A Bicyclops Built for Two

"A Bicyclops Built for Two" is the twenty-second episode of Futurama, the ninth of the second production season and the thirteenth of the second broadcast season. It aired 19 March, 2000 on FOX. While searching for her origins, Leela runs into another lost cyclops, Alcazar, but his story may not be what it appears to be.

Act I: "We're online!"
After trying and failing several years ago, the Professor finally connects to the Internet through AOL. Everyone except the Professor logs in to the virtual world. After fighting many ads flying around, they visit the "Filthy Chat Room" and the "Filthy Filthy Chat Room". Later, they eventually come together in a "video game", Death Factory III: The Legend of Death Factory II. Inside the game world, they fight each other by shooting lasers with their fingers. Farnsworth appears some times to tell the crew they have a delivery, but they ignore him. When looking for Fry, Leela meets another cyclops, but Fry kills his character and wins the game, preventing Leela learning about her species. On the delivery, Leela receives an email from Alcazar, the other cyclops, who invites her to their home planet. The crew dumps their cargo, which drifts into the sun of the destination planet.

Act II: "Look at that statue, it's only got one eye."
The crew arrive on the planet, where Bender immediately sets about stealing Alcazar's possessions. Alcazar takes Leela to see the ruins of the planet, which include a mosaic of their goddess of beauty (who looks like Leela), The Forbidden Valley, a holy sanctuary where no one may tread and Alcazar's giant castle. Leela asks Alcazar what happened to their people, but he says it's too painful to speak of. At night, Leela hears Alcazar crying. Alcazar tells Leela about her heritige. He tells of their people's demise when the "Eyeless Mole People" of "Subterra 3" shot missiles to the planet because they were jealous of the visual ability of the Cyclops and tells her that they shot lots of missiles hoping to destroy Cyclopia and, unfortunately, one of the missiles destroyed the planet. Alcazar and a baby who was rescued and sent to the Earth were the only survivors. Leela tells him their species will not end with them, and they start to make love. The next morning, Alcazar, or "Al", soon begins to show his true colours, a lowlife jerk. In spite of this, Leela decides to try and continue the species, and Leela and Al get engaged. Fry is upset, and attempts to search The Forbidden Valley, but falls into the dungeon in the process.

Act III: "It's time for this bird to walk!"
The rest of the staff arrives for the wedding. Fry escapes from the dungeon, and he and Bender search the forbidden valley. They find that it holds four identical castles, the first they visit has cyclops statues replaced with 5-eyed-aliens. Just as Leela is about to say "I do", Fry and Bender burst in with Alcazar's other fiancées. He is revealed to be a shape-shifting grasshopper-type-alien, who is using the same story to wed several lonely aliens. All weddings are called off and Leela continues wondering where she's from.

Trivia

 * The video game played by the crew is "Death Factory III: The Legend of Death Factory II".
 * To make room for more stolen items Bender dumps his goldfish bowl, toaster and two more goldfish bowls.
 * This episode won an Emmy, outstanding colour direction for Bari Kumar.
 * This episode was named #8 on TV.com's list of Top 10 Futurama Episodes.
 * David X. Cohen and three other crew members appear as internet nerds.
 * Cohen wears a Wristlojackimator.
 * In "Love's Labours Lost in Space", Leela says she doesn't care how many eyes a guy has as long as it's less than five. One of Alcazar's forms has five eyes.

Continuity

 * Alcazar owns Lightspeed Briefs, which Leela is seen hanging to dry.

Allusions

 * The playing of "" when the Planet Express crew logs on to the Internet, and Fry's line "My God, it's full of ads!" are references to 2001: A Space Odyssey.
 * Hermes dodges a pop-up ad the same way Neo dodged bullets in The Matrix, which he is able to do because he is a former limbo champion.
 * The appearance of the internet is based heavily on its description in Neal Stephenson's novel.
 * The scene with Alcazar and Leela at the couch, and Leela's new outfit/hairstyle, is a reference to one of Katey Sagal's older series, . This is one of many references to the older show.
 * Donkey Kong makes his second Futurama appearance in Death Factory III. He was previously spotted in the cold opening of "Space Pilot 3000". He is also seen in "Anthology of Interest II" and "The Devil's Hands Are Idle Playthings".
 * The Professor's head appearing as a giant blue hologram could be a reference to Palpatine's appearance in Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back.
 * A Macintosh style menu is used by Bender when selecting a disguise.
 * One of the alien beings Alcazar transforms into is a from H.P. Lovecraft's "The Shadow Out of Time".
 * The music for the video game sequence, when the crew fights each other online, is from the early 1970's video game .

Goofs

 * Towards the end, Leela asks, "If you could change form, why didn't you change it in the one place that counts?" The shot with the crowd laughing shows Fry with four arms.

Alien Language Sightings
Time:01:38

Location: Sign in the internet

Language: AL1

Translation: plump. juicy. humans. web

Time: 02.39

Location: door of a chatroom

Language: AL2

Translation: codebreakers chat room

Characters

 * Debut: Alcazar
 * Amy
 * Bender
 * Debut: Five-eyed woman
 * Fry
 * Hermes
 * Leela
 * Nibbler
 * Debut: Pig
 * Preacherbot
 * Prof. Farnsworth
 * Debut: Rat Man and his girlfriend
 * Debut: Sandy
 * Zoidberg

Episode Credits

 * Writer
 * Eric Kaplan
 * Director
 * Susan Dietter
 * Voice Actors
 * Billy West
 * Katey Sagal
 * John DiMaggio
 * Tress MacNeille
 * Maurice LaMarche
 * David Herman
 * Phil LaMarr
 * Lauren Tom
 * Frank Welker
 * DVD Commentary
 * Matt Groening
 * David X. Cohen
 * Rich Moore
 * Eric Kaplan
 * Susan Dietter
 * Billy West
 * John DiMaggio