Leela's Homeworld

Production Number: 4ACV02

Title Caption: IT'S LIKE "HEE HAW" WITH LASERS

First Aired: February 17, 2002 AL Sightings: 2

Act I: "Get back in the sewer, weirdy!"
Leela is named "Orphan of the Year" in the orphanarium she grew up in, the Cookieville Minimum Security Orphanarium, and attends a ceremony there receiving the award. At the same time, the Professor builds a new machine that produces glow-in-the-dark-noses, but also causes a great amount of toxic waste which Bender disposes of into the sewers.

Act II: "Mu-tate! Mu-tate! Mu-tate!"
As Bender overdoes it, the Sewer Mutants strike back and pull Bender, Leela, and Fry into the sewers. All three are sentenced to be dumped into the Mutagenic Sewage Lake to be mutated (the liquid can't harm mutants as they already are mutated), but are rescued by two mysterious robed strangers who somehow know Leela's full name. While running from the mutants, the crew break into a house that has a complete biography of Leela pinned on the walls plus a lot of stuff she flushed down the toilet. They are caught by the mutants and sentenced to death, but the mysterious strangers intervene again and they are only banished from the sewers. Fry and Bender go to the surface, but Leela stays behind and dives into the Mutagenic Sewage Lake in pursuit of the strangers.

Act III: "Isn't that the same machine that makes noses?"
Leela finds that she is not mutated by the sewage and pursues the two strangers deep into the sewers. Fry, in the meantime, searches for clues on Leela's origins in the orphanarium, and aquires the note that was pinned to Leela's basket when she was abandoned, written in an alien language. He lets the Professor analyze it with his Nose Machine, and finds out that the note originated from the sewers and that Leela's parents are Sewer Mutants. They decided to give her up to the orphanarium to enable her to lead a real life on the surface, and her mother wrote the note in alienese to convince the warden Leela was an alien, not a mutant. Her parents chose never to reveal her true origins so she would not learn the shameful truth. The only connection between them is a bracelet they left with their daughter, of which her mother has a duplicate.

Meanwhile, Leela has caught up with the robed strangers and threatens them with a gun, desperate to retrieve information about her origins. She finds the duplicate of the bracelet she wears on her right arm on one of the strangers, and suspects they have taken it from her parents after they killed them. The strangers confess the deed, and Leela is about to kill them when Fry literally drops in from above and reveals the truth - the strangers are indeed Leela's parents. They were so desperate that their daughter should not learn her true heritage that they were prepared to rather die than reveal that piece of information, and they fear her daughter might despise her because of all they did. Leela, realizing that after decades of searching she has finally found her parents, embraces them - the family is reunited.

Trivia

 * The closing song for this episode is "Baby Love Child" by Pizzicato Five.
 * Although the commentary states that the dead whale Bender stuffs into the sewer is Mushu, this is impossible, since Mushu doesn't appear for fourteen more episodes.

Quotes

 * Warden Vogel: It is not easy being an orphan. Not if I've anything to do with it!

Characters

 * Hermes
 * Professor Farnsworth
 * Fry
 * Bender
 * Leela
 * Turanga Morris
 * Turanga Munda
 * Warden Vogel
 * Amy
 * Raoul Inglis
 * Vyolet
 * Dwayne
 * Debut:Leg Mutant

Episode Credits

 * Writer
 * Kristin Gore
 * Director
 * Mark Ervin
 * Swinton Scott
 * Voice Actors
 * Billy West
 * Katey Sagal
 * John DiMaggio
 * David Herman
 * Tress MacNeille
 * Phil LaMarr
 * Lauren Tom


 * DVD Commentary
 * Kristin Gore
 * Billy West
 * Matt Groening
 * David X. Cohen
 * Swinton Scott
 * Rich Moore