How Hermes Requisitioned His Groove Back

"How Hermes Requisitioned His Groove Back" is the twenty-fourth episode of Futurama, the eleventh of the second production season and the fourteenth of the second broadcast season. It aired 2 April, 2000 on FOX. It guest stars Nora Dunn as Morgan Proctor. Having ruined his hopes getting his bureaucrat rating raised, Hermes attempts to kill himself, but Proctor forces him on paid vacation on Spa 5, meanwhile Fry finds himself in a secret relationship with Proctor.

Act I: "I only gamble with chumps"
Hermes finishes his work for the day and receives a letter from the Central Bureaucracy. He's happy to learn that there will be an inspection tomorrow, potentially allowing him to be promoted from grade 36 to grade 35.

Leela invites Fry and Bender to a poker game she's having with her former co-workers from Applied Cryogenics. Zoidberg invites himself. As the guests arrive Ipgee informs Leela that she's fired for being over a year late for work. The Applied Cryogenics staff catch Bender cheating and beat him up in Hermes' office.

When he arrives to work the next day, Hermes is horrified by the mess. The inspector, Morgan Proctor, arrives and Hermes threatens to kill himself.

Act II: "Mr. Bender about last night..."
Hermes is talked out of suicide, and Zoidberg suggests he visits Spa 5 to recover. LaBarbara and Hermes learn, too late, that Spa 5 is actually a forced labour camp.

Morgan takes over Hermes' job while he's off. She complains that Fry is a slob, but falls in love with him because of it. Morgan gives the crew worse jobs, except for Fry, who gets a promotion. She then turns up at Fry and Bender's apartment to have sex. Bender catches them, and the next day he tries to blackmail her, but Morgan removes Bender's brain and sends it to the Central Bureaucracy for filing.

Act III: "Stop hogging that healthy liver!"
Fry along with Leela, Amy and the Professor head off to recover Bender's brain. The crew heads to the Central Bureaucracy's filing room, but Morgan says that it would be impossible to find the brain within the master "in" pile.

Meanwhile, Hermes begins organising the forced labour camp. Zoidberg delivers Hermes to Central Bureaucracy; having organised the forced labour camp all the work is now carried out by a single Australian man. Hermes has four minutes to sort the pile or be fired. Launching into song, he beats the clock, but was too fast and so he is demoted to grade 38, which would no longer allow him to work at Planet Express. Hermes then points out a mistake that Morgan made, which gets him a promotion to grade 37 and his job back.

Trivia

 * The forced labour camp's sign reads "Spa 5 Fitness camp: recommended by Dr. Zoidberg". This, as well as the Australian slave's admission, suggests that most of the workers were provided by Zoidberg, who openly admits that he gets a free bucket of krill for every person he sends there.
 * Grade 1.0 was used to leave a possibility for higher ranks with lower decimals.

Continuity

 * The Australian man reappears in "A Pharaoh to Remember".
 * This is the last appearance of the Number 9 Man until Bender's Big Score.

Allusions

 * The floating head is based on a creature from Dungeons and Dragons, a so-called Beholder.
 * The filing cabinet lined walls of the central bureaucracy are a nod to the Terry Gilliam film 'Brazil', which is set in an inefficient bureaucracy. (picture)

Quotes
Planet Express Crew: No! Don't do it! Bender: Do a flip! Fry: Uh, I can explain that. See, it used to be milk and, well, time makes fools of us all. Leela: Then we'll need a guide. Someone who's been there before. Farnsworth: Oh, I've been there. Lots of times! [He laughs maniacally.]
 * Fry: Jamaican? I thought you were some kinda outer-space potato man.
 * Hermes: (on top of the Planet Express Building) I'm going to jump!
 * Hermes: I wasn't cut out to be a bureaucrat anyway! I'm only anal 78.36% of the time!
 * Hermes: Sweet something of ... of someplace.
 * Morgan: Why is there yogurt in this cap?
 * Farnsworth: You can't just waltz into the Central Bureaucracy. It's a tangled web of red tape and regulations. I've never been, but a friend of mine went completely mad trying to find the washroom there.
 * Hermes: When push comes to shove, you gotta do what you love, even if it's not a good idea!

Goofs

 * The hover-car screeches to a halt. Which shouldn't be the case as they are hover cars, and does not touch the ground.
 * Hermes badge number occasionally fluctuates incorrectly.

Characters

 * Amy
 * Debut: Australian Man
 * Bender
 * Debut: Number 1.0
 * Fry
 * Hermes
 * Ipgee
 * LaBarbara Conrad
 * Leela
 * Lou
 * Debut: Morgan Proctor
 * Prof. Farnsworth
 * Terry
 * Zoidberg

Episode Credits

 * Writer
 * Bill Odenkirk
 * Director
 * Mark Ervin
 * Voice Actors
 * Billy West
 * Katey Sagal
 * John DiMaggio
 * Tress MacNeille
 * Phil LaMarr
 * Lauren Tom
 * David Herman
 * Dawnn Lewis
 * DVD Commentary
 * Matt Groening
 * David X. Cohen
 * Rich Moore
 * Bill Odenkirk
 * Paul Calder
 * John DiMaggio
 * Special Guest
 * Nora Dunn