making this the only Futurama episode rated U (Futurama is usually rated PG or 12, depending on the episode).

In its initial airing, the episode received a Nielsen rating of 3.4/5, placing it 71st among primetime shows for the week of February 11-17, 2002.

Cultural references

• Among the parts of parade balloons used in creating the hot air balloon that returns to the surface is made from Underdog, Bart Simpson, Bullwinkle and Garfield's owner Jon Arbuckle.
• Professor Farnsworth says that deciphering the alien language on Leela's note could take an hour or a hundred million years. This is a reference to the halting problem in computability theory.
• Among the buildings Leela passes while running through the sewers is a Starbucks.
• The wall upon which Leela's parents have chronicled her life is a reference to Being John Malkovich.
• When Leela comes across the wall with her chronicled life, she gasps "Great Cheech's ghost!", which is a reference to the Superman character Perry White who often says "Great Caesar's ghost!" when angry, exasperated or surprised. A similar reference was also made in "Bender Should Not Be Allowed on TV".
• The computer on the Warden's desk appears similar to the personal computers used in Star Trek: The Next Generation.
• The hot air balloon that returns Fry and Bender to the surface is a reference to the hot air balloon that is originally supposed to return Dorothy and the Wizard to Kansas in the The Wizard of Oz.

External links

• Leela's Homeworld at The Infosphere.