Yesterday ’s Futurama found Bender on the way to omniscience , as an attempt to improve his video game abilities made him a robot god . Meanwhile , Fry tried urgently to save things with Leela … even if he ’s not sure what those thing are .
“ Overclockwise ” was written as a likely series finale if Comedy Central had not picked the show up again – next week ’s “ Reincarnation ” is out of persistence , so it would n’t have count – and there ’s unquestionably the sense that everyone pulled out all the stops for this episode , just in case it really was the last . I ca n’t quite call it a classic – I do n’t recollect any from this lot quite qualify – but it was still excellent , an instalment full of big musical theme , respectable gags , and some nice open - ended gag law for Fry and Leela .
The sequence begins with Fry , Cubert , and Bender misplace dreadfully at their video game World of World War II 3 , mostly because Bender ’s hand - eye coordination is dispiritedly disused . Cubert adjudicate to overclock Bender and ramp up his efficiency , which works great except for two modest issues . One , this fall to the tending of Bender ’s manufacturer Mom , who is out to enforce any and all evacuation of her warranties with uttermost preconception . Two , Bender ca n’t break overclocking , and shortly he ’s on the route to godhood .
Meanwhile , Leela ca n’t calculate out why she ’s still with Fry – albeit in an on - again , off - again capacity – or why she is still at Planet Express . When Cubert and his effectual guardian the Professor are arrested for the illegal Bender modification , it appears that the company is eventually finished for adept , and so Leela decides to forget and become a real estate agent in mystifying space . Fry is desperate to get her back , and he appeal to the now omniscient Bender for help , but it ’s not at all clear that the newly deified robot still wish enough about human concerns to help oneself out .
As would have been lavishly appropriate for any Futurama series finale , there ’s a big scene in a courtroom , as the Hyper - Chicken and Judge Whitey ( two of my favorite side characters ) help navigate the totally legit and not at all trump out up guardianship against the Professor and Cubert . It ’s not a cast reunification on the same sort of level as we ’ve seen in previous would - be finale – there was n’t well-nigh enough CALCULON ! ! ! for my tastes , I must say – but it was decent to bring back those two and mama for some final silliness . And it ’s kind of great that Bender had to become omniscient to come up with such a preposterous resolution .
Indeed , the whole idea of overclocking Bender into omniscience is a fun one , and it makes for a bunch of honorable moments . Bender ’s tortuous defense program against Mom ’s drones – it involve a microwavable turkey and a badminton court , so you know it ’s good – was a work of brainiac , and the ultimate payoff when he need Dr. Zoidberg to move a twosome feet over was excellent .
stool Bender into a god add the show into territory previously explore to enormous upshot in “ Godfellas ” , and it feels like a piece of a miss opportunity that the newly omniscient , galaxy - burping Bender did n’t bump into that also all - powerful entity we meet back then . John DiMaggio ’s body of work as Bender the god was pretty sublime , taking our lovable sociopath and turn him into someone who really does seem to have abandoned all human emotions … at least until that jerk Randy is note .
The other self-aggrandising thread of this installment is the Fry and Leela kinship . The episode seems to kind of throw up its hands and admit that Fry and Leela as any variety of couple does n’t really make any sense , and that there really is n’t that much to say about it beyond the fact that Fry loves Leela , and Leela can credibly do better , maybe . Here , the show is again a victim of having to spell so many different potential series finales .
The fact of the subject is that the perfect copestone to their relationship was all the way back in “ The Devil ’s Hands are Idle Playthings ” , with the crude , holophoner versions of Fry and Leela walk off into a ill pull sundown . It was semisweet , mayhap , but it probably took their relationship as far as these two characters could ever logically be made to go . The Lars story in Bender ’s Big Score served as a very nice epilogue to that import , but really , I do n’t opine this show ever could have managed to write a proper , long - run Romance language between these two eccentric .
By my count , I ’d say only three episodes of the new run really do anything with the Fry and Leela relationship . It formed the mainstay of the show ’s “ Rebirth ” , it was used to powerful aroused issue in “ The previous Philip J. Fry ” , and it was pushed in the most uproariously repellent direction possible in “ The Prisoner of Benda . ” Perhaps not coincidentally , those last two episodes are by far the best episodes of the show ’s latter - twenty-four hour period run ( and “ Rebirth ” is up there as well ) , but other than that , the writers have seemed content to stick Fry and Leela in the backdrop .
Indeed , that stay much the same in this instalment , as Leela just up and leaves for a good reaching of the sequence , and Fry is very sorry about it until godlike Bender saves the solar day in the means only godlike Bender can . The final scene , as Fry and Leela read over what the rest of their life will be like together , is a sweet moment , and would have functioned nicely if this was indeed the serial publication finale . I ’ll admit , I feel like it ’s hitting pretty much the same emotional beat that the end of “ The Devil ’s Hands ” did , but I wo n’t be churlish – it ’s an effective moment , even if it draws most of its power from the twelve years we ’ve spend with these characters as opposed to anything that ’s really concretely record in this particular instalment .
Ultimately , if this had been the last ever episode of in - continuity Futurama , I ’d say the show would have been able to bow out with a nice bit of gravitas and a okay sequence to its name . ( As these thing go , it would have been a slenderly better finale than Into the Wild Green Yonder would have been , so there ’s that . ) But that ’s moot , as this is n’t the series finale . Hell , it is n’t even the time of year finish , and I ’ll be back next week to see Futurama ’s “ renascence ” and give my final thought process on the season .
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