I don't remember what episode it was but "Bender Bending Rodriguez" started out as a joke. The idea that Bender would have (or at least claim to have) a real human-sounding last name and a Latin one at that was just a silly gag. But the Futurama writers retained that bit canonically, and over the years made a nebulous Mexican heritage more overtly a part of Bender's backstory -to the point season six's "Lethal Inspection" full-on confirmed that yes, Bender was built in Tijuana.
And it is this side of his identity ostensibly being explored again in “The One Amigo”, after a year away, the first episode of Futurama’s season nine on Hulu. The idea of Bender meeting his Mexican family is a potentially interesting and funny one, much as it may again fly in the face of his established lore (where does his Uncle Vladimir from “The Honking” fit in?).
First though we must return to the unfortunate favourite theme of this season -weakly satirizing specific contemporary topics that are already on their way to being out of date. In this case, NFTs, which factor into the episode exponentially and the inability to grasp their value makes for its most frequently reiterated joke. Like so many of these themes, NFTs are introduced into the Futurama universe already established but still needing to be explained to the series regulars. At the start of the episode, there is basically a two minute sequence between the adults of Planet Express and their kids that hashes out the familiar observations about how stupid and nonsensical NFTs and “ownership” over them are -and I am firmly in the camp of the old characters (acting here as mouthpieces for the writers), but it is a fairly tired bit in 2024.
It doesn’t end there though, as Cubert, Dwight, and the Krokers turn Bender’s likeness into an NFT that is subsequently bought by the New New York Metropolitan Museum. Bender believes rather arbitrarily that a part of himself has been lost -the show lampshading how weak a storyline catalyst this is- so he sets out for Mexico to rediscover himself. And I was curious how this would be handled given the mixed results of Futurama’s recent plays towards cultural sensitivity. As expected, all of Bender’s Mexican relations are voiced by real Mexican actors, most notably Danny Trejo as his fellow bending unit cousin Doblando, but outside of that it trades in fairly generic stereotypes the deeper Bender gets into his cultural ‘Nanotec’ heritage. The family are mostly a stock background collective, governed by the matriarch Abuelatron, voiced by Renee Victor (who also voiced the Abuela in Coco). She being Bender’s grandmother, I appreciate the acknowledgement in how Bender’s mother having been revealed to be an arm robot way back in “XMas Story”, Abuelatron is designed as having the same crane-like arm herself.
This section of the episode is charming if not all that funny -Bender soon develops a knack for “Hoop”, that ancient Mesoamerican ball game, and winds up playing Doblando in a tournament that in Road to El Dorado fashion ends with him being expected to be a robot sacrifice -and it’s here where the story falls off, by sending Bender down a pit and through a tunnel that leads to him meeting Nanotec god robots. From these he finds the apparent key to stealing back his NFT through the quipu that supposedly belonged to his mother carrying in it a so-called “God Algorithm”. Futurama has gone to this last act god-being well before as a convenient plot device, and here it particularly feels like writer Eric Horsted couldn’t figure a way out of the story.
The B-plot goes on a bit of a counter trajectory, as the rest of the gang conspires to steal back Bender’s NFT, with much circular discussion from the kids about how they can’t “steal” it because it doesn’t exist in a tangible way -a lot of slight adjustments on the same joke. Fry, Leela, the Professor, and Zoidberg then embark on a heist to download the NFT file from the Museum’s main computer system. And this is a creative enough way of applying traditional story contours to the subject of digital art; plus it features boiling Zoidberg as part of the plan. There are few good silly touches here and there, and I did come to enjoy the Professor’s increasing frustration over not understanding NFTs -as even once they get the file they still don’t “own” it. Hell, even when Bender comes back with his God algorithm and manages to get the NFT back, the “image” is still allowed to hang in the museum because it is somehow separate from the NFT itself, which continues to not make sense to anyone but the kids.
I suppose I shouldn’t be too hard on the Futurama staff getting their kicks mocking the dumbest tech trend of the last decade. I just wish in doing so they were more original and clever with the one joke. Lampooning NFTs on their face just ensures the episode is antiquated on arrival; while Bender’s exploration of his culture, for its bits of energy and creativity, ultimately doesn’t come away meaning much or making an impression. Not a wholly bad episode, but a generally tepid start to this new half-season.
Now, some stray observations:
- The Futurama episode I’m most reminded of here is “Free Will Hunting”, which had a similarly contrived excuse to send Bender on a soul-searching journey that didn’t come to much. This one at least expanded on his story somewhat, for whatever that’s worth in his constantly shifting origin.
- The Bulletin Board that Amy hangs Mandy’s drawing on has a warning sign that it contains chemicals, including phantom pregnancy, boneitis (from “Future Stock), and vampirism.
- The NFT-themed joke that I do like is the fact that it is hanging at a Metropolitan Museum. It fits the dystopian angle of Futurama rather well that such a thing would be considered real art worthy of pristine exhibition, and again mocking viciously those idiots who would think so uncritically.
- Bender’s self-published book that Fry has been reading looks an awful lot like the Elon Musk book. I’d believe in Bender’s much more.
- Subtle gag, but I loved the Philip K. Dick electric sheep roaming the village.
- Futurama already did a pretty good heist episode with “Viva Mars Vegas” and obviously the subplot here pales in comparison. But I suppose it is kind of an anti-heist.
- Something disastrous must have happened for Smitty and URL to be demoted to museum security guards, especially with what they’ve been retained as cops through. I like the little beats of URL having relationship issues he wants to talk to Smitty about, while Smitty absolutely does not want to talk about his own.
- What the hell was with that scene of little flying saucers attacking Planet Express to steal the tiny model NFTs, setting off the alarms there which in turn set off alarms at the museum due to the Professor’s deceitful video feed, which gets them caught and kicked out? Given stealing the file fails either way I can only conclude this plot detail is runtime padding -which again seems entirely unnecessary on streaming.
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