T.: The Terrestrial

After being marooned on a distant planet, Fry is befriended by a young.

Act I: "I got my buddy. Hermes is my buddy."
Lrrr, ruler of Omicron Persei 8, endeavors to help his son Jrrr to earn a scouting merit badge by invading and conquering Planet Earth. Arriving via flying saucer on the White House lawn, Jrrr very nervously announces to Richard Nixon's head and the headless clone of Spiro Agnew that he is here to invade Earth. Charmed by Jrrr's naïveté, Nixon and Agnew share a good laugh. Lrrr joins Jrrr with his laser pistol to demonstrate the serious nature of Jrrr's mission. While everyone is still on the White House doorstep, Nixon and Zapp Brannigan sign a treaty of surrender. Although Jrrr is desperate to exit this embarrassing situation, Lrrr demands that he destroy something with Lrrr's laser before leaving. Jrrr points more-or-less randomly and incinerates the headless corpse of Spiro Agnew, leaving Nixon with only one remaining copy. In retaliation, Nixon decrees an embargo against Omicron Persei 8, including TV broadcast. This is highly distressing for Lrrr, as he considers Earth television to be in its Golden Age, while Omicronian television is terrible.

At Planet Express headquarters, Professor Farnsworth has run out of his Good News brand, leaving him immobile and in terrible arthritic pain. Unfortunately, because the active ingredient in the supplement is produced on Omicron Persei 8, the embargo precludes relief for Farnsworth. He instructs the crew to fly to Omicron Persei 8, bypass the DOOP blockade, and retrieve a quantity of the ingredient, which he refers to as "the sacred weed of Omicron". Hermes, discovering that the active ingredient in the supplement is "the Omicronic", energetically approves of this idea and accompanies the crew personally to direct the mission. While collecting the herb on Omicron Persei 8, the crew members notice that Bender's electrical field activates the plant's when he is near it. Although Fry and Bender buddy up for safety, Fry wanders off to investigate a castle in the distance. While he is gone, Omicronian soldiers arrive, frightening the Planet Express crew away. Preparing the ship for takeoff, Leela asks Bender where his buddy is. Although Fry is missing, Bender claims that he is safely on board. The crew depart, leaving Fry behind.

Act II: "S.O.S.? Those are the letters that Fry knows!"
Neglected by his TV-addicted father, Jrrr goes outside to play by himself. When he throws his skull-ball into the garden shed, he hears a cry of pain, and the ball bounces back out to him. As the frightened Jrrr backs away from the shed, he leaves a trail of what appears to be candy, apparently intended to lure the shed's occupant out. After Jrrr falls asleep in a lawn chair, the occupant, that is, Fry, emerges, eating the "candy" and following its trail to Jrrr. Jrrr awakens with a start when Fry draws near, but calms down when he realizes that Fry is not a monster. Jrrr explains that the "candy" is actually his feces, which he involuntarily produced as he retreated when Fry frightened him earlier.

While Jrrr and Fry form a bond as playmates, Bender constructs an increasingly elaborate falsehood to hide the fact that he abandoned Fry on Omicron Persei 8. At first, when the other crew members realize that they haven't seen Fry, Bender gives them simple platitudes: Fry is out buying flowers for Leela and burritos for Farnsworth. Bender immediately begins to feel guilty, both for lying to the others and for abandoning Fry on Omicron Persei 8. Bender begins to miss Fry, but consoles himself by listening to Fry's voice on Fry's ancient answering machine. Leela arrives at the apartment to remind Fry that he has a date with her tonight. Bender uses the answering machine and some creative use of the fast-forward and rewind to convince Leela that Fry is drunk and wants her to leave him alone at home. Due to Bender's convoluted ruse, now augmented by his tricks with the answering machine, Fry's popularity at Planet Express headquarters reaches an all-time high.

Fry begins to feel homesick, expressing his expectation that he will never go home again. Because of the embargo, he is unable to call his friends on his cell phone, or even to update his Facebook status. Jrrr recalls that his scout manual has instructions for constructing a device that will enable Fry to reach the Planet Express crew. Manual in hand, Jrrr transports Fry on a flying bicycle that is "powered by love" to a dumping ground for radio communications machinery. Fry moves the equipment around to physically spell out "S.O.S." on the ground. When the two return to Jrrr's home, they are discovered by Lrrr, who commands Jrrr to kill Fry as a rite of passage into manhood.

Back at headquarters, Bender laments the loss of Fry, apparently even believing that Fry is dead by now. Coincidentally looking through the bottom of a broken beer bottle, Bender sees Fry's "S.O.S." on Omicron Persei 8 and exclaims, "He's alive!" The next morning, he departs Earth in the Planet Express ship to retrieve Fry from Omicron Persei 8.

Act III: "Bender! I knew you wouldn't abandon me for much more than a week!"
Lrrr and his guards take Jrrr and a caged Fry outside for the execution. Lrrr comments that Fry is beginning to look very sick. Jrrr doesn't tell Lrrr that Fry has been eating feces, but it seems apparent that this is the cause of Fry's malady. Rather than killing Fry, Jrrr blasts a hole in the cage and urges Fry to flee with him. They fly away on Jrrr's love-powered bicycle and are pursued on similar bicycles by Lrrr and his guards. Jrrr and Fry outrun the pursuers, whose battle-worn hearts can't love as much as the innocent hearts of Jrrr and Fry. Fry's condition quickly deteriorates&mdash;he is actually dying&mdash;so Jrrr takes him to the Omicronian veterinarian, Drrr, who gives Fry some Omicronic and advises euthanasia. Lrrr arrives and forbids Drrr killing Fry, insisting that Jrrr commit the act. Jrrr refuses. As an aside in his argument with Lrrr, Jrrr mentions that he has been drinking Fry's blood every day; he and Lrrr are unaware that this is the true cause of Fry's impending death. Lrrr, moved by Jrrr's courage and conviction, offers to kill Fry on Jrrr's behalf, but by now Fry is already apparently dead.

As Lrrr comforts Jrrr, Fry's butt, or rather, the Omicronic herb in Fry's bowel, begins to glow. This is due to the fact that Bender has just arrived from Earth. Drrr explains that it is not simply Bender's electromagnetic output, but also Bender's love for Fry, that makes the herb glow. When Fry revives somewhat and explains to Jrrr that he must go home, Drrr's explanation gains support as Jrrr's butt begins to glow in synchrony with Fry's.

Having returned Fry safely to Earth, Bender convinces Fry to keep his mouth shut about his week-long absence and go along with the ruse. The crew commend Fry on his recent industriousness, most notably a romantic Leela, who unknowingly reveals just how far Bender went to cover up Fry's absence.

Production
On 5 February, 2013, released a preview clip for the tenth broadcast season, which contained footage from the episode.

Trivia

 * This episode has a new shortened opening sequence that is unlike any other episodes to date. Unlike the usual abridged version found in Season 6, this sequence shows only one shot of the Planet Express ship flying and also has an opening cartoon. Also, the new opening has a short sound effect of a police hover-car chasing another hover-car.
 * The protagonist of The Finder Outer is a detective named Klaus Mandela, and "Klaus" is a German name. One of the protagonists of the American TV series , which premiered exactly two weeks after the episode aired, is a detective played by German actress.
 * When Professor Farnsworth is under the influence of the herbal supplement, he is wearing purple glasses. The hippie parallel version of him in "The Farnsworth Parabox", Professor Freaksworth, wore purple glasses.
 * The Good News plant has several references of marijuana applied to it such as herb, weed, toke, and chronic and it is used to alleviate the symptoms of arthritis and glaucoma, which suggests that the active ingredient is similar to tetrahydrocannabinol (THC).
 * Jrrr tells Fry that their flying bicycle is powered by love. In "Three Hundred Big Boys", which is also the sixteenth episode of its season, Kif gives Amy a watch that he says is powered by love.
 * Fry uses high- communications devices to write "" on the surface of Omicron Persei 8. In "Obsoletely Fabulous", Bender uses rocks to write a help message on the surface of an.
 * Fry's distress signal is on screen at 14:14 into the episode. "Obsoletely Fabulous" is episode number 4ACV14. Thus the time of one of the moments at which the signal is on screen contains "Obsoletely Fabulous"' production code.
 * A still from the episode is featured on the back cover for Volume 8.

Allusions

 * The episode's title and plot are a reference to the 1982 -fiction film , directed by, with Jrrr playing the role of Elliot and Fry playing the role of E.T. There is also a skull in Jrrr's toy closet that resembles E.T.
 * Jrrr has an assortment of skulls, which is reminiscent of the 's collection.
 * The Rational Archives are a reference to of the United States' . The word "rational" refers to s.
 * The Jeffersons Memorial is a reference to the, dedicated to the third president of the United States &mdash; Thomas Jefferson &mdash;, and the sitcom .
 * When the crew is on Omicron Persei 8, Fry asks Bender if he will let him know if they have to "cheese it", and Bender replies that that is the first law of robotics. The first law of robotics, one of created by American science-fiction author, says that "a  may not injure a  being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm".
 * To cover up Fry's location, Bender says that he saw him in the kitchen with Dinah. This is a reference to the American folk song "", which contains the lyric "Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah".
 * The scene where Jrrr throws a ball into the shed in his densely tree-lined backyard and has it unexpectedly thrown back to him (by Fry) is a reference to Those Terrible Toy Breakers, a children's book by David M. McPhail.
 * When Jrrr tells Fry that he is eating his "turds", Fry responds by saying "Feces pieces? Blech!". This is a reference to, candy which look like coloured pellets, similar to Jrrr's poop, also featured in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.
 * In Jrrr's room, there is a bowl containing Blinky the fish, from The Simpsons, a doll that looks like, from the Star Wars franchise, a , from the Star Trek franchise, and a toy/model of an Omicronian saucer.
 * The image of Bender knocking out Fry mimics the famous photo of knocking out.
 * Leela's comparison of Omicron Persei 8 to Gary, Indiana references the real life industrial city 30 miles from Chicago, known for its large Industrial landscape and issues with crime and poverty.

Continuity

 * The crew get past the blockade surrounding Omicron Persei 8 by spray painting "Omicronian Express" on the side of the ship. Ironically, the ship was at one point converted into an Omicronian Express ship in "Lrrreconcilable Ndndifferences".
 * Jrrr is the last surviving poppler, a larval Omicronian, from "The Problem with Popplers". He returns in this episode as a grown Omicronian child.
 * Bender previously read a Cigar Jerk publication in "Fry Am the Egg Man".
 * In the Holiday Spectacular three episodes prior, Dick Cheney’s head was Vice Presidenr, presumably taking over after Agnew had been killed by the Feministas, but now Agnew (or a subsequent Agnew clone) is VP again.

Goofs

 * Lrrr watches Earth TV live, but in "When Aliens Attack", it's stated that it takes a thousand years for signals to get to Omicron Persei 8.
 * Only transmissions from before 2208 travel at the old speed of light, live transmissions are near-instant. Both sets of transmissions are presumably stopped at the blockade.
 * Fry does not recognise Lrrr's palace, even though he's been there before.
 * He may have forgotten since then.
 * Near the end of the episode when Fry returns and everyone is gathered at the table, the shot from above shows 7 chairs total while a couple of seconds later in a closer shot there are 8 chairs total.

Characters

 * 20th-century kid
 * Amy
 * Bender
 * Blinky
 * Debut: Dinah
 * Debut: Drrr
 * Professor Farnsworth
 * Fry
 * Debut: Gabriel
 * Headless clone of Agnew
 * Hermes
 * Jrrr
 * Kif
 * Debut: Detective Klaus Mandela
 * Leela
 * Linda
 * Lrrr
 * Morbo
 * Ndnd
 * Richard Nixon's head
 * Rose Mary
 * Scruffy
 * Slurms MacKenzie
 * Zapp
 * Zoidberg

Places

 * Apartment 00100100
 * Debut: Gary, Indiana
 * Debut: Great Monkey Desert
 * Debut: Jeffersons Memorial
 * Debut: Ocracoke
 * Omicron Persei 8
 * Debut: Omicron Vet Clinic
 * Omicronian castle
 * Planet Express balcony
 * Planet Express conference room
 * Planet Express employee lounge
 * Planet Express headquarters
 * Debut: Rational Archives
 * Robot Arms Apartments
 * White House

Miscellaneous

 * Debut: The Finder Outer
 * Debut: Good News-brand herbal
 * "Good news, everyone"
 * "I am Lrrr"
 * "Let's go already!"
 * YouTube