Leela’s life outside of Planet Express, whatever there may be of it, has never really been developed on Futurama. In fairness, per the workplace sitcom template, nobody’s has -the social circle of any one main character has always been implied to be the other main characters. But it is something new to bring up on the show, and it feels right that it is through Leela -who has always fit in a bit less and been a particular kind of outsider to the gang, especially before her heritage as a mutant was revealed.
Giving Leela a friend or a social group outside of Fry, Bender, and the rest doesn’t make for a bad broad premise. Making her friend a Chatbot has even more potential for both character development and fun Futurama weirdness. And it’s not that “One is Silicon and the Other Gold” completely misses that potential, but it doesn’t seem to be much interested in structure for this beyond spare jokes and character beats -something especially apparent by the end.
I suspect the writing staff conceived of two B-plots but neither had the juice to sustain their portion of the story and so were both used. That’s how you get part of a first act following everyone at Planet Express but Leela being suckered into a Fyre Fest style scam on another planet. When they come back weary and ill with Venusian Baloney Fever, it’s revealed Leela has been incessantly calling her chatbot friend Chelsea. In an effort to develop some real female friendship outside her circle, she joins a book club (which includes Amy and LaBarbara -both already in her circle), while the guys form a copycat one. The book club soon evolves into a wine club though, as nobody’s really interested in reading, and they arrange a vacation to a winery, while Chelsea feels neglected.
And if you think you have some idea how this plays out based on other codependent narratives from the span of this show like "Love and Rocket”, the episode knows what you are thinking. Chelsea is set up well to be the A.I. antagonist acting out violently against competitors for Leela’s friendship, or taking revenge on Leela for abandoning her. But it is noteworthy that Chelsea isn’t a consistent presence in the episode, and that after Leela joins the book club the focus shifts decidedly away from the sphere of this possibly hostile intelligence in the form of a forty-something woman on a screen. This season has had a fixation with subverting formulas expected by fans -in a way that feels mostly like a concerted effort to appear fresh and distinct. But without sharp enough substitutes, the result only looks more tired. And that is sadly the case with this episode’s workaround of the evil A.I. throughline.
In an extremely roundabout, manipulative way, Chelsea turns out to actually be helping Leela. The character of Phoebe arouses suspicion from her first appearance -the only wholly new character in Leela’s book club that also includes Vyolet the mutant and Dr. Cahill of the Head Museum. So, it’s no surprise when she apparently dies in an accident Chelsea orchestrates in the grape stomping room at the winery. At her funeral, the chatbot reveals she was simultaneously Chelsea and Phoebe (who was a robot) as part of a convoluted plan to help Leela connect with people and bond more closely through the death of a friend.
It’s not much of a resolution, certainly not a satisfying one (and the episode even closes on Leela and the girls beating up both versions of Chelsea to punctuate that). And my thought was that this is a premise where the formula would probably have been better. Chelsea attacks in the third act but it feels like it should be the second, and even within conventions there are many ways the episode could have had fun dealing with her; but it chooses instead just a single burst of action followed by an anticlimax that can barely summon up much interest in its own contrivances.
Lightly sending up the ‘book club’ genre seems to be where more of the attention was paid; writer Maiya Williams seems genuinely interested by that, and I can’t help wonder if that concept was the impetus for the episode with a plot poorly reverse-engineered around it. In a way I understand. In this set-up the show feels very laid-back at times, even charming; and there actually are quite a few good jokes to the episode more generally. The pacing felt static, but could have been corrected honestly with the elimination of the boys’ book club -which definitely was included just for a handful of jokes (and funny though they are, Infyrno Fest makes for a much more interesting sustained counterpoint). Futurama can get away with a lot if it’s at least got the laughs -the original run certainly proves that- and for that reason I don’t feel I can knock this episode too harshly. But far from sticking the landing, the undeniable awkwardness of how it pans out just exposes the cracks in this sharply anti-formula approach that the writers need to get away from.
Now time for some stray observations:
- I gotta say it’s a relief to have a chatbot a part of this episode without it being overtly topical. Probably just because the writers didn’t have much to say on the subject.
- Everything about Infyrno Fest was great! How each character is drawn to it in their own hyper-specific way, the slightly Slurms McKenzie character of the festival organizer, the baloney sandwiches, miniature mansions, and the fact that Wailing Fungus -a fictional band- seemed to have several Head-in-Jar members.
- Those scrolling band names: Billie eiPhone, Cylon and Garfunkel (from “Bendin’ in the Wind”), Li’l BB8, The Weekdy, Doja CATGPT, Justin Limbercake (not quite so clever), Bruno Earth, Lady Galaga
- I never tire of how easily persuasive marketing works on Fry. “Just another music festival” he says. “Infyrno Fest is not just another music festival!” exclaims the T.V. “I was wrong Bender!”
- A couple weeks ago it was “still in my pajamas”, this week the show tries to bring back “blackjack and hookers” -probably because the meme-ification of that line has given it an outsize significance for a bit from just a single episode, the second of the series.
- Hedonism Bot owns the winery, and so we get a fresh slew of his kind of jokes, and then one where LaBarbara seemingly tries to channel perceived audience annoyance with them. It’s weird. If you don’t think he’s funny, don’t put him in there.
- I thought the giant foot stomping on the grapes was much too silly!
- Using the yacht model to break the glass of the bottle was an inventive kind of gag that I appreciate.
- Best joke of the episode goes to Fry at the funeral, who was just set up as being unusually interested and moved by the poetry of Robert Burns ready to deliver a profound speech in the cadence with which he just described Burns, only to then read a dumb excerpt from his Adventure Boys series. Way better use of misdirect than anything else in the episode.
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